“I will see that she is well taken care of,” Gabriel insisted. “I have a substantial private fortune. I will find a way to arrange a settlement the attainder cannot touch. If the worst comes to pass, she would be left a very wealthy, and I daresay, a very eligible widow—perhaps more eligible even than she is now. After all, pity moves people in ways that prudence does not.” Fox still looked understandably dissatisfied. It was in his nature to protect, as much as it was in Gabriel’s nature to harm whatever he touched. “But if her heart should be broken,” he concluded, forcing a smile, “you have my blessing to swoop in and pick up the pieces, old thing.”
“I do not wish her heart to be broken, Ash,” Fox said, his eyes suddenly cold. “Not even bruised. Lady Felicity deserves better. Her family will demand it.”
He would never deny that she deserved better. But neither her father nor her brother was in a position to demand anything.
Gabriel had for some time suspected that Fox had another champion in mind, however.
“What about you, my friend?” he asked softly, testing. “Do you demand it?”
At his side, Fox’s hand curled into a surprisingly formidable-looking fist. He did not look like a clergyman now. “I do,” he said, with unaccustomed resoluteness.
“Careful, Foxy. A better man might take that as a challenge.” Gabriel had met more than one opponent at dawn, and he suspected Fox well knew the outcome of those encounters, although he had never asked. “Unless, of course, you’ve grown such a patriot you mean to spare His Highness the cost of a bullet.”
Fox’s answering glare forced Gabriel to look away. Gabriel had thought himself fully prepared to make sacrifices to save Stoke from his uncle. Was his friendship with Fox to be one of them?
“You’ve made quite a reputation for yourself, my friend. And I’ve never been one for violence,” Fox said. Slowly, his hand relaxed, though the set of jaw remained hard as granite. “But I think it’s time to remind you that, while I may not be a sportsman, I’m still reckoned a fair shot.”
Gabriel shuddered in sympathy with the heavy oak doors as Fox slammed his way first out of the room, then out of the house.
Out of his life.
Chapter 11
With a sigh of annoyance, Cami rose to shut her window against the lark’s song and discovered it was morning. Midmorning, in fact. The cool air that had crept into her room overnight had left her stiff. The wick of her candle guttered in a pool of wax; she had not realized she was no longer using its light to write by, but rather that of the sun.
As she stretched to ease the tension in her shoulders, she moved toward the washbasin, removed her spectacles, and splashed her face. Her hair still fell in last night’s tangled waves, but after the diligent application of a hairbrush, she soon made quick work of smoothing it into the usual neat, braided coil at the back of her neck. After changing into a fresh dress, she gave a vigorous toss of her head—a desperate attempt to restore her good sense to its rightful place at the forepart of her brain, from wherever it had scattered at the touch of Gabriel’s lips. All night her jumbled thoughts had jostled one another, refusing to arrange themselves into anything like sentences on the page. The sheets of paper littering her worktable—the closing scene of The Wild Irish Rose—were covered in scratches and spatterings of ink, just as if she had repeatedly thrown down her pen in frustration. Which she had. Gabriel—er, Granville was a problem that resisted a solution.
Gathering up the papers she had rendered almost unreadable, she touched them to the still-glowing wick of her candle, which expired with the effort of setting them alight. A breath of air through pursed lips coaxed forth a genuine flame, and when the pages were burning merrily, she tossed them into the empty hearth. She would start fresh after breakfast.
To her surprise, both Lady Merrick and Felicity were in the breakfast parlor. With one hand shading her eyes from the sunlight pouring through an east-facing window, her aunt moaned softly over tea and toast. Felicity leafed idly through her papa’s newspaper.
“Good morning, Cousin.” Felicity did not look up as she spoke.
Cami began to fill a plate from the sideboard. Her night’s labor, though fruitless, had given her an appetite.
“What makes you such a lie-abed this morning, Camellia?” Aunt Merrick rasped out.
She was spared from having to invent a reply when her aunt held out a stack of correspondence, carelessly smearing the corners through the butter. “Do sort this and see what can be avoided. Merrick will return any day and I do not intend to go out of this house until he’s spoken to Lord Ash and made him come to the point. I will not have the Trenton name humiliated.”
Cami laid aside her plate, took the letters, and picked up a knife instead of a fork. A pile of invitations soon rose under her hand. Hostesses eager enough for success to court scandal, sending out cards to Lady Merrick and her daughter in hopes they might also secure the notorious Lord Ash. And failing that, to twitter behind their fans over the unfortunate young woman whose reputation had been sacrificed on the altar of her brother’s debts.
Three-quarters of the way through her task, she came upon a letter, its direction written so poorly that it had been twice misdelivered. It was addressed to her. And the trembling hand that had penned the direction belonged to her sister Erica. With deliberate motions, so as not to draw attention to the letter, Cami broke the seal and unfolded the paper.
The single sheet was not crowded nor crossed, not even full. Just a few lines that listed forlornly across the page. Despite
