The Ruin of a Rake

by Cat Sebastian

  “Mr. Medlock had heard some untrue rumors about his sister,” Courtenay said mildly, just as Julian had instructed him. “I daresay I’d have done the same.”

  “Yes, well, in my day we did that sort of thing out-of-doors.”

  Courtenay couldn’t argue with that.

  The next morning brought the vicar and his daughter—the redoubtable Miss Chapman who had been his mother’s aide de camp—carrying with them a bottle of elderflower cordial and tales of a church steeple that needed replacing. Courtenay was about to commit to financing the repair, because that was plainly what they intended, when inspiration struck. “I daresay we ought to let Mr. Medlock have the honor. He’s devilish awkward about what happened yesterday and this would give him a chance to make things right.” The vicar and Miss Chapman left, doubtless intending to spread the tale of hapless Mr. Medlock. Courtenay wrote to Julian in London about the steeple, but didn’t get a letter in return.

  It was a steady stream of callers after that, and Courtenay returned each call in turn. If anything, the neighborhood seemed vaguely disappointed that Courtenay wasn’t more obvious a sinner. If you were going to have a reprobate in the neighborhood, it seemed a waste to have but a reformed one, a man who had quite properly left London when his name got mixed up with a married lady’s, and then got himself shot at when he was entirely unarmed—truly, you could go into the library at Carrington Hall and see the bullet hole for yourself! But at least the man who had done the shooting—a confused young man, easily swayed by gossip—was replacing the church steeple. That had to count for something, everyone agreed.

  In this way, Courtenay was transformed from a wild scoundrel to something tame. The stories told about him were in the past tense. Any village gossips who hoped to see ladies of ill repute being ferried in from London were sadly disappointed; Courtenay didn’t host so much as a single orgy nor even a dinner party. He kept country hours and evidently intended to let the house to some relation or connection of his with an even finer title than his own.

  Two weeks passed in an orderly progression of morning calls and visits with the bailiff and land agent, without a single word from Julian. Of course he could hardly swan in after firing pistols in the library, but Courtenay had expected something. Every additional day he became less certain of what terms they had parted on. At the time, Courtenay had been certain that they were to build a future together, a future of shared time and shared touches, a future that dazzled Courtenay with a shining brightness he could hold in his hand and keep close.

  But now he wasn’t so sure. Perhaps he had been confused. Perhaps that wasn’t what Julian had intended at all. Perhaps the fact that they loved one another mattered as little as he had feared.

  And then Courtenay would be left with the other side of Eleanor’s strange rock, not the dizzying crystals but the workaday stone of neighborhood calls and land stewardship, the anticipation of Simon’s arrival in a few weeks, the crops that were growing lushly across his land. There was work to do, and he’d get along fine without the dazzling crystal. The gray rock would be enough.

  He was walking through the gardens when one of the young stable boys came running. He hadn’t had the heart to sack any of the stable hands or grooms, even though there weren’t any horses for them to tend to. The stables were empty, his mother having taken the horses with her. Courtenay thought that what he really ought to do was acquire horses for the servants to tend to, even though he could ill afford such an expense. This was likely a backwards way of dealing with things, but this was his property and if he wanted to use his scant available funds to purchase horses and implement some kind of breeding program, then that’s what he’d do.

  “What’s the matter, lad?” he asked the panting stable boy.

  “There’s a great big black stallion that the man says is yours.”

  “Mine?” Courtenay echoed. A thought—impossible but lovely—occurred to him. “Does he have any markings?”

  “A white sock on his left foreleg, my lord.”

  Courtenay broke into a run in the direction the boy had arrived from. It was indeed Niccolo, and none the worse for the past few months apart. The horse nickered in recognition, and Courtenay ran his hands all over the animal’s glossy coat. “How did this happen?” he asked the man who had brought the horse.

  “There’s a letter, m’lord,” the man said, doffing his cap.

  Courtenay took the letter. His name was written across the front in Julian’s bold slanted hand. Courtenay broke the seal unsteadily.

