at him. “Yes, but he needn’t be in the habit of issuing you commands. You are not the subordinate here.”
Gabriel wiped his lips, slowly manufacturing a reply to the bold woman.
“You are right, of course, Mrs. Winterton.”
At that, her mouth dropped all the way open. So he turned to Felicity.
“Forgive me, Miss Goode. I was not bred gently, and I am used to giving, rather than taking, directives. I do not possess pretty manners and am often too blunt in my speech. I will do my best to curtail this in your employ. My only aim is to keep you safe.”
As he finished, he noticed that Felicity’s eyes sparkled over at him like brilliant sapphires. Pleasure nigh glowed from her golden complexion.
“I did not engage you for pretty manners, Mr. Severand, but I do appreciate your respect. That being said, please speak freely in my presence; Lord knows I’m used to it with family like mine.”
“Thank you.”
He’d pleased her, and her satisfaction was a radiant sight to behold.
“Is everything all right with your family, Mrs. Winterton?” Felicity queried, slathering a soft cheese on a piece of bread and sinking her straight, pearly teeth into it.
Gabriel took a swallow of his excellent wine to wet a mouth gone dry.
Why did everything she did entice him so?
Why did the thought of her biting down on his flesh make him painfully hard beneath the table?
That was no great mystery…
“’Twas no great matter when all was said and done,” Felicity’s companion answered, seemingly preoccupied by her enjoyment of the soup. “It was almost a waste of time for me to visit. It seemed my younger sister had a spot of trouble, but she’d sorted it before I arrived. I only stayed long enough to kiss them all and catch the next train. It was frightfully tedious.”
Gabriel noted that she’d never mentioned just what that trouble happened to be. Mrs. Winterton was a woman with an open, disarming face, and a heart better guarded than Buckingham Palace.
“I am sorry you are separated from your siblings.” Felicity patted her arm. “I’ve always been lucky to have mine close by until… well, my parents’ deaths changed a great deal, and now it seems we’re scattered to the wind.”
“Were you very close with your parents?” Gabriel ventured to ask.
She shook her head, rearranging the linen on her lap. “I was— am— the youngest in a disappointing line of girls. So, while they did their duty by me as their child, my parents were not wont to foster close relationships. Least of all with me.”
“But your father left you everything.” He blurted his thought aloud, then clamped his lips together, wishing he could rip his own tongue out.
She made a helpless gesture, as if the fact stymied her every bit as it did a stranger. “My father was first and foremost a businessman. Indeed, he was one of the few noblemen that noted the decline in landed estates early on. He used my mother’s dowry to purchase a shipping company that he ruthlessly built into an empire. At first, the idle aristocracy jeered at and mocked him for becoming a tradesman. But then he became so obscenely wealthy, our family rubbed shoulders with the upper echelon of the ton, dining with earls and marquesses who were grudgingly glad to add my father to their ranks. Better one of their own than the upstart merchant men gaining social and political power these days.”
Gabriel knew all this, of course; he’d used criminal means to exploit said shipping company for his smuggling enterprise a few years back. It was that decision that led him to where he sat today.
“Any idea why he left it all to you?”
She nodded. “He so much as said so in the amendment to his will. After Nora’s disastrous marriage to a viscount, she ended up with an orphaned stable boy. Granted, Titus had become the most celebrated doctor in the empire, but that didn’t matter to Father. A murder occurred at Pru’s wedding, and she was first arrested for it, and then ended up wed to the chief inspector on the case. And then Mercy…” She sighed, glancing down at her lap. “There is not enough time for that story.”
He did his best not to wince at the rueful note in her voice as she continued. “My father wrote that he’d always appreciated my sense of duty. That he believed me the last hope to save the face of the Goode name. He and my mother were