The Ruin of a Rake

by Cat Sebastian

  He clapped his hand over the top of the crystal, causing the sparkles to die.

  He didn’t leave until the sun had set, long after Eleanor had forgotten his presence. He lit a lamp so Eleanor could continue to work, quietly shut the door behind him, and walked back to his own lonely lodgings.

  With only half his attention on his horse, Julian put the animal through her paces. It was early enough that the park was still largely deserted, but for once he wasn’t here to see or be seen. He had been restless since the opera, his fingers itching for something to do, and riding his horse was the best he could come up with. He didn’t even enjoy riding, and had only learned because he thought it was something a gentleman ought to do, but at the moment, he didn’t think there was a damned thing he did enjoy.

  What Julian really wanted was to make himself useful at the dockyards. Perhaps he could inspect the shipment of silks he knew had recently arrived. Maybe he’d review the books, watch the numbers add up in the satisfying way money did when treated properly. But he had no place there now. The men he had hired to do the actual work of managing the enterprise wouldn’t be able to get their job done with him prowling about, asking questions and recalculating sums. He’d only be a hindrance.

  It had taken him years to accept that he couldn’t properly run a business when he might be taken ill at any time. There were men whose livelihoods depended on Medlock Shipping remaining a going concern, and he couldn’t properly ensure that when he was delirious and feverish. The realization that his bouts of illness were going to continue forever, bringing his life to a grinding halt with no warning, had finally dawned on him this past year. There would always be relapses and recurrences; he might not die, but he wouldn’t get better. Regardless of how well he felt when he was healthy, there would always be another attack waiting for him around the corner. Eleanor’s tinctures only did so much. Bloodletting and special teas did nothing at all. He would spend the rest of his life trying to cram his living into the space between illnesses, his life a sentence with the ugliest punctuation.

  All the more reason to polish the veneer that stood between his inner self—sick, sweaty, helpless, scared—and the rest of the world. All the more reason to keep everyone at arm’s length. Nobody needed access to his humiliating reality.

  He spurred the horse faster, feeling the still-cold spring air bite against his flesh. The horse had been as restless as he was, and now flew down the path as Julian bent low over her neck.

  Ordinarily, when he was at loose ends, he went to Eleanor. She usually allowed herself to be persuaded to make morning calls or do some shopping or just have tea together. But when he had called on her yesterday, Tilbury gravely informed him that Courtenay had already arrived, and Julian had left with a request that Tilbury not inform his mistress of his visit. Julian was afraid that Eleanor, who had known him since he was a motherless infant, would immediately sense that something had happened between him and Courtenay. How could she not, when Julian felt that his own attraction to the man was practically a tangible, visible thing? And after he had been so rude to her about what he thought was her own liaison with the man, he couldn’t very well let her know that he had actually done what he had accused her of.

  He had a vague sense that he ought to be honest with her, that secrets would only compound this new chill between them. But lurking at the edges of his memory was what Courtenay had suggested to him about Eleanor’s situation, and—worse—his own responsibility for it. He didn’t want to think about Eleanor being lonely or sad or anything less than what he had meant to happen, which was for her to be rich and respected and safe.

  But perhaps Julian had been a trifle ham-fisted in his meddling when he pushed Eleanor and Standish together. Even though it was quite clear that Standish needed to marry, his wastrel father having left him with nothing but debt, perhaps he ought to have let the two of them come to that conclusion on their own. At eighteen his meddling lacked the finesse he had since acquired. He knew Eleanor thought he ought to interfere less with other people’s lives, but the fact was that most people needed help managing the simplest things, and Julian had both the talent and the time to be of assistance. It was a service, really.

  He rode until the horse started to flag, and by then the sun was high in the sky. On his way back to the stables, he tipped his hat to a small group of ladies and gentlemen on foot. There was the barest pause before they greeted him in return, and he saw two bonneted heads tip towards one another, lips moving silently.

