“But how do you mean to manage it?” Fox asked. “When it comes to defending the citadel of polite society, Lady Montlake is a veritable dragon.”
“And you find me ill suited to play St. George?”
Fox’s expression was something between a laugh and a frown as he settled his hat on his head again. “Oh, your tongue is sharp enough for battle, I’ll wager, but what of your sword?”
“I assure you my blade is kept in constant readiness,” Gabriel replied with a twitch of his lips.
“For God’s sake, Ash!” Fox snapped as Remy snorted with laughter and suggestively thrust the battered black umbrella through the door ahead of him. “If rumors are to be believed, half this town is well acquainted with your…blade.”
“The female half, I hope?” Gabriel winked and stepped past his friend, out the door.
Remington awaited them on the top step beneath the umbrella, while the cab stood in the street below. “It’s down to you to keep his nose clean, lad,” the man said, handing the umbrella to Fox. “My old bones don’t fancy having to fetch him home on a night like this.”
Fox smiled and accepted the worn handle. “I’ll do my best,” he promised.
“Why is it no one ever asks me to watch over Fox?” Gabriel grumbled, peering through the curtain of rain that sluiced from the narrow portico’s roof.
“He’s got brothers aplenty for that, my lord.”
Gabriel could not properly be said to envy his friend. After all, to most people’s way of thinking, he already had everything a man could want: good looks, intelligence, wealth. And without meddling parents or siblings, he had been doing largely as he pleased for most of his life.
Still, he sometimes felt the absence of those deeper human bonds, a connection he seemed destined to be denied.
Fox was the closest Gabriel would ever come to having a brother, and God knew the man had done his best to fill the role, fighting for him and with him as the situation demanded. Over the years, Gabriel had destroyed everyone who had ever cared for him, everyone he had ever loved—or who had loved him. Everyone except Christopher Fox.
But tonight, as he looked out into the utter blackness of the rain-soaked night, Gabriel feared, not for the first time, that even their friendship might not be proof against fate.
“What’s the use of siblings if one must spend all one’s time keeping others out of trouble?” Gabriel groused as they ducked out into the storm. “The eldest would never know the joy of being the troublemaker.”
The umbrella was broad, but not so broad as the width of their combined shoulders, with the result that each had one wet arm by the time they reached the cab. Once inside, Gabriel swore and threw back his cloak to keep the damp from soaking through to his coat, then looked up to see his friend smiling at him.
“There’s nothing humorous about rain, Foxy. If there were, every Englishman would die laughing.”
“It’s not the rain, Ash,” he said, brushing droplets off his own shoulders and then wringing water from his glove. “I was just thinking about what you said, about the eldest always having to keep the others in line. It put me in mind of Miss Burke.”
“Oh?” Damn and blast, can the woman’s name worm its way into every conversation? At least he need have no fear—could have no hope—that she would be in attendance tonight. Her duties as chaperone would not extend to the ballroom.
“She’s five younger brothers and sisters to shepherd through life, you know.”
Gabriel cast a bored glance through the rain-streaked window. “How very virtuous she must be, then.” And how very ripe for a little rebellion…
In a little while, the hack slowed to a stop before Viscount Montlake’s townhouse. Light spilled from every door and window, turning raindrops into hazy prisms. Footmen stood at the ready with umbrellas, waiting to escort the arrivals inside.
“How do you mean to spend your evening once Lady Montlake turns you from her door?” Fox teased.
“She won’t.” Of this, Gabriel was quite certain.
His friend eyed him suspiciously. “It’s hardly gentlemanlike to use your past, er, acquaintance with Lady Montlake to—”
“Lady Montlake has no past acquaintance with my ‘blade,’ if that’s what you’re insinuating. Gad, the woman must be fifty! Even I have limits.”
“Do you?” One skeptical brow rose. “I confess I am glad to hear it.”
“Stow it, Foxy. If your brothers did not teach you the dangers of poking the bear, I shall,” he warned.
One footman opened the door and lowered the steps, while another held up a second umbrella.
“So what is your hold over the old dame?” Fox asked when the servants had left them under an awning and gone to assist the party in the next carriage.
“Oh, young Montlake got into a spot of trouble.”
“In over his head at the tables, was he? I rather thought you preferred to teach those foolish puppies a lesson.”
Gabriel had ruined more men over a hand of cards than he cared to count, and if he had wished it, he could have been entering Montlake’s house tonight as its owner, rather than a guest. But something about the beads of sweat on the young man’s brow, the way his eyes had shied in terror from the cards as they fell, had persuaded Gabriel that the viscount had learned his lesson, beggaring not required.
Unlike, say, Lord Trenton.
Gabriel shrugged. “Makes a nice change from grinding them under my boot heel.”
“And you expect Lady Montlake’s appreciation to take the form of a warm welcome tonight, do you?”
“Warm? Perhaps not.” Gabriel stepped over the threshold and handed his cloak to a footman. “But welcome, nonetheless.”
Chapter 5
Cami did not need to feel the sharp dig of Felicity’s elbow against her ribs to realize that something had upset the equilibrium of Lady Montlake’s ballroom.
The sudden hush would have been enough to catch her attention, but when followed by the snap of
