Did she dare?
As if sensing her hesitation, Titan dipped his head, nuzzling under her fingers to make it impossible for her to refuse. His coat was short and tan; the darker mask about his eyes and muzzle was flecked with gray. But silky soft, she discovered as she rubbed her thumb over his forehead, smoothing out the wrinkles there before reaching back to scratch behind his ears. When she paused, he nudged again. Gently. Just as Gabriel had promised.
“Good boy,” she whispered, and his tongue lolled out. “What are you doing here?”
Her brain put together the answer to that question just as her ears told her the truth.
“Ashborough?” The steward’s voice. “Are you down here?”
Cami scrambled to her feet, reaching for her spectacles, jostling Gabriel awake. “Mr. Hawthorne is coming. Get up!”
Thankfully, it took but a moment to shake her skirts down to their proper places and to tuck her less than ample bosom back where it belonged. When she looked up again, Gabriel had paused in his own flurry of tucking and buttoning to give her an appreciative ogle.
“For goodness’ sake, you’re meant to be a notorious rake,” she whispered furiously. “You’ve seen my—oh, just hurry!”
Mr. Hawthorne’s boots could be heard thumping ever closer. “Mrs. Neville said you never made it to your bed last night, and I feared—”
Her hair was a wild tangle she was trying to tame with one hand while digging between the couch cushions for hairpins with the other. Wordlessly, Gabriel held out his wrinkled cravat.
“What are you suggesting?” she hissed. “That we blindfold Mr. Hawthorne?”
His lips twitched, trying to contain a laugh. “For your hair,” he mouthed, gesturing with a swirling motion toward her head.
A few seconds later, the steward crossed the threshold and his dog plodded obligingly toward him. “Why, Titan, here you are.”
Grateful for that brief distraction, Cami wound the cravat around her hair, turban-style, and threw herself into the chair by the now cold hearth, hoping desperately she’d achieved something approaching eccentric fashion statement, studied nonchalance, or both.
“Ah, good morning, Ashborough. What, did you fall asleep down here? And…why, Miss Burke. You’re up early. I, er, didn’t—oh.” He’d been looking from one to the other of them as he spoke, oblivious to what he’d stumbled upon. Until Gabriel stifled another laugh. “Oh, forgive me.” Color flared in the older man’s cheeks as he dropped his gaze and busied himself with rubbing Titan’s ears. “But I did say I’d fetch those account books first thing.” Without looking up, he gestured with the folded newspaper in his hand toward the desk on the far side of the room. “I’ll just come back in a bit, shall I?”
“No need, John. I’d merely forgotten you’ve been using this room as your office. We’ll discuss them now. Miss Burke, would you be so kind as to ring for coffee?”
She did not hesitate to accept the opportunity for escape. As she hurried toward the bellpull near the door, Mr. Hawthorne asked Gabriel in a low but firm voice, “I know it’s none of my business, Ashborough, but when may we except an announcement of your betrothal to—?”
She turned back and spoke over him, pretending not to have heard the steward’s question. “What time can the coach be ready, my lord? I really must get to Holyhead in time to make the last packet. I’m bound for Dublin today, Mr. Hawthorne,” she explained, meeting his eyes with her firmest gaze. “My family is expecting me.”
“Dublin?” His brows rose. “Well, now, Miss Burke, I suspect this”—with one hand, he snapped open his newspaper and laid it on the desktop—“may change your plans.”
Reluctantly, she drew closer. At first her mind could do no more than take in snatches of print: rebels—armed insurrection—spread to the countryside—crushed.
Gabriel spun the paper to face him and leaned over the desk to read more carefully. “It seems a group of United Irishmen seized the mail coaches as they left Dublin, possibly as some sort of signal,” he said after a moment, then paused to read more. “The plot was foiled, however. The militia have put down the rebels in the area surrounding Dublin.”
