Page 2 of Scoundrel for Sale
Hart was referring to the first calamity, the one that had arrived via letter: that Hart’s parents, the Earl and Countess of Pennington, had been killed by a swift and sudden fever. Strictly speaking, this meant that Hart was no longer Viscount Hartlebury; he was now the Earl of Pennington, but that wasn’t the point.
The point was that his nineteen-year-old sister, Abigail, was now all alone at the family’s Hampshire estate with only servants to look after her.
Given the circumstances, the Earl of Wellington himself had granted Hart leave to return to England to bury his parents and sort out his sister’s living arrangements.
Hart was planning to go.
Just as soon as they took Salamanca.
Gabe bit out a curse. He couldn’t seem to get the neckcloth tight enough. Maybe his hands were too slick, or maybe the cravat was too thick, but no matter what he did, blood continued to seep from the wound. “She’s not alone,” Gabe said, looping the cloth around his hands for a better grip. “She’s got you.”
“She… she won’t have me. I’m dy—”
“Don’t you dare say it,” Gabe snapped. Where the hell was Jones with the tourniquet? “I need a tourniquet!” he shouted, desperately scanning the battlefield. “You, there—Miller! Go! Get help!”
“Yes, sir!” Miller took off at a run.
“You’ve got to promise me,” Hart said, his voice a raspy whisper.
Gabe had managed to get the cravat knotted. It wasn’t tight enough, and blood still flowed from the wound, but it was the best he could do until Miller returned. He leaned over Hart, looking him in the eye, and clasped Hart’s hand in his. God, his hand was cold. “Don’t talk like that. You’re not dying. Not dying, do you hear me?”
But it was more a wish than a belief, because Gabe had never seen a man so pale, and Hart was struggling to keep his eyes open. “Abbie… needs someone. To look after her. A husband. Promise me, Gabe—”
For the briefest instant, Gabe froze. Because he knew what Hart was about to ask him.
He was going to ask him to marry his sister.
Gabe wasn’t on any of the lists of suitable husbands drawn up by the matchmaking mothers of the ton. He was a gentleman, to be sure, and one of his great-grandfathers had even been a viscount. But his father was the younger son of a younger son and had been a humble army officer, just as Gabe was today. The senior Lieutenant Davenport had left no fortune when he died, and Gabe had always known that he would have to make his own way in the world.
Marriage to a respectable young lady, and the daughter of an earl to boot, wasn’t something Gabe had ever considered.
But now that he was considering it, he found the idea… strangely appealing.
Although that wasn’t quite right. He wasn’t thinking about marriage to any respectable young lady.
He was thinking about marriage to Abbie.
By the time Gabe was five years old, his parents were both dead, and he’d spent his early years being shuttled back and forth between various uncles and cousins, none of whom were eager to have him.
When he turned seven, his great-aunt packed him off to Eton. Seven was quite a bit earlier than most boys went, but not unheard of. The viscountess made it clear to Gabe that he would not be coming home for school holidays.
But Eton wasn’t all bad. After all, that was where he’d met Hart.
And then, through some miracle, the Stapleton family had more or less adopted him.
So Gabe knew Abbie. Sparkling, vivacious Abbie, who was quick with a joke, but never the kind that hurt someone’s feelings. Who could make anything fun, even the most tedious parlor games like charades or blind man’s bluff. Who was Gabe’s favorite person to be paired with for dinner, because he never ran out of things to talk about with Abbie.
He’d always liked Abbie. But the last time he’d seen her, when she came to see Hart off at Dover, something had changed. She’d been sixteen years old, and Gabe hadn’t seen her in a year, as they’d been busy training.
That was the day he realized she was beautiful.
But more than her pretty face and the very pleasing curves she’d developed, the thing Gabe thought of as he clasped his friend’s hand in that dusty field was Abbie’s letters. Hart would always read them aloud, and no matter how wretched their circumstances, how exhausted they were from the march, how many good men they’d lost, Abbie’s letters made him forget it all, just for a little while. They were lively and diverting, but more than that, they gave Gabe the feeling that even in whatever shithole he found himself, there was hope. They were a reminder that there was a better world out there, and one day he would return to it.
In an instant of startling clarity, he realized that marrying Abbie was exactly what he wanted. When he first joined the army, he would have scoffed at the notion of settling down and getting married. He was a young man with wild oats to sow. But whatever rakish tendencies he’d once had were now gone. Three years of war would do that to you, would make you realize what you really wanted in life.
What was truly important.
And so, in answer to Hart’s promise me, Gabe, he squeezed his best friend’s hand. “Anything.”