  It had been years since he had been the subject of whispers. He didn’t know whether the ladies had been whispering about his appearance at the opera with Courtenay or Eleanor’s supposed affair with the man. Either way, it was Courtenay.

  The only way to remedy it was to make Courtenay a success; then, there would be nothing to whisper about.

  That wouldn’t solve Eleanor’s problems. But it would keep Julian busy. It might do something to abate the cold purposelessness that had driven Julian out to the park early in the morning. And it just might help Courtenay. Julian tried to ignore the fact that this alone felt like a good reason to exert himself.

  Chapter Seven

  Julian’s machinations at the opera house had garnered Courtenay a dinner invitation from Mrs. Fitzwilliam. This wasn’t precisely the top tier of London society, but it was a damned good start and Julian was quite satisfied with himself. As he allowed his valet to comb his hair and straighten his cravat, he was cautiously optimistic that if Courtenay could simply refrain from bawdy language or licentious behavior, they’d have the situation quite in hand.

  “If you’ll pardon me for saying so,” said Briggs as he gave Julian’s coat a final brushing, “you look pale. Might you be coming down with—”

  “I’m quite all right,” Julian snapped. And then, because Briggs had endured him and his illnesses for several years now, he added, “But thank you for taking care of me.” And he probably didn’t sound in the least bit grateful because he hated being taken care of almost as much as he hated being sick. But tonight, at least, he was fine. He’d had half a lifetime to learn the symptoms that signaled an oncoming attack, and he didn’t have any of them now. He went to Mrs. Fitzwilliam’s house in relatively high spirits.

  By the time the fish plates were removed from the dinner table, Julian knew he had grossly misjudged Courtenay’s abilities. The man was charm in human form.

  Julian made the most perfunctory conversation with the lady sitting to his left, all the while keeping the bulk of his attention on Courtenay. He wouldn’t have been surprised to hear that the other twelve dinner guests had their attention on Courtenay as well. They were leaning toward him like plants toward the sun. Julian, who had spent the entirety of his adulthood studying the ways of the ton, still couldn’t quite put his finger on what Courtenay was doing to exert this magnetic pull on their attention. It wasn’t just his notoriety—that would have been plain enough to see in people’s narrowed gazes or inquisitive stares. Nor was it his good looks, for while preposterously handsome, he was hardly the only attractive gentleman to grace a London hostess’s dinner table this season.

  It had something to do with how, when he turned his sea-green eyes on you and paid attention to what you were saying, you felt like you were at the center of the universe. He seemed to genuinely like each person he spoke with. It was the same thing he had done to Lady Montbray’s companion at the opera, only to the entire table. And it wasn’t only the ladies—the gentlemen seemed equally under the influence of his charm.

  Julian couldn’t look at Courtenay without the memory of strong hands on him in the darkness of the opera, of forbidden pleasure and—

  His mind stuttered over pleasure, and instead of seeing the china and crystal on Mrs. Fitzwilliam’s dining table, all he could think of were balloons straining at their tethers and loose-limbed provocateurs.

  Watching him, Julian had the sense that he could catch glimpses of the man Courtenay might have become if he hadn’t
been dogged by scandal and shame. He was intelligent and articulate, and when he wasn’t deliberately trying to be provoking, he had effortless good manners.

  The realization hit him like a blow: Courtenay could have been a man Julian might have admired.

  After the ladies withdrew, the conversation turned to the blasted Poor Laws. Julian suppressed a scowl. As far as he could tell, some members of Parliament had realized that with two consecutive bad harvests and the vast number of unemployed soldiers returning from the recently ended wars, the two-hundred-year-old Poor Laws were increasingly useless. But instead of fixing them in a sensible way, they wanted to eliminate them entirely. Julian would have liked to ask the gentlemen at the table precisely what they had expected to happen to the poor after passing a series of laws designed to inflate the price of bread, and another series of laws designed to increase the rights of landowners and, necessarily, make it harder for country people to make ends meet. Junior clerks at his shipping firm could have puzzled that one out without too much trouble. But this was just the sort of topic he could never speak a word of in public lest people be too forcibly reminded of his origins and how he came by his knowledge of money and trade.

