The Companion's Secret. Susanna Craig

Merrick learns I hold all his son’s debts,” Gabriel said, “he will be glad enough to accept whatever terms of repayment I offer.”

      “And Lady Felicity’s hand is to be your price.” Fox chewed each word and, by his sour expression, apparently found them difficult to digest.

      Closing the guide with a snap, Gabriel traced the deckled edges of the paper with the tips of his fingers, as if neatening a stack of playing cards, a gesture his adversaries at the table had come to recognize as the sign that their loss was about to become Lord Ash’s gain.

      “For the price I’m paying, I’ll expect rather more than her hand.”

      Those words were met with a scowl of disapproval. “I can only pray that Lady Felicity will discover you’ve the heart of a gentleman after all.”

      Gabriel, who possessed no such organ, doubted it.

      Fox was right about one thing, though. Lady Felicity Trenton was probably a fresh-faced innocent, a sacrificial lamb to be led quite literally to the altar. Hell, he was counting on it.

      A wiser woman would not have him.

      * * * *

      Although there had been no knock of warning, Camellia Burke managed to slide her papers beneath her blotter as the door to her bedchamber swung open, the protest of one squeaky hinge alerting her to an intruder. And to think she had imagined that a position as her aunt’s companion would afford her more privacy than she’d had at home with her family in Dublin.

      “Oh, there you are, miss,” exclaimed Betsy, the upstairs maid, sounding relieved to have found her, although Cami could not imagine where else the girl might have looked. “Her ladyship wants you in the drawing room right away.”

      “The drawing room?” She paused in the act of cleaning her pen. “Did she say why?” The Countess of Merrick was at home to callers today, a circumstance which generally earned Cami a reprieve from her duties.

      “No, miss. But whatever it is, it’s got her ladyship out of sorts. Won’t you come, miss?” Betsy urged.

      Cami corked her ink bottle before rising from her chair and following the maid through the door. Aunt Merrick had proved surprisingly generous with writing supplies, but one could never be too careful.

      In the drawing room, Lady Merrick sat in the middle of a brocade settee, flanked on one side by her fat pug and on the other by her daughter, Felicity.

      “Camellia. At last,” Lady Merrick murmured reprovingly. She did not like to be kept waiting. Felicity gave a welcoming, if nervous, smile.

      Cami approached, curtsied, and, at her aunt’s nod of acknowledgment, perched on the edge of one of the elegantly uncomfortable chairs facing her.

      “We have a visitor.”

      A caller hardly seemed cause for consternation, and no cause at all for summoning Cami. Unless… “Someone of my acquaintance, ma’am?”

      Aunt Merrick pressed her lips together and shook her head. “No. A gentleman. Of sorts.” The dog lifted his head from her lap and studied his mistress, as if his curiosity too had been piqued. “Lord Ash—that is, the Marquess of Ashborough.”

      Lord Ash? Her aunt was a notorious stickler for rank. What could be the cause of this unaccustomed familiarity—familiarity that bordered on insolence? Was the marquess still a boy? Or old and infirm?

      “Merrick has given him permission to call upon Felicity.” The quirk of her lips might have been pleasure or displeasure. Perhaps a mixture of both. She clearly disapproved of this Lord Ashborough, but not enough to refuse the possibility that her daughter might one day be a marchioness.

      “And beggars, it seems, are not to be choosers,” Felicity added sotto voce.

      Cami darted her gaze to her cousin, whose cheeks looked unnaturally pink. She was half-persuaded the color must have been put there by the contents of a rouge pot. At those last, quiet words, however, it leeched from Felicity’s cheeks, leaving her pale.

      Felicity’s beauty had never failed to earn her admirers. Last year, in her first season, it had even afforded her the power of refusal, as Aunt Merrick often found occasion to remind anyone who would listen. Felicity had been encouraged by her mama to decline two offers under the perfectly reasonable assumption that better ones would be made in future. This spring, however, shadowed by her brother’s looming debts and her consequent loss of dowry, Felicity’s loveliness had seemed in danger of proving an insufficient lure.

      But of course, a man might require something other than a fortune from his bride.

      “Lord Ash is accompanied by his friend, Mr. Fox. A younger son of the Earl of Wickersham, I’m told.”

      Felicity offered a quick nod of confirmation. “And you are never shy around strangers, Cousin Camellia.”

      “Felicity suggested your conversation might be a welcome addition to their visit.”

      More an order than an offer, and Cami knew better than to refuse, although it meant squandering her precious personal time on pointless chatter. Fighting the temptation to allow her shoulders to sag, she straightened her spectacles instead. “If you wish it, Aunt.”

      If she had not known better, she might have suspected her cousin of matchmaking. The younger son of an earl would be quite a catch for a lady’s companion. But Cami had more important things to do than dangle her bait in the water, waiting for some man to snatch at the lure. She would have to rise an hour earlier tomorrow to make up the writing time she lost today.

      Before another word could be spoken, Wafford, the butler, tapped at the door. As it swung inward on silent hinges to admit the visitors, Felicity’s blue eyes flooded with dread and her face grew paler still. Instinctively, she reached up to pinch her cheeks and restore the color to them.

      With the protective reflexes of an eldest sister, Cami leaned forward and caught her fingers before they could inflict any more damage. When she heard booted steps on the carpet behind her, she gave Felicity’s hand a squeeze of encouragement and rose to leave the chair closest to her cousin for the marquess. Felicity clung to her a moment longer than expected, making Cami stumble. If strong fingers had not caught her elbow, she would have pitched headfirst into her aunt’s lap.

      The pug growled out a warning, and Cami jerked upright. The stranger’s touch fell away before she could decide it was unwelcome. A sideways glance gave her an impression of brown hair, brown eyes. Neither a spotted youth nor an octogenarian. Rather, a man her own age, perhaps thirty. One with the sharp, almost cruel features she had come to associate with the English nobility.

      She dipped into a hurried, clumsy curtsy. “I thank you, sir—er, Lord Ash,” she corrected, then remembered herself. “Borough.”

      The belated addition did not escape his notice. Thin lips curved in what countless women no doubt fancied a warm, amiable smile, though it did not reach his eyes. “I am glad to have been of service, ma’am.” His bow of acknowledgment was perfectly correct, yet somehow it managed to convey something else, something more. Something that made Cami flush in spite of herself.

      “Merrick’s niece, Miss Burke.” Annoyance made her aunt’s introduction blunt. “And of course this is my daughter, Lady Felicity Trenton.”

      Both gentlemen made their bows of greeting to her cousin while Cami walked stiffly to the farthest chair.

      “May I present Mr. Christopher Fox,” Lord Ashborough said.

      “Lady Merrick, Lady Felicity,” Mr. Fox said with another bow. “Miss Burke.”

      At a nod from her mother, Felicity gestured for Lord Ashborough to take the seat Cami had vacated and attempted to engage him in conversation. Without waiting to be invited, Mr. Fox chose the chair nearest Cami. He was not quite as tall as his friend, with sandy-brown hair and pale eyes.

      “It is a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Fox.”

      “And