The Secret Lives of Country Gentlemen


 
 
 
 
 
 
 Copyright © 2023 by KJ Charles
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 Contents
 Front Cover
 Title Page
 Copyright
 One
 Two
 Three
 Four
 Five
 Six
 Seven
 Eight
 Nine
 Ten
 Eleven
 Twelve
 Thirteen
 Fourteen
 Fifteen
 Sixteen
 Seventeen
 Eighteen
 Nineteen
 Twenty
 Twenty-one
 Twenty-two
 Twenty-three
 Twenty-four
 Twenty-five
 Excerpt from A Nobleman's Guide to Seducing a Scoundrel
 Acknowledgements
 About the Author
 Back Cover
 
 
 For Mum, my first and best reader
 
 
 The smuggler; a person who, though no doubt highly blameable for violating the laws of his country, is frequently incapable of violating those of natural justice, and would have been, in every respect, an excellent citizen, had not the laws of his country made that a crime which nature never meant to be so.
 —Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations
 
 
 One
 February 1810
 Kent was still there.
 Gareth had tumbled into the Three Ducks with his lungs burning from walking too fast in the cold night air, his face instantly reddening as the warm fug of the taproom assailed him. He didn’t even know why he’d hurried: he was over two hours late and he’d told himself the whole way that Kent would have left already. If the situation were reversed, Gareth would have decided his lover for the night wasn’t coming and left cursing the man’s name. He’d fully expected Kent to do the same or, even more likely, find another warm body to go upstairs with.
 He’d come anyway because…well, because, that was all. Because it was rude to miss an appointment, because he had nowhere else he wanted to go, because he hoped against hope that just this one thing might not be taken from him today.
 And there Kent was, unmissable, the only man in a room crowded with men. He was sitting with a mug of ale and his feet up on a stool, chatting to the landlord without a care in the world. Then he looked round at the door and smiled, and the sight of him took Gareth’s remaining breath.
 The landlord slouched away as Gareth came to the table. “I’m so sorry I’m late.”
 “Watcher, London.” What cheer, Gareth had worked out that phrase meant: Kent’s version of good evening. Gareth would have been furious in his place, but the smile in Kent’s warm golden-brown eyes looked entirely real. “Thought you weren’t coming.”
 “I didn’t mean to keep you waiting so long.” Thank you for staying, Gareth wanted to say.
 Kent waved a hand before he could go on, dismissing his failure to appear as though it didn’t matter at all. “You look fraped. Everything all right?”
 Gareth didn’t know what fraped meant, but he had no doubt he looked it. “Not really. No. It’s been rather a bad day. Terrible, really.”
 “Here, sit down. I’ll get you a drink and you can tell me about it.” He rose from his seat.
 “No, don’t.” Gareth regretted the words as he spoke them. He would have liked very much to have a drink with Kent, to pour out what had happened and the bewildering uncertainty that now surrounded him. Except that if he tried to explain anything he’d have to explain everything, and he didn’t want to do that. To present himself as a pitiable object, an unwanted thing, to easily confident Kent who didn’t look like he’d been rejected in his life, then to watch him be repelled by the stench of failure, as people always were—No.
 Anyway, Gareth had better ideas of how to spend the evening than brooding about his dismal situation. He had the rest of his life for that. “It doesn’t matter. Could we go upstairs?”
 Kent’s thick brows angled. “In a hurry?”
 “It’s late. And I was looking forward to seeing you.”
 Kent frowned, just a little. Gareth probably didn’t seem a particularly desirable prospect, sweaty and flustered as he was. Fraped, even. He reached for Kent’s mug of ale, watching those glowing brown eyes watching him, and took a long, deliberate swallow.
 “Thirsty?”
 “In need,” Gareth agreed, and dragged the back of his hand over his mouth in a meaningful fashion.
 Kent’s lips curved. “Better?”
 “Getting there.”
 “Suppose we might as well go up, en.”
 The Three Ducks made the back room and the dark covered courtyard available for illicit fumbling and spending. Gareth knew the spaces well, having come here many times over the years. He’d always assumed the upstairs room was private, but Kent, who he’d never seen in here prior to this week, apparently had the privilege of using it. Perhaps he was an old friend of the landlord. Or perhaps it was just that smile of his, that wide, irresistible grin that sluiced you in happy anticipation and confidence and sheer joy of living. Gareth had gone down poleaxed at the first flash of that smile. He wasn’t surprised the Ducks’ taciturn landlord couldn’t resist it either.
 They crashed into the