Chapter 176: An Assembly of Unlikely Scholars
The evening had settled over the palace with the particular quiet that belonged to the hours between supper and retire — that stretch of time when the day's obligations had largely concluded and the night's had not yet begun, and the corridors existed in a kind of suspended stillness.
It was into this stillness that Earl Hawthorne moved, his steps unhurried, his destination fixed.
Beside him, keeping pace without effort despite his considerable size, walked his valet. The man was broad across the shoulders in a way that made the corridor seem marginally narrower than it was, his thick brown hair neatly dressed and his beard trimmed.
He was often mistaken for a guard due to his look, but he was a valet to the Earl. Some suggested he was wasting his potential by being a valet, but just because he was built like a guard did not necessarily mean he was one.
His name was Gerard.
