A bark of sound that might have been meant for a laugh. “Given up the game, have you? Rather too late. The damage has already been done. You saw him tonight. With her. As did every guest in that ballroom.” Every few words, the man paused to draw a shallow, ragged breath. “They were all already imagining the worst.”
Lord Montlake swore.
“I may count on your support, then?” the other man asked.
Hesitation pushed the young viscount back onto his heels.
“Think of it as a vote for the safety of all you hold dear,” he prodded. “Desperate times call for desperate measures.”
“He’s a right villain, but I cannot believe—”
“Let me make it simple.” The other man stepped away from the wall, blocking her view entirely. “If you do not vote to ruin him, I will ruin you.” His erratic breathing made the chilling words more threatening still. “God save the king.”
“God save the king,” Lord Montlake mumbled after a moment.
When the two men had left the room, closing the door behind them, Cami’s breath left her lungs in a rush. She had never caught a glimpse of the second man’s face. She did not know that she ever wanted to.
For as long as she could remember, she had been interested in what went on in Westminster and how it shaped the lives of those who lived so far from it. The Lord Lieutenant and the policies he issued from Dublin Castle. And from outside its walls, the responses, calls first for an independent Irish parliament, then more recently, and more shockingly, for an independent nation. Her father read the papers aloud and encouraged her questions. Paris hoped someday to stand for election. Politics had always seemed to her to be imbued with honor and pride and…yes, a bit of glamor, as she had put it to Mr. Fox. Oh, even ladies heard whispers of backroom deals and shady doings, of course. But she had never observed such things firsthand.
Until now.
Lord Montlake and the unknown man were conspiring to destroy someone. Was the man truly guilty of whatever crime they intended to charge against his character? Or were they determined to ruin him merely because they had the power to do so?
With a shiver, she fumbled in the dark for the latch and pushed open the door, emerging into the study, a masculine room smelling of brandy and leather and books. A sudden longing for home, for Papa and the cozy safety of the family sitting room, struck her like a blow to the belly.
But Merrion Square was a long way off. And she was not charged with protecting some stranger, a man who had frightened Lord Montlake and angered another man to the point of provocation. When she tried to imagine what he had done, her mind conjured Gabriel’s dangerous, cynical smile. I earned the name by blackening reputations and charring hopes. Perhaps the stranger did not deserve protecting. Almost certainly, such a man did not require her protection.
Felicity, however, did.
Briskly, Cami shook off the strange apprehension that had settled over her with the unknown man’s bitter words. No…earlier. With the touch of Gabriel’s hand, the brush of his lips.
In a half dozen strides, she was to the study door, and once a quick check had reassured her that her departure would go unobserved, she slipped through it and into a broad, well-lighted corridor. If she hurried, she could be back to the ballroom before the dance had ended.
Chapter 6
The flower shop hummed with the sounds of buying and selling, the snip of shears and shouted directions. Despite the alarmingly early hour, Gabriel welcomed the noise, first because it meant that he might at last have found a place of business capable of filling his order, and second because, amid the commotion, he could hope to remain relatively anonymous.
“I don’t know what was wrong with the last three shops, Ash,” Fox said, warily eyeing a cactus. “What can you want with all these hothouse blooms? I told you, simple and sweet will be the way to Lady Felicity’s heart. Wildflowers and the like.”
Gabriel nodded, only half attending. When at last it was his turn to place an order, he laid a carefully written note on the counter. The clerk glanced first at it, then at him. “This’ll cost a pretty penny,” he said, looking Gabriel up and down as if deciding whether he could afford the extravagance.
“But you can deliver these items as requested?” Gabriel demanded.
Something about him—his voice, his air, the cut of his coat—must have satisfied the young man, for the clerk nodded crisply. “We’ll have them there yet this morning, sir.”
While he was tallying the order, a rack of bright ribbons caught Gabriel’s eye. “For the nosegay,” he said to the young man, pointing to one.
“Red? Rather a bold choice for the lady in question, Ash.” Fox abandoned his inspection of an odd-looking orchid to peer over Gabriel’s shoulder.
“Coquelicot,” Gabriel corrected. At Fox’s amused expression, he explained, “Named after the poppy. The latest fashion from France.”
“I won’t ask how you come to know such a thing. I’m quite sure I wouldn’t like the answer.”
Gabriel drew a length of the orange-red silk between his fingers; the spool wobbled on the rack as the ribbon unfurled. “It behooves the intrepid explorer to study the habits of the natives, my dear Foxy—to learn their language.”
“The language of ribbons and flowers?” Fox gave a bewildered shake of his head.
“It’s a language I feel certain the lady in question will understand.”
“Well, you know best, Ash.”
No. No, he most certainly did not. He was not, by nature, a risk taker, whatever his opponents at the table persuaded themselves to believe. And he never tipped his hand until he was certain of the outcome of the game. Excitement, apprehension rushed through his veins, unfamiliar and more than a little unwelcome.
Once the order had been placed, Gabriel left the shop with Fox in tow. Oxford Street rippled before them,
