The Companion's Secret. Susanna Craig

what the calendar claims.” She drew her shawl more tightly around her shoulders and touched her handkerchief to her reddened nose. “I appreciate your reluctance to leave me, in my condition, but you needn’t feel guilty. King will attend to me in your place tonight. The matter is settled,” she said, her tone brooking no argument. “You will go with your cousin.”

      As if to underscore the command, rain spattered the window of the parlor where Cami sat with her aunt each morning, reading the bad novels and writing the inane letters against which her father had warned her. Cami shivered.

      “Surely you must have something to wear,” her aunt insisted hoarsely. “Ring the bell. King will assist you.” Cami could not help but imagine how the lady’s maid would sneer at her meager wardrobe. “It needn’t be a ball gown. It’s unlikely anyone will ask you to dance, after all.”

      Though they should not, the words stung. It was not as if Cami had never attracted the notice of a gentleman.

      She shook her head in agreement with her aunt’s words, but her hesitation had not gone unnoticed. Lady Merrick tipped her chin to the side, studying Cami’s face, her ringed fingers hovering in midair above her dog. “Do you wish to dance, Camellia?”

      With a growl of impatience, Chien stretched to nudge his mistress’ hand. Cami jumped. “No, ma’am.”

      At seventeen, she had been foolish enough to long for a man’s attention, his approval. Now, however, ten years later, she knew better. Gentlemen’s notice led to courtship, courtship to marriage, and marriage to children and the loss of privacy and…well, a host of other things detrimental to the production of art.

      Aunt Merrick looked unconvinced. “You may dance, certainly—when Felicity is suitably partnered. Perhaps Mr. Fox will attend with Lord Ash. He would be an excellent match for you, my dear. Although,” she added with something like sincerity as her hand resumed stroking the dog, “I should of course be devastated to lose your companionship.”

      Cami bowed her head to acknowledge the reluctant compliment. Mr. Fox was a kind and decent gentleman whose friendship she would be glad to cultivate. But further than that, she would not go. And she would not serve as her aunt’s companion forever, regardless.

      “I envy you the chance to watch Felicity partner with Lord Ash,” her aunt observed as Cami walked to the bell. “One rarely sees such good looks and grace combined.”

      Cami’s fingertips twitched involuntarily at the memory of the strength that had flowed through Lord Ashborough’s arm. The elegant economy of his every movement. His smooth, confident stride, fitted perfectly to her own.

      Her aunt was correct. In the ballroom, at least, he would be a partner to envy.

      But in all other respects? Well, marriage was hardly a country dance. If it were, a lady might at least be granted the power of refusal.

      * * * *

      “I must admit I was surprised you received an invitation for tonight’s ball,” Fox said, shaking the rain from his hat as he stepped into Gabriel’s marble-tiled foyer.

      “I haven’t.”

      “No invitation! Then just how do you expect to get in?”

      “Like as not he means to wait until the receiving line has ended and the majordomo has left his post, then brazen his way past some poor, unsuspecting footman,” Remy muttered as he held out Gabriel’s opera cloak.

      “Your concern for your fellow soldiers in domestic service is admirable, Remy,” he said as he lifted the dark garment from his manservant’s outstretched hands. “But do not worry. No footman’s career will be cut short by my doings tonight.”

      Remy cast a chary glance over Gabriel before accepting the words as dismissal. “I’ll just hail a cab, shall I, my lord?”

      Gabriel suspected the man’s uncharacteristically sullen demeanor was the result of being required to partner his employer through the intricate steps of the cotillion for half the afternoon. But practice had been an absolute necessity. Gabriel hadn’t set foot in a Mayfair ballroom in…well, in forever.

      “But how do you mean to manage it?” Fox asked. “When it comes to defending the citadel of polite society, Lady Montlake is a veritable dragon.”

      “And you find me ill suited to play St. George?”

      Fox’s expression was something between a laugh and a frown as he settled his hat on his head again. “Oh, your tongue is sharp enough for battle, I’ll wager, but what of your sword?”

      “I assure you my blade is kept in constant readiness,” Gabriel replied with a twitch of his lips.

      “For God’s sake, Ash!” Fox snapped as Remy snorted with laughter and suggestively thrust the battered black umbrella through the door ahead of him. “If rumors are to be believed, half this town is well acquainted with your…blade.”

      “The female half, I hope?” Gabriel winked and stepped past his friend, out the door.

      Remington awaited them on the top step beneath the umbrella, while the cab stood in the street below. “It’s down to you to keep his nose clean, lad,” the man said, handing the umbrella to Fox. “My old bones don’t fancy having to fetch him home on a night like this.”

      Fox smiled and accepted the worn handle. “I’ll do my best,” he promised.

      “Why is it no one ever asks me to watch over Fox?” Gabriel grumbled, peering through the curtain of rain that sluiced from the narrow portico’s roof.

      “He’s got brothers aplenty for that, my lord.”

      Gabriel could not properly be said to envy his friend. After all, to most people’s way of thinking, he already had everything a man could want: good looks, intelligence, wealth. And without meddling parents or siblings, he had been doing largely as he pleased for most of his life.

      Still, he sometimes felt the absence of those deeper human bonds, a connection he seemed destined to be denied.

      Fox was the closest Gabriel would ever come to having a brother, and God knew the man had done his best to fill the role, fighting for him and with him as the situation demanded. Over the years, Gabriel had destroyed everyone who had ever cared for him, everyone he had ever loved—or who had loved him. Everyone except Christopher Fox.

      But tonight, as he looked out into the utter blackness of the rain-soaked night, Gabriel feared, not for the first time, that even their friendship might not be proof against fate.

      “What’s the use of siblings if one must spend all one’s time keeping others out of trouble?” Gabriel groused as they ducked out into the storm. “The eldest would never know the joy of being the troublemaker.”

      The umbrella was broad, but not so broad as the width of their combined shoulders, with the result that each had one wet arm by the time they reached the cab. Once inside, Gabriel swore and threw back his cloak to keep the damp from soaking through to his coat, then looked up to see his friend smiling at him.

      “There’s nothing humorous about rain, Foxy. If there were, every Englishman would die laughing.”

      “It’s not the rain, Ash,” he said, brushing droplets off his own shoulders and then wringing water from his glove. “I was just thinking about what you said, about the eldest always having to keep the others in line. It put me in mind of Miss Burke.”

      “Oh?” Damn and blast, can the woman’s name worm its way into every conversation? At least he need have no fear—could have no hope—that she would be in attendance tonight. Her duties as chaperone would not extend to the ballroom.

      “She’s five younger brothers and sisters to shepherd through life, you know.”

      Gabriel cast a bored glance through the rain-streaked window. “How very virtuous she must be, then.” And how very ripe for a little rebellion…

      In a little