Page 62 of The Fortune Hunter’s Gamble

Which he would not be able to explore, because he had committed to leaving for the Helvetic Republic.

Damn everyone and everything to the bowels of hell.

“I fear Giles has made himself ill,” Rowden replied. “He does not seem able to keep himself from the poppy, though he knows its ill effects. When he does not smoke, he is taking laudanum, and when he is not eating a raw stick of the stuff, he is taking a cordial with opium in it.”

“He takes the opium to feel better,” Sophronia surmised, “and the overall effect is to make him feel worse.”

“And ruin his health besides, which was not strong to begin with.”

“He never did have a sturdy constitution,” Sophronia murmured.

A footman was wisely keeping guard at the door of the parlor so no curious onlookers entered. He stepped aside when Rowden approached. Rowden told himself he must give Bosley an extra bit of coin for his discretion and see that the footman was rewarded too. The Albion’s owners sought to pay their staff well, but it must be expected that employees would gossip, and few were above bribery. It was to his advantage to make continued employment at the club a desirable outcome for staff who had to deal with arrogant lords and incapacitated lordlings.

Giles lay not on the chair he had currently occupied but on the rug before it, curled into himself like a fallen spider. The opium lamp smoked and stank, and the fragrant cloud surrounding him had turned sour.

“Lemme alone,” he muttered as Foster prodded his shoulder. Foster looked at Rowden with a helpless shrug.

“It will ruin his chances for a good marriage if word of his habit gets around,” Rowden muttered, circling the table to his cousin’s head.

“Of a certain he will lose any chance at a Mary Kemp,” Sophronia said. “Though I think our dear Mary is well off where she is.”

“Yes, after you played matchmaker with his prospects,” Rowden snapped. “Foster, I thank you for your aid for my cousin, but I think I will ask Jeffrey to take his feet.” He jerked his head toward the footman hovering inside the door. Bosley could be relied upon to report when patrons were in need of assistance, but he did not lay on hands. That was what footmen were for.

“I don’t suppose we know what conveyance brought him?” Rowden asked.

“Nate will,” said Sophronia. “I’ll look for him in the back.”

“The Denford groom will be in the kitchens, madam,” Bosley said with his blandest expression. Rowden could tell he approved that Sophronia was not shrieking, shrinking, or groping for smelling salts at the sight of Giles’s inebriated state.

“Thank you, I will go there,” Sophronia said. “Er—which direction?”

Rowden told her, but she paused at the door, looking back not at him but at Foster. “The Helvetic Republic?” she asked. “You suppose they have need of him?”

Foster blinked. “Lord Grenville asked for Rowden specifically. He’s discreet, he’s efficient, and he pays for his own expenses, which is what I suspect most recommends him.”

“Spies get hung for treason,” she muttered, and stepped out the door.

Rowden felt a wash of cold at her absence, as if some vital cord had been snipped. This would not do. He must learn to be apart from her; that was what she wanted.

“Your lady don’t like the thought of you leaving,” Foster observed as he helped Rowden and the footman lever Giles to his feet, then stagger out the door and down the hallway toward the back of the building. Giles muttered to himself as they went, his head hanging on his chest.

“Then she could give me a reason to stay,” Rowden snapped. “Giles, pick up your feet. You could do your bit to help us.”

“Dunno what ’appened,” Giles slurred. “Having a bit of a smoke and a chat with your friends. Keeling’s a right chap. That Foster’s a bore. Then…” He swung his head to the side, then groaned. “Going to be sick.”

“Never mind talking, keep moving,” Rowden said.

A great many staff and, from the door of the wine cellar, Atwood observed them transporting an inert Giles down the service hallways to the trade entrance at the back of the club. Rowden gritted his teeth. He’d be called to account for this and read another lecture about how his cousin’s behavior reflected on the club. Their code was respectability, and they strove for an image of a place where the hospitality was impeccable, the play was fair, and the company was desirable.

“Giles, you do not look well,” Sophronia said, standing beside Nate and a hired chair. Sound, sensible Sophronia. It was too much of a fuss to send Nate for a vehicle, but Giles could not walk even the short distance to Clarges Street.

“M’pipe?” Giles looked around blearily.

“Someone will have seen to it,” Rowden said roughly. “Is that pipe all you care about?”

Giles blinked at his cousin’s stern tone. Rowden was never rough with him, not the way he could be with other people. Rowden had always made his smaller, slender cousin a focus of his protection, the same way he had, without thinking twice about it, protected Sophronia. Their relationship could have been filled with envy, competition, and striving, but instead, Rowden acceded to whatever Giles wished. They all had. Perhaps this was why the boy had no ability to govern himself.

With Nate’s help, they brought Giles to the house, maneuvered him up the stairs, and got him installed in his room. The housekeeper, still in her nightcap and blinking with sleep, came to plump his pillows and said she would make up a posset, her remedy for all ills. The woman never stirred herself when Rowden came home at odd hours of the night—he had instructed her not to—but Giles was her pet. Sophronia stepped out when Rowden undressed Giles down to his shirt, but he was glad to see her return after the boy was tucked beneath the counterpane. She carried a tray with a bowl of bone broth.