Page 18 of The Companion’s Secret

Unwilling to let her go, however, he lifted his chin and said, “My father had me christened Gabriel. Perhaps you think that better suits?”

He could feel her eyes on him, accepting his invitation to study his profile. “I—I cannot say, my lord.”

“‘My lord’? Come now, Camellia. We are to be cousins, after all, are we not?” Ridiculous, really, how he longed to hear his name on her lips. It was courting an intimacy on which he dared not act.

“I—” The catch in her voice tugged his chin back into its proper place, and he lowered his gaze to hers. She did not blush at having been caught in her inspection of his face. He could almost fancy she liked what she saw. “I believe an angel’s name is entirely fitting, my lord.”

“Oh?” More breath than speech. He cursed the hopefulness in the sound.

“Of course. After all, even the devil was an angel once.”

Damn her. Even hardened gamblers did not trick him into letting down his guard. A familiar wave of cynicism swept over him like a domino at a masquerade, hiding what he never meant to reveal, curling the corners of his lips. “I see. By all means, call me Ash, then. All the best people do.”

A rather schoolmarmish grimace quirked her lips. “What nonsense, my lord. I most certainly will not resort to spiteful nicknames.” There was an odd sort of reassurance in her refusal. “I simply meant that even the worst of men were innocent children once, and deserving of compassion, not mockery.” Her restive fingertips plucked up a wrinkle in the tablecloth, then smoothed it away. “Which reminds me. The other day, in the park, you stepped away before I could—that is, I wished to say…”

His heart knocked against his breastbone, urging him to stop her from speaking her piece. But how foolish. Words had long ago lost the power to wound him. Why should her words, spoken with that soft Irish lilt, somehow be different?

At least she seemed to be choosing them with care. “On the matter of your late father, may I—?” A pause. “May I offer my condolences?”

Condolences? Had anyone ever thought to offer him any such thing? He dipped his head to hide his confusion and spied her hand still lying along the edge of the table. Covering it with his own, he squeezed and murmured, “Thank you.”

Then, an impulse—he could not call it gallantry—prompted him to lift those ink-stained fingers to his mouth, to brush his lips across the rough ridge that ran along the side of her middle finger, a callus worn by a firm and regular grip on a pen.

“Ash!”

Fox’s voice cut through the swelling hum. Against the stream of guests beginning to file from the supper room, he was bearing down on them, Lady Felicity on his arm. Quickly, Gabriel rose to his feet, drawing Camellia up with him.

“Why are you hiding in this corner, Ash? We’d begun to think you’d got quite away.”

Camellia’s fingers twitched again. Suddenly aware he was still gripping her hand, he released his hold and stepped toward his friend. “Nonsense, Foxy. You can’t have looked very hard. And Lady Felicity has promised me the next dance,” he added, holding out his arm to her. “What could possibly drag me away?”

Felicity promptly let go Fox’s arm and took Gabriel’s instead. He did not fool himself into thinking she took pleasure in bestowing her attention on him. But neither did she resist.

Her complaisance was to be expected, given his hold over her family. Having recently been reminded of the delights of the unexpected, however, he found himself wondering whether they might not get on better if she’d slapped his face and told him to take a swim in the Thames instead. Then again, he knew better than to wish for some sort of grand passion to flare between him and his soon-to-be bride.

“Shall we join them in a turn about the ballroom, Miss Burke?” Fox asked, offering his arm to Camellia.

A bright spark of jealousy crackled through Gabriel once more, like the glow at the end of a cheroot being smoked in the dark. This time, however, he could not step between them without cutting the woman who was meant to be his intended.

Out of the corner of his eye, he caught the sharp movement of Camellia’s dark head. “I’m afraid you must excuse me, Mr. Fox. Another time, perhaps?”

Relief coursed through him, followed quickly by remorse. Good God, did he lack the decency to set aside his own decidedly illicit interests in favor of even the momentary happiness of the most honorable man he knew?

But Camellia was already gone, murmuring something about the ladies’ retiring room to her cousin as she passed, not sparing any of them a backward glance.

* * * *

Thwarted by the crush, Cami ducked through one of the disguised doors at the back of the room, those through which servants discreetly came and went. The narrow passageway behind was unlit and, for the moment, empty. She had no notion of where it might lead. But she kept walking, hurrying away from what she had just done. It had been one thing to divert the marquess from Felicity for an hour, another thing entirely to discover herself the sole focus of his attentions.

To discover those attentions were not entirely unwelcome.

When she could bear the heat of his gaze, the intimate murmur of his deep voice, no longer, she had tried to turn the tables. She had not set out to be cruel. It was only a silly game she sometimes played with herself, saying the most outrageous, unexpected things, merely to observe the response they produced—a sort of study in human nature. A way to understand how characters ought to act and react. She had prompted him to recall his boyhood, then offered unexpected words of consolation, thinking to see…guilt? Or anger?

Something, anything other than the raw grief that had streaked across his face, making her feel as if, with the crack of one whiplike sentence, she had flayed the tough hide from his heart. A heart everyone—even the man himself—seemed persuaded he did not have.

At the end of the dark corridor, a dim rectangle of light suggested a doorway, promised an escape. When she reached it, however, she paused to choose: go through it into the unknown, or turn around? Her hand trembled as she reached for the handle. The soft glow of unseen candles in the room beyond limned her hand, the ink-stained fingertips he had kissed in…in gratitude? As if he believed she understood, as if he imagined she cared.

Oh, God. That was the worst of it—the suspicion he might be right.