The Great Grey

While the incident with the duke had been a bit embarrassing for the sake of Cash's professionalism, this conversation was more difficult for a whole different set of reasons. Arthur had done Cash one hell of a kindness, giving him a far better-fitting suit, to say nothing else of the rest of the valet's hospitality. For all that the cowboy rarely felt truly guilty for his actions, he did feel a bit guilty to show up once again wearing that ill-fitting suit, this time with the jacket unceremoniously tied about his waist like some bizarre attempt at a kilt.

That was without touching on his windblown hair, the scruff that had again grown unchecked on his cheeks, the brush of windburn on his face, or the just-there scent from his dip in the river.

Knocking on the door to the valet's generous quarters, hat quite literally in-hand, Cash cleared his throat as well, grin spreading across his features in spite of the slight trepidation he felt. It wasn't as though he'd ruined the new suit, he told himself. A bit of cleaning, and it'd be just fine. It was just the old one, that he probably should've already thrown out anyway. Besides, the trepidation had nothing in the face of seeing the trim and attractive valet again. "Afternoon, Mr. Beckwith. I ain't interruptin' anything, am I?"

Standing in the opened doorway, one hand on the knob and the other on the jamb, Arthur stared back at the absolute disaster of a man on his threshold. His mouth opened, faltered, and then snapped shut again as his gaze shifted from the chaos of hair and beard down to the state of Boone's suit. The suit Arthur had so generously replaced not a week prior. His nostrils flared as his lips pressed thin, and he did not move from the doorway.

"I haven't another suit for you to destroy here, Mr. Boone," he said, mouth twitching into a frown. "I'm afraid to ask what catastrophe befell the one I already gifted you that would drive you back in this inferior option when the entire point was your being properly dressed to serve a duke."

It wasn't entirely unjustified, that Arthur would be annoyed. Cash raised a hand in likely futile placation, trying to ignore the natural response to raise his own hackles. It wasn't like he'd gone leaping head-first into the creek on purpose. "Matter of fact, it was tryin' to serve the duke that saw the other one dirtied. It just needs a wash, is all. And this one just needs some stitchin', 'til I can get the other one washed."

His voice certainly sounded earnest to his own ears. Really, if nothing else this just highlighted how damned pointless suits were for his work – for real work.

"I'm sorry, alright? This ain't exactly what I planned for, when I was headin' here, but the damn horses had other plans." More specifically, he'd been impatient and distracted, and it wasn't thinking about the duke (or at least, wasn't just thinking about the duke) that made Cash so distracted.

"And yet you insist to me that I ought to get on the back of one," Arthur lobbed in return, and lingered there blocking the path inside for another lengthy moment to underscore his acute displeasure. If the other suit had been dirtied. — By Boone's decidedly rugged estimation — there was no telling whether it might be salvaged or not.

When Arthur moved, it was to retreat into a stiff-necked sulk with the opened door at his back. "I had understood that you were better at keeping your seat than this," he continued as he flipped the door shut after his walking calamity of a lover. He leaned back against it again, sharp hips canted outward. "Is the horse responsible for the state of your face as well? Or did you suppose after our initial meeting that an untended beard would send me into raptures?"

"One," Cash was quick to retort, "But I was ridin' one and leadin' three." He'd own up to his mistakes, but that wouldn't stop him from getting annoyed at the attitude the other man was taking. Stepping into the other man's quarters, he tried (unsuccessfully) to keep his annoyed frown off his face.

Reflexively his hand rose to his face, callused fingers brushing along the hair there. It wasn't nearly as bad as it had been when Arthur had shaved him the other day... But that was also the last time he'd been shaved. There simply hadn't been much time, and he hadn't exactly been overly concerned about it. "I ain't here for rapture, Arthur, I'm here 'cause my damn pants are torn." There were far more caustic words on the tip of his tongue – about the ease with which the valet took to rapture, and the apparent value of his company only being how warm he could keep a cock – but they were swallowed back. Cash was annoyed; he wasn't ready to ruin any resemblance of an amicable relationship with the other man.

"I was gonna– I had a plan, alright? I wouldn't have even bothered you with this, but the damn duke said to." He probably could've squirmed out of it, if he'd tried hard enough. At the very least, Cash could've begged a moment to stop and change into the other clothes he'd brought. They weren't fit for the presence of a duke, but they'd have been fine for just the valet. Taking time to wash, shave, and dress better just for the valet – when he hadn't done so even for the duke himself – would've raised an eyebrow or two.

"Of course he did," Arthur murmured, and his eyes dropped closed just long enough to pull in a slow breath through his nose. When he opened them again on the exhalation, he straightened into a crisper, less juvenile posture. He'd had longer days, been more tired, and work seldom kept until you'd properly slept.

