Page 63 of The Fortune Hunter’s Gamble

“Not an invalid,” Giles said. “Just over imbibed, thas all.”

“I would not dream of obstructing the wishes of Mrs. Watts, but I cannot think curdled milk and ale will settle your stomach at this particular moment.” Sophronia sat on the bed beside the invalid and propped the tray over her legs. She glanced at Rowden and indicated the opposite side of the bed. “Sit. We must have a word with your cousin.”

Rowden wasn’t about to sit on the bed, especially with Sophronia nearby. He took the chair beneath the window.

“This my juniper lecture?” Giles inquired, peering at the soup in the bowl of his spoon.

“Yes,” Sophronia said. “You cannot go on like this, Giles.”

The boy sipped his broth and made a face. “Accident. Won’t do it again.”

“You’ve said that before. What will compel you to truly stop indulging yourself so much?”

Giles regarded another spoonful of soup. “Don’t see all the fuss. Everyone takes opium. All the blokes I know. Everyone at school. Everyone’s mother. Babies. Even Mrs. Watts has her laudanum by her bed.”

“Yes, but she does not drink till she is insensible, and you do.”

Giles glowered at his cousin. “Rowden’s already gnawed on me about this.”

Rowden crossed his arms over his chest. “Little good it did me or you.”

“But it helps,” Giles said. “With the pain. And settles my stomach when I’m queasy.”

Rowden didn’t know how to answer this. It seemed unfair to chide Giles for his poor health when Rowden had always been robust and so couldn’t understand.

“It is all well and good to have a proper remedy for things, but this is no longer a remedy when it makes you more ill,” Sophronia said firmly. “It is time to change your ways, my dear Giles. Don’t you wish to be married?”

Giles’s face brightened. “I do.”

“A wife will want a man who provides for her,” Rowden said, interjecting before Sophronia could bring up Lily Westall. “She won’t want a sodden opium eater she has to put to bed every night.”

Giles glared. “I don’t every night.”

“Rowden is right,” Sophronia said, and Rowden nearly fell out of his chair at the surprise of hearing her agree with him. “A wife will want a companion she can confide in and lean on when the need arises. You will want to be that man for her.”

Rowden absorbed this, Sophronia’s definition of a husband. Had Hinton been someone she could confide in or lean on?

Didn’t she know that Rowden would be that for her? He would make it his life’s work to be exactly what she needed. If only she could deal with her fear that loving would mean losing herself. Or the surety that she would lose him.

Even when he left, he would always come back to her. Her return in his life had confirmed the knowledge he had suspected but never reckoned with, not truly. There would be no other woman he wanted in his life but Sophronia. He would always, always be coming back to her, whether that were wise or not.

He’d missed whatever else she was saying to Giles, but the boy appeared to agree, nodding his head and spooning soup.

“I’ll reform.” He swallowed another mouthful of broth. “I will.”

He handed the bowl to Sophronia with a steady hand, and Rowden wondered if she had finally hit upon a remedy that could truly aid his cousin: bone broth, and the reminder that he needed to preserve his health for a higher purpose. Mrs. Watts bustled in with her posset, which Sophronia praised and accepted, then set on the table by the bed. Rowden rose and held out a hand to help Sophronia stand.

She took it. Her hand was warm and soft, yet strong. Much like the woman.

“I think you might have gotten through to him,” Rowden remarked as they climbed to the stairs to the floor that held their own chambers.

“He needs a purpose he can shape his life around,” Sophronia answered. “Something more powerful than the promise of momentary ease.”

He felt the same need, Rowden thought. The longing to shape his life around a purpose greater than gaining or losing money.

She stood with him before the door of his bedchamber, and the desire to touch her nearly brought him to his knees. “I’d invite you into my room,” he said, his voice a low rasp of gravel. “But I know you wouldn’t come.”

“It would not be practical.”