“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 familiarity—familiarity that bordered on insolence? Was the marquess still a boy? Or old and infirm?
“Merrick has given him permission to call upon Felicity.” The quirk of her lips might have been pleasure or displeasure. Perhaps a mixture of both. She clearly disapproved of this Lord Ashborough, but not enough to refuse the possibility that her daughter might one day be a marchioness.
“And beggars, it seems, are not to be choosers,” Felicity added sotto voce.
Cami darted her gaze to her cousin, whose cheeks looked unnaturally pink. She was half-persuaded the color must have been put there by the contents of a rouge pot. At those last, quiet words, however, it leeched from Felicity’s cheeks, leaving her pale.
Felicity’s beauty had never failed to earn her admirers. Last year, in her first season, it had even afforded her the power of refusal, as Aunt Merrick often found occasion to remind anyone who would listen. Felicity had been encouraged by her mama to decline two offers under the perfectly reasonable assumption that better ones would be made in future. This spring, however, shadowed by her brother’s looming debts and her consequent loss of dowry, Felicity’s loveliness had seemed in danger of proving an insufficient lure.
But of course, a man might require something other than a fortune from his bride.
“Lord Ash is accompanied by his friend, Mr. Fox. A younger son of the Earl of Wickersham, I’m told.”
Felicity offered a quick nod of confirmation. “And you are never shy around strangers, Cousin Camellia.”
“Felicity suggested your conversation might be a welcome addition to their visit.”
More an order than an offer, and Cami knew better than to refuse, although it meant squandering her precious personal time on pointless chatter. Fighting the temptation to allow her shoulders to sag, she straightened her spectacles instead. “If you wish it, Aunt.”
If she had not known better, she might have suspected her cousin of matchmaking. The younger son of an earl would be quite a catch for a lady’s companion. But Cami had more important things to do than dangle her bait in the water, waiting for some man to snatch at the lure. She would have to rise an hour earlier tomorrow to make up the writing time she lost today.
Before another word could be spoken, Wafford, the butler, tapped at the door. As it swung inward on silent hinges to admit the visitors, Felicity’s blue eyes flooded with dread and her face grew paler still. Instinctively, she reached up to pinch her cheeks and restore the color to them.
With the protective reflexes of an eldest sister, Cami leaned forward and caught her fingers before they could inflict any more damage. When she heard booted steps on the carpet behind her, she gave Felicity’s hand a squeeze of encouragement and rose to leave the chair closest to her cousin for the marquess. Felicity clung to her a moment longer than expected, making Cami stumble. If strong fingers had not caught her elbow, she would have pitched headfirst into her aunt’s lap.
The pug growled out a warning, and Cami jerked upright. The stranger’s touch fell away before she could decide it was unwelcome. A sideways glance gave her an impression of brown hair, brown eyes. Neither a spotted youth nor an octogenarian. Rather, a man her own age, perhaps thirty. One with the sharp, almost cruel features she had come to associate with the English nobility.
She dipped into a hurried, clumsy curtsy. “I thank you, sir—er, Lord Ash,” she corrected, then remembered herself. “Borough.”
The belated addition did not escape his notice. Thin lips curved in what countless women no doubt fancied a warm, amiable smile, though it did not reach his eyes. “I am glad to have been of service, ma’am.” His bow of acknowledgment was perfectly correct, yet somehow it managed to convey something else, something more. Something that made Cami flush in spite of herself.
“Merrick’s niece, Miss Burke.” Annoyance made her aunt’s introduction blunt. “And of course this is my daughter, Lady Felicity Trenton.”
Both gentlemen made their bows of greeting to her cousin while Cami walked stiffly to the farthest chair.
“May I present Mr. Christopher Fox,” Lord Ashborough said.
“Lady Merrick, Lady Felicity,” Mr. Fox said with another bow. “Miss Burke.”
At a nod from her mother, Felicity gestured for Lord Ashborough to take the seat Cami had vacated and attempted to engage him in conversation. Without waiting to be invited, Mr. Fox chose the chair nearest Cami. He was not quite as tall as his friend, with sandy-brown hair and pale eyes.
“It is a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Fox.”
“And you, Miss Burke,” he said, pulling his gaze from Felicity. Although his appreciation of her cousin was as undisguised as any man’s, it was far less practiced; at least, he was well mannered enough not to display disappointment that his lot had fallen to the companion. As a means of assessing a man’s character, it was not much to go on, but Cami decided in his favor nonetheless.
Before she could speak again, however, her thoughts were interrupted by a snippet of the others’ conversation.
“Lady Montlake’s ball?” Her cousin sounded as if the event was quite unfamiliar to her, although Cami recalled having received the card a week or more ago. “I don’t know….”
“Oh? I understood from your father that you planned to attend.”
The merest hint of reproach edged Lord Ashborough’s velvety baritone. Lady Merrick spoke sharply, with a scowl for her daughter. “Of course we do. We will account it a pleasure to see you there, my lord.”
“Ah, wonderful. Then I insist on being allowed to claim a set, Lady Felicity.” Lord Ashborough’s voice dropped lower still, the tone of a lover coaxing a promise.
