Never Romance a Rake

by Liz Carlyle

  His driving thrusts pushed her closer and closer. The heat and scent of his body enveloped her. His breathing grew rough. His strokes deepened. She let her head arch back against the pillow again, let herself go to him without reservation. When she came, it was not the flash of brilliance and heat of the previous evening, but a tender, languid slide into the abyss. Her soul, it seemed, flew to him, and he went with her over the edge, crying her name.

  When Camille returned to the present, Rothewell still lay atop her, the breath heaving in and out of his chest. She whimpered when his lips moved down her throat, the stubble of his dark beard lightly scrubbing her tingling skin. She felt alive, as if for the first time. As if the whole of her life—the waiting and oftentimes, yes, the loneliness, had been but a preamble to this. To this…sheer and utter joy.

  When Rothewell lifted his head and looked at her, some inscrutable emotion still burned in his eyes. His hand, when he lifted it, shook. It was not her imagination. He cradled her cheek, kissed her again, then rolled to one side, drawing her protectively to him, burying his face in the tangle of her hair.

  A part of her knew, even then, that this was a time out of place. A moment of fantasy and otherworldly joy. But her heart was raw, her mind not yet ready to return to the grim certitudes of her existence. Not yet ready to consider the folly of what she was allowing to happen. So Camille let herself imagine that happiness was a real and tangible thing. That her husband loved her. And that she had married him for a reason which went beyond her own selfishness.

  Chapter Seven

  A Slippery Slope

  Rothewell awoke sometime near dawn to the sound of his house bumping and clanging to life. Today, for once, he found it vaguely comforting instead of annoying. He rolled up onto his elbow and listened. Grates were being cleaned, coal hauled in, drapes drawn, and the upper servants were hastening along the corridors, stepping lightly as they passed his door. Rothewell was not known for his good humor when his sleep was disturbed after a hard night.

  A hard night. He dropped his gaze to the woman who lay beside him, and a harsher reality returned. Camille Marchand—Lady Rothewell—lay on her side, one hand curled into his bedsheet, her dark hair spread out like a fan of black silk across his pillow. Even as his desire for her began to build again, he considered his folly. He had vowed to be strong—for her sake and for his. And then, inexplicably, something had happened last night. He had allowed something to happen. To change.

  On that thought, Rothewell collapsed back into bed and dragged an arm across his eyes to shut out the muted daylight. It was the beast, perhaps, weakening him. But good Lord, he was not some besotted fool—and he did neither himself nor Camille any favors by behaving as if he were. It was just sex with a beautiful woman, he reminded himself. It could be no more than that. And yet, the depth of his feelings last night, seen in the bright light of day, were just a little chilling.

  Camille. Camille. He had no wish to break her heart—but there was no denying he had lost a little of himself last night, and no one was more shaken by that than he was.

  It was strange to awaken to find her in his bed. And the dog, if one could even call it that, was now asleep by her feet. Good God, how had this all happened? His home had heretofore been an impermeable fortress. He did not entertain, or invite anyone to so much as pay a morning call. And now someone was inside his walls to stay. That was all very well; after all, he had agreed to marry her. But sleeping with her—sharing a bed for something other than sex—today that felt like a dangerous and sentimental business. It would not happen again. And the dog—Jim-Jim, or whatever the hell it was called—was going back to Tweedale’s before breakfast.

  The frustration did not stop him from rolling over, however, and allowing himself the pleasure of looking at Camille. Her face held the soft blush of sleep. Her lips were slightly parted, and she looked far younger than her twenty-seven years.

  Rothewell was beginning to fear his wife mightn’t be as hard-hearted as she let on. That might prove unfortunate. He did not want anyone’s sympathy, or to be mollycoddled. He did not want the girl growing attached to him. He hoped he could give her a child, yes. But he still rued the day he had laid eyes on that lively little bundle of Pamela’s. Perhaps it had been his grim mood at the time, but in that moment, something inside him had caught—or torn?—no, altered. That was the word he wanted.

  The babe had been so beautiful. So full of life. A real person, wholly fleshed out, with his own will and determination. He had been the embodiment of hope and light and innocence; things heretofore unknown to Rothewell. And now this woman…this beautiful woman…Good Lord, he was going soft.

