In a quieter voice, Erica said, “I think we both know that wasn’t the case.”
Camellia stepped closer to Gabriel. “Henry Edgeworth was Paris’s dear friend and Erica’s betrothed,” she explained in a low voice. “He was killed last night.”
“What are those?” Erica asked, leaning over her brother’s shoulder.
The question earned Gabriel another wary look.
“I’m not here on behalf of the Crown, Burke,” he said. “I’m here for your sister’s sake.” In the harsh light from the lamp above the table, Camellia looked to be on the verge of splintering into a thousand pieces, holding herself together with her arms wrapped around her body. How he wished he could be the one to keep her whole, but in truth, he feared his touch might instead be the breaking point. “And as I told you last night, I’ll stay until she says otherwise.”
“Dispatches from Dublin Castle,” Paris said at last. “Edgeworth overtook the runner and managed to hand them off before he…well.” With a shudder, he broke off the explanation. “We’re hopeful this will tell us what they know about our plans, prevent another massacre. But—”
As he eased back in his chair, Camellia peered forward to see what was written on the papers. “That’s nothing more than gibberish.”
“It’s some kind of code.” Paris ran a shaking hand through his hair, disordering its dark waves. “I’ve studied it forwards, backwards, and sideways. The leaders of the Society are counting on me to figure it out, but I’ll be damned if I can break it.”
“Encryption is mathematics, plain and simple,” Gabriel said. “Well, perhaps not simple, but…”
“Lord Ashborough is something of a mathematician,” Camellia explained, then shook her head. “But you can’t do this,” she said to him in a voice that was intended to brook no argument. “You’re English.”
It was the third time in less than a day that a member of the Burke family had made the observation. It was the first time the words had stung. She’d given him her body, told him she loved him. But in the end, did she still see him as nothing more than Granville, an enemy to the cause she held dear?
Gabriel stepped toward the table
Burke drew back, still suspicious. Moving closer, Camellia whispered, “Don’t. It would—it would be treason.”
He understood, then, the source of her concern. It was a gamble, certainly. Enough to condemn him—if he were not already condemned. Thinking again of the smattering of scars on her leg, the risks she’d taken for others, he thrust out his hand. Wasn’t it time someone took a gamble for her?
“I’ll try to break the code for you, Burke, on two conditions. First, you must swear to use whatever information the documents contain to disengage, not to take more lives. And second, after you deliver the message to your leaders, you must return to your family and keep them safe. For you, this war is over.”
Still, Paris hesitated. Camellia laid her fingertips on Gabriel’s outstretched arm.
“If no one finds out what’s in those papers,” Erica reminded her brother in a brittle voice, “Henry will have died in vain.”
Slowly, Paris gathered the papers and handed them to Gabriel.
Camellia’s fingers fell away. Without looking at him, at any of them, she turned and walked from the room.
* * * *
Upstairs, she entered the room she shared with Erica and threw herself down on her bed. Gabriel had already put himself in danger for her. But this…? She should stop him, of course. Except that if he succeeded, he’d made Paris swear to leave the rebellion. A tremor passed through her, and unshed tears burned in her throat and eyes. If she let Gabriel risk his neck, Paris’s might be saved.
She had not intended to fall asleep, but she must’ve, for she jerked awake when Erica entered the room. The gray light at the window told her nothing about how much time had passed.
“What—? How long—?” She scrambled upright, shoving hair away from her face.
Erica caught her hand, laid it on the coverlet, and began to smooth Cami’s wayward locks with gentle fingers. “It’s afternoon. Lord Ashborough insisted you be allowed to sleep. But I thought you would want to know that Galen is propped up in bed, drinking a bit of broth. The swelling has gone down. His toes are warm.”
“Oh, thank God.” The physician’s most dire prediction had been loss of circulation in the limb. Without proper blood flow, Galen might have lost his leg. “I should—I must go to him.” Erica moved aside so she could rise. Hand on the door, Cami stopped, remembering. “And—and Paris?”
