The Ruin of a Rake

by Cat Sebastian

  “And when he negotiated Eleanor’s marriage settlements it was in much the same spirit, I gather. Really, Standish. You and Eleanor let yourself get led around like a dog on a string by an actual child. You, I can believe.” Julian had to bite the inside of his cheek to stop from laughing. “But Eleanor?”

  Standish didn’t sound offended. “She always did whatever he said. I think it was because he had been so unwell.”

  The truth of that left Julian slightly shaken.

  “And yet you still didn’t understand why she had to go to England?” Courtenay snapped, again seeing things that he wasn’t meant to. “Most of us don’t enjoy watching our siblings die. She didn’t leave you. She was going to lose her brother to death or to England, and she chose to follow him to England. Or—wait now.” Julian could almost hear the gears turning in Courtenay’s mind. “She probably convinced him that she was going to England for her own purposes and trusted that he would follow her. She didn’t expect you to be such an idiot as not to come with her. I hope you apologize to her in grand style.”

  “I see that now,” Standish protested.

  “Pair of idiots,” Courtenay murmured, but not without fondness. “Really, I’m glad you patched it up. The two of you are too good to be with anyone else.” He said good like it was a synonym for daft.

  Julian decided that this would be a wise moment to feign waking. “Do I smell Bath buns?” he croaked, raising his arms in a weak approximation of a stretch. It was an effort to get the words out and make them sound like the words of a man who gave a damn about baked goods rather than an invalid trying to stop his brother-in-law and lover—former lover?—from quarrelling in the drawing room.

  “I’ll tell Eleanor you’re awake,” Standish said. Julian didn’t protest, because he knew Standish was only slipping out to give him and Courtenay time alone. When he left, he shut the door. Julian heard a key turn in the lock.

  “He’s being very decent, you know,” Julian said.

  “About what?”

  Julian weakly gestured back and forth, to Courtenay and back to himself. “About this.”

  Courtenay folded his arms across his chest. “You mean he isn’t scandalized by our very existence? How kind.”

  “You know perfectly well most people would be.”

  “I’ve been spoiled by only associating with the demimonde, then.”

  “You’re grumpy.” Julian liked grumpy Courtenay.

  “I’m fond of Standish. He has the good sense to know Eleanor’s worth, so that’s something in his favor.”

  “Are they still quarreling?”

  “God help me, no. There they are, nearly thirty, married, but acting like the most incompetently courting couple I’ve ever seen.”

  They had never needed to court much the first time around. They might have, if Julian hadn’t swept in with his numbers and ledgers. But, he reminded himself, he had been eighteen years old, and he had been trying his damned best to help the one person he had in the world. “That’s much better than quarreling.”

  “You only say that because you haven’t had to sit at table with them. Yesterday he presented her with a box of rocks.”

  “Really?”

  “Apparently, he picked up a rock everywhere he went—Shanghai, Lima, New Orleans, and everywhere in between.”

  “What kind of rocks?” He hoped Standish had the sense not to scoop up handfuls of gravel. There were rocks and there were specimens.

  “Oh, they all have names, and long complicated ones at that. And he knew every one of them.”

  “She must have loved that,” he managed. Perhaps the illness had left him emotional, because Julian felt tears prickling in his eyes.

  It was too much to hope that Courtenay hadn’t noticed his tears. “The damnedest thing is that she did. I’ve spent thousands of pounds on rubies to less effect,” he said, not a hint of rancor in his voice.

  “That’s probably because the lady—or the gentleman—wasn’t predisposed to fall in love with you.”

  “Evidently not! How humbling. But that was never my goal until—” He broke off suddenly with an abashed look.

  Had he meant until you? “Indeed,” was all Julian said. And then, pushing himself more upright, “Are they trusting one another?” He remembered what Courtenay had told him, that love required trust, letting your heart be exposed and vulnerable.

  “Yes,” Courtenay said, his mouth tightening. Perhaps the mention of trust reminded him of Julian’s deception.

