A small noise of pity escaped her throat, but he seemed not to hear it. Certainly, he had made it clear he did not want it.
“I had cut myself off from polite society,” he continued. “The only place I felt at home was at the card table, and when my peers sneered and called me ‘Lord Ash,’ I decided to drag them down to hell with me. Like your Granville, I was ruthless. And I made more enemies along the way. Fortunately Fox was, well, dogged in his affections—he refuses to let my soul go without a fight. He ignored his father’s dictates and dug me out of the pit time and again. But in the end, I found a way to ruin him too.”
“No,” she breathed.
“Oh, yes. He’s more than half in love with Lady Felicity, and I would not be surprised to learn she returns his affections.” He glanced at her. “I would have married her in spite of it.”
And in spite of your feelings for me, she wanted to add, though she was neither brave nor foolish enough to speak the words. She rather feared he might say he would have married her cousin because of them.
“I don’t—I don’t understand,” she said instead. “What made you decide to marry to begin with?”
A faraway look settled in his eyes. “My cousin Julian, my Uncle Finch’s only son, has been raised with the expectation of one day becoming Marquess of Ashborough. I’ve always known it, though for most of my life it had been easy enough to ignore. Then one night, I overheard him gambling against what everyone believed to be his future inheritance.” One hand lifted to gesture at the room, at Stoke. “I realized I couldn’t let my uncle win that bet….” A sharp shake of his head, as if clearing it of the memory. “I decided to spite him. I would take a wife, get an heir on her, and cut him off.”
Her gut churned. How lightly men sported with women’s lives. And one another’s. “What made you choose Felicity?”
He lifted one shoulder in a guilty-looking shrug. “Her brother’s note happened to be at hand. Though she seemed a perfectly pleasant young woman, I felt no particular attraction to her when we met—which was exactly as I’d hoped.” Cami’s surprise must have shown on her face. “As my history would suggest, my…affection can lead to no good end. I did not want a wife for whom I felt…anything,” he explained. “I meant what I said: she would have been perfectly safe from me.”
You, on the other hand…
Even the memory of those words against her lips had the power to send a secret thrill of longing through her. If the attraction between them was dangerous, Cami didn’t want to be safe. Hadn’t been safe for some time.
“What happened to change your plans?” she asked.
“Uncle Finch was not willing to concede defeat. Some weeks back, I made the mistake of trying to help a young Frenchwoman.” A bitter laugh barked from his lungs. Vaguely, she recalled the gossip column’s quip about the Frogs he had been said to kiss. “He learned of it and spun yet another tale. Now she’s in the Tower, suspected of involvement in the assassination attempt on the king—wrongly, I might add. And I am very shortly to be accused of treason as her associate.”
She popped to her feet, and his coat slithered off her shoulders and onto the chair. Unable to contain herself any longer, she took two unsteady steps toward him. “But—that’s—that’s preposterous. Treason? Why—why on earth did you leave London? Why not stay and fight? Did you come here thinking to—to—?” A horrible suspicion had begun to form in her mind.
“To take my father’s way out?” He looked up at her with another grim smile. “You needn’t worry. I haven’t his courage.”
Warily, she moved closer to him, as one would approach an injured animal. When he did not object, she perched on the edge of the cushion in the narrow space between the rolled arm of the sofa and his body, not touching him. Just there. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, watching the flames lick along a stout log. “Sorry for what you suffered as a child. And for being the cause of your having to relive it tonight. But what you’ve told me only increases my certainty: Your uncle must be stopped. You must go back. You must defend yourself.”
“Lord Ash has done too many indefensible things.”
“Lord Ash? Are you speaking of the same man who tried to help a poor émigré? Who spared Felicity’s feelings? Who kept her brother from debtors’ prison? And all of it to their benefit, not your own. You’re not a villain, Gabriel.” Two hot tears rolled down her cheeks, but she did not try to check them, not wanting to draw his attention. “Oh, I thought myself so clever when I began Mr. Dawkins’s revisions. I n-never th-thought…” The tears came thicker, faster, clouding her spectacles.
Suddenly, she felt his hands on her shoulders, gently turning her to face him. His face too was streaked with tears. Carefully, he unhooked her spectacles from behind her ears and set them on the table beside the sofa. Then he wrapped his arms around her, and she laid her cheek against his chest, as she had done that day in the carriage. Her fingertips played in the knot of his cravat, stirring up the warm scent of his cologne, and she nestled closer to draw it in, draw him in.
They fit together, two sharp edges locked tight and smooth, and she knew then that she would fight his demons