“Gone to deliver a message to the Society. He vowed to be back by nightfall. Back to stay.”
“Lord Ashborough did it, then? He cracked the code?”
Erica nodded. “He did. It was—it was really quite amazing to watch him. His mind doesn’t work like other people’s. He sees patterns—like a man playing chess who knows every move his opponent will make before the game even begins.” Her voice fairly glowed with undisguised admiration. “It’s a remarkable gift—”
“Yes, well, it’s a gift he uses to gamble at cards, Erica,” she snapped uncharitably. “He sees others’ weaknesses and turns them to his advantage.”
Erica tipped her head as she searched Cami’s face. “Ah, I see. And you never did want anyone to see your weaknesses.”
She recoiled. Was her sister right? Was she acting out of fear not for Gabriel, but for herself? Certainly she’d made herself uncharacteristically vulnerable where he was concerned.
Setting her jaw, she marched to Galen’s room and found him just as Erica had said. Molly was with him, trying to spoon broth into his mouth, while Galen protested he could feed himself. Stubborn. Just like a Burke. Cami scolded him, dismissed the maid, and took over the task herself.
Though he was clearly improved from the day before, the effort of eating, combined with his pain, drained him, and in half an hour he was settling in to sleep again. As she was leaving the room, she spied Gabriel’s bag in the corner and carried it out with her. Whatever the perils to her own heart, it was dangerous for him to dally here, amid the chaos of the rebellion. If she loved him, and she did, she was going to have to find a way to say good-bye.
Back in her own room, she rummaged among her things until she found the tattered pages of The Wild Irish Rose, bound with the red silk ribbon. Róisín’s tale was still incomplete—not because she did not know how it ended, she realized suddenly, but because she had not been able to make herself write the words. Now, though, it was time to face what came next. Carefully, she tucked the manuscript into Gabriel’s bag. Would he destroy it, and the scandalous portrayal of him contained in its pages? Or would he cherish it as a memento of their days together?
Either way, it was now his story, as much as hers.
On the landing, she paused to listen to the sounds of a tea party coming from the sitting room, Daphne, Bellis, and…Gabriel. If only the world could see the man she knew. This man.
She stepped to the doorway, keeping the valise out of sight. “May I have a word?”
Gabriel rose from the floor, careful not to overturn the tiny tea table. “Is everything all right, Camellia?”
In this house, she had always only been Cami. It was how she’d come to think of herself. Until Gabriel had reminded her how beautiful her name could be.
She backed into the corridor without answering, and he followed. She knew the exact moment his eyes spied the bag she carried. “What’s this?”
“You said you’d stay until I asked you to go.”
As he looked from the bag to her face, she watched his features harden. “And you’re asking.”
“Gabriel, please.” She held up one hand, not quite laying it against his chest. “It was dangerous for you even to come to Dublin. In English eyes, the United Irishmen are not patriots, but traitors. If anyone were to discover what you did this morning,
how you helped Paris, it would… It would give your uncle all the ammunition he needs. No storytelling required.”
His posture shifted as he took in her words, but he did not speak.
“You have to go back to London. Mr. Hawthorne told me—he told me how many people you’ve helped. As long as you’re free, you can go on helping them. You’re not a villain, Gabriel,” she said again. “Don’t let your uncle convince the world—convince you—that you’re really Lord Ash.”
“And how do you propose I stop him?” Stepping back, he folded his arms across his chest and regarded her with that familiar sardonic expression. “Shall I reconsider my plan to force Merrick to give me his support by marrying his daughter?”
She flinched when the words struck her. “I…I do not know.” Despite the sudden weakness in her arms, she held out the bag. “I only know there’s nothing—” Her eyes darted to his face, then flicked to the door and finally settled on her own hands, clenched so tightly before her that her knuckles were white. She had to do this; the longer he stayed, the more danger they were both in. “There’s nothing for you here.”
The lie hovered over them. “Well,” he muttered after a moment, lifting the bag from her grasp, “I suppose it’s better than getting pushed off a cliff. But not by much.”