  He listened to the sound of someone sweeping in the passageway beyond his door, and wondered if he could make love to her again this morning—but without losing his head.

  He did not have long to wonder. When he glanced at her again, Camille was looking up at him, wide-awake, her eyes roaming over his face. Searching, he thought, for something.

  “Good morning,” he murmured. And then, after a few long and lingering kisses, he turned her onto her back and mounted her. He was not ungentle—no, he would never be that, he vowed. But he held himself a little apart from her as he coaxed her and entered her, and yes, even as she spasmed, and cried out beneath him, though it cost him dearly to do so.

  Long moments later, when his business was finished and she lay limp and sated, Rothewell rolled away, feeling suddenly irritated with the world. Why? His body was spent. His hunger well slaked.

  Camille must have sensed something was wrong. “Rothewell?” She reached out and laid a warm, soft hand upon his chest.

  Gingerly, he pulled back the covers and sat up on the edge of the bed, his elbows on his knees.

  He realized at once he should have drawn on his dressing gown. He could feel the heat of her gaze trailing over his back, could hear her faint gasp. Hell, he could hear the unasked question upon her lips. And when she reached out to touch him, her fingers tracing lightly over the web of scars, he did not even flinch.

  “Rothewell?” she said again, her voice wavering.

  Good Lord. Not now, on top of all else. He turned and forced a grim smile. “What?”

  She pushed up a little awkwardly, her dark eyes solemn as they regarded him. “You are well?”

  “Well enough, I daresay,” he answered.

  Her gaze trailed over him, her mind forming the words. “Your…Your back,” she finally said. “The scars—they are…mon Dieu, I don’t know what they are.”

  He felt his faint smile turn to a sneer. “I was a recalcitrant youth,” he answered. “Spare the rod and spoil the child.”

  She looked at him unflinchingly, and yet he could see the pity in her eyes. “I do not think this was a rod,” she said, setting one hand to the small of his back.

  “No, it was whatever my uncle had closest to hand,” he said. “A sapling branch, a horsewhip, his cane. He had a wide appreciation of all things flagellatory.”

  “How can you speak so lightly of it?”

  Impatiently, he rose and snatched his drawers from the chair over which he’d tossed them the preceding night. The dog leapt down from the chair he’d retreated to and came to join him.

  “It wasn’t meant to be light, my dear,” he said, hitching up his drawers. “It was my uncle’s philosophy—a philosophy that extended to anyone or anything in his path. If you think this looks bad, you should have seen his slaves. Or my brother.”

  Camille watched him—her husband—jerking on his clothes, and wondered what she had said to frustrate him. When his trousers were hitched up over his lean hips, Rothewell turned to face her. He seemed different this morning. Distant once again.

  “I’m going to Tattersall’s this morning with Warneham and Nash,” he said, scrubbing his hand round a day’s worth of dark beard stubble. “Tell Trammel to introduce you to the staff.”

  Camille tried not to feel disappointment. Rothewell had not misled her into thinking
this was anything other than a marriage of convenience. And the passion last night had been…well, just a physical release for him, no doubt. The realization was a little lowering. This morning…ah, that had been more what she’d expected of him.

  “Très bien,” she murmured.

  He bent down and scooped up the dog, then dropped him on the bed beside her. “Have someone see to him, will you?” The words were not curt, but merely emotionless. “He’ll want…walking and feeding and such, I suppose.”

  “Oui, bien sûr.” Shutting away the hurt, Camille folded back the bedcovers and rose. She pulled on her nightdress and wrapper, then went to the windows and began to draw the draperies. “When may we expect you back?”

  “I don’t know.” His voice was emotionless. “I keep late hours. If you will excuse me, I shall ring for my bathwater now.”

  She shrugged and started toward her bedchamber door. It was his loss if he wished to be an ass this morning. But as she crossed the room, something by his washbasin caught her eye. She glanced over her shoulder. Trammel had come in at once and stood listening to Rothewell. Camille went to the washstand, picked up the small towel which lay there, and turned it to the morning light. For an instant, she could not get her breath.

