“Please forgive her, my lord,” Felicity said when she had gone. “My mother is not feeling well. Coffee?” The offer caught him off guard, but surely he could afford to observe the pleasantries, to delay the inevitable for a moment more. The servants had also disappeared, so at his nod, she poured him a cup from the urn on the sideboard, then gestured him to a chair. “We’ve had a bit of…excitement this morning,” she explained as she resumed her seat. Though the coffee was just this side of tepid, he drank without complaint. “My cousin received an urgent missive asking her to come home.” Felicity gestured to a letter half buried by the sheets of newsprint littering the table. “She left this morning.”
“Oh?” He aimed for indifference to the news but knew he shot wide of the mark. Camellia was returning to Ireland? He had no right to feel disappointment—to feel anything. Her situation in her uncle’s household was far from ideal. And last night, she had spoken true, truer than even she knew. They must not indulge again in the spark of passion that seemed determined to flare between them. Easier to guarantee, certainly, if they never saw one another again.
He found Felicity was studying him when he raised his eyes, and not for the first time did he glimpse some similarity to her cousin’s penetrative stare. “I do hope she will have a safe journey.” The note of worry in her voice was unmistakable. “I do not like to think of her traveling alone.”
“Alone?” The exclamation was sharper than he had intended. “Surely the household could have spared a servant?”
“Mama would not allow it, and though Papa is expected any day now, Camellia would not wait for his return. When I think of the dangers a woman might encounter on such a trip…” Gently, she shook her head. “And even if she makes it to Dublin without harm, her sister’s letter hinted at some trouble. I hope it’s nothing to do with those rogues who call themselves the United Irishmen.”
In spite of himself, Gabriel’s brows rose.
“You are surprised I know of such a thing? But I read my father’s newspapers every day.” Her chin jutted sharply forward. “I am not quite so empty-headed as some would like to believe.”
Was the remark directed at her mother? At Camellia? Or at him?
“Miss Burke seems most capable,” he said, shifting the subject, though onto equally treacherous ground.
“Yes,” Felicity agreed. “Still, I would feel better if I knew she had a gentleman’s protection.”
Gabriel drew in a slow breath. “What are you suggesting, ma’am?”
“That you go after her, of course,” she said simply.
If Felicity wanted to ensure her cousin’s safety, he was the last man she ought to consider sending. He could not offer a gently bred woman security or respectability or anything else she needed.
But when he recalled Camellia’s kiss, he could not help but wonder whether maybe…just maybe…he had something she wanted.
“For your sake? Or for hers?” he asked gruffly. Noble, unselfish acts were quite out of character for him. She ought not to begin to expect them.
“For your own.”
Shock coursed through him. Surely, he had misheard. “I have not the pleasure of understanding you, Lady Felicity.”
Her wry laugh revealed perfect, even teeth. “People say you are a legend at the tables, Lord Ashborough, but I cannot credit it. Surely such success as you are reputed to enjoy would require some little skill at bluffing.”
All this time, he had been thinking of Felicity as very like her mother. And she was, in looks. But she had not inherited her mother’s foolishness and laziness. Those qualities had all gone to her brother, it seemed.
“Your interest in her has not escaped my notice,” she continued with a rather sly smile. “Nor has her fascination with you.”
He could not very well deny the truth of her words. But this was an attraction that must be discouraged, not encouraged. He shook his head to signify the impossibility of it all. “It matters not,” he said. This was not why he had come. He did not need to be tempted to hunt down Camellia and finish what they’d started. And this was the worst possible moment for him to think of leaving London. Such a journey could come to no good end, for any of them, not even Felicity. “You ought to think of your own reputation. Do you not share your mother’s concern?” he asked.
“My mother exaggerates. No one would dare to suggest you had reneged on an offer.”
Might she be right? People often marveled at his ability to predict the fall of the cards. But only one or two had been foolish enough to accuse him of being a cheat.
“It will simply look as if I would not have you,” she continued.
He almost smiled. “Doubtless Society will account you wise.”
Especially once the talk of attainder was more generally known.
Felicity looked at him for a long moment without speaking. She gave every impression of waiting patiently for his decision. But her blue eyes were fathomless pools, and he was an unsuspecting sailor being lured to his death by a siren. He began to understand how Fox had wound up so hopelessly besotted with the girl.
“Ring for a footman,” he ordered. A plan had begun to form in his mind, a chance for a few more stolen moments with Camellia, and it was just mad enough to work. Felicity moved with alacrity to the bellpull, and a young man in livery appeared in the doorway. “Go to Finch House, in Grosvenor Square,” Gabriel said to him, “and tell them Lord Ashborough requires a traveling coach, horses, and a driver as soon as possible.” Would the fine carriages that had once filled the mews there all have succumbed to mice and damp? The footman bowed sharply and was gone. “And you.” He turned to Felicity as he spoke. “Fetch me pen and paper.” At the very least, he knew how she might be spared.
When she had returned with the requested items and left again, he cleared a space at the table and sat down to write, less a letter than legal document. He took care to observe the forms, to leave no loose ends, to press his seal firmly and clearly into the wax so that there could be no doubt of its legitimacy.
