Barely a Bride (Free Fellows League 1)

“She has Griff.” Jarrod helped himself to the whisky decanter, pouring a glass for himself and for Colin.

“What she has is a title and a house,” Colin told him. “That’s all.”

“So?” Jarrod demanded. “It’s what she claimed to want.”

“So she changed her mind,” Colin suggested. “Not about the duke, but about Griff. What if what she wants is Griff? Or some part of him. Jarrod, think about it. Griff is in Spain, and we all know, whether we want to admit it or not, that he’ll be damned lucky to make it back in one piece.” He met Jarrod’s gaze. “Lord knows, I know very little about ladies, but I do know women and I think Griff’s bride may have fallen in love with him.”

“Fat lot of good it’s going to do her with him a sworn Free Fellow,” Jarrod muttered.

“She doesn’t know he’s a Free Fellow,” Colin reminded him. “She doesn’t know the Free Fellows exist, why we exist, the work we’ve undertaken for the good of our country, or the charter we’ve sworn to uphold.”

“Blasted female! What a tangle! Damn, but I hope she doesn’t make herself ill!” Jarrod threw back the glass of whisky and stared at Colin. “We gave our solemn oath that we would take care of her in Griff’s absence. He’ll have our hides if word of this reaches his ears.”

“It isn’t going to reach Griffin’s ears,” Colin said.

“And how do you plan to keep it from him?” Jarrod asked. “Keswick’s note said that immediately before she retired to her chambers, Alyssa sent a letter addressed to Griffin by messenger to Lord Weymouth’s office.”

Colin pursed his lips in thought. “If we’re right about her failure to conceive, we can’t keep her from telling Griff about it. He has a right to know and she is the person who should tell him. But he doesn’t have to know she’s taking the news so badly. He isn’t going to have to worry about her not eating or sleeping or taking care of herself.” Colin nodded, pleased with the course of his thoughts. “He’s at war. He has to worry about keeping himself alive. He can’t worry about his viscountess, too. Besides, what can he do? He’s in Spain.”

“The question isn’t what Griff can do,” Jarrod answered thoughtfully. “The question is what are we going to do in his place?” He faced Colin. “Well?”

“We’re going to come up with a way to snap Lady Abernathy out of her fit of depression.”

“Fine. How?” Jarrod prodded.

“Damned if I know,” Colin admitted.

Jarrod laughed. “A fine pair of guardian angels we turn out to be.”

“At least we have a plan,” Colin said.

“Are you certain?” Jarrod asked. “Because I disagree. I believe that all we have is an inkling of what we should do and no idea how to go about it.”

“We don’t have the details.” Colin dismissed Jarrod’s argument. “But we have a plan.” He thought for a moment. “Part of the problem is that she’s alone at Abernathy Manor.”

“All alone with a full-time staff of sixty,” Jarrod snorted. “You’re a fine one to talk,” Colin reproved. “Until you started working for Grant, you’d never been alone a day in your life.”

“That’s true,” Jarrod admitted. “I had, however, been alone in a room—once.”

Colin laughed at Jarrod’s joke.

It was

no secret that the Marquess of Shepherdston had been born with a longer silver spoon in his mouth than most of his peers.

What was remarkable was that he had finally learned to joke about it.

Jarrod had grown up surrounded by wealth and luxury and a half a dozen households full of doting servants. And as the heir to a vast fortune, he had never wanted for anything—except parental affection.

Colin and Griff had learned to overlook Jarrod’s arrogance and many of his increasingly cynical views of marriage over the years, because Jarrod had been brought into the world by parents who cared no more for him that they did yesterday’s scraps.

Theirs had been a marriage of state, an alliance of two important families and Lord and Lady Shepherdston had despised the sight of one another—from the day they met until the day Lord Shepherdston died—and beyond.

Unfortunately for Jarrod, his loss of parental regard had been more than compensated by false regard, provided by a succession of sycophants and playmates his parents hired to keep him entertained and out of mischief. Colin and Griff had been Jarrod’s first real friends. The first acquaintances he’d ever met who didn’t give a rip about his name, his title, or his fortune.

Jarrod’s lofty birthright hadn’t mattered a whit to Griff because Griff was secure in his own birthright. He was secure in his parents’ love and in the position to which he was heir.

And Colin had simply disregarded Jarrod’s status and regarded the boy, first as an unworthy adversary and then as a friend because, although Colin had no real money, he had charm and intelligence and prospects. Colin was Scottish. His ancestors had spent centuries learning to survive and thrive in the Sassenach world, and he was the beneficiary of that training.