The Valet and the Stable Groom: M/M Regency Romance by Katherine Marlowe

had adequate supplies of paper and ink for his correspondence and tea and bread to sustain himself, Clement retired to the upstairs parlour. Letty was there, engaged in reading a novel.
    “Any good?” Clement asked.
    “Oh, yes,” Letty said. “Jane just finished it. Already there’s been a kidnapping, a murder, and the heroine is in love with a smuggler. The whole thing is terribly bloody.”
    Clement wrinkled his nose. “I wish you enjoyment of it.”
    He took a seat on the overstuffed ottoman near her. “Letty.”
    “Mm,” Letty said, then looked up and blinked. “Oh, Clement. What the devil is the matter? You look like a beaten puppy.”
    “I’m not… I don’t. Nothing is the matter.”
    Letty shut her book and set it in her lap.
    Clement grimaced. “Letty, how does… how does one go about making conversation?”
    The befuddled look Letty gave him made Clement deeply regret the question.
    “I rather believe we’re at it right now,” Letty said.
    “I don’t mean that.”
    “One opens one’s mouth…”
    “Letty.”
    She folded her hands in her lap and waited.
    “What ought one to do if there is a lull in conversation? Or if conversation has never properly started to begin with?”
    “Discuss the weather.”
    “No, I dare not. It is always dreary and everyone is perpetually blaming the weather on the Welsh, and you do know how I hate that.”
    Letty’s lips pursed and pulled to one side.
    “We are not in Wales and I rather like the Welsh,” Clement snapped.
    Letty’s lips shifted to the other side, still pursed. She coughed.
    “I am entirely sincere, Letty. What else do people converse about?”
    Sighing, Letty set her book to the side and sat forward. “Show interest in people, Clement. Inquire about their families. Their pastimes. Their duties. Even the dullest and most dedicated persons have topics about which they are passionate. Like you and suit fabrics.”
    Clement bristled. “All respectable valets should have a thorough understanding of fashionable fabrics and their proper care.”
    “There, you see? If there was a lull in conversation and I didn’t wish to talk, I could simply get you started on the topic of suit fabrics.”
    “It is an important topic,” Clement said. “You yourself ought to be constantly expanding your knowledge of fabrics for gowns and—”
    “So it is simply a matter of finding out,” Letty said, speaking over him, “for any particular person, what topics they are most passionate about.”
    Clement thought that over. He had already determined that Hugo was passionate about the care of dogs and horses, and could speak about them at length. Letty’s advice might be of some use in furthering an alliance with Mrs. Ledford, but he thought he needed something more impressive to secure Hugo’s attention and admiration.
    “But if I just let them talk, even if I have found such topics,” Clement said, furrowing his brow in consternation, “eventually they will stop talking.”
    “Oh dear,” Letty said, and sighed.
    “Who will stop talking about what?” Jane asked, shutting the parlour door behind herself as she entered.
    Clement rose swiftly to an attentive posture. Jane gave him a fondly bemused glance, and took a seat near Letty.
    “Clement wishes to improve his skill at conversation,” Letty explained.
    “Ah,” Jane said.
    They both seemed irritatingly determined not to stand upon any sort of social convention regarding the proper distance between employers and employees. Clement returned to his seat and scowled.
    “You cannot simply let them talk,” Letty explained. “You have to continue to ask questions. Even if it is feigned, one ought to show interest in another’s conversation.”
    “Letty is very good at feigning interest,” Jane teased.
    Letty glanced over at her, brow furrowed, and the two of them shared some unspoken private joke. Then Letty sighed primly and resumed what she’d been saying.
    “You must ask questions about