  My Dear Lord Courtenay,

  Please accept the return of your horse as a token of both my esteem and my earnest desire to apologize for my bad behavior and slanderous accusations earlier this month. I blush to add that I must impose on you even in the making of amends. During your horse’s stay in Wiltshire, he befriended a chestnut mare. In order to secure your horse’s return, I had to agree to purchase the mare as well. Unfortunately, I have no way of stabling an additional horse; thus I must depend on your kindness and understanding to give shelter to this poor beast whose acquaintance was the one happy outcome of your own dear horse’s exile. She has all the spirit of a chaise longue, and therefore will admirably suit your nephew or perhaps your new tenant’s secretary, at least until she delivers herself of the foal she undoubtedly carries.

  Since I rode the mare from Wiltshire, she is currently waiting for you in the stables of the Three Oaks, which is where I intend to break my journey back to London. If you hear that I passed through the neighborhood, you’ll understand that I didn’t wish to burden you with my presence and the noisome memories of our last encounter.

  Yours in most sincere friendship,

  Julian Medlock

  Courtenay tried to school his expression into something other than raucous joy, but that wasn’t possible, so he buried his face in his horse’s mane. In one masterstroke, Julian had restored Courtenay’s horse, given him a broodmare, and come up with an excuse for the two of them to meet.

  Courtenay saddled Niccolo himself and rode to the Three Oaks. For half a second he wondered why Julian hadn’t come to Carrington, but then realized that Julian intended them to have a public reconciliation. That would be the final genius of Julian’s plan—Courtenay would get to be generous and decent by forgiving a man who had tried to shoot him in such an unsportsmanlike way. Courtenay was fairly dazzled. If this was what the man was capable of at four and twenty years, what would he be doing ten, twenty, years from now? Courtenay fully intended to be by his side to find out for himself.

  Julian assumed an air of ashamed embarrassment when Courtenay walked through the inn’s door, when what he really wanted to do was get to his feet and fling himself into Courtenay’s arms. It had been a long two weeks. He and Eleanor had apologized to one another profusely and apologetically. Apologies were easy when you were happy, Julian now understood. Gratitude was even easier, and Julian was intensely grateful for his sister and brother-in-law’s asinine scheming to save his neck. He even refrained from telling them how they could have gone about it better.

  He felt like he had a stockpile of warm sentiments and he could distribute them freely and without restraint. He had spent years being miserly with his affections until he had learned better from Courtenay. Being loved by someone as open and generous as Courtenay filled Julian’s coffers, and now he could afford to be less cheap. Maybe it was just knowing that he was capable of loving someone and worthy of being loved in return that did the trick.

  Eleanor, herself basking in the affections of a plainly smitten husband, was similarly inclined. Ned’s basket of rocks—geodes and fossils and strange things Julian couldn’t identify—must have won her over. Or maybe they had loved one another all along and only had to find a way to trust that they were loved in return.

  Courtenay was scanning the tap room, plainly seeking Julian out. Julian didn’t try to draw attention to himself, partly because he was still playing a role and partly because he wanted to savor this
moment of Courtenay searching for him, eyes darting across the room until finally finding Julian and filling with relief.

  Yes, that was how it was when your soul was in pieces and somebody else had one of them. Only when you were together would the pieces fit into place and become whole.

  Courtenay made his way across the room and slid into the seat across from Julian. Julian needed a moment to figure out how to not reach across the table and clasp his hand, stroke his arm, anything. He shoved the pot of tea across the table.

  “You ordered tea,” Courtenay said.

  “I like tea,” Julian responded.

  “You like sugary milk.” Courtenay, as if to demonstrate the point, poured about an inch of tea into Julian’s cup and then added a nearly equal amount of sugar before stirring it and sloshing in some milk. When he slid the cup over to Julian, their knuckles brushed.