Cami felt herself sinking; Mr. Hawthorne caught her by the elbow and helped her to a chair. The militia have put down the rebels…. She knew what that meant. Her brothers. Their friends. Likely dead at the hands of the loyalists.
“Well, Hawthorne is right. This rather changes things.” With one hand Gabriel folded the newspaper and returned it to his steward, ignoring her outstretched hand. What did it contain that he did not want her to see?
“Changes what, my lord?” She struggled to her feet. “I have to know that my family is safe. I must go to them.”
His gaze raked over her. “Not alone.”
Was it her imagination, or was that a flicker of suspicion in his dark eyes? Was he remembering what she’d told him about Paris and Galen? Did he imagine she had known something of this plot?
“I’ll make arrangements for the coach to be ready as soon as possible,” he said, stepping away from them both. “Clearly, Miss Burke still requires my escort.”
“No. You mustn’t get wrapped up in this,” she argued. Surely he realized that a trip to Dublin under such circumstances, any association at all with the United Irishmen, would only add fuel to the flames his uncle had been fanning.
But her protest fell on deaf ears. “That other matter will have to wait, John,” he added as he bowed sharply and strode from the room.
Instead of following, she sank back into the chair. Nothing was going to plan. “No. He must not—Mr. Hawthorne, you must help me. I really have no fear for my own safety. Dublin is my home. But Lord Ashborough must return to London as soon as possible.”
The steward gave a gruff noise of agreement. “He ought never to have left.”
“Well, why did he?” she demanded. “Did you not call him here? Some urgent matter of business, he said….” But, no. That had been her supposition. Mr. Hawthorne frowned, and understanding washed over her. “He did it for me, did he not?”
“I believe he wanted to see you safely home, yes.”
She thought of Mr. Hawthorne’s and Mrs. Neville’s evident surprise at their arrival. “He never meant to come to Stoke, did he?” Mr. Hawthorne said nothing in reply, but his expression told her she had guessed right. She would have refused Gabriel’s help if he’d offered it outright. So he had found a way to make it difficult for her to say no, by goading her into his carriage, then claiming to be traveling this way already. And in the process, he had compromised his future and put himself through hell.
“But if you know that he ought to have stayed in London,” she said after a moment, “you must also know…”
“About the mischief his uncle has planned? Aye.” Disgust made his voice rough. “Sebastian Finch was always one for wild talk, and folks will likely know this treason charge is no different. I cannot think it will come to aught.”
“Unfortunately, Lord Ashborough has made other enemies.”
Mr. Hawthorne looked taken aback at her announcement; even Titan had a quizzical tilt to his head.
Indecision prickled along her spine. This man had known the Marquess of Ashborough from a boy. Who was she to reveal to him the man Gabriel had become, the scoundrel known as Lord Ash? She drew a steadying breath. “I’m sorry to have to tell you this, Mr. Hawthorne, but your employer is an inveterate gambler. And the very men he’s ruined likely will be only too happy to return the favor.”
An odd smile creased the steward’s face. “His lordship’s fancy for a game of cards is no secret, Miss Burke. Why, for a time, it was how he kept this place afloat. His father loved this place, after his fashion. But he could not care for it. When he died, things were in a shambles. The tenants were desperate. Young Ashborough did what he had to do to turn things around. Oh, I don’t doubt but what he’s ta
ught a few wastrels a lesson over the years, but he never was a bad lad.”
“I believe you’re right, sir. Unfortunately, he’s taken his enemies’ words to heart for so long, he’s come to believe the worst of himself.” She did not try to explain her own role in the process. “I fear he’s lost his will to fight back.”
Mr. Hawthorne shook his head. “Then others must fight for him. If it comes to that, I’ve got proof aplenty he’s not the man they believe him to be.”
“What sort of proof?”
“Why, the estate records alone will show he’s a good master, a responsible landowner—better, I’d wager, than many of them.” He turned and plucked up one of the ledgers from his desk. “Take a look.”
