Page 54 of The Companion’s Secret

“Their goals are the same, Gabriel,” she said, holding up one hand to settle him. “To make English eyes see Ireland in a new light. And besides…” It was her turn to study the landscape as it slipped past the window. “It’s only a story.”

“Well, go on with it, then,” he grumbled, folding his arms across his chest.

Reluctantly, she took up her pages once more. To earn Róisín’s sympathy and trust, Granville plied her with stories of his troubled childhood and misspent youth. It was here where the character had ceased to be based on a man from Cami’s past and had become a version of the man before her now. A man whose father had died under mysterious circumstances, who had been raised by a cruel uncle, and whose skill at hazard had led him to commit more than a few cruelties himself.

“Hazard?” Gabriel’s mouth was twisted slightly to the side as if he had ground the word between his teeth before spitting it out. “I thought you intended to craft the image of a clever rake, Miss Burke, not a boy shooting marbles with his chums.”

Had she really once quibbled with Felicity’s description of him as dark? A thundercloud was building across his brow. Of all the things she had expected him to find objectionable, a villain who diced had been the least of her worries.

He had let her read without interruption, without even much change in his expression, until that moment. Before she could think of a suitable reply to his critique, the carriage gave a lurch, drawing their eyes to the window. She had not noticed that the scenery beyond it had been growing increasingly rugged, while the road had narrowed until it was barely wide enough for the coach.

Gabriel swore under his breath.

“What is it?” she demanded. “Is one of the horses injured? Have we damaged a wheel?”

“We should be so fortunate.” He shoved himself back into his seat, folded his arms across his chest, and shook his head. “No, it would seem we’re nearly to Stoke.”

Chapter 17

Gabriel felt her eyes upon him and wondered precisely when, over the course of the last fortnight or so, he had lost the ability to look at the hand he’d been dealt without reacting—or at least, without revealing his reaction.

The driver was meant to have turned north at Shrewsbury and taken them toward Holyhead. Gabriel thought he had been explicit in his instructions. Instead, they would be at Stoke in a matter of moments, almost as if the old coach had known its way home and driven them there of its own volition. The road here was too narrow to attempt to turn around; branches scraped the sides of the carriage as they passed. There was nothing for it, now, but to go on.

Without meaning to, he sent another hard look across the coach at Camellia, and she too slid back in her seat, notching her slight frame into the corner farthest from him, eyeing him as she would a mad dog.

Desperate for something to busy himself, he began to collect the scattered pages of her book, sorting and stacking them until they were neat, a ritual he had enacted countless times with a pack of cards. The paper fluttered in his shaking hands.

Never hold your cards during the game.

“I suppose the estate has been in your family for generations?” She was holding out the last few sheets in one hand and the silk ribbon in the other.

The ribbon slipped through her fingers as he pulled it toward him, a bright thread of connection across the chasm of the coach. “Stoke Abbey was a gift to my ancestor more than two hundred years ago, following the dissolution of the monasteries.”

“Ah, yes.” Her sigh was world weary. “Henry VIII. Ever so fond of claiming what wasn’t his.”

“I suppose you would include Ireland on his list of improper acquisitions.” History had never been Gabriel’s favorite subject, but his memory was impeccable—a blessing at the card tables, if a curse at other times. “Though strictly speaking, his predecessors had already acquired the land. He simply—”

“Named himself its king.” She accepted the bundle he had assembled and held it on her lap. “I’d say it still fits the pattern.”

Gabriel forced himself to look out the coach window. He had visited just twice since moving away, once on the anniversary of his father’s death, at his guardian’s insistence, and once to take official charge of the property when he had achieved his majority, at which point he had promptly put the estate’s management into the very capable hands of his steward.

Would this third return prove to be the final leave-taking? Or, with Camellia at his side, could it somehow be a homecoming?

“In half a mile, the abbey should be visible to the west,” he said. Without asking her permission, he shifted to sit beside her so they could keep watch together, though it was less a matter of wanting her to see his birthplace than of his being unwilling—unable—to face it alone.

The coach struggled to climb a rise, but when they reached its peak, the valley spread below them, undulating waves of green that would carry them to the splendid island at its center: Stoke Abbey. He heard Camellia draw in her breath before the carriage rattled on through a copse, along a stream. Seamlessly, the wilderness gave way to formal gardens and graveled drives. Generations of renovations and improvements had transformed a medieval monastery into a modern dwelling place, though it still retained much of its gothic character, with narrow leaded windows and flying buttresses supporting the long roof of the Great Hall.

In short order, they were rolling beneath a massive, ivy-covered arch into the courtyard. Had he announced his arrival—had he known of it himself—no doubt uniformed servants would have been turned out in two neat rows to flank the master as he entered, even if they would have to have been hired from the village for the occasion. No need to keep a full staff on hand; after all, three-quarters of Stoke had been unoccupied for twenty years. Only the east wing had a regular tenant, the steward having taken up residence there some time ago.

As if the thought had conjured the man into being, Gabriel spied John Hawthorne, a tanned, wiry, pewter-haired man of fifty, striding across the flagstones. With more eagerness than he had anticipated feeling, he reached past Camellia to open the carriage door.

She cringed, but not at his touch. “What—good God, what is that thing?” Her voice was a harsh whisper; all her breath seemed to be held captive in her lungs.

At Hawthorne’s heels plodded his mastiff. “A dog,” Gabriel said, hoping that, despite her fears, the answer might provide some reassurance, as the creature indeed looked like the sort of beast one’s imagination dredged up during a nightmare, with its loose jowls and massive build. “It’s a gentle breed. He wouldn’t harm a flea.”

“It’s not really the fleas I’m worried about.”

When the door swung open, he expected her to refuse to exit the coach, but she nodded once and stiffened her spine as if arming herself with his promise. Ducking through the door, he made certain to position himself between her and the dog as he helped her down, then extended a hand to the other man. “Hawthorne,” he exclaimed. “Well met! Miss Burke, may I introduce John Hawthorne, my steward?”