Free A Gentleman's Position (Society of Gentlemen) by KJ Charles Page B

Richard’s life, which he wouldn’t be doing any longer because he couldn’t go back.
    His entire existence had been woven around Lord Richard, and with him ripped away, it was a mess of torn and dangling threads.
    “Jesus wept,” Silas muttered. “Right, you, up. I’ll get you somewhere and we’ll sort the rest of it out tomorrow.”
    He hauled David up with a powerful hand on his arm and set him moving with a push between the shoulder blades. David walked, automaton-like, through the corridors of the house he’d ruled by proxy, and Silas followed at his shoulder. They had to pass through the servants’ quarters, the kitchen, heads turning as they went. A footman began, “Mr. Cyprian—?” and recoiled at Silas’s snarl.
    Then they were outside, into the mews behind Lord Richard’s house, past a footman in his shirtsleeves giggling with a housemaid in the dark. They both stiffened with guilt as David passed. Silas shoved him again, hand in the small of his back where he’d hit the table, and he gave a gasp of pain.
    Across Piccadilly, and right, and through the dark service ways behind the big houses, a route David had walked a thousand times, but still he took in where they were heading only when they were at the back door of the gambling hell and club where the Ricardians met. Quex’s.
    “I—no,” David began, not sure what his objection was except that this was Lord Richard’s domain. Silas ignored him, rapping on the door. A kitchen maid pulled it open, began a cheeky remark, and jolted as she set eyes on David. “Yessir.”
    “Less of it, Mary,” Silas told her. “Go get Will or Jon or both of ’em, there’s a good girl, and let us in somewhere I can get this one sat down.”
    David was slumped on a chair in the study, shaking hands clasping a tumbler of gin he didn’t want, when Will Quex and Jon Shakespeare came in. They were both wearing Lord Richard’s green, of course.
    “Foxy?” Jon demanded. “What’s happened? Is he all right?”
    “No idea,” Silas said. “Found him like this, can’t get any sense out of him.”
    Will snatched the tumbler from David’s hand. “Oh, for God’s sake, not gin. Get someone to make some tea, with lots of sugar. Look at him, he’s shaking. David?” He crouched to snap his fingers in front of David’s face. “Oi. Wake up.”
    “What’s the bag for?” Jon asked. “Why’s he here with a bag?”
    “He’s left Vane,” Silas said. “I think.”
    “Bollocks,” Jon said. “You wouldn’t get him out of there with a winkle pin. You didn’t resign, did you, Foxy?”
    David had no idea what had happened. Had he been sacked? Lord Richard’s words were already lost in the fog of panic and humiliation.
    If he hadn’t been sacked, it was just a matter of time. He’d damned well earned it, and the thought of how angry Lord Richard must be now, of what he’d ruined, was freezing out everything else.
    “I can’t go back,” he whispered.
    “Why not?” Will demanded. “What the hell did you do?”
    “Or, what the hell did his lordship do,” Silas said. “He’s hurt, I reckon.”
    Jon took David’s face in his hand and tilted it up. It wasn’t wrong; they’d fucked in the past, since Will and Jon liked a third and needed someone to keep their secret, and Jon was a good man, but David pulled his head away. He didn’t want to be touched by anyone. “David? Did he hurt you?”
    “It was my fault,” David jerked out. “I shouldn’t have…It was my fault.”
    “I don’t much like the sound of this.” Jon’s voice was hard.
    “Nor do I,” Silas growled. “Why don’t I go back and ask his lordship what the fuck he’s been playing at?”
    “Hold your horses,” Will snapped. “Oi, Foxy, make some sense. What happened? And you’re going to have to tell us, one, because if you’ve fucked things up, we’re all neck-deep in turds, and two, because Silas is about to march on Albemarle Street and accuse his lordship of