The Ruin of a Rake

by Cat Sebastian

  Eleanor’s mouth went tight, her eyes blank. “I somehow doubt Courtenay said precisely that.”

  He had meant his remark to be light and helpful, a way of addressing the chasm that was growing between them, but now he felt defensive. “Those might not have been his exact words.”

  “You think it’s so simple, that people’s feelings can be arranged as easily as a column of sums.”

  “What the devil does everyone have against sums today?”

  “But it isn’t simple, Julian. You can’t make yourself fall in love, let alone make somebody else. You can’t even prevent it from happening.”

  Julian was getting peeved. “But—”

  And then Eleanor slapped him. Hard, and right in the face. She had never laid a hand on him, not even when he had been a bratty child.

  “What the—”

  She was already gone, turning back toward the party.

  This was the devil of a garden party. First Courtenay was in a state, now Eleanor. He didn’t think he could stand another moment of it, at least not with any semblance of equanimity. He stepped out of the alcove with the intention of finding the hostess and taking his immediate leave. Instead he nearly ran into Courtenay.

  “Good lord, Courtenay, why are you by the ladies’ cloakroom? Do you follow my sister about like a spaniel?”

  Surely he was imagining the fleeting look of hurt on Courtenay’s face. Whatever it was, it disappeared and was replaced by his usual lazy indifference. “I was looking for you,” he said. He glanced pointedly at Julian’s cheek. “I see Eleanor got to you first, though.”

  Julian automatically raised his hand to his cheek. “I think everyone has gone mad today.”

  “I don’t think you want to get caught with me in an alcove. Let’s go.”

  “I need to find Mrs. Blackett and take my leave.”

  “Not with your face like that, you don’t. Come along. Very casually, to the street, as if we’re having a conversation and simply forgot to do the pretty with the hostess.”

  Julian realized Courtenay had the right of it, damn him.

  “After you left the terrace, Standish was flirting madly with a young widow,” Courtenay said when they were on the pavement. “I daresay he was doing it to make your sister miserable, and he was quite successful.”

  Julian sighed. “Poor Eleanor.” They walked another minute in silence. “I still don’t understand why they can’t just talk and agree to make it work,” Julian burst out.

  “I know you don’t, Medlock. I don’t suppose you’ve ever been in love?”

  “Of course not.”

  He heard Courtenay sigh. “There’s no of course about it. Anyway, love involves making your heart sort of . . . available. Unprotected. And you can’t properly love a person who at any moment might step on your heart and toss it into the gutter. Or, I suppose you can, but it’s a bad practice.”

  To Julian’s ears, Courtenay sounded like he knew exactly how bad a practice this might be. “You know this from experience?”

  “I’m the sort of poor sod who can only learn things the hard way.”

  They reached Julian’s lodgings, and Courtenay walked with him up the stairs. While they waited for Julian’s valet to arrive, Courtenay took Julian’s chin in his hand. “It was a bad day, but tomorrow will be better. Let your sister and Standish figure this out on their own. This is not your problem to solve.”

  It was, though, but he couldn’t admit that to Courtenay. It was bad enough to admit it to himself. “Thank you for walking me home,” Julian said, hating that Courtenay knew more than he did about anything.

  Courtenay leaned in and brushed his lips over Julian’s.

  “I can’t,” Julian protested, but still found his hands resting on Courtenay’s arms. “Briggs will be here any moment now.”

  “I only wanted to kiss you,” Courtenay said, and he did it again.

  Kisses that didn’t lead up to some kind of release were totally foreign to Julian. He had never quite understood why a person would want to get themselves all worked up without an end in sight. But now he knew: this embrace was the point, the tasting and exploration, the knowing touch of hands.

  Later, when the sun had set and he was alone in his bed, he couldn’t help but think that things had all been much simpler before Courtenay had entered his life.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The next morning Julian sent a note to Courtenay at Eleanor’s house informing him that he was visiting Carrington Hall, Courtenay’s property near Stanmore, in order to inspect it for the new tenants. He asked whether Courtenay wished to accompany him but was positive Courtenay would decline. Julian wasn’t very much looking forward to the errand himself.

