Gabriel accepted the book but did not look at the page Fox indicated. “As it happens, I’m somewhat acquainted with Merrick’s…situation. Substantial properties in Wales and Northumberland, in addition to the Derbyshire estate. All entailed. One son, Lord Trenton, who was sent down from Cambridge last autumn and has since run up debts all over town.”
“Some of them to you, my lord,” Remington interjected as he poured Gabriel’s coffee. “If all those little scraps of paper you bring home are to be believed.”
Gabriel raised his eyes to his servant. “Collect the rest for me, will you, Remy?” Once more he handed over the bundle of papers, this time in exchange for the cup.
“You want a tally of the young man’s debts?” Remington asked, not a trace of surprise in his voice.
Of indeterminate age and uncertain origins, Arthur Remington was not the typical gentleman’s gentleman. Gabriel had a vague notion that Remy had spent some time in the army, for he could spit-polish boots to a mirror shine but had no patience for the intricacies of a well-tied cravat. Whatever his history, it had supplied the man with a host of far more useful skills, one of which was the ability to wrest information from even the most unwilling.
“Not a tally,” Gabriel said. “The debts themselves.” In a matter of days, Merrick’s son—why, the earl himself—would be his to command.
One grizzled eyebrow arched, but the man gave a crisp bow. “Yes, sir.”
“Merrick also has a daughter, has he not?” Gabriel asked almost before Remington had shut the door behind him.
“Er…ye-es.” Hesitation rippled Fox’s voice. “Pretty girl. Had her come-out last spring. Expected to make a brilliant match, until—”
“Until her brother gambled away her dowry,” Gabriel finished for him.
Fox eyed him uncertainly. “What are you about, Ash?”
One last gamble. “Were you not just suggesting I marry? I’m arranging a…well, let us call it an introduction to Lady Felicity Trenton.”
Fox’s brows dove downward, shadowing his eyes. “Surely even you are aware there are more conventional ways to meet proper young ladies.”
As a general rule, Gabriel cared very little for either convention or proper young ladies. Sometimes, however, a tiger might be forced to change his stripes. “In the face of certain social realities, a man must on occasion resort to cleverness to get what he wants…er, needs.” The Earl of Merrick was a respected member of the peerage. So respected that, had his son not driven the family to the brink of ruin, he would never have permitted Gabriel even to speak his daughter’s name. “When Merrick learns I hold all his son’s debts,” Gabriel said, “he will be glad enough to accept whatever terms of repayment I offer.”
“And Lady Felicity’s hand is to be your price.” Fox chewed each word and, by his sour expression, apparently found them difficult to digest.
Closing the guide with a snap, Gabriel traced the deckled edges of the paper with the tips of his fingers, as if neatening a stack of playing cards, a gesture his adversaries at the table had come to recognize as the sign that their loss was about to become Lord Ash’s gain.
“For the price I’m paying, I’ll expect rather more than her hand.”
Those words were met with a scowl of disapproval. “I can only pray that Lady Felicity will discover you’ve the heart of a gentleman after all.”
Gabriel, who possessed no such organ, doubted it.
Fox was right about one thing, though. Lady Felicity Trenton was probably a fresh-faced innocent, a sacrificial lamb to be led quite literally to the altar. Hell, he was counting on it.
A wiser woman would not have him.
* * * *
Although there had been no knock of warning, Camellia Burke managed to slide her papers beneath her blotter as the door to her bedchamber swung open, the protest of one squeaky hinge alerting her to an intruder. And to think she had imagined that a position as her aunt’s companion would afford her more privacy than she’d had at home with her family in Dublin.
“Oh, there you are, miss,” exclaimed Betsy, the upstairs maid, sounding relieved to have found her, although Cami could not imagine where else the girl might have looked. “Her ladyship wants you in the drawing room right away.”
“The drawing room?” She paused in the act of cleaning her pen. “Did she say why?” The Countess of Merrick was at home to callers today, a circumstance which generally earned Cami a reprieve from her duties.
“No, miss. But whatever it is, it’s got her ladyship out of sorts. Won’t you come, miss?” Betsy urged.
Cami corked her ink bottle before rising from her chair and following the maid through the door. Aunt Merrick had proved surprisingly generous with writing supplies, but one could never be too careful.
In the drawing room, Lady Merrick sat in the middle of a brocade settee, flanked on one side by her fat pug and on the other by her daughter, Felicity.
“Camellia. At last,” Lady Merrick murmured reprovingly. She did not like to be kept waiting. Felicity gave a welcoming, if nervous, smile.
Cami approached, curtsied, and, at her aunt’s nod of acknowledgment, perched on the edge of one of the elegantly uncomfortable chairs facing her.
“We have a visitor.”
A caller hardly seemed cause for consternation, and no cause at all for summoning Cami. Unless… “Someone of my acquaintance, ma’am?”
Aunt Merrick pressed her lips together and shook her head. “No. A gentleman. Of sorts.” The dog lifted his head from her lap and studied his mistress, as if his curiosity too had been piqued. “Lord Ash—that is, the Marquess of Ashborough.”
Lord Ash? Her aunt was a notorious stickler for rank. What could be the cause of this unaccustomed