Afterward, he dashed off a heartfelt note to Christopher Fox. When it was finished, he sealed it and wrote his friend’s name on the outside, along with specific conditions for its delivery, intending to leave it in his rooms in St. James’s.
“Your coach is here.” Felicity had returned to stand just inside the threshold.
Quickly, before he could think better of it, he extended the first document to her. “This, I hope, will allay your concerns, and those of your family, about the matter of your brother’s…situation.” It erased Lord Trenton’s debts under conditions Gabriel hoped all parties would find favorable—a gamble, he knew. The last he might ever make, since it could easily lead to his ruin. Merrick would no longer be under any obligation to him. Who would be left to plead on his behalf?
She read through its contents and looked up at him with those wide eyes. “I know it is more typically the fashion for a lady to express gratitude upon receipt of a proposal, rather than upon its withdrawal. Nevertheless, I thank you, my lord,” she whispered. “I do not think we would have suited.”
Which had, of course, very nearly been the point. He mustered a laugh. “There’s quite enough misery in the world to be going on with. No need to add yours to the mix.”
“Cousin Camellia did try to tell me it would not be miserable to be your wife.”
“Did she?” The lurch of his heart against his rib cage was almost painful.
“I shall put this letter into Papa’s hand myself.” Felicity had folded the parchment and was tracing one edge with her fingertip.
He had a sudden vision of what she might endure from her mother when he left. “He is expected soon, you said?”
“Perhaps even today,” she reassured him in a voice that was steady, strong. “Now, come.”
The street before Trenton House was nearly filled by an old-fashioned four-in-ha
nd coach, an ancient, heavy thing that looked to be on the verge of collapse. No one who saw it on the road would imagine its occupant a wealthy nobleman.
It was perfectly suited to the reckless journey he was about to undertake.
“She has not been gone an hour,” Felicity said. “Surely you will be able to catch her?”
“With a little luck.” He eyed the coach dubiously. “In which, let me hasten to add, I do not believe.”
“You don’t need luck, my lord.” To his surprise, she laid one hand on his shoulder and stretched up to brush his cheek with her lips. “You need love.”
Sweet words and a sweet gesture that nearly unmanned him, for in a lifetime of scars and sin, he had known very little sweetness. But if she knew what awaited those he loved, or who loved him, she would not wish that fate on anyone.
With a slight bow to the woman who was to have been his bride, Gabriel turned and left.
Chapter 12
With a silent sigh, Cami clutched her portable desk. Along with a dozen other passengers, she sat in the public room of a posting inn, awaiting the northbound stage. The price of a ticket for a place inside the coach had been too dear. Now, however, she was wondering whether she ought not to have paid it, even if it meant bread and water for the rest of the journey. The roof was a notoriously dangerous place aboard a crowded, speeding coach, but she was even more worried about the weather. Through a dirt-streaked window, she eyed the thickening clouds. Rain. Could she persuade a fellow passenger to trade places with her? But why should anyone imagine she deserved a place inside, simply because she held a wooden box whose contents she didn’t fancy getting wet?
She tried to distract herself with her usual amusement. Who was meeting the stooped old lady with the leathery skin, who clutched an unlit pipe between her teeth and hid what Cami believed must be a live piglet, judging by the grunts and squeals coming from beneath her cloak? And what had possessed that tall, oddly dressed fellow, the one who had proclaimed loudly to his fellow passengers that he was the best wizard now living in Britain, to travel by the public stage rather than taking his broomsti—
Oh, it was no use. Characters they might be, but she was in no humor for making up stories to suit them. Her feet were sore from the long walk through town to reach the inn; she was worried sick about her family; and she was almost certain to get drenched. Was that a rumble of thunder?
No, a coach. A dozen pairs of hope-filled eyes turned toward the sound. A lumbering, old fashioned four-in-hand slowed as it passed the window. Merely some private conveyance stopping to change horses. The jumble of conversation resumed around her, and Cami absently traced the smooth, worn, ink-stained edge of her writing desk. Absorbed in her thoughts, she did not immediately realize that the door to the public room had opened, that the murmur of voices around her had grown louder, that someone was striding in her direction.
“Camellia?”
For a moment, she wondered if the fatigue of the walk had made her weak in the head. It could not possibly be…
Booted feet stopped before her. Between blinks of astonishment, her eyes traveled upward, over an imposing greatcoat and snowy cravat, to Gabriel’s face. She saw no trace of his usual sardonic expression. He looked drawn, tired.
“What are you doing here?” he demanded. “Are you mad?”
“No, my—” My lord, she had been about to say. But she had a sudden vision of the chaos that might ensue if she revealed to her fellow passengers that the gentleman standing before them was a wealthy nobleman. Already, their curiosity was pressing them closer. “No,” she said, rising. “It is not madness to wish to go home.”
“Some might beg to differ.”
She could not keep her eyes from widening at his words, but his own expression was obscured as he bent to pick up the bag at her feet. Before he could attempt to take the writing desk from her arms, she moved out of his reach. “Pardon me?”