  He was finishing his toast and tea when Briggs solemnly informed him that Lord Courtenay had arrived.

  “Here?” Julian asked stupidly.

  “Indeed, sir. Shall I show him in?”

  “Of course, of course.”

  Courtenay sauntered in, looking indecently handsome. At some point in the last week he had done as Julian had asked and cut his hair. But instead of cropping it, which was what Julian had intended, he had trimmed the ends so now his almost-shoulder length hair looked like a deliberate aesthetic choice rather than the result of laziness. It was, if possible, even less acceptable than before, a glaring reminder that Courtenay was not like other men. Julian desperately wanted to touch it. As if sensing Julian’s gaze, Courtenay pushed a lock of hair off his forehead.

  Julian interested himself in assembling his toast crumbs in an orderly pile.

  “You were going to evict my mother without even informing me beforehand?” Courtenay said without rancor.

  “I mentioned it to you,” Julian protested.

  “I dimly recall some such thing. But I had no idea it was to be today.”

  “Do you object?” Julian was prepared to fight this matter to the death.

  “No, good God, not by any means. But I’ll be damned if I’m going to sit out the match of the decade. If you’re going to take on my mother, I’ll have a front row seat, please and thank you.” He tossed a parcel onto Julian’s breakfast table. “I brought buns.”

  Julian could smell the cinnamon and butter even through the paper. “You may as well sit.” He gestured reluctantly at an empty chair. He wanted to leave, not linger over pastries, but he didn’t want to get sticky sugary crumbs all over the plush upholstery of his carriage. And leaving anything behind that smelled so good was quite out of the question. Gingerly, he opened the parcel and gave one of the buns to Courtenay and dropped one onto his own plate, then wiped the sticky glaze onto the napkin in his lap. Leave it to Courtenay to choose the messiest pastry in the land. But it smelled divine, and his dry toast seemed a very distant and irrelevant memory.

  He picked the bun up carefully, and then—“Oh my God,” he said, his mouth still full. “These are even better than the last ones.” There was cinnamon and butter and a vast quantity of sugar, but also lemon rind and the barest hint of a spice that reminded him vaguely of his childhood in Madras.

  “It’s the one thing I missed when I was abroad. Bath buns, Chelsea buns, the whole lot. Can’t get them in France or Constantinople or anywhere else.”

  Julian took another bite, conscious that the glaze was now all over his fingers and mouth. But, well, no use worrying about that now.

  He shoved the rest of the bun in his mouth.

  And then he took another.

  “Hungry?” Courtenay asked. He was taking catlike bites of his own bun.

  “Oh shut up.” Julian stared at his now empty plate. The toast crumbs were not only scattered but compounded with cinnamon-bun crumbs and globs of glaze.

  He ran his finger through the mess and licked it. He would never do such a thing around anyone else, not even his manservant, but what could Courtenay possibly care? What was finger licking compared to participating in orgies and eating opium and doing whatever else Courtenay had gotten up to in his past? Julia
n scooped up another fingerful of pastry and licked his finger again.

  Courtenay made a choked-sounding noise and shifted in his chair. Julian paused with his finger still in his mouth, realizing what he looked like.

  “Does your valet knock before entering?” Courtenay asked, his voice low and promisingly raspy.

  Julian knew what Courtenay was really asking, knew he ought to say something quelling, but the man looked so appallingly delicious. So instead, he licked another finger, looked Courtenay directly in the eye, and said, “Always.”

  Courtenay let out his breath and slid his chair closer to Julian’s. Then he took hold of Julian’s wrists, and, bending his head, he systematically licked each of Julian’s fingers. Julian somehow managed not to whimper when he felt Courtenay’s tongue circling each fingertip, or when Courtenay drew a finger deep into his mouth, sucking much harder than was necessary to remove a bit of sugar. But when Courtenay leaned in and licked the corner of Julian’s mouth, the warmth and roughness of his tongue made him gasp aloud.