  “How about one of those buns?” Julian said weakly.

  Courtenay reached for the bag.

  “First, help me to sit by you.” It was pathetic, a transparent effort to have some last bit of closeness before this was done between them. “I think I can get there on my own, but I doubt my pride can take stumbling in front of you.” He said this with the consciousness that he had likely done a good deal worse than stumble in front of Courtenay in the last few days. And still, Courtenay was looking at him with unmistakable affection. Maybe even hunger. But not trust. Julian didn’t think he would ever earn that.

  Courtenay’s arm was around him in an instant, though, guiding him the short distance from the chair to the sofa. His arm stayed around Julian even after they sat side by side, and Julian let his head sink onto Courtenay’s shoulder, the bun momentarily forgotten as Courtenay traced circles on the sleeve of Julian’s dressing gown.

  One of the kittens leapt onto Julian’s lap. “That creature has adopted you,” Courtenay said. “He makes himself agreeable so you’ll let him nap by your side.”

  Indeed, Julian had noticed the sleek black kitten whenever he opened his eyes. “I’ve named him after you. Dark hair. Insinuating ways.”

  Courtenay snorted. “Come here,” he said, pulling Julian closer.

  “I’m already there.”

  Courtenay put a finger under Julian’s chin and tilted it up.

  “You can’t possibly mean to kiss me. I’m revolting.” Please kiss me.

  “You aren’t. And even if you were, you’d be other things too.”

  It was a gentle kiss, the sort of patient and meandering kiss Courtenay liked and Julian had never understood before. It wasn’t a prelude to fucking, it wasn’t even a prelude to a more thorough kiss. It was a conversation, without the burden of words. Please, Julian wanted to say. Let me try again. Julian’s heart felt full of something terrifying, something more dangerous than anything he had ever thought possible. And he didn’t care. He was throwing himself into an abyss he couldn’t even see, and that was fine, at least for the duration of the kiss.

  Courtenay kissed the corner of his mouth and pulled back, looking at him with an expression Julian couldn’t read.

  Then there was the sound of a key in the lock, and the door opened to reveal Eleanor standing on the threshold, an expression of shocked betrayal on her face.

  “I cannot believe you have the nerve,” Eleanor said, slamming the door behind her. Courtenay quickly pulled away from Julian, but she could apparently tell they had just kissed or were about to do so again.

  Courtenay was no stranger to being on the receiving end of angry protests. But Eleanor wasn’t speaking to him. Her furious gaze was focused entirely on her brother.

  “After the way you acted when you thought I was going to bed with Courtenay, I can hardly believe it. You should be ashamed of yourself. I don’t expect any better from you, Courtenay,” she said, sparing him an indifferent glance before turning her wrath back to Julian. “But you.” She shook her head. “So officious, so eager to tell everyone else when they’ve stepped out of line. And you’re carrying on with Courtenay in my drawing room?” These last words she whispered—more like hissed—but the previous part of her tirade had been loud enough for the entire household to hear.

  “Lower your voice, Eleanor,” Julian said. His voice was very soft, weak and hoarse from his illness, with none of his usual acerbic edge.

  Eleanor opened her mouth to say something but
Courtenay held his hand up. “Now is not the time,” Courtenay said. “We don’t know who is listening.” Courtenay had no intention of finding out whether a man as rich as Julian Medlock and a peer of the realm, however dissolute, would actually be tried for sodomy in England, or if instead he and Medlock would only be barred from all decent society. Julian would be devastated. He had worked so damned hard to be accepted. Courtenay wouldn’t let him lose that, not on his account. “And besides,” he added, “Julian isn’t well.”

  “I’m plenty well,” Julian retorted, sitting up straight in a way that pulled him entirely away from Courtenay. Their bodies were no longer touching in even the most innocent way. Courtenay didn’t want to think it was a repudiation or a dismissal, but he felt the affront in his bones.

  “You didn’t even tell me?” Eleanor demanded. “You know I don’t object to your liaisons with men.”