When he brushed past her and out the door, her heart went with him.
Chapter 21
Though they really should have been unpacking, the warmth of the July afternoon called Erica outside to explore Hampstead Heath, and Cami dutifully followed. A month ago, when her sister had proposed this scheme, Cami had been dubious. But after six weeks of caring for Galen, amusing her little sisters, and telling her parents about her time in the Trenton household while managing to reveal very little of substance, she had once more grown impatient with her lot. It was not that she didn’t love her family, of course. It was the realization that they would go on believing and behaving as if they needed her, even when they didn’t.
Tens of thousands had been killed in the rebellion, and though Ireland’s future was uncertain, it seemed unlikely that the United Irishmen’s dream of independence would be realized. Paris had been crushed by the defeat. Still, life went on. Galen was up and walking again and talking of going to university when the new term began. Mama could certainly manage Daphne and Bell without help, and Papa had his work and his flowers to occupy him. So when Erica had come to her—dressed in half mourning for Henry, because their mother had proclaimed widows’ weeds unseemly for a woman who had never been married—and suggested a way that she and Cami might proclaim their independence, Cami had agreed to seize the chance.
It had taken some doing, convincing Papa to give them the money he had set aside for their dowries, persuading Mama that two sisters living on their own would not be courting scandal. Even Cami had balked when Erica had suggested a house on the outskirts of London. “Dublin is full of painful memories. And the Irish countryside is too unsettled,” Erica had insisted. “London has museums and lectures and the Royal Academy….” Whether those institutions would welcome a young woman and her dreams of becoming a botanist, Cami was skeptical. But she let herself be persuaded, because…well…
The slightest breeze rippled her skirts and the ribbons of her bonnet as she turned and looked down from the heath. From here, she could see the house they shared with Mrs. Drake, a widow, and two of her young sons. Their elder brother had gone off just that spring to join the navy. The youngest had related the news to Erica, breathless with the thrill of it, while his mother looked on, eyes shadowed with worry.
Next door was the sweetest rose-covered cottage, occupied by two middle-aged men, both former sailors. The portly, bespectacled one was a surgeon, at work on experiments having to do with a cure for yellow fever; he had already invited Erica for tea. The other man, considerably more grizzled and gruff, could be seen even now at work in his garden. Cami found it hard to imagine that he was indeed responsible for filling boys’ heads with tales of sea adventures, as Mrs. Drake had claimed.
Cami’s room overlooked Mr. Bewick’s rose garden, and when she had set her new desk on the table by the window, she had felt certain it would be a pleasant place to write. At last, she had the peace and quiet she required for her work. But would her broken heart let her take it up again? Standing here on the heath, with the hazy suggestion of London in the distance, she was only too conscious of the fact that Mayfair was not five miles away.
News of anything other than the rebellion had been scarce in Dublin. If there had been word of the fate of a certain treasonous English nobleman at the hands of his peers, the papers had not wasted ink or space on reporting it. She had written more than one letter to Felicity, but recalling Gabriel’s parting threat to resurrect his marriage scheme, she had never worked up the courage to send any of them. They sat in her writing desk, beside a lengthy explanation and apology to Mr. Dawkins, along with a few other sheets, tear-stained stops and starts that bore no name, no direction, only the words and worries of her heart. Those unsent letters were all the writing she had managed to do in six weeks. In the pit of her stomach, she carried the fear that they were all the writing she would ever do, now.
On the outskirts of London, though, news of Gabriel’s fate would not be hard to come by. Mrs. Drake took the Times; Cami had seen it lying on the table in the entryway beside the post. Dread of its contents, more than Erica’s pleas or the summer heat or the drudgery of unpacking, had driven her outside. With a sigh, she turned her back on the panorama spread before her and scanned the heath for her sister.
When she spotted a floppy-eared pointer loping toward her, she froze out of habit. But as the dog came closer, she realized she was not filled with her usual terror. Oh, her heart still raced, and she was muttering a silent prayer that the beast would simply pass her by, but the buzz of fear no longer filled her ears, and when the dog skidded to an inelegant stop before her and sat, looking expectant, it took her only three tries to work up the nerve to hold out her hand to be sniffed.