Felicity swallowed visibly, as if words of refusal had risen in her throat but dared not be spoken. Poor girl. “I—I would be honored, your lordship,” she forced herself to say.
The contrarian in Cami wondered why beggars must be expected to forgo the dignity of choice. And why women were so often required to beg.
“A beautiful day, is it not?” Mr. Fox ventured.
Realizing she had been caught eavesdropping, Cami turned squarely toward him. She had been dragged here for her conversation, so converse she would. And if Aunt Merrick did not like the tenor of her questions, so be it. Someone had to ask them.
“How long have you known Lord Ashborough, Mr. Fox?” She felt uncomfortably aware of the man of whom she spoke, although he had not looked in her direction since she had sat down.
Mr. Fox warmed immediately to her choice of subject. “Oh, always, it seems. We met at school.” The wistful note in his voice called up an image of a boy beloved by all, bestowing the favor of his friendship on the less fortunate. But his next words whisked Cami’s mental picture away. “Ash was so terribly alone. So terribly miserable.” He gave a slow shake of his head. “I had my elder brothers to look after me, and so I—well, I took it upon myself to look after Ash.”
Even with the imagination of an artist, Cami was unequal to the task of envisioning a young Lord Ashborough shunned by his peers and a boyish Mr. Fox as his champion. “Have you sisters
too, Mr. Fox?” she managed to ask. “Or only a surfeit of brothers?”
A wrinkle of uncertainty creased his brow at her turn of phrase, but his gray eyes sparked with good humor. “One sister, Miss Burke. Two brothers. All older than I, all married—and all quite eager to offer their opinions as a consequence. Especially the eldest,” he added, “although my sister Victoria gives him a run for it. And you?”
“Three sisters, Mr. Fox, and two brothers. All younger. And I am quite sure, were they here, they would tell you I am the very model of a managing, opinionated eldest sister,” she added, nudging her spectacles up to the bridge of her nose to underscore the point.
Mr. Fox smiled and glanced toward her cousin. “You are fortunate in Lady Felicity’s company, then, or else you would miss them more than you already must. Are they all still in—in Ireland, then?”
She nodded. Despite her aunt’s repeated…recommendation, she’d made no effort to disguise the telling lilt in her voice. “In Dublin, yes. My father is a solicitor there.” Another detail Lady Merrick would have preferred her to hide; the notion of having a brother-in-law who worked for his living seemed to distress her.
Mr. Fox nodded sagely, no hint of the familiar disdain in his expression. “I think sometimes that my father might have preferred I take up the law. It seems a surer route to public distinction.”
She found herself softening toward the man. She had not fully considered that even an earl’s son might have to train to some profession, if he had not the good fortune to be the eldest. “My brother seems to imagine it has a bit of glamor in it,” she acknowledged with a wry smile. And if it did not, then Paris—who was both too handsome and too clever for his own good—was determined to supply some.
“More so than the Church, certainly.”
The Church? “An honorable profession—provided one has a vocation,” she managed to say, struggling to imagine the circumstances under which this warmhearted, would-be clergyman willingly spent time with the kind of man who imagined a bride could be bought like a side of beef.
“Oh, indeed. I would not enter orders lightly, ma’am. I assure you, I understand the duties of a clergyman. I don’t mind the thought of getting my hands dirty to save a few souls.” Whether consciously or unconsciously, his eyes darted toward his friend. Did that explain the connection between them? Did he imagine Lord Ash had a soul worth saving?
Despite her hesitation about his choice of friends, she believed he was sincere in his calling. “But you are not yet ordained.” One glance at his clothing revealed as much. Not the somber, dark garb of a clergyman, though more subdued than Lord Ash’s expensively embroidered waistcoat.
“No. I have as yet had no cause. I have the promise of my family’s living, of course. But—”
“The incumbent is proving regrettably long lived?” she supplied wryly.
This time, Mr. Fox laughed out loud, undeniably amused by her frank way of speaking. “I suppose one might put it that way, Miss Burke.”
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Lord Ashborough turn toward the sounds of their merriment. “I feel I must warn you, Miss Burke. Fox is unused to such attention. You will have him in love with you before you know it.”
Something unfamiliar and unsettling gleamed in the marquess’ eyes as he leveled his gaze on his friend. Jealousy. He was patently unaccustomed to being anything other than the center of attention.
“I say, Ash, that’s not—” blustered Mr. Fox. His slight frown of disappointment made Cami think of her youngest brother’s expression whenever the older boys had refused to play by the rules of whatever game had been chosen.
But Lord Ashborough ignored him and shifted his attention to her. “Are you enjoying your time in London, Miss Burke?”
He spoke as if she were here on holiday, and although it was not quite as irritating as the strangers who admonished her to be grateful to her aunt for her generosity, she bristled nonetheless.
“But of course she is,” her aunt assured him before Cami could tame her tongue into a suitable reply. “Who in her position would not? She might still be in Ireland!”
Memories flashed across Cami’s mind like tiny, devastating lightning strikes: The letter from Mama’s brother relating the grim news of their father’s death. Papa shooing the younger children from the room. Mama’s angry, tearless sobs. The new Lord Merrick’s hope that the past could now be put behind them. And an unexpected olive branch: a place for one of his nieces should she be willing to come to England.