Warily, Cami accepted the baize-covered book. At first, she was not certain of the significance of what she was seeing. Estate records, of course. Investments. Improvements. Eventually, the orderly columns of figures revealed to her the extraordinary care that had been taken of a place many said had been abandoned.
“And then there’s this.” He stabbed at the facing page with a stumpy finger.
Her eyes flicked up and down over a tally of donations. Sizable donations. To foundling hospitals, orphanages, charity schools. And one particularly large sum to St. Luke’s Hospital in London, a reform-minded institution that had been established in recent decades to counter the infamous exploitation of the poor inmates at Bethlehem Hospital—Bedlam, as it was commonly known.
“Orphans and madmen, he wanted to help. Said he knew something o’ that.” Wordlessly, she returned the book to him, and he set it on the desk with the others. “If good works count for aught, he’s done his bit and then some. Why, he told me last night that so long as he was here, he wanted me to help him find a way to go on getting money to them, just in case something happened to him.”
It seemed Gabriel’s gambling had put something on the positive side of the ledger, after all. But would it be enough to change people’s minds about him? It did not explicitly counter his uncle’s claim.
“Will you help me, Mr. Hawthorne? Help me persuade him to go back and speak in his own defense?”
“And leave you to go haring off to Dublin by yourself?” He shook his head. “Sorry, ma’am. It won’t work. Ashborough’s always been one to protect what’s his. Since he was a lad.”
His.
Always before, she had recoiled at such notions of possession. But now, the word lit a spark inside her. If she was his, then he was equally hers. This time, she would rescue him.
And she would do it the way she did anything. With her pen.
“Very well, Mr. Hawthorne,” she said, rising. “Will I find paper and ink in that desk? I’ve a letter to write, and I’ll trust you to get it into the proper hands.”
Chapter 19
Gabriel gripped the ship’s rail more tightly. “Is the Irish Sea always this rough?” he asked, looking out over the churning gray water as dusk fell.
“No,” she said, her eyes scanning the horizon for the first glimpse of the Bay of Dublin. “Sometimes it’s worse.”
Once more, he was headed in the opposite direction from that in which he should have been traveling. But…no. Not really. In the process of telling his story, he’d realized he still wanted—needed—to fight his uncle. To fight for Stoke and claim what was his, the good he’d done, along with the bad.
None of it would matter, however, if he could not find some way to share it with Camellia.
She had said very little about his insistence on accompanying her to Ireland. Had said very little at all, in fact. When the coach had rolled into the courtyard at Stoke Abbey, horses fresh and prancing, she had stepped out neatly dressed and freshly combed, no sign of the passionate woman who’d ridden him to exhaustion the night before. After thanking Mrs. Neville, she’d shaken John Hawthorne’s hand, then, to Gabriel’s astonishment, patted placid Titan on his broad head before accepting his help, though the merest brush of hands, as she climbed into the carriage.
They’d arrived in Holyhead in time to catch the last packet, just as she’d hoped. All the berths had been taken, but she had insisted that the stifling air of a cabin would make her seasick anyway. As the ship battled through the waves for hours and darkness fell, he’d been content to stand quietly with her, facing down the spray, wondering what they would find at journey’s end. “We’re lucky the packet wasn’t delayed,” he said, breaking a long silence. “I overheard some passengers telling of another crossing, when they were forced to wait several days for a favorable wind.”
“On any map I’ve seen, the Irish Sea looks to be an insignificant body of water. Especially, I suppose, to people who have built great empires across oceans,” she added, her words almost lost to the noise of wind and waves. “Certainly England has never seemed to regard it as much of a barrier to their desires, despite its hazards.”
“Ireland’s ties with France cannot help but make Britons nervous, especially in a time of war. The island are too close, with too much shared history,” he added, thinking of her disdain for Henry VIII, “for them to be completely separate.”
