CHAPTER 4
“ You have a key?” Chase whispered as Gabe let them into Weybourne House.
Gabe shrugged. “With the hours he keeps, he certainly doesn’t make his staff wait up for him.” And as Gabe had been staying at Christian’s home, or rather his grandfather’s Mayfair home, for the last fortnight, his friend had thought that Gabe having a key to the place made the most sense.
He led Chase from the foyer into the closest parlor and then lit a pair of lamps, casting a warm glow around the room. Then he gestured to a sideboard in the far corner. “Feel free to help yourself to a drink.”
But his friend shook his head. “And end up on the same path as Gillingham? I’d better keep my wits about me going forward.”
Not that Chase would ever be confused with his souse of a cousin, and not that it mattered to Gabe one way or another, not really. After encountering Sophie, there was no way he intended to remain sober tonight, even if he was drinking alone. “You are an abysmal liar, by the way,” Gabe said as he started for the sideboard, knowing Christian had a very nice bottle of whisky in the mix. “Samuel the pageboy?”
Chase snorted. “Why do you think I always tell the truth?”
“And Christian still shared his secret with you?” Gabe retrieved the decanter of whisky and splashed a healthy amount into the tumbler.
“He couldn’t really hide it from me. I spotted him behind Drury Lane one evening, in the middle of dealing with some cutpurse. We shared a room at Eton for years. I’d know his voice anywhere no matter what sort of mask he was wearing.” Then his friend shrugged. “He showed up at my door the next morning, asking me to keep my silence.”
Which Chase would do. He might be an abysmal liar, but he was the most loyal of friends. “So as long as no one specifically asks if you know the identity of the Covent Guard, his secret is safe with you?”
“I’m sure I’ll regret holding my tongue when he ends up dead someday, but I gave him my word.”
And Christian might very well end up dead someday, considering how he spent his evenings. Unfortunately, it was quite obvious that there was no dissuading him from his current path. A more stubborn man did not exist, and he was most definitely on a mission, no matter how dangerous or detrimental to his own safety that particular mission might be. With all that was going on in the world, none of it made any sense to Gabe. There was no reason to borrow trouble. “Do you know why he’s doing this? Why he’s on this crusade?”
Chase nodded and a frown marred his brow. “Like you, he returned home from the war to find he was heir to a title that never should have been his.”
“I’m not heir to anything.”
His friend snorted. “Unless Clayton marries and produces a legitimate heir, which seems highly unlikely while he’s instilled at Rosewood or even at Oakcliffe, you will be Northwold someday. It’s just a matter of time.”
Just the mention of his brother made Gabe wince. He hated seeing Clayton in such a state, covered in lesions and completely out of his mind. Even so, he’d visited his brother every day since arriving in London, even if Clayton didn’t recognize him, and even if Clayton screamed at him to leave. He had to make certain that his brother was unharmed and was as whole as possible before he could be moved to the private asylum in Derbyshire. After all the death and despair he’d witnessed during the war, watching his brother suffer in such an awful way was the worst thing he’d ever seen.
Gabe tipped back his tumbler and let the whisky burn its way down his throat.
“Actually, with my uncle and cousin gone, I suppose I’m in the same boat as the two of you now,” Chase said softly. “Heir to something I never should have been.”
“It’s unsettling.” Gabe started across the room and dropped into a chair across from his friend. “But I’m not contemplating donning a mask and throwing daggers at thieves and other unsavories in Covent Garden over it.”
“But if there was a way for you to destroy syphilis, you’d do so.” Chase heaved another sigh. “I watched my father slowly die of consumption, and if there was a way to eradicate that disease from the Earth…” He shrugged. “Neither you nor I have an avenue to deal with our suffering, but Christian can focus his entire fury on those thieves and other unsavories, as you call them,.”
Gabe frowned at his friend, as that didn’t make any sense at all.
Chase must have interpreted his expression correctly, as he asked, “You don’t know what happened to them? His family, do you?”
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 beloved younger sister 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 element here at 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.
“Greywood is courting 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, you will be 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.