  “Well, given how you’re handling yourself, can you blame me?”

  Away went one of the last pathetic wisps of hope that he had meant something to Julian, that this had been more than fucking. He hadn’t told Eleanor, hadn’t meant to ever tell Eleanor, even though she evidently already knew about her brother’s preference for men. Indeed, Eleanor’s shock had nothing to do with finding out her brother was involved with a man, but rather that he was involved with a man who was beneath contempt.

  “Yes! You were so cut up when you thought I was involved with Courtenay. You could have at least let me know you—arbiter of right and wrong—absolved me of that one sin.”

  More flimsy hope, blown away on the wind. So, going to bed with Courtenay, or kissing him gently in a drawing room, was the worst one could do. Good to know. And Julian wasn’t protesting. What a fool Courtenay had been to think that he could have something lasting, something meaningful for once in his life, with a man who thought he was a walking scandal.

  “I ought to go,” Courtenay said, rising to his feet. Nobody stopped him, although he heard Julian say something that sounded like farewell.

  He opened the door to find the butler and a housemaid loitering in the vestibule, the better to pick up the strains of raised voices. He couldn’t be sure how much they had overheard, or if any of it was particularly incriminating in the first place. He had been too busy watching his last idiotic particles of hope being crushed beneath Julian’s heel.

  Damn it. He didn’t know whether these two servants were likely to spread tales. Tilbury, for all his distaste for Courtenay, seemed devoted to Julian. But Courtenay knew better than to overestimate a servant’s interest in protecting an employer, even less an employer’s brother. No, Courtenay would need to do something about this.

  Even if Julian didn’t care a jot for him, Courtenay wasn’t going to let him be besieged by scandal. And Julian was in no condition to solve this problem on his own. Grimly, he knocked on the door to Standish’s study.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Julian had seen the dismayed sinking of Courtenay’s shoulders, had seen the darkening expression on Courtenay’s face, and known the man was hurt. He wanted to go after Courtenay, he wanted to follow him out into the hall and apologize for not having defended him to Eleanor. A better man, a braver man, would do precisely that.

  Instead he buried his head in his hands. He hadn’t meant to insult Courtenay, hadn’t meant to tacitly accept Eleanor’s suggestion that being involved with Courtenay would be a terrible thing. But Julian hadn’t been thinking of how Courtenay must have felt to have been the subject of that ugly conversation. And Julian knew he ought to have done a better job considering the feelings of a man he cared for. It had only occurred to him what had gone wrong as Courtenay left the room.

  Weeks ago, Courtenay had said that what Eleanor needed from Standish was proof of devotion, a display of feeling. Julian hadn’t understood then. Now he did, and he also knew that he wasn’t able to give that to Courtenay or anyone else. Julian wasn’t capable of gushing sentiment. He was hardly capable of any sentiment at all, he was quite certain. And if he had any feelings he certainly didn’t acknowledge them, even to himself. If he did he might have to think about how desperately he already missed Courtenay, how happy he had been each time he opened his eyes and saw Courtenay by his sickbed, how right and good it felt to be in the same room as Courtenay and how awful it felt not to be now. He felt like one of those sea creatures whose soft undersides were protected by spikes.

  He rang for Briggs to send for his carriage and pack his bags immediately. The morning’s post had brought an invitation to spend a week in Richmond with Lady Montbray. It would be a small house party, entirely suitable for a lady in her last weeks of mourning, she assured him with what he had to assume was a degree of irony. He didn’t care very much about propriety at the moment. What he needed was to get away from here. Convalescing in the country with pleasant company seemed about as ideal a situation as he could possibly come up with.

  “You’re in no state to travel, sir,” Briggs ventured tentatively.

  “I cannot stay here, and have no interest in holing up at my lodgings.” Without company, he would have time to appreciate how truly alone he was. He had ruined things with Eleanor through first his judgment and then his secrecy. Which, now that he thought about it, was precisely how he had ruined things with Courtenay. At least he was consistent.

