Page 5 of The Companion’s Secret

“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