“How did ye do it then?”
He snorted, stopping and leaning heavily on her once more. “Set sail for London with no laudanum on my person . . . locked myself in my cabin and then promptly shook nigh to death for weeks until my body adjusted to surviving without the stuff. . . . I was aboard a ship, so I had no way of procuring more it, you see . . . simply had to suffer through. But shipsdohave alcohol.” He laughed softly at that. “By the time we reached London . . . no longer craved opium . . . but ever since . . .” A long pause. “I suppose I have taken to the bottle more . . . more than is wise.”
Well, that certainly cast his drinking in a different light.
“Does the drink help with the pain, then?” She motioned toward his scar. “As laudanum would?”
“My wounds have healed . . . no lingering pain.”
Ah.“Have ye considered stopping drinking, then, as ye did with laudanum?”
“I’ve considered it.” He blinked blearily down at her. “But it’s hard to distract my thinking away from it.”
“Uhmm, ye could acquire a hobby. That might help.” Even to Leah’s own ears, this sounded hollow.
“A hobby? Other . . . other than drinking, you mean?” A drunk wryness laced his words.
Leah gave a fleeting smile in reply. “Have ye considered fishing? My brothers like to fish.”
“Fishing.” He said the word quietly, as if testing its shape in his mouth. “I do like fishing . . . Used to go with Dennis and Honor—” He stopped mid-syllable.
Honoria.
He was going to sayHonoria.
Whyhadn’tFox said a word about his supposed betrothal until now?
“Honoria?” She finished the thought for him. “I had thought ye were betrothed in India . . . to Miss Honoria Hampstead.”
“Honoria.” Fox spat the name like an epithet.
He took a step, clearly wishing to move past the moment, but he tripped again instead, as if the act of saying Honoria’s name scrambled his ability to properly place one foot in front of the other.
Fox fell forward, the weight of his body pulling Leah down with him. They both collapsed on the wide stone steps, a pile of skirts and limbs, but no harm done.
Leah pushed herself to sitting, angling her body in the tight space. The stairwell may have accommodated two people, but that didn’t mean it was actually spacious.
He slumped, his legs half atop hers, one shoulder pressed into the stone wall, the other tucked against hers. Leah had to put a hand on his back as there was nowhere else for it to go. Her nose was practically in his ear.
Her senses reeled at the unyielding physical contact, at the effort to resist the pull toward him. Must he smell so heavenly—sandalwood, woodsmoke, and clean male skin?
She tried to put some distance between them—anything to spare her sanity—but the space was too narrow for her to retreat more than half a foot.
“Ye dinnae hold Honoria in a high regard then?” Leah picked up the thread of their conversation. Yes, it was already past one in the morning and they were lounging on a stone staircase, but she refused to relinquish this chance to ask her questions. “I thought Honoria to be the source of all your wealth.”
“Honoria’s inheritance? Why the devil would I have that?” Fox tilted away and lolled his head against the stone.
“Is that not where your money comes from?”
“No!” He regarded her with all the open-faced, wide-eyed, melodramatic horror that only a drunk man could summon. “I inherited a fortune from my miserly uncle. The one who . . . forced me into the military in the first place.”
“Oh.”
“Yes . . .oh.” He bobbled his head, mimicking her tone. “We both inherited money from dead relatives, Honoria and myself. For me, it was a boon. But for her . . . ’twas the worst thing that could have happened. If you want a reason for my shattered state, look no further than Honoria Hampstead.” He lifted his hand, as if raising a toast. “A pox upon her person, her blasted pile of gold coin, and everything it did to harm Susan.”
Susan, again.
So something had happened with Honoria, as the letter had warned. Something that Honoria’s riches had precipitated.
