The Companion's Secret. Susanna Craig

as old, she supposed. But dark? The writer in Cami wanted to press for more specific adjectives, words that would leap off the page and belong only to Lord Ash. Hair the color of burnished mahogany wainscot that disguised a secret passageway, eyes the precise shade of the forest floor in early autumn. And a voice…but here Cami had to concede that dark suited the timbre of his deep voice—a fitting pitch for the dark, troubled soul to which it belonged, if Mr. Fox’s story was to be believed.

      “King says Lord Ash’s reputation is quite as charred and sooty as his name,” her cousin continued. “He is said to be a—a rake.” The last word was little more than a scandalized whisper. Cami knew she ought to chide Felicity for repeating servants’ gossip, but she could not bring herself to do it. Not with his friend’s revelation still ringing in her own ears.

      Despair at her cousin’s predicament mingled uneasily with the elation Mr. Dawkins’s letter had brought, leaving Cami feeling something she could never remember having felt before: light-headed. And at a distinct loss for words. Should she repeat what Mr. Fox had said? But if Felicity’s fate was already sealed, what would be gained by frightening her cousin further?

      Felicity spoke for her. “Is it…is it true, do you suppose, Cousin?”

      Cami started. Well, Mr. Fox had spoken as if everyone else already knew what he had told her. Why, that meant even Uncle Merrick must have heard what Lord Ash was said to have done and was nevertheless willing to sacrifice his daughter to atone for his son’s improvidence.

      Anger rose like bile in her throat. “Is what true, dear?” she managed to ask.

      Felicity’s smile was still weak, but hopeful. “That reformed rakes make the best husbands. You know…like in the novels.”

      Biting back an automatic denial—along with a stern recommendation that her cousin read better books—Cami reached out to pat her cousin’s icy fingers where they lay on the coverlet. “If it is, then you will be the happiest of brides, for even Lord Ash could not fail to be improved by a girl as sweet and gentle as you.”

      Felicity’s laugh sounded surprisingly jaded. “If you were a man, Cousin, people would call you silver tongued. Mama says it must be your Irish blood.”

      Cami twisted her answering grimace into something approximating a smile. She was quite familiar with the qualities—the failings, rather—her aunt attributed to her Irish blood. This despite the fact that so little of it actually ran in her veins, her mother being entirely English and her father half so.

      But Cami never denied being Irish. She was not ashamed of her origins, and no Englishwoman—or man, she added, thinking of Lord Ash’s mocking expression—could make her so.

      “Still,” said Felicity, pushing to her feet, “I hope you’re right. He makes me so terribly nervous. Oh, I am glad you’ll be joining us tomorrow.”

      Tomorrow? Ah, yes. The stroll in the park. She had forgotten in the rush of excitement about the letter.

      Papa had cautioned her against taking the post as her aunt’s companion, insisting that there was bound to be more to the task than managing correspondence and reading bad novels aloud. But she had never imagined her role would extend to chaperoning a sweet but sometimes heedless girl of almost nineteen.

      She would do it, of course. She had always felt a strong sense of duty to family—even the branch of her family of whose existence she had learned just a few months ago. It was not why she had come to London, but if Felicity’s parents were too weak to stand up for their daughter, then she would have to be strong.

      Lord Ash might have cowed her aunt and uncle into accepting his suit, but he had not reckoned on Camellia Burke.

      “You have nothing to fear,” she assured her cousin.

      Besides, it’s May. It will likely rain.

      When Felicity left, Cami felt suddenly restless. Leaping from the bed, she made her way to the window. Far below, Brook Street was mostly empty. A nurse pushed a pram in the direction of the park, while the three older Bates children toddled behind her in a ragged line. A few houses up, a carriage waited to take Lady Mercer calling. And directly below, so close to the front of the house that he almost escaped her eye, the Marquess of Ashborough still leaned against the area railing.

      At the far edge of her vision, nearly out of sight, she saw Mr. Fox striding up the street. Such a kind gentleman deserved a better friend than an outcast from society. A rake.

      A murderer.

      Her mind caught at the word. Lord Ash did not look like a murderer.

      Not that she knew what a murderer looked like. She certainly could not recall having seen one before. At least, not to her knowledge. She knew from her father’s stories that criminals could be quite deceptively charming. And the phrase “deceptively charming” fit Lord Ash all too well, she feared.

      But he had been a boy when the alleged crime had occurred. Perhaps there was more to the story than Mr. Fox had related. There must be, else Lord Ashborough would not be—well, Lord Ashborough.

      She was not so naïve as to believe that children were incapable of committing crimes, even heinous ones. But she suspected they usually had provocation—ill treatment, misguidance, desperate need. She did not hold with the popular notion that some children were simply born bad. Had his father been cruel? Or had it been a tragic accident?

      Whatever the circumstances surrounding the terrible event in his childhood, she knew that if he had been born just a few miles to the east—in St. Giles, say, rather than Mayfair—he would have been hanged for what he had done, deliberate or not. Instead, he had paid an entirely different price. To have that sword dangling over one’s head, always… Cami shook her head. No wonder a shadow clung to the man, even on this sunny day. What a terrible story it was.

      Against the rough nap of the attic’s curtains, her fingertips tingled. In the right hands, what a story it could be. Hurrying to her bedside table, Cami jerked open the drawer, snatched up her letter, and read it again.

      Might Mr. Dawkins be right? She was not in the habit of considering men as terribly complex creatures. They rarely took the trouble to disguise their motives or their desires. But she supposed it was possible that her portrayal of the villain in The Wild Irish Rose left something to be desired. When she began the book, she had known no English noblemen on which to base Lord Granville. Now, however, she could draw from life….

      She flew to her desk, snatched up a pencil, and began a rough sketch of Lord Ash’s face. Thinking back over their exchange in the drawing room, she tried to capture his mien, the way a rake and a murderer dressed and walked and spoke. The way he called forth an ingénue’s blush. The way he…

      Good heavens—Felicity! Here she was mapping out a shocking work of fiction when a truly scandalous story was unfolding right in front of her. And if Lord Ash was a suitable model for the villain of her novel, then Felicity might pose for an equally convincing portrait of Róisín, its credulous heroine.

      But if Cami spoke in her cousin’s defense, what good would it do? After all, Aunt and Uncle Merrick had already given their consent to the man’s courtship of their daughter, despite his reputation. If only there were a way to protect Felicity and still acquire the information, the experience, I need to make Lord Ashborough’s story my own….

      Then she remembered that walk in the park. Tomorrow, she would have an opportunity to begin a thorough character study of the man. If she was clever, she could use the information she gathered to convince her aunt and uncle to sever all connection to a man of Lord Ash’s ilk. She would find a way to use his courtship of Felicity to expose the depths of the man’s depravity.

      And if it also happened to benefit her book, what harm could there be in it?

      She paused to examine the picture she had drawn. Her skill with words had always far outstripped her abilities with lines and shading, and this effort was no exception. The portrait was, to use Mr. Dawkins’s words, all shadow, no light. Lord Ashborough’s eyes and hair were, well, darker