  “I love sugary milk,” Julian said, and he was surprised to find that he was a little choked up, his voice thick and his eyes prickling with utterly unnecessary tears. Of course Courtenay had come, there had never been any question. He was reckless and loving and kind and of course he had come to Julian. But the loveliness of it, sitting at a table in a tavern with the person who possessed a stray fragment of his soul, and knowing they could do it again and again, that there were meals and moments stretching out infinitely before them—it was more than he could bear with equanimity. Even the poor inadequacy of the charade—they couldn’t touch, couldn’t speak freely, had to endure the absurd pantomime of reconciling after a quarrel that they had only staged to prevent the truth being found out—underlined the rare preciousness of what they truly had.

  Julian sipped his tea, which Courtenay had doubtless intended as a parody of the tea he preferred but was actually the best tea he’d ever had.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  It was July, and Courtenay felt warm to his bones, warmer than he had thought possible in England. He lounged in a cane chair on the bowling green at Carrington, watching Radnor’s secretary and Simon attempt to assemble the herd of cats that had come to live here. Eleanor and Standish were spending a week at Carrington Hall before leaving on a voyage. They intended to go around the world and collect a good many rocks and butterflies and whatever else Eleanor fancied. Being joint subjects of a mild scandal had apparently been precisely what they needed to cement their new bond. Standish looked pleased as pie, quite possibly because he had unburdened himself of a half dozen bloody cats, who would now be living at Carrington Hall.

  Courtenay had been about to congratulate himself on keeping the dower house serenely free of all feline visitors, when he noticed that Julian, who was deep in conversation with Radnor about the particulars of steeple engineering, was cradling a cat in the crook of his arm. It was the same cat who had taken a fancy to Julian during his illness. Well, that was fine. Courtenay liked cats. And if Julian required a cat, he could have as many cats as he damned well pleased.

  Not that Julian—or any number of cats—was precisely living at the dower house. They couldn’t share a house—at least not yet. Julian had insisted; they were, for all outward appearances, two men forging an unlikely friendship after the strangest of events. So, Julian had taken a house in the village, ostensibly to supervise the repair of the steeple. In the fall, they would go to Paris for a few weeks and enjoy greater proximity, before returning to Radnor’s Cornwall estate for yuletide—Simon had declared Christmas at Penkellis to be a firm tradition, and everyone helplessly agreed. Later Julian and Courtenay would go to London for the season, where Courtenay, if all went as planned, would take up his seat in the House of Lords. If the kingdom wanted to throw the poor to the wolves, Courtenay at least wouldn’t be silent about it. If they liked that cycle, they’d repeat it again the following year, a predictable pattern, together. Meanwhile, Courtenay was content to sleep at the dower house and spend his days weaving in and out of Julian’s company, while working on his estate and playing with his nephew.

  He knew Julian would fall ill again. That would also be part of the pattern, part of the cycle that organized their lives. Julian’s attitude toward his illness seemed to be mostly irritation that he was occasionally bedridden. He didn’t dread recurrences, so Courtenay decided to follow his lead. No use in being morbid, no sense in grieving losses that might never come to pass. They had laid up a stockpile of tincture and that was the best that could be done. And looking at Julian now, sun-bronzed from time spent out of doors, a crop of freckles on his nose that Courtenay pretended he hadn’t noticed, it was easy to believe that his episodes were minor aberrations.

  Sometimes when Courtenay came home from calling on tenants or supervising improvements, he found Julian already waiting for him in his study, scribbling something on a loose sheet of paper. When Courtenay had crept up on him and peered over his shoulder, he saw a passage involving Don Lorenzo.

  “I thought he had fallen into a ravine,” Courtenay had said, startling Julian so he nearly jumped out of his chair.

  “People survive these things all the time in gothic novels,” Julian had said. “Besides, this isn’t for publication.”

  “Oh? May I read it? When it’s done, that is. I did enjoy The Brigand Prince, despite everything.”

  “Oh, you’ll read it all right,” Julian had said, with a look of intent mischief. Courtenay gathered that this manuscript was something filthy and was dearly looking forward to reading it.

  That pleasant line of thought was interrupted when Eleanor started waving at a carriage in the distance.