Impatient to be where literary fame was made and broken, Cami had been quick to accept the offer.
Perhaps too quick.
“Och, aye,” she tossed back in the closest thing to a brogue her furious tongue could manage. “’Tis certain I’d never be after meetin’ an English lord on Grafton Street.”
At the sight of her mother’s disapproving frown, Felicity swallowed her hiccup of laughter. Mr. Fox developed a sudden interest in the pattern of the Turkish carpet beneath his feet.
Only Lord Ashborough met Cami’s gaze. She caught flickers of gold and green in his dark eyes. Hazel. Not brown. And sleepy though they might seem, those eyes missed nothing. His languid smile and penetrating gaze sent a strange little pulse of uncertainty through her chest.
She felt uncomfortably transparent, as if that one glance had uncovered all her secrets.
Not that she had many secrets to hide.
Just the one, really.
Lord Ashborough bowed his head once more, and glints of copper shown in his brown hair as it swept forward to obscure his expression, though not before she caught a glimmer of amusement and, perhaps, approval there. “The pleasure, Miss Burke, is all mine.”
The snap of Lady Merrick’s fan prevented Cami’s reply. Although she could still hear the echo of her foolish words in her burning ears, everyone else seemed determined to behave as if she had not spoken them.
“I wonder whether it will be fine again tomorrow?” Mr. Fox asked conversationally, returning to safer ground, the color in his cheeks the only indication of his dismay at her behavior.
But Cami could not shake the feeling that she had played right into Lord Ashborough’s hand—and that alarmed her. When the others had returned to their conversation, she said, “Mr. Fox, may I ask you a question?”
He shifted slightly in his chair. “A gentleman may never refuse a lady, Miss Burke.”
Although her claim to such a distinction was dubious, she pressed forward. “You said you befriended Lord Ashborough when he was alone and miserable. What had happened to make him so?”
Mr. Fox paled and his darting gray glance took in both Felicity and his friend. “Do you mean to say you do not know?”
She bit her lip and shook her head. “Please, Mr. Fox. If he is not an appropriate acquaintance for my cousin to cultivate, surely you—as a man of God—must see that it’s only fitting to reveal what you know.” The plea was driven by concern—concern mixed with an unaccustomed degree of plain curiosity.
Without denying the truth of her claim, Mr. Fox nonetheless hesitated. “The boys at school gave Ash a wide berth, Miss Burke. Most people still do.” He lifted his chin warningly, but his voice was so low she had to lean forward to hear him. “You see, when he was just ten years old, he killed his father.”
Chapter 2
Gabriel could tell by the expression on Miss Burke’s face just what Fox must have said to her.
He did not blame his friend for revealing that horrible truth about his past. Fox was unfailingly honest, and he would never have had it any other way.
Besides, everyone already knew what he had done.
No, if there was blame to be cast, it ought to fall squarely on Lady Merrick’s shoulders—she who must have known what lay at the root of his ruined reputation and said nothing to warn her niece. Perhaps not even her daughter, though the girl looked noth
ing short of terrified of him.
Then again, Lady Merrick was still quite young. Just past forty, he guessed. Fair and lovely, like her daughter, she herself might have been the object of his attention under different circumstances. She would not have been the first neglected wife with whom he had amused himself during the Season. Perhaps the countess really did not know what he had done. Perhaps the decade or more of scandal surrounding him had at long last created a cloud that obscured his original sin—though nothing could blot it out entirely, to be sure.
Abruptly, he rose from his chair. “You will excuse me, Lady Felicity. Fox and I are in danger of overstaying our welcome. We should go.”
She murmured an obligatory protest that sounded to him more like a sigh of relief. “So soon?”
What in God’s name was he doing here? Was he really the sort of man who destroyed the blush of some innocent blossom for his own base needs?
But of course, the answer was yes. He had been destroying the guiltless since the hour of his birth, after all.
So he smiled into her wide, worried eyes and asked, “If the weather stays fair, Lady Felicity, would you be disposed to join me for a stroll in the park tomorrow at four?”
As was proper, she glanced at her mother. “Felicity will be only too happy to go, my lord,” the countess confirmed. Merrick had assured him that both his wife and daughter would happily accede to his wishes, whatever they were. But then, as if to spite that promise, Lady Merrick added, “Miss Burke will accompany her.” Underscoring his mistress’ lazy-sounding drawl, her pug lifted his head from her lap and yawned until his tongue curled and his mouth stretched in a wide grin.
The very last thing Gabriel needed was a clumsy spinster peering at him disapprovingly over her spectacles while he attempted to win over Lady Felicity. Not that his victory was in doubt. But Merrick had asked him, “as a gentleman,” to take a few days to court the girl before making her an offer, to make her feel as if she were something more than a pawn, as if she had some choice in the matter. The novelty of the request, of the notion that anyone might imagine him to be a gentleman, had caught Gabriel off his guard, and he had assented to Merrick’s request without thinking the matter through.
The Companion's Secret Page 2
