Page 107 of Give Him a Chance

This time, Bertram could not help but roll his eyes, but he did so while catching Lucy’s gaze beside him and his insides melted.

Lucy. She was so beautiful. Not just on the outside, though Bertram would be the first to admit that he most definitely admired the outside of his bride-to-be…but it was her inner character that really drew him back to her again and again.

She was so kind. So utterly thoughtless when it came to herself. She willingly sacrificed her own time and at times, her own reputation for the causes she believed in.

Bertram swallowed. And one of those causes she believed in…was him.

“I don’t suppose you can even tell us a small story,” Percy was saying.

“If you don’t knock it off…” Lucy began threateningly.

“Has he told you any of it?”

Bertram squeezed Lucy’s hand under the table as she replied haughtily to her brother, “I would never expect him to betray the secrets he was entrusted with.”

Percy grinned. “So that’s ayes, then?”

“Percy!”

The mingled cry from Lucy and both parents made Bertram laugh, and that laughter was caught up by the rest of the table. Merriment flowed from person to person, and Bertram could hardly believe that for them, for the Chances, this was every day.

They had welcomed him in, believed his explanations, and been mostly respectful of his inability to go into details of the past. But the most important thing was that they were happy for Lucy to marry him.

“Right, that’s enough of that. We can’t pester the man all night,” said the earl firmly, finally forcing his son to quieten—though his eyes did twinkle. “We have the rest of our lives to do that, don’t we, Lucy?”

“We do, indeed, though I am not sure you’ll get much more out of him.” Lucy smiled prettily, evidently relieved for the redirection. “Benjamin, what news of the Aylesbury Chances?”

The chatter meandered into family matters, something Bertram could enjoy but did not particularly follow. Names such as Samuel, Rose, and Frank—that name of Lady Frank, he would not soon forget—flittered into the conversation, the news of Jessica and Kathleen both with child drawing cheers of delight from the family, and a brief mention of a Michael causing dark looks between the elder couple and a flush of concern in the brother.

Interesting.

Bertram caught himself just in time. He was no longer a spy; he did not have to be gathering information at every moment, constantly noting down where people were sitting and all the little flickers of nuance that passed them.

He was free from that life, free from the tension that he could be attacked at any time, free from living in prisons to gather information and reporting back to Hovell—to Benjamin.

Nowthatwas a confusion he would have to keep an eye on. It would never do to reveal that particular connection to the family.

“He’s a tad discontented, to my mind,” Benjamin was saying with a shrug. “But I am sure old Michael will get back to his old ways soon enough.”

Bertram was not imagining it; there was a look of concern shared between the Earl and Countess of Lindow.

Perhaps Lucy had seen it too, for she leaned forward and asked nonchalantly, “You saw Uncle Frederick and Aunt Edie back at Stanphrey Lacey. Did they mention Michael?”

Definitely a look of concern.

“No, not at all, not even a little bit,” said the earl hastily.

Far too hastily.

It was his wife who rolled her eyes. “Oh, yes, that is most reassuring, Lindow.”

“But all I said was—”

“Fifteen percent too eager,” interrupted the countess, winking at Bertram. “Don’t you think, Lord Moray?”

Lord Moray.

It was strange, being addressed like that, by his title. Bertram was sure he would grow accustomed to it in time, but Lord Moray had always been his father, a distant man to whom he could not talk and whom he had not seen in the last few years of the man’s life.