AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Gabe shook his head. “He never said, and I didn’t ask. I got the feeling he didn’t want to discuss it.”
Chase heaved a sigh. “His parents, his older brother were all murdered by highwaymen. And then a few months later his sister, his belovedyoungersister who’d been here with Weybourne at the time was plucked off the streets of Covent Garden. Raped. Disfigured.” He winced at the retelling. “She threw herself from the roof to the courtyard in her despair.”
“Oh, good God!” Gabe breathed out. It was no wonder Christian didn’t want to discuss the situation. He had adored his little sister.
Chase agreed with a nod. “All those years, fighting for King and Country only to return home to find everyone he loved had been taken from him, that the criminal elementhereat home had taken them all.” He heaved a sigh. “And I can’t even blame him, Gabe. I’m not certain I could master the art of dagger throwing as he has done, but if something similar ever happened to Sophie, Charlotte or Cassie, I’d probably be right there alongside him.”
Raped and disfigured. Gabe didn’t want to think about such a horrific thing happening to any woman, and certainly not to Sophie or one of her sisters. He downed another swallow of his whisky.
“Greywoodiscourting her,” Chase muttered. “I heard you earlier. I just didn’t know how to answer you.”
The burn of the whisky down Gabe’s throat made him cough, and he somehow managed not to spill the rest upon himself. Or perhaps it wasn’t the whisky. Perhaps it was simply hearing his suspicions in regard to Greywood spoken aloud. “He’s a decent fellow. She could do worse.”
“You’re not worse.”
Except he was worse, even if his friend was unaware of that fact. Gabe cast Chase a self-deprecating smile. “I’m not better. And I’m certain Beckbury has no complaints about Greywood.”
“She was fifteen at the time.”
“And I was eighteen, but your uncle’s objections had nothing to do with our ages.” Gabe had been a young man, headed to the front lines, and the spare to a nearly insolvent earldom. And then there was the matter of his lineage... There was not one thing about him that the esteemed Viscount Beckbury had thought worthy of his favorite daughter’s future. “And everything to do with the entirety of my person.”
“My uncle can be a bastard.”
“That doesn’t mean he was wrong.” After all, what man would want his daughter married to a fellow who could not provide for her care? Love would not put dinner on the table or shelter over their heads. “We were young and stupid.”
“And now you’re just stupid?” his friend teased.
A laugh Gabe didn’t feel escaped him. “It seems that’s still true.”
Chase sat a little straighter on the settee. “Everything else has changed, though, Gabe. As unlikely as it was at the time, youwillbe Earl of Northwold someday. My uncle may not be as harsh in his dismissal of you as he once was.”
Heir presumptive to a nearly insolvent earldom was not much better than being the spare to same. But his lineage would never change, not that he’d divulged that bit to Chase or anyone else. “She has Greywood. And I have Clayton.” He hadn’t, after all, returned to England for Sophie. He’d returned to help care for his brother and make the decisions Clayton could not any longer. Besides, he had no more to offer Sophie now than he had when he was eighteen. Sophie still deserved better.
“I’m simply—”
But whatever Chase meant to say was cut short when the front door of Weybourne House flew open and a grunted, “Goddamn it,” filtered into the parlor.
Christian!
Gabe and Chase both bolted toward the foyer to find Christian, all dressed in black, and holding his right arm with his left.
“What the devil?” Gabe breathed out.
But Christian pinned Chase with a tortured expression. “Gather Watts for me, will you?” he bit out between clenched teeth.
“The doctor should just take up a damned room here,” Chase muttered as he started for the front door. Then he tossed back over his shoulder, “Keep it elevated, whatever it is, Christian, to keep the blood loss at a minimum.”
Christian stumbled toward the staircase, and Gabe trailed after him.
“What can I do to help?” he called to his friend.
“Pour some water in my basin and gather some cloth. Hendrix keeps a supply in the drawer under the basin. Watts will want the wound clean when he gets here.”
All things considered, Christian was very calm about the entire situation. Of course, he’d probably been bandaged up countless times since he’d taken up this mantle. Such were the perils of living life as the Covent Guard.
CHAPTER 5
Sophie frowned at her youngest sister across the breakfast table from her. “Then Charlotte and I will go without you, if you’re so weak in constitution, Cassie.”