“Lelantos!”
Not only the dog’s name was familiar, but also the voice in which it was spoken, a halfhearted scold that made her smile. She looked up to find Mr. Fox striding across the open field, two more dogs on leads and a broken leash in his other hand.
“Why…why, Miss Burke? Is it really you?” he said, when he reached her side. Lelantos looked from one to the other, eager for praise, which came in the form of a scratch behind his ears from his astonished master. “What luck, old boy. That’s some quarry you sighted. We’ll make a hunter of you yet.”
“It’s a pleasure to see you again, Mr. Fox,” Cami said with a curtsy, although she could not quite keep her eyes from looking past him, wondering whether he was alone.
“And you, Miss Burke.” He bowed. “I had not heard you were back in town.”
“I’ve only just arrived. You are—you are well? Your family is well?”
“Oh, yes, yes. All splendid. Even the dogs,” he said, looking down at them.
Gathering her courage, she reached out to pet all three of them in their turn. “Where’s the fourth?”
“Medea?” A flush crept across his cheekbones, unrelated to the warm summer day. “At home. She’s…she’s another litter on the way, and I have every hope that this time—”
He was as nervous as an expectant father. “I’m sure motherhood will agree with her, Mr. Fox,” she said, wishing she could forget who had given the poor dog her unfortunate name.
“You have called on your aunt and uncle, I’m sure? And…and your cousin, of course?”
She could not decide what to call the note in his voice. Something more than polite curiosity. “Not yet. Has she—?”
Her question was forestalled by the arrival of her sister, clutching a spray of flowers—specimens, as Erica would say—in her ungloved hands. “May I introduce my sister, Miss Erica Burke? This is Mr. Fox.�
� She paused, uncertain what description of their relationship to add. But it mattered very little, as Erica was too taken by the dogs to pay much attention to their master. Social situations had never been her strength.
Cami glanced at the horizon to discover she was facing south again, toward town, like a broken compass drawn to a false point. “I wonder, Mr. Fox, if you would tell me—”
“You’ve heard the news, I’m sure—”
They spoke over one another. Cami snapped her gaze to Mr. Fox’s face. His eyes were scanning her with interest, but she fared no better at reading the expression in their gray depths than she had with his voice. “No, I can see you haven’t,” he said. “Well, Lady Felicity should be the one to explain it all.”
“Please, Mr. Fox.”
But he was not to be persuaded. “I’ll take you to Trenton House now, if you like. My curricle is just in the lane. But the dogs—” He looked suddenly worried, remembering, she supposed, her fear of them.
“I—I don’t mind them so much,” she said. And it was the truth. “But Erica—”
“I’ve promised to take tea with Mr. Beals, remember?” her sister said.
It would be a shocking lapse of both duty and propriety to leave her sister to the company of two gentlemen they hardly knew, even if, as Mrs. Drake had whispered, they weren’t exactly the sort to threaten a girl’s virtue. “I couldn’t possibly…”
“Oh, Cami. Go on,” Erica insisted, dusting off her hands one at a time on her skirt. “Maybe someone in our uncle’s household will know what became of Lord Ashborough after he left Dublin. It would be a relief to have you stop fretting over him.”
A shudder of shock passed through her. Had she really been so transparent? She jerked her gaze to Mr. Fox, but he was busy tying a knot in the broken leash and appeared not to have heard.
Together, they descended the rise, Mr. Fox apologizing for not being able to offer both of them his arm. When they had taken their leave of Erica, they walked on to his curricle. Only blind Tiresias was allowed to ride; the other two dogs happily trotted beside them on the short drive into town. In less than half an hour—time spent in discussion of the weather and various other summer topics that felt to Cami like a deliberate attempt at diversion, rather than Mr. Fox’s customary pleasantries—they arrived on Brook Street. He helped her down but declined to accompany her inside, saying he had better be off with his menagerie.
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