"Take it off, then," he said, and crossed to the Stourhead version of his worn and stolid wardrobe from London. From within he pulled down a leather shaving kit and a new cake of French-milled soap wrapped in vellum. His own personal dressing gown was tugged free from its hook inside the door, and when he turned back to the room, he offered everything to the American.

"The wash room is down the hall. I'll have the trousers mended by the time you're back."

It was enough for Cash to almost feel guilty about his role in Arthur's annoyance – almost. The duke was a decent sort, as far as a duke could go, but it was easier for Cash undoubtedly, to have his attention for such brief moments, and almost always with a new excitement to distract him with. Arthur was in part responsible for keeping such an easily-distracted lord on task, and the cowboy did not remotely begrudge him that responsibility.

He opened his mouth to say something to that affect – not to apologize again, because he'd already done so and saw no reason to reiterate – but instead closed it again, words left unsaid. Instead he merely obediently undid the jacket from about his waist, squirmed out of the pants (though it was far easier to do so with the back of them so neatly torn up the seam), and left them both folded, after a fashion, on the bed. He'd already seen just how fastidious the valet could be; he wouldn't antagonize him further by treating the clothing as he normally would.

"Thank you." It was a very pointed expression of gratitude, but the sentiment behind them was honest enough. Arthur didn't need to be so accommodating, even if Cash had invoked the duke into the conversation. It was a thought that circled in the cowboy's mind as he shrugged into the dressing gown and hurried to the wash room, and as he used his fingers to comb his hair, and as he quickly and expertly divested himself of the scruff that was so offensive to the valet. The thought circled so much that it soured a bit by the time he returned, though it was far more for his own role in the mess than anything the other man had done.

It wasn't even ten minutes he'd been gone before he was returned, and while he refused to scuff the floor and avoid Arthur's eyes like a school boy, there was a certain unavoidable reserve to his nature.

Ten minutes was not long enough to have the trousers mended, even for a dab hand such as Arthur's. Sat in the chair that serviced his little writing desk, he glanced up at the sound of the door from where he was hunched over the offending seam. He ought to have reenforced it in the first place, before he'd allowed Boone to leave Somerset House; anyone could have seen it was going to go.

"When I promised this, I imagined you'd be longer," he admitted, gaze caught briefly on the smooth planes of Boone's face before he ducked back to his work and pointedly did not consider what he might feel about the sight of the man freshly-washed and wrapped in Arthur's own gown. Nimble, oblivious fingers wove his needle and thread swiftly through fabric instead.

"Where's the other one?" he asked, and glanced up as he reached for a pair of tiny, silver scissors from within a little sewing kit that stood open upon the desk. "You ought to leave it with me; I've no idea how capable the laundress is at this house."

It probably shouldn't have surprised Cash that Arthur wasn't finished; he'd darned his own socks often enough, stitched up little tears here and there, to know how damned fiddly fabric could be – and that was without considering that his own stitching was likely a very rough thing compared to the valet. Still, it almost felt invasive to watch him work, and so the cowboy busied himself with setting aside the soap and the shaving kit and taking a seat on the edge of the bed.

"I'm not in any rush," he replied easily, glad that they were at least past the almost-argument from before. "I half expected to come back to find you burnin' 'em, anyway." Half joke, half truth – while the pants weren't quite entirely threadbare, the size of them and wear of them made one question if it was even worth it to keep them, rather than give them to someone of a more fitting stature or repurpose them into rags or some other useful object.

"With the rest of my things. I'll bring it by later. It just got wet, and I hung it to dry for an hour or so." He knew better than to wrap up wet clothes for hours on end, at least. It probably still wasn't the kind of treatment that Arthur would prefer for such a suit, but Cash couldn't have waited all day for the thing to entirely dry. "I know it's not my place, but you look tired." It wasn't passing judgment to comment as much; if anything it was like commenting on the weather, though Cash wouldn't deny mild curiosity about the cause of the exhaustion.

Arthur paused as he was snipping away the remainder of the thread past his neat knot, and lifted his eyes to the man sitting on his new bed. "It's been a long few days," he admitted, and swallowed against the warm sensation blossoming low in his gut as he dropped his gaze again. Every moment spent in Boone's acquaintance, Arthur became more acutely aware that the man had not been, and could only now dubiously be considered, in service. If Arthur, residing in one of the most covetous positions in the whole of the household, was frankly exhausted, it made little matter — Not to the other staff, likely just as worn, and certainly not to the Duke himself, whose opinion was the only one that mattered.

The scissors and needle were tucked swiftly away, and Arthur tugged gently at the seam to test it. "Thank you for noticing," he added, the sentiment late and heavy on his tongue, and then stood to shake out the trousers as if to sweep away the entire exchange.

"I would be careful of performing any vigorous exercises while wearing them, but they ought to hold with a little care," he announced, chin primly lifted again as he held the trousers Boone's way. "If you drop the other suit by later, I'll have it for you by tomorrow morning."