  Blood. There was no mistaking it. Spatters of pinkish, watery blood, not a bright red streak from a shaving cut. Moreover, one look at Rothewell would confirm that he had not recently shaved.

  Camille was not perfectly sure how long she stared at the bloodstains, but when she looked up, Rothewell was staring at her. He looked…not angry, but a little querulous, perhaps. As if he were challenging her to make something of it. Camille lifted her chin, and considered it.

  No, she would not give him the satisfaction of an argument. It was probably nothing, and in his present mood, he might well tell her to mind her own business. She laid the towel back down, then opened the connecting door. Just then, she heard Rothewell utter a vile curse. She turned around to see that Chin-Chin had cocked his leg over one of his new master’s evening slippers.

  With an inward smile, Camille left. She was almost relieved to see her maid standing by the dressing-room door, a pile of stockings in her hands. “Bonjour, Emily.”

  “Oh!” said the maid, a little taken aback. “It’s just you, miss. I thought…dear me, I don’t know what I thought.”

  Camille managed to smile as she slipped off her wrapper. She tried not to think of the blood; tried not to think of the many things it might mean. “It’s all right, Emily,” she said. “We will get used to living here, I daresay.”

  Emily cut a strange look in her direction. “Yes, miss—I mean, my lady,” she answered.

  “Everyone has treated you well so far?” Camille enquired.

  Emily nodded. “Of course, I’ve met but a few—the kitchen maids, the footmen who carried up our trunks, and the butler—but he doesn’t look like any butler I’ve ever seen.”

  Camille went to her windows, and stared down into the square. “Mr. Trammel is from Barbados,” she said. “The cook is his wife, according to Lady Nash. I am sure they are excellent at their jobs.” Otherwise, Camille silently added, they would not have long survived in Rothewell’s employ.

  “Well.” Emily brightened. “Will you be wanting your bathwater, miss?”

  “I suppose,” said Camille. She had begun to chew absently on her thumbnail. “Yes, bathwater. And then the blue muslin day dress? I think it’s time I dressed, and went down to meet the staff myself.”

  In a fit of stubbornness, Rothewell decided to walk down to Hyde Park Corner, eschewing Trammel’s advice that he not only stay in, but that he put his feet up! Rothewell would be damned before he’d do the latter, and with Camille in the house, he was not sure he could bear to do the former. He had already seen one too many questions in her beautiful brown eyes, and he’d no intention of answering any of them. Thank God she had slept through the brief, bad turn he’d taken in the wee hours of the night.

  Contrary to Trammel’s grim prognostication, the walk did not kill Rothewell, nor did London’s morning air—contrary to his own long-held suspicion. Instead, it did a vast deal to clear his head. Going to bed before dawn perhaps had its benefits, though he did not plan to make a habit of it. Indeed, he rather doubted he’d see dinnertime sober, or his bed much before cockcrow, provided the beast did not come crawling back out to gnaw at him tonight.

  Yes, in marriage, he had decided, it was best to begin as one meant to go on. There was no point in giving Camille the idea that theirs would be a normal union of husband and wife—not that she necessarily would care—and no point in allowing himself to feel regret. A man got whatever time God allotted him, and developing hindsight or hope too late in one’s life would only make matters worse. To Rothewell’s way of thinking, you made your bed—or your grave—and you lay in it without complaint.

  Rothewell turned down the narrow lane to Tattersall’s and found his friends in the Jockey Club’s subscription room poring over the descriptions of the horses to be auctioned that day. Tattersall’s was London’s premier auction venue for bloodstock, and all of London’s most raffish turfites passed regularly through their doors. Lord Nash had been practically enshrined there.

  Today, Nash’s booted legs were languidly crossed, his dark head bent to Gareth’s lighter one, both men wholly absorbed in their task. For a moment, Rothewell considered not interrupting. He was glad the two had come to be friends. There had been a time he feared it mightn’t be possible, for both men had once been in love with his sister Xanthia. But the dark and dashing Lord Nash had won out.

