Page 39 of The Companion’s Secret

“For your sake? Or for hers?” he asked gruffly. Noble, unselfish acts were quite out of character for him. She ought not to begin to expect them.

“For your own.”

Shock coursed through him. Surely, he had misheard. “I have not the pleasure of understanding you, Lady Felicity.”

Her wry laugh revealed perfect, even teeth. “People say you are a legend at the tables, Lord Ashborough, but I cannot credit it. Surely such success as you are reputed to enjoy would require some little skill at bluffing.”

All this time, he had been thinking of Felicity as very like her mother. And she was, in looks. But she had not inherited her mother’s foolishness and laziness. Those qualities had all gone to her brother, it seemed.

“Your interest in her has not escaped my notice,” she continued with a rather sly smile. “Nor has her fascination with you.”

He could not very well deny the truth of her words. But this was an attraction that must be discouraged, not encouraged. He shook his head to signify the impossibility of it all. “It matters not,” he said. This was not why he had come. He did not need to be tempted to hunt down Camellia and finish what they’d started. And this was the worst possible moment for him to think of leaving London. Such a journey could come to no good end, for any of them, not even Felicity. “You ought to think of your own reputation. Do you not share your mother’s concern?” he asked.

“My mother exaggerates. No one would dare to suggest you had reneged on an offer.”

Might she be right? People often marveled at his ability to predict the fall of the cards. But only one or two had been foolish enough to accuse him of being a cheat.

“It will simply look as if I would not have you,” she continued.

He almost smiled. “Doubtless Society will account you wise.”

Especially once the talk of attainder was more generally known.

Felicity looked at him for a long moment without speaking. She gave every impression of waiting patiently for his decision. But her blue eyes were fathomless pools, and he was an unsuspecting sailor being lured to his death by a siren. He began to understand how Fox had wound up so hopelessly besotted with the girl.

“Ring for a footman,” he ordered. A plan had begun to form in his mind, a chance for a few more stolen moments with Camellia, and it was just mad enough to work. Felicity moved with alacrity to the bellpull, and a young man in livery appeared in the doorway. “Go to Finch House, in Grosvenor Square,” Gabriel said to him, “and tell them Lord Ashborough requires a traveling coach, horses, and a driver as soon as possible.” Would the fine carriages that had once filled the mews there all have succumbed to mice and damp? The footman bowed sharply and was gone. “And you.” He turned to Felicity as he spoke. “Fetch me pen and paper.” At the very least, he knew how she might be spared.

When she had returned with the requested items and left again, he cleared a space at the table and sat down to write, less a letter than legal document. He took care to observe the forms, to leave no loose ends, to press his seal firmly and clearly into the wax so that there could be no doubt of its legitimacy.

Afterward, he dashed off a heartfelt note to Christopher Fox. When it was finished, he sealed it and wrote his friend’s name on the outside, along with specific conditions for its delivery, intending to leave it in his rooms in St. James’s.

“Your coach is here.” Felicity had returned to stand just inside the threshold.

Quickly, before he could think better of it, he extended the first document to her. “This, I hope, will allay your concerns, and those of your family, about the matter of your brother’s…situation.” It erased Lord Trenton’s debts under conditions Gabriel hoped all parties would find favorable—a gamble, he knew. The last he might ever make, since it could easily lead to his ruin. Merrick would no longer be under any obligation to him. Who would be left to plead on his behalf?

She read through its contents and looked up at him with those wide eyes. “I know it is more typically the fashion for a lady to express gratitude upon receipt of a proposal, rather than upon its withdrawal. Nevertheless, I thank you, my lord,” she whispered. “I do not think we would have suited.”

Which had, of course, very nearly been the point. He mustered a laugh. “There’s quite enough misery in the world to be going on with. No need to add yours to the mix.”

“Cousin Camellia did try to tell me it would not be miserable to be your wife.”

“Did she?” The lurch of his heart against his rib cage was almost painful.

“I shall put this letter into Papa’s hand myself.” Felicity had folded the parchment and was tracing one edge with her fingertip.

He had a sudden vision of what she might endure from her mother when he left. “He is expected soon, you said?”

“Perhaps even today,” she reassured him in a voice that was steady, strong. “Now, come.”

The street before Trenton House was nearly filled by an old-fashioned four-in-hand coach, an ancient, heavy thing that looked to be on the verge of collapse. No one who saw it on the road would imagine its occupant a wealthy nobleman.

It was perfectly suited to the reckless journey he was about to undertake.

“She has not been gone an hour,” Felicity said. “Surely you will be able to catch her?”

“With a little luck.” He eyed the coach dubiously. “In which, let me hasten to add, I do not believe.”

“You don’t need luck, my lord.” To his surprise, she laid one hand on his shoulder and stretched up to brush his cheek with her lips. “You need love.”