  “Sweet,” Courtenay murmured, before flicking his tongue along the seam of Julian’s lips.

  Infuriating man. Julian wrapped his fingers around the arms of his chair, hoping that would keep his hands from doing anything embarrassing, like petting Courtenay’s hair or something. “Kiss me properly,” he said with a little sniff. “Otherwise, let’s get in the curricle and get on with the day.”

  Courtenay let out a huff of silent laughter and pressed another exasperating little kiss on the edge of Julian’s mouth. “I can’t imagine how you think propriety enters into this. There’s very little that’s proper about this situation.” Another stupid, teasing kiss. “Even your table manners are atrocious.”

  That really was the outside of enough. “There’s a right way to do things. And chaste little kisses that don’t go anywhere aren’t the right way.” He was gripping the arms of his chair so tightly his fingers were beginning to hurt. “I should have thought that you, of all people, would have grasped the concept.”

  “But I’m enjoying this,” he murmured into the skin below Julian’s ear.

  “Because your head isn’t on right.” It was taking all Julian’s composure to keep his voice neutral and his clothing on. “I always suspected it.” Julian could feel Courtenay’s smile against his flesh.

  Then Courtenay finally cupped Julian’s jaw in his hand and tilted his head back for a real kiss. He licked into Julian’s mouth, and he tasted sweet, like messy pastry and a confusion of spices. Julian moaned—he hadn’t meant to—but the sweep of Courtenay’s tongue against his own was so good, so exactly what he craved, such a relief after that prolonged torment.

  Julian let go of the chair and threaded his fingers in Courtenay’s hair, tugging him closer, kissing him deeper. He tasted so good and his mouth was so warm and right. Each kiss stoked the lust that had been building in his belly since Courtenay walked into this room. No. Wrong. The lust had been building since he had first laid eyes on Courtenay, only temporarily relieved in Courtenay’s arms.

  Courtenay pulled away. “We ought to go.”

  Julian gaped. “The bedroom is right there.”

  “It’ll still be there later.” He rose to his feet, straightened his lapels, and headed for the door.

  “I think that what you really like is discomposing my state of mind. Turning me into a babbling fool.”

  Courtenay became very busy adjusting his cravat.

  “Oh my God, I’m right. That is what you like. You like seeing me desperate for you.” It was mortifying, this knowledge that his sad own lack of control was what Courtenay sought.

  “You’re so pretty when you’re desperate.”

  Julian gasped. “Nobody has ever called me pretty. Or desperate.”

  “You’ve been keeping terrible company, my dear.”

  Courtenay felt his light mood evaporate with every furlong as they got closer to Carrington Hall. Looking out the window of Medlock’s predictably first-rate carriage, he saw a road that he remembered all too well. It wasn’t so very long ago that he had happily traveled along this route to visit his mother and Isabella. Even then, his mother had blamed him for his father’s death, but she still received him, albeit grudgingly and with a good deal of drama. Isabella had been a different story. He remembered her half hanging out the schoolroom window, awaiting his return.

  Medlock must have noticed Courtenay’s quiet, because he was babbling nervously in a plain attempt to fill the silence.

  “If you don’t want to toss your mother out part and parcel, do you perhaps have a dower house you can put her in somewhere on the property and let Radnor have the main house?”

  “I daresay Radnor and that secretary of his want more privacy than that. They’re used to rattling about in that old pile down in Cornwall. They most certainly won’t want my mother and her family poking in the windows, which is exactly what she’d do if she knew she had the famous Mad Earl on the premises.” Only after the words had left his mouth did he realize he shouldn’t have exposed Radnor, even though he knew Medlock shared the same secret. “Let’s forget that I said anything.”

  Medlock made a frustrated noise. “Give me some credit, Courtenay. But Radnor and the secretary,” he said musingly. “I wouldn’t have thought Radnor needed privacy of that sort. But the secretary. Yes, I can see that. I met him before, you know.”

  Courtenay looked over at Medlock with some interest. “Did you? I tried to find out who he was, since Simon seemed terribly fond of the fellow and I wanted to make sure he was all right. But he seems to have materialized out of thin air.”

