“Whereas you have known a great many, I suppose.” The words popped from her mouth before she thought how they would sound. All those months in Aunt Merrick’s reproving company and she still had not learned to restrain her tongue.
He did not laugh, as she had half expected, though there was amusement in his eyes as his gaze flickered over her. “Perhaps I only thought I knew them.” Before she could revel in her satisfaction at this admission, however, he spoke again. “It is tempting, is it not, to presume greater knowledge of another than we can possibly have, even after intimate study?”
It might have been an allusion to his own behavior of last night. But she felt certain it was intended to be a reprimand of the use she’d made of him in her book.
Why on earth should she be expected to feel remorse for what she had done? He himself had said that everyone knew the extent of his villainy.
Still, she wondered what he would say when he heard the rest of Róisín’s tale.
While she poked at the contents of her bowl, Gabriel finished his stew, even wiping the bowl with a bit of bread, then drained his mug of ale. “Order something else, if you’d like. I’m going to stretch my legs.”
She could think of several perfectly rational reasons to stay put. For one thing, as he’d pointed out, she hadn’t finished eating—or even started, really. And her ankle was tender, though admittedly not so badly injured that a little exercise would harm it. Most of all, she sensed that he wanted time alone.
Hesitating only a moment, she swallowed the dregs of her now tepid tea, picked up a thick slab of the crusty bread and a piece of cheese, and went after him.
She caught up with him just outside the door. Wordlessly, he held out his arm to her, and she took it. Walking slowly, almost certainly for her benefit, he set out in the direction of a tumbling-down pile of stones in the distance that passed for a picturesque ruin, the village’s sole attraction to travelers. When they drew within a hundred yards of it, he stopped. “Any closer and the effect will be spoiled entirely.”
Already they were close enough to see that the dilapidated structure was too small ever to have been a castle or a church. A byre, more likely. A few sheep wandered among the rocks, nibbling at the weeds.
Cami seated herself on the stile and finished her bread and cheese, while Gabriel stood nearby. The peace and quiet here was nothing like the bustle of London. Not even Dublin. It unsettled her, reminded her that she was meant to be racing home to avert a disaster.
Though he was staring into the distance, Gabriel seemed to read her thoughts. “What do you expect to find when you get to Ireland?”
“I cannot say. My brother Paris may be involved in—well, what he does is entirely his own choosing, of course. The real worry is that he may have involved my brother Galen in something—something—”
“Something dangerous,” he finished as he came to sit down beside her. “Your cousin feared that it might have to do with the United Irishmen.”
Cami felt her eyes flare and knew her surprised expression was as good as a confession, but she could not stop herself. The United Irishmen had been driven underground years before. The very name was forbidden to be spoken by its members. If Felicity could guess as much, though, how secret could their plots be? How long before her brothers were caught up in one of them?
“Yes.” The whispered word was soon lost among the wind rustling through the grasses and the plaintive notes of a ewe bleating to her lambs.
“I see.” He looked grave. And very, very English. Good God, he was an aristocrat, a member of the House of Lords. As far as the British government was concerned, the United Irishmen—her brothers—were traitors and criminals. Why on earth had she trusted him with that admission?
Probably because last night she had trusted him with everything else.
“Cathal and Fergus are really Paris and Galen, are they not?” he went on. “With their love of country and eloquent pride in its history…” As he spoke, he took her hands in his, and she realized she must have left her gloves lying on the table in the inn. “Along with an utter inability to see how their sister’s gift could save it. And you are the wild Irish rose herself…though I do not think you play the harp.” When he lifted her fingers as if to inspect them for the telltale calluses the instrument’s strings would produce, he found only ink stains, of course. His thumb brushed across them, but this time, he did not lift them to his lips.
Disappointment tickled in the back of her throat like tears.
Abruptly, she freed her hands from his and rose. “There’s a bit of myself in all of my characters, I suppose,” she said, brushing the crumbs from her skirt.
“Surely only the virtuous ones.”
She flinched at the sardonic edge to his voice. For just a moment, she had forgotten.
He had risen when she did, but he let her walk away without offering his assistance, for which she felt grateful. She suddenly understood his desire to be alone.
All the walking seemed to have done her some good; she could move now with very little difficulty. Always before, though, exercise had also helped to clear her head. Perhaps she had expected too much this time. She had never let her thoughts get into such a muddle before.
She felt confused. Lost.
Somewhere along this winding road from Dublin to London and back again—on