  Julian caught Courtenay’s eye and shook his head ever so slightly as a reminder for Courtenay to hold his tongue. Earlier this evening, he had told Courtenay all the things he was not to discuss. “Do not mention debt, radicalism, duels—”

  “Why the devil would I want to talk about duels?” Courtenay had protested.

  “Why the devil would you want to have a duel, but that’s just what you’ve done. And on numerous occasions, no less.”

  “Fair point,” Courtenay had conceded.

  “Talk about the weather, the theater, and horses. Compliment a lady’s attire, but not her appearance, and not overmuch. Praise the food and wine, but not in such a way as to make you sound as if you consider civilized refreshment a novelty. That’s it.”

  But now Courtenay’s mouth was twitching as if he had thoughts that were ready to spill out.

  Don’t you dare, Julian mouthed silently, fixing Courtenay with his sternest glare. Courtenay’s only response was a dangerous smile, which Julian somehow felt on his person like a shivery caress.

  “Shall we join the ladies?” Julian tried, attempting to forestall the calamity he foresaw. But the gentleman had only started their port and weren’t apt to abandon it so soon.

  “Can’t just feed and house the blighters, otherwise why would they ever want to work?” said Fitzwilliam.

  Julian reached blindly for his glass of port and drained it so he wouldn’t be able to point out the incongruity of gentlemen, who by their very definition did not work, accusing the poor of laziness. They seemed to be under the distinct impression that the only reason people would work was if they absolutely had to.

  “Wouldn’t want to encourage them,” Courtenay murmured in evident agreement. But something about the malevolent sparkle in his eyes told Julian that this was only the beginning. “Best to leave that to charities,” Courtenay said slowly.

  Wrong! Julian wanted to shout. Utterly wrong! Unless you wanted to raise a generation of men without a trade or the skills to acquire one, that is. In which case, sally forth with that scheme.

  There was a general murmur of approval. When a footman filled his glass, Julian drained it again.

  “I mean to say, who the devil are these upstarts who want to pass a bill forcing all the poor into workhouses, anyway?” Courtenay swirled the port in his glass. “I daresay they mean to line their pockets.”

  Julian gritted his teeth. The current, antiquated Poor Laws were administered by each individual parish; some gave food and money to the poor in their own homes, others required all the poor to relocate to workhouses. These institutions were generally considered an enormous favor to the poor, even though they were little better than prisons. Some men had the crackbrained belief that even workhouses were unnecessary, and that absent charitable relief, the poor would simply stop reproducing or somehow find work.

  He wouldn’t have thought that Courtenay, who surely didn’t number chastity or diligence among his virtues, would harbor such a notion. Then again, Courtenay, despite being Christendom’s greatest scoundrel, had a pedigree stretching back to the Conquest. Julian knew that aristocrats and gentry looked on the rest of humanity as a different species, one that could be managed in the way of livestock.

  There were the predictable sounds of assent from the half-drunk men around the table. Julian drained his own glass yet again, thinking at least he would keep his mouth too busy to tell them all how demented they were.

  Courtenay then caught his eye, and Julian saw in it a glint of pure devilry that had nothing to do with workhouses. “The wife selling, though. That can’t be right. Not sporting.”

  “But that’s hardly common,” said one very young gentleman. “I think it happened only that one time, in what was it, ‘fourteen?” He was referring to an incident in which the workhouse governors had insisted a man sell his wife and children rather than have them supported by charity.

  “No, Edwards, been going on for centuries. But no legal basis for the practice at all,” said a gray-haired gentleman.

  “If the fellow can’t provide for a wife, best give her to someone who can,” said a third, and based on the dark gleam in Courtenay’s eye, this fellow had better keep his back to the wall.

