As Gabriel moved toward his study door, Remington spoke. “You’ll find Mr. Fox inside, my lord.” A smirk of satisfaction edged the man’s voice.
Of late, Christopher Fox had been urging Gabriel toward pursuits that involved sunlight and fresh air and other things he generally avoided. His friend’s well-meant interference had kept him from sliding headfirst into hell years ago, and for that he was mostly grateful. But nothing would keep him safe forever.
Gabriel’s final destination was assured.
“Ah. Coffee, then, Remy,” he called grimly over his shoulder. “A vat of it.”
“Very good, my lord.” This time, the smirk reached Remy’s eyes.
Dressed for riding, Fox stood with his back to the door, perusing the bookcase. “Isn’t it time you settled down and gave up these larks, Ash?” he asked without turning.
“Oh, Foxy. Only you would call my gaming and wenching ‘larks.’” Gabriel’s skill at the tables—and elsewhere, for that matter—was the stuff of legend.
“What’s this?” Fox plucked a book from the shelf and turned with a flourish. “A guide to the peerage? Surprised to find you in possession of such a thing, Ash.”
Snatching the battered volume from his friend’s grasp, Gabriel settled into the buttery-soft leather of the chair closest to the window. “Is it so strange that from time to time a man would wish to recall the history of his family?”
“You?” Fox tilted his head and his gray eyes narrowed with interest. “Yes.”
Gabriel dropped his gaze to the book, whose broken spine had flopped open on his knee, evidence that certain passages had received a great deal of study. Intersecting lines crossed the paper, resembling less a family tree than a scrub or a stump. He felt conspicuous on the page, which contained not only his name, but also the date of his mother’s death—or his own birth, if one would have it so. The final entry was the date he had assumed the marquessate, the date of his father’s untimely relinquishment of it. At the top of the page the name of the family seat was set off from the rest by italic type: Stoke Abbey, Shrops.
Many would insist that an estate and its people could suffer no graver misfortune than the infamous Lord Ash’s inheritance of it. Gabriel was inclined to agree. But would those naysayers change their tune if they too had chanced to overhear a few words exchanged at a neighboring card table?
For all his sins, at least Gabriel had never attempted to gamble his legacy away.
“I happened to catch my cousin Julian in the act of laying a rather extraordinary bet,” he said, “against the value of his future inheritance.”
“But your uncle’s estate is said to be mortgaged to the hilt already.” Fox took up the chair opposite.
“Not my uncle’s estate.” With one fingertip, he traced the line that joined his father’s name to his only brother’s equally short branch of the family tree. “Mine. It seems he has been gallivanting around town styling himself as my heir presumptive.”
Remington chose that moment to appear with a tray and placed it on the table between them. Beside the silver coffeepot and two cups in saucers lay the papers Gabriel had brought home, now smoothed and neatly stacked.
“Only one way I know of to prevent it, Ash,” Fox said as he accepted a steaming cup from Remy.
“Oh, and how’s that?”
“Why…marry.” For some time now, Fox had been hinting that a woman of impeccable birth could help restore Gabriel to the bright and airy sociability of the ton after a lifetime spent in the more comfortable darkness of the demimonde. With an expression caught between coaxing and condemnation, he added, “Rumor has it you’ve a way with the ladies.”
This, Gabriel could hardly deny. From somewhere, he mustered a laugh. “With women, old friend,” he amended. “Never ladies.”
Reluctant amusement danced in Fox’s eyes. “Well, I wouldn’t think too much on a bit of bragging at the tables. Julian Finch is little more than a foolish puppy—”
“Once, I would have agreed with you. But the man I saw last night…?” Gabriel shook his head, recalling the note of desperation in his cousin’s voice.
To Gabriel, Stoke Abbey was the most haunted dwelling place in England, a status that had nothing at all to do with the ghosts of long-departed monks and nuns. Since his childhood, he had spent no time there. But he had never truly abandoned it. Did he mean to do so in the end?
Perhaps Fox had the right of it. Perhaps it was time to think less of his past and more of his posterity.
Marriage to a lady of spotless reputation would—well, not repair Gabriel’s standing as a gentleman, for that implied it had some prior existence, but establish it. A proper bride, a place in society, and an heir apparent in due course…his uncle would choke on the news. Ten years ago, it would have been insufficient punishment for all the man had done to him. Now, however, he saw an elegant simplicity in taking such an ordinary form of revenge.
There was only one problem. No decent young woman or her family would willingly form an alliance with him, despite his wealth and title. Fox knew it. And so did his uncle and cousin. In fact, they had obviously been counting on it.
Absently, he laid aside the book and picked up the pile of notes instead. Pausing over one particular piece of paper, he rubbed its edge between thumb and forefinger. Julian was not the only fool who had played too deep last night. “Tell me, Foxy,” Gabriel said after a long moment, “what do you know of the Earl of Merrick?”
“A true gentleman, by