  “He was using a different name when I knew him. He duped an acquaintance of mine. Poor fellow had to go to South Africa.”

  It took Courtenay a second to realize what Medlock was saying. “Are you telling me my nephew is being raised by a confidence artist?”

  “He seems aboveboard now.” Medlock said this with the naive certainty of a man who still believed that a person could change his ways.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” Courtenay might have used that information to barter in exchange for time with Simon.

  “Because I can’t see how it’s my business what Radnor’s pretty secretary did to keep his bread buttered. We’ve all done things we’re not proud of,” Medlock snapped. Courtenay wasn’t sure whether to ask what Medlock meant. Then, in his earlier offhand tone Medlock asked, “But he and Radnor, you say?”

  “Can’t be sure. I never saw them together. But I used to know Radnor rather well. Radnor, was, shall we say, inclined as we are. And nobody would go to that dilapidated rabbit warren of his in Cornwall without damned good reason, so I’m deducing that there’s more to their dealings than that of a typical employer and secretary.”

  They drove on for a moment, their silence only interrupted by hoof beats and carriage wheels. “Well, then,” Medlock said blandly, “nothing for it but to toss your dear mama out. And,” he added with relish, “the rest of them. Disown, indeed.” This last he muttered under his breath.

  Courtenay bit back a smile. He would never get tired of trying to figure out Medlock’s strange code of ethics. Lingering kisses were improper, almost shocking; the fact that these kisses occurred between two men was entirely unremarkable. Confidence artists were nothing to be too terribly concerned about; Courtenay’s mother, on the other hand, was a villain of the rankest nature for having cast off the child who sent her money. Courtenay himself was a worthless scapegrace, or at least that was the decided impression Medlock had given him at first. But now . . .

  He chanced a sideways glance at Medlock. Now, he wasn’t so sure. He had sensed less rampant disapproval from Medlock since that night at the opera. Perhaps he had grown on Medlock. Perhaps Medlock believed that Courtenay, like Radnor’s reformed criminal lover, was capable of change, was capable of good intentions despite the mischief that seemed to trail in his wake no matter how hard he tried.

  The idea that Medlock might approve of him, re
spect him even, gave him a warm sort of feeling. God, he had thought his need for acceptance had petered out years ago. And maybe it had—he still didn’t give much of a damn what people in general thought of him. But the idea that Medlock—fussy, high-hat Medlock, with his rules about cats and his penchant for soporific wallpaper—might see something worthy in Courtenay gave him a peculiar feeling.

  Whatever it was, he knew he was very glad to have Medlock with him on this trip, on this road, to the house where he had been raised. To see the woman who had cast him out.

  The closer they got to Stanmore, the more familiar the landscape seemed. There were the predictable markings of time—a tree that had been felled, a gate repaired, an inn’s sign repainted in new, bright colors. But overall the terrain was familiar. It was his. This was where he was from, and no exile could change that. No matter how much he wished it.

  “Have the coachman turn onto that lane,” he said, indicating a divergence from the main road.

  “But the map—”

  “Trust me.”

  Medlock surprised him by rapping on the roof of the carriage and doing as he was told. Courtenay felt the carriage turn.

  “This will take us back behind the house, so we’ll approach by way of the stables, rather than the main gates.”

  Another silence, interrupted only by hoof beats on soil that somehow even sounded familiar. His soil. He owned this land, this dirt, these trees. Another shirked responsibility, but he was dismally certain he’d bollocksed up Carrington as much as he had bollocksed up everything else he’d ever tried to do.

  “I hate going back to places,” Medlock said, as if reading Courtenay’s thoughts. “I’d swallow lye before going back to Madras.”

  Courtenay sighed, relieved to be understood, if only partially. Behind a copse of trees, he could see the game warden’s cottage, now half tumbled down. “Bad memories in India?” He knew this to be true, but hadn’t quite considered that Medlock might be running away from something, that his flight to England might have had as much to do with starting fresh as it did with social climbing.