“Proximity is not propinquity,” she countered. “The countries—their languages, cultures, religions—are too different to be successfully joined.”
“Hence the tragedy of Granville and Róisín.” For a long moment, he said nothing more, weighing her argument. “But if Granville were different… What was it you said? If he could be transformed from a stranger to a friend…”
In the light of a rising moon, the silvery rims of Camellia’s spectacles seemed to send out sparks as she shook her head. “It would not be enough. Róisín has learned the value of her independence. And she is determined to keep it.”
When they reached the harbor, Gabriel was at some pains to find a hackney willing to carry them into the center of the city. Though he had never been to Dublin before, he felt certain the streets were not usually so quiet, especially in the hours past dawn. An uneasy, unsettling sort of calm, as after an explosion. Here and there he saw redcoats milling about in groups of two or three, looking watchful.
The hack rolled to a stop along a quiet street lined with neat brownstones; then the coach creaked and tilted as the coachman leaped down to open the door and put down the steps. After he handed Camellia down to the street, Gabriel saw a flare of something like panic in her eyes.
As he had done after supper at Stoke, he tangled her fingers with his and squeezed. “You’re home now, Camellia,” he whispered as she squeezed back. “It will be all right.”
Before she could reach for the knocker, the door opened just a crack, and a young woman’s face peered out. “Who’s there? What’s your business? Och, can it be Miss Burke?” The door swung wide as the maid curtsied to usher them in. As soon as the coachman had deposited the bags, she shut the door tight again, but not before peering up and down the empty street.
“Miss Erica did say she’d written to you, but not one of us believed you’d come. So dangerous, Miss Burke. I don’t see how—”
“I had an escort, Molly,” Camellia replied, turning the maid’s eyes on Gabriel. “Don’t fret. Where’s—?”
Her question was lost in a screech as another young woman came thundering down the stairs. It was easy to guess her appearance had inspired Róisín’s. Red hair streamed down her back, and the bridge of her nose was sprinkled with freckles. “Oh, thank God,” she said, throwing her arms around Camellia. Her hands, he saw, were as rough and ragged as a scullery maid’s, and nearly as ink stained as her sister’s.
“Erica, may I present Lord Ashborough?” Camellia was holding herself back from the embrace, an effort to maintain some semblance of decorum in front of a guest, he guessed. “Lord Ashborough, my sister, Miss Erica Burke.”
Gabriel bowed. “Ma’am.” Erica managed a distracted curtsy in reply.
“Now,” Camellia said, in a voi
ce he had never heard her use before, “where are my parents?”
“At the Nugents’ country house near Enniscorthy. For two weeks. They were reluctant to go without you here to watch over us, but Paris persuaded them to leave him in charge here.”
“And where is Paris?”
She scowled. “Gone, God knows where. Molly told me that Galen left before dawn the day we—the day the mail coaches were seized,” she corrected, with a glance at Gabriel. “Paris left soon after, and a few hours later, he brought Galen back. Then he left again straightaway, and I haven’t heard from him since. Galen is—oh, come and see,” she cried, dragging her sister up the stairs. The maid disappeared after them, leaving Gabriel alone in the entryway.
“Psst!” A girl’s face peered out from behind the back of the staircase. “You can sit in here with us, if you’d like.”
Intrigued, he accepted the invitation. The room at the back of the house was a large family parlor filled with comfortable, not quite shabby furniture, most of which had been rearranged to create a maze of table legs and chair backs, over which a damasked tablecloth had been thrown to make a hideaway of sorts. The far end of the room contained a large desk and several packed bookcases: a gentleman’s study, which could be closed off from the rest by a pair of doors, though by the look of things, they were rarely shut. On all the walls hung framed sketches of plants and flowers, some taken from books, others the work of more amateur hands.
While he had been examining the room, a second child, younger than the first, had crawled from between two chairs and now stood before him, a familiar expression of curiosity and defiance on her face. He guessed she was perhaps six or seven years old.
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