  For his part, Gareth was now the Duke of Warneham, and but a few weeks’ married himself. And only in seeing Gareth as he was now—in love and happy—did Rothewell realize how desperately unhappy the poor devil had been for all those years which had come before.

  For many years, they had lived almost like a family; he, Xanthia, and Gareth, united by their miserable childhoods and a general mistrust of nearly everyone else. And yet Gareth had always kept a part of himself to himself. The change in him was truly revealing.

  Just then, Gareth looked up and smiled as a shaft of morning sun caught his golden locks. He was considered by the ladies to be a remarkably handsome man, Rothewell knew, and today he looked almost like Gabriel come down to earth. But he still swore like the wharf rat he was. “Damn me if it isn’t the devil himself!” he said. “And up before noon, at that.”

  “Good morning, gentlemen.”

  “Rothewell!” said Nash jovially. “Do join us. I was just about to bankrupt myself.”

  Rothewell crossed the room, propped his walking stick against a nearby table, and sat down. “Don’t let me stop you, old fellow,” he said. “My sister can afford to keep you up in a pretty grand style, I daresay.”

  “Yes, I know.” Nash grinned, showing his very white teeth. “Isn’t marriage a fine institution?”

  “He has no idea,” said Gareth, laughing. “Not yet.”

  “Actually, I am now qualified to render an opinion on that lofty subject,” said Rothewell, looking about for a servant. “Have you any coffee round here, Nash?” he asked. “I could do with a pot.”

  Nash motioned to no one in particular, and three of the lackeys dashed off to do his bidding. Then he centered his gaze on Rothewell. “Now,” he said quietly, “about that first part, old boy. I think you must tell Warneham your news, for I have not.”

  Gareth leaned forward in his chair. “Kieran, what have you done?”

  “I was married,” he said. “Late yesterday.”

  The golden-haired duke fell silent. “Ah,” he finally said. “There was some issue with—er, the lady’s honor?”

  Rothewell shook his head. “No, not precisely.”

  “Well, either there was or there wasn’t, Kieran,” said Gareth. “There’s nothing imprecise about it. But keep your counsel, please. Just tell us what we’re to tell people.”

  “That we decided life was short,” he answer
ed. “And that there was no point in waiting to do that which we’d planned to do anyway.” It was a surprisingly honest answer, if not a complete one.

  Gareth fell back into his chair. Neither he nor Nash had believed he meant to do it at all. He could see that now.

  “Yes, well,” said Gareth. “Well, we wish you very happy, I’m sure. And Lady Rothewell?”

  “What about her?” asked Rothewell.

  “We wish her happy as well,” he hedged. “Do you think…Kieran, do you think she will be? I don’t mean to give advice, but—”

  “Then don’t,” Rothewell interjected. “Camille has what she asked for. We will rub along well enough, I daresay.”

  A servant appeared with a tray carrying the coffee and set it down between them. Nash poured, his gaze focused on the spouting coffee as he spoke. “Sometimes, Rothewell, women deserve just a little more than they ask for,” he said pensively. “Those are the rare ones, I’ll grant you. Still, one might give it some thought?”

  Rothewell took the proffered cup. “Like fidelity and love?” he suggested. “Or jewels and gowns? The latter she may have as it pleases her.”

  “And the former?” Nash asked.

  Rothewell sipped at his coffee. “It is not in my nature,” he answered. “If it ever was, it long ago deserted me.”

  Gareth made a dismissive sound. “Balderdash!” he said. “This is a second chance for you, Kieran. She is a lovely and gracious girl. You could make her fall in love with you, you know—and love her in return if you would just let sleeping dogs lie.”

  His coffee cup half-raised, Rothewell turned to face him. “Now why is it, Gareth, that I suspect you are just about to roust up those sleeping dogs?” His voice was cold. “I do not presume to give you advice, and I will thank you to do the same for me.”

  But Gareth’s expression had stiffened in a way which Rothewell knew meant trouble. “Sometimes, Kieran, you are a bloody damned idiot,” he said, his voice low and a little angry. “You are still grieving over a woman who was never worthy of your grief. You were just a boy, and Annemarie played you for a grass green fool. Face it, Kieran. She got precisely what she wanted in the end—and it wasn’t you.”