Merely the Groom (Free Fellows League 2)

“If there is a young lady pining for me, I am not aware of it,” he said. “I have a mother and father and younger siblings. I even have a few friends, but I have no romantic entanglements.” He shrugged. “I can’t afford them.”

“Then how can you afford a wife?” she asked.

“I can’t,” he said, simply. “My wife will have to afford me.”

Gillian was thoughtful. “What will you ask in exchange?”

“Courtesy,” Colin answered. “And discretion. For my family and my friends.”

Gillian arched an eyebrow. “That goes without saying. What do you expect for yourself?”

“Nothing. For myself, I expect nothing beyond what you are willing to give.”

“Not even courtesy and discretion?”

“If you feel I’ve earned your courtesy and discretion, you’ll grant it. Otherwise, I shall have to live without those things. I hope that as my viscountess, you’ll extend me the courtesy and discretion the tide warrants so long as we are in public. But I shan’t expect you to do the same in private if that’s not your inclination.”

“Can I expect the same from you?” Gillian asked. “Forgive me for being wary, Lord Grantham, if you seem to be the answer to a prayer. You say all the right things, and I want to believe you, but my judgment is suspect when it comes to selecting husbands.”

“My judgment is not,” he replied. “I’ll be a husband of whom you can be proud, Miss Davies. I won’t disappoint you or give you cause to regret your decision.” Colin narrowed his gaze at the baron.

Gillian smiled at him, a genuine, beautiful smile that gave Colin a tantalizing glimpse of the woman she had been before she’d met the impostor Colin Fox. “Since I’ve need of a husband,” she said. “I would prefer one who appreciates what I bring into the marriage.”

Colin gave her a sweeping bow, the sort of bow cavaliers had once bestowed on ladies of the court. “At your service, my lady.”

Chapter Twelve

“This happy breed of men, this little world.”

—William Shakespeare, 1564-1616

Richard II

The Free Fellows League gathered to compare notes in their customary room at White’s before dinner that evening.

Griff and Sussex were already there when Colin entered the oak-paneled room and handed his hat and coat to the butler. “Good evening, Griff. Sussex.”

Griff looked up from the leather sofa. “Jarrod’s on his way. He had a last-minute meeting with two of the cryptographers charged with enciphering the information to be sent to Scovell and Grant on the Peninsula.”

“How goes the cryptography work today?” The Duke of Sussex folded the newspaper he’d been reading and placed it on a mahogany side table. He lifted his feet from the leather ottoman, set them on the Turkish rug beside the fire, and then reached for the glass of French brandy he had been nursing for the past three-quarters of an hour.

“The ciphering or the deciphering?” Colin glanced around the room, then poured himself a whisky from the tray of decanters on the drinks table and sat down in the leather chair opposite Sussex’s.

“Both,” Sussex answered.

Colin shrugged. “The good news is that our code appears to be unbroken.”

“The bad news,” Jarrod interrupted, from his place just inside the doorway, after entering the room in time to hear Sussex’s question and Colin’s answer, “is that according to dispatches I received from Major Scovell and Colonel Grant, so does theirs.” Jarrod tossed his hat and coat onto a chair, then walked over and joined Griff on the leather sofa.

“Drink?” Sussex offered.

Jarrod nodded toward the silver pot warming on a tray sitting on a butler’s table. “Coffee.”

Sussex poured a cup and handed it to Jarrod.

“Thank you.” Jarrod took a sip of coffee, then set it aside and rubbed his palms together and began the meeting without preamble. “What did we learn from our excursion into the ton last night?”

“That an evening at Almack’s is not to be borne unless one is already married,” Griff chuckled.