  “Oh, hell,” Radnor said. “I thought we’d have until supper at least.” He looked rattled, the way he always did when he had to talk to people outside the circle he tolerated—a circle that now, startlingly, included Courtenay and, by extension, Julian. Courtenay watched approvingly as the secretary angled himself so that he was closer to Radnor. Radnor’s dog, who Courtenay had previously mistaken for an enormous rolled-up carpet or a sack of laundry, had slept through the cat invasion and the arrival of a carriage, but at his master’s mild distress he perked up an ear.

  The carriage approached and came to a stop. Out tumbled a towheaded boy in short pants, followed by two ladies who descended more gracefully, one in a sea of pale blue muslin and the other in a gray traveling costume. Courtenay squinted and pushed his hat back to get a better view. It was Lady Montbray and her companion. “We’re a bit early,” Lady Montbray cried. “But Julian said William could have a cat if we hurried.”

  William, he assumed, was the child who was presently chasing one of the more spirited animals. “You can have three cats, at the very least,” Courtenay said, rising to his feet and kissing the air over Lady Montbray’s glove before clasping Miss Sutherland’s hand in warm affection. “They come and go in multiples of three.”

  “You’re funning, Uncle Courtenay,” Simon said. He was a grave child, but a content one. And about twice as clever as he needed to be. He’d start school again soon enough and then there’d be no telling what he’d become.

  “You caught me.” Courtenay ran his fingers through Simon’s hair, as golden in the sun as his mother’s had been. Happier and luckier than Isabella ever had been, surrounded by a small regiment of adults intent on spoiling him silly. Simon would have what Isabella never had, what Courtney himself had to fight to learn—he’d know that he was loved, he’d know that he deserved whatever joy his life would bring him, he’d know his worth and never doubt it.

  There came the sound of hoof beats and carriage wheels, and a curricle came into view, being driven at an alarming pace before it stopped short. Two gentlemen descended. One of them, Courtenay immediately recognized as being some relation of Lady Montbray’s—same guinea-gold hair, same general air of refined prettiness. And indeed, she threw her arms around the man, greeting him as Oliver. So, this was her brother, the scapegrace. Didn’t look like much of a hellion. The other man, though, had none of Oliver Rivington’s sunny smiling cheer. He looked like he had been brought to Carring
ton Hall as a hostage.

  Except . . . Courtenay narrowed his eyes. Rivington wasn’t touching the dark, scowling fellow. But the way they weren’t touching was familiar to Courtenay because it was the way he and Julian didn’t touch one another in public. Leaning a bit close, gazing a bit too long, reaching out but pulling back at the last minute. It was as if they were deeply conscious of all the ways they could have been touching but weren’t. Well, well. This was shaping up to be a profoundly irregular picnic. Courtenay strolled across the lawn and got a better look at the new arrivals.

  At that same moment, Radnor’s secretary approached and gripped the scowling man’s shoulder. “Jack, I had no idea to expect you. Did you mean to surprise me?” he asked, beaming.

  “I’m the one who was surprised,” the scowling man, Jack, said. “Oliver put me in his bloody curricle and didn’t stop until we got here.”

  “Well done, Rivington,” the secretary said, clapping Rivington on the back. And then to Jack, “I haven’t seen you in weeks.”

  “That’s because I’m in London, with everybody and everything a reasonable person could possibly want to see. And where are you? First Cornwall and now frolicking in some kind of fucking glen?”

  “I believe it’s a bowling green, but I won’t stand on particulars.”

  “Place is crawling with gentlemen.” Jack was a larger, rougher version of the secretary. And, sure enough, when Julian introduced Rivington, who then presented Jack to Courtenay, it turned out they were indeed brothers.

  And if the secretary hadn’t arranged for his brother’s visit, that meant Julian must have done so. Courtenay found Julian in the growing crowd and raised a questioning eyebrow. Julian responded with a satisfied little smile. This gathering was his gift to all of them; he had assembled a group of people who were all, Courtenay realized, safe with one another. They all shared the same secret, or could be trusted to keep that secret for their loved ones. Nobody was likely to be free with their affections—servants were always at hand, gossip was always a commodity—but it was worth something to know that one was loved for one’s entire self, without any need to hide anything in the shadows.