  With as much haste as Briggs’s dignity and Julian’s weakness would allow, Julian dressed and was bundled into the carriage. Only then did he realize he was somehow still clutching the bag of buns Courtenay had brought, and now the carriage was filled with the scent of butter and cinnamon and incongruous spices, and the memory of the joy and hope he had experienced the last time he had eaten one.

  He couldn’t bring himself to eat one now. When they arrived at Lady Montbray’s house in Richmond, Courtenay handed the crumpled, grubby bag to Miss Sutherland, the companion. “They’re very good,” he managed. A quarter of an hour later he was asleep in the spare room, still wearing his boots, still thinking of all the things he ought to have said to Courtenay if he were better, braver, and truer.

  Courtenay had once told Julian that he was terrible at entrusting his heart to people who would take care of it. It seemed that nothing had changed, because he knew that he loved Julian and he was fairly confident that Julian felt nothing of the sort in return. And still, Courtenay was going to go out of his damned way to protect Julian and shield him from whatever scandal might arise as a result of servants’ gossip. He was going to grossly inconvenience himself, and he was going to do it because he couldn’t stand any harm coming to a person he cared about. He never could.

  Having met with Standish and set their conspiracy in motion, Courtenay now had nowhere to sleep. Staying with Eleanor and Standish was out of the question now that their plan was afoot. He had given up his old lodgings on Flitcroft Street. There was the Albemarle Street townhouse, but he didn’t know if it was still unoccupied. There were, he recalled, other properties scattered across the kingdom, none of which he had any intention of visiting. He could sleep on Norton’s sofa or he could take a room at one of London’s cheaper hotels.

  Or he could sleep at his own damned house.

  Carrington Hall was his, and had been the principle seat of his family for more generations than anybody could be expected to remember. It was his and he had every right to sleep there.

  He packed his belongings, including that blasted trunk filled with papers, and hired a post chaise heading west.

  This time, as the carriage approached the village, he saw what Julian had noticed right away: cottages in need of new roofs, a bridge in need of repair. The road was badly rutted and would likely mire carts in any amount of rain. All these little things were signs of insufficiency. Julian had recognized them as evidence of bad management; Courtenay alone could fix that. Not only was this his house, it was his responsibility. It didn’t matter who he let live here—his mother for free or Radnor for rent. This land, this village, the people living here—all depended o
n him at least to not bollocks it up.

  In the weeks since his last visit, spring had settled into the landscape in a way that Courtenay only thought possible in this corner of the English countryside. He had seen every season in a dozen or more countries, but was confident he could identify Carrington in May with his eyes closed. The breeze rustling through trees that were heavy with leaves, the faint sound of the trout stream in the distance, the air fresh with the scent of hollyhocks and pinks. He had a rush of whatever sensation was the opposite of homesickness—homecoming, perhaps—but then it was swept away by the realization that this too was evidence of bad management: money had been poured into the grounds and garden when it ought to have been put into roads and roofs.

  It was as if he had Julian by his side, clucking over the stupidity of it all. When he walked into Carrington Hall, he tried to imagine Julian there, wrinkling his nose at the butler’s discomfiture. Julian, coming to his defense as he had during their past visit. As Courtenay remembered that day—supper at the inn and then their night in Julian’s bed—he thought that Julian couldn’t possibly have believed Courtenay beneath reproach. He had to have seen some mote of goodness in Courtenay.

  But then Courtenay realized it didn’t matter. It didn’t matter in the least what Julian thought of him, it didn’t matter what anyone else thought of him, all that mattered was what Courtenay thought of himself. He now understood that one of the reasons that he had always been indifferent to general public opinion was that he thought all the foul things said about him were basically true: he was a villain. And this past year without Isabella and Simon—the two people who loved him and to whom he meant anything at all—had done a number on his ability to think of himself as anything worthwhile. Without the people who thought the best of him, he had forgotten how to think the best of himself. Shame had seeped bone deep.