“A woman thinking to travel alone on the public stage is exhibiting a kind of madness. It would serve you bloody well right,” he said, each syllable spoken sharply and loudly enough for every one of her fellow passengers to hear, “if you’d been robbed. Or worse. Running off like that. Worrying your family. Worrying me.”
Cami knew her mouth had popped open, but she could not seem to muster a retort. And as he had begun to march back in the direction of his carriage, carrying her bag, she had very little choice but to follow him. He tossed her valise to his coachman, then turned back as if prepared to toss her into the carriage with very little more ceremony. “Get in.”
“I have no intention of—” she began. Unyielding fingers encircled her upper arm. “Unhand me this instant! How dare you—?”
“That’s it, Miss Burke,” he said softly, leaning in. Humor glimmered in his dark eyes, though it had not entirely chased away their haunted look. “Now you’re getting into the spirit of the thing. Slap me across the face if you’d like. I assure you, it’s the only invitation you’ll ever get.”
“Why, you devil—!” This was all an act. But to what possible end? Though her fingers itched to make good on his offer, she hesitated.
A wicked smile lifted one corner of his mouth. “Unless you’d rather kiss me, instead?”
A bolt of heat passed through her, devastating as a lightning strike. Then rain began pelting from the leaden sky. One thick drop struck her cheek; another dodged the lens of her spectacles to strike her eye, making her blink furiously. Unless she was willing to brave the coming storm aboard the roof of the stage… She clutched her writing desk tighter with one arm, lifted her skirts with her free hand, and stepped into Gabriel’s coach unassisted.
As he settled into the opposite seat, the coach jerked into motion. Laughter rumbled in his chest, though she could not help but notice that it did not reach his eyes. “Well, at least we’ve done them the kindness of leaving them with something to talk about while they wait.” He gestured toward a window filled with curious faces. “Shall I figure in their tales as the cruel brother come to drag his sister home, do you suppose? Or as the aggrieved husband whose headstrong bride ran away in the night?”
“I could not say.” She understood then that his high-handedness had indeed been a deliberate act, intended to spare her reputation. Bad enough to be a youngish woman, traveling alone; far worse if she seemed to be the sort who leaped into the carriage of the first gentleman who happened along. She squared her writing desk on her lap. “I have very little familiarity with spinning those sorts of stories.”
For answer, he laughed again.
“I was not running away,” she said when they had traveled some way in silence. “I was on my way back to Ireland. I received an urgent letter from my sister and must get home as soon as possible. You should know I have no intention of going back to London.”
“That’s as well, since we’re headed in the opposite direction.”
She glanced out the window to find that the city was indeed receding, the landscape becoming more rural. If he wasn’t returning her to Trenton House, then where was he taking her?
Another quarter mile passed with his hazel eyes fixed on her, something almost feverish in their depths. The air of the carriage felt charged, heavy—the weight of the coming storm, perhaps. She fought the impulse to squirm beneath his stare. “I’m bound for Stoke Abbey,” he said at last, answering her unspoken question. Then he settled his gaze on the passing scenery, though the carriage windows were blurred with rain. As she studied his profile, she saw that fatigue, or perhaps worry, had etched grooves about his mouth and eyes. “My family estate.”
Was it her fancy, or did he name his destination with reluctance? He must have left in a hurry, to be traveling without even a servant. Some pressing matter of business must have called him home. Still, who set out on such a journey all alo—? Well, who else would set out on such a journey all alone?
“It lies in Shrop
shire,” he added, “along the border with Wales.”
“Why, that cannot be far from Holyhead,” she said, naming the Welsh port from which the packet sailed for Dublin.
“Less than a day’s journey, I’d say.”
Just when she was in need of the means of traveling northward, she had crossed paths with Gabriel, who happened to be headed that way. Surely not a coincidence… But if it were not, then she must confront the fact that Felicity had sent him. And if he had called at Trenton House that morning, had he at last made the offer for which the entire family had been waiting with bated breath? What had been her cousin’s reply?
Fear of the answers kept those questions in check.
“What luck!” she managed to exclaim instead.
“Luck?” The force of that one wry word as it left his lips propelled him forward, closer to her. “How very…Irish of you.”
She pressed her spine against the upholstered cushion of the seat back, putting as much distance between them as possible. “I thought gamblers were great believers in luck.”
“A successful gambler deals in probabilities, Miss Burke. Mathematics,” he declared, “not luck.”
Ah, yes. Gabriel, the mathematician. Certainly, the man’s gifts included the ability to divide a woman from her honor and multiply her troubles in the bargain. Well, she could not boast of any particular skill with probabilities, but she knew luck when she saw it. Both good and bad. “I could not think of accompanying you,” she murmured, more to herself than to him. The impropriety of traveling by herself paled in comparison to the scandal of traveling unchaperoned with Lord Ash. All alone, trapped in a carriage for days? People would assume they had succumbed to temptation—and when she remembered what she and Gabriel had done just last night, she feared people would be right.
He turned back to face her, and one brow arced. “Perhaps I ought to have left you to the vagaries of the public stage, then.” The half smile that turned up his lips did very little to ease the hard lines into which his expression had fallen.
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