“Will you be joining us tomorrow, Mr. Fox?” she asked, not meeting Gabriel’s eye.
“If you wish it, ma’am.”
“My wishes are never consulted on such matters,” she replied with a shake of her head. Heavy raven locks threatened to spill from the pins that only just managed to contain them. With her black hair and bright eyes, she was really quite striking, albeit in a thoroughly un-English way.
“Perhaps they should be,” Gabriel said. As he reached for his hat, his gloved fingertips brushed her bare ones where they held the brim. Lady Felicity would have flinched at the contact. Miss Burke did not.
With a tip of his head, Gabriel turned to accompany Fox out the door. On the threshold he glanced over his shoulder, but Miss Burke’s gaze had not followed them. She was speaking quietly to a footman, who handed over some piece of correspondence—not on a tray, as would have been proper, but surreptitiously, as if the note contained something she would not want others to see.
“Lady Felicity does not disappoint, I trust?” Fox asked when they reached the bottom of the steps.
“She is precisely what I expected her to be.”
A perfect specimen of English womanhood. Replete with china doll charms—golden ringlets, rather vacant blue eyes. And young. Very young. She would be biddable, he had been assured. A virtuous Sophie to his jaded, world-weary Emile.
But young, biddable ladies had never been Gabriel’s style.
“You, on the other hand, must have thoroughly shocked her,” Fox scolded. “I must say, your society manners could use a bit of polish. Your behavior toward her cousin, for instance. Why, one supposes Miss Burke is little more than a poor relation.”
A poor relation. Overlooked, in other words. Disregarded.
Vulnerable.
“Her position in the household no doubt entirely dependent upon her aunt’s sufferance.” Fox’s rebuke was gaining momentum. “And you all but called her a flirt—!”
Gabriel lifted one brow, assessing the tone as much as the words themselves. It was in Fox’s nature to play the knight to a damsel in distress. But if her conduct in the drawing room was any guide, Miss Burke seemed to have more in common with the dragon in that tale. So was Fox defending her, or himself?
Although his behavior could hardly be described as flirtatious, the simple fact remained that Fox usually tended toward a rather wooden demeanor around young women. Not, of course, that Miss Burke was precisely young.
“You will walk with us tomorrow, I hope?” Gabriel asked, echoing her invitation. “The lady in question seemed to desire it.” He needed a way to distract and divert Miss Burke. Fox would do admirably. When he did not immediately reply, Gabriel pushed further. “What say you, Foxy? Shall you court the dark Irish cousin whilst I woo the fair English one?”
Fox blushed—blushed!—and shook his head. “Miss Burke is rather too sharp for a dull fellow such as myself.” He walked a few steps, then added, without a hint of slyness, “I should think her more suited to someone like you.”
An hour past, Gabriel would have laughed and said that a woman of a certain age who hid behind frumpy dresses and wire-rimmed spectacles was beneath his notice. But he could hardly deny that she had caught his attention. In his mind’s eye, he saw Merrick’s footman slipping that illicit piece of correspondence into her hands.
What else was she trying to hide?
Fox made a show of digging his watch from his waistcoat and starting in surprise at the information revealed on its face. “Goodness, look at the time. I must get home and change. I’m for Victoria’s tonight.”
So Fox hoped to avoid further discussion of what had just transpired? His reluctance suited Gabriel just fine. “Ah, another of Lady Dalrymple’s interminable dinner parties,” he drawled. “Do thank her for sparing me an invitation.”
It was a joke, of course. No one ever invited Gabriel anywhere.
With a rather guilty nod, Fox took his leave. Gabriel watched him walk in the direction of South Audley Street, though his mind was still elsewhere.
One encounter with Miss Burke’s sharp green eyes and even sharper Irish tongue had shown him a glimpse of a worthy adversary, and worthy adversaries were in short supply these days. He had grown rather weary of besting unworthy ones.
At this very moment, she was probably cautioning her cousin against him, relaying what Fox had confessed, making his life difficult. But every opponent he had ever faced had a weakness, and tomorrow’s walk in the park would give him a chance to learn hers.
He would find a way to reveal the companion’s secret and turn it to his advantage.
* * * *
“You asked me to keep an eye on the post, miss.” Curiosity was etched into the second footman’s face.
“Thank you, Tom.” Cami had given him almost the last coin in her purse to keep him from revealing what he knew, but now she wondered if keeping her secret would prove too much for him at last. She reached for the letter he was holding, hoping her fingers would not tremble and betray her nervousness. As she touched the pressed paper, she saw the red seal but refused to glance at the direction for fear she would see a hand she knew—Papa’s, or perhaps her sister’s.
The young footman nodded his acknowledgment and returned to his post, but not before offering a cautious smile and words of encouragement. “Good luck, miss.”
Not trusting her voice, Cami smiled weakly back, then hurried up the stairs to her bedchamber, clutching the letter against her breast.
Her name had not been written by a familiar hand. And she could tell from the postmark that the letter had been mailed within the city. She knew very well who must have sent it and the inevitable rejection it must contain. Still, she hesitated to open it, staring at the letter on her palm as if