  “That’s the part that bothers me,” Courtenay said mildly. “The lass must have had some say about who she married the first time around. Letting her be sold to whoever pays the price doesn’t seem English. Seems a bit like rape, to be quite honest. Not to mention bigamy and prostitution.”

  Having thereby discussed rape, bigamy, prostitution, and politics, Courtenay gracefully rose to his feet and smoothed his trousers. “I think I’ll be joining the ladies in the drawing room.” He flashed the stunned gentlemen a dazzling smile and strode out of the room.

  Julian didn’t know whether to be relieved to discover that they were of one mind about the bloody Poor Laws or incensed that Courtenay had in a few very deliberate sentences jeopardized his prospects, and Julian’s good name right along with it.

  “What is wrong with you?” Medlock hissed once they were outside on the pavement.

  “What’s wrong with me?” Courtenay began walking in the direction of his lodgings, hoping Medlock wouldn’t follow. He hadn’t expected Medlock to rise and follow him from the dinner table, nor to make civil excuses to the hostess explaining their early departure. But Medlock had done so all the same, smoothing over Courtenay’s behavior in a way Courtenay didn’t appreciate: he wanted to offend those men. “It’s a sin and a crime that those lackwits are in charge of this nation.”

  “Strictly speaking, they aren’t,” Medlock said, keeping pace beside him. “You and Lord Lippincott were the only ones present with seats in the House of Lords. There were no members of Parliament.”

  “That’s not what I mean.” Courtenay shook his head, dismissing this unwanted reminder of his birthright. “They’re the ruling class. These people who think poverty can be punished out of a person. And I saw your face, Medlock. You don’t agree with them any more than I do. How could you sit idly by and let them talk such gammon? People will starve.”

  “Because it’s tasteless to discuss politics at the dinner table,” Medlock said primly.

  “Rubbish. You tolerate it because you don’t want anyone to dislike you. You’re determined to be as bland as an unbuttered slice of pain de mie. Just like that wallpaper.”

  “Pain de—And what wallpaper are you talking about? Are you in your cups?”

  He sighed. “No, Medlock. I’m not.” But Medlock was. Courtenay could smell it on his breath. And if the man were sober he’d likely realize where they were heading and scamper off somewhere safe. “I’m angry. I hate this blasted country.”

  “You can’t seriously mean to tell me that the poor are treated better in France or Italy or Constantinopl
e or wherever else you’ve been?”

  They most certainly were not. The situation of the poor in Athens was the stuff of nightmares. But that wasn’t the point.

  This was England. This was his bloody home.

  This was a place where, as Medlock had reminded him, he had a seat in Parliament and could theoretically do something about injustice. He groaned.

  “What now?” Medlock looked peeved, one hand on his hip, his lips in a tight line.

  “We agree about the Poor Laws,” Courtenay said.

  “Hurrah,” Medlock said unenthusiastically. “That’s something we can talk about after neither of us is ever invited anywhere ever again.”

  “Surely that’s a bit dramatic.”

  “You discussed rape, bigamy, and prostitution at Mrs. Fitzwilliam’s dinner table.” He strung his words together coherently enough for a man who had downed three glasses of port in half an hour. Probably long years of practice being inoffensive. “The entire point of refined society is to not discuss sordid things. We pretend the uglier aspects of life do not exist.”

  “I thought that after the ladies withdrew, it was permissible to discuss more interesting topics.” He hadn’t really. He also hadn’t cared. If being accepted by society meant putting up with the type of ruinous palaver he had heard tonight, he simply wasn’t capable of it. He’d figure out a different way to reunite with his nephew.

  “At the absolute utmost, men talk about their mistresses, Courtenay. Or gambling. Not crimes against nature.”

  Courtenay shrugged. “In a few weeks they’ll forget you ever . . . sponsored me, or whatever this is. You’ll go back to being modestly appreciated by everyone, bland as bland can be.”