Never Romance a Rake

by Liz Carlyle

  Camille turned from the window. “The Duke of Warneham?” she said, bemused.

  Xanthia’s smile was a little twisted. “Gareth has been the duke but a short while. But now they believe Antonia—the duchess—is with child, so that’s that, I daresay.”

  “Do they?” remarked Rothewell. “Perhaps that accounts for his moods.”

  Xanthia looked at him oddly, then went on. “I am happy for her, of course,” she said. “But Gareth will be keeping himself at Selsdon now, I am sure. We have hired Mr. Windley, who is very good indeed.”

  “You are pleased with him, then?” asked her brother solicitously.

  The smile twisted further. “Have I any choice?” Xanthia asked. “He’ll do well enough. But no ordinary employee can ever be as dependable or as diligent as an owner.” Here, she paused to look directly at her brother. “Moreover, I am not perfectly sure Mr. Windley is pleased with the Docklands. There was an unfortunate incident yesterday with a cutpurse in Mill Yard.”

  Rothewell winced. “I pray he stays on.”

  “Indeed,” said Xanthia tightly.

  Rothewell smiled a little grimly. “You wished my signature on something, Zee?”

  She inclined her head toward her desk. “Several things from the bank,” she said. “And I wish you to actually read them this time, if you please.”

  Xanthia began to lay out a long row of papers.

  Rothewell groaned, and sat. “Give your recalcitrant account book to Camille,” he suggested, lifting it from the desk. “She just finished some dusty tome about bookkeeping.”

  Xanthia raised her brows in mild surprise. “Well, idle hands do the devil’s work,” she remarked lightly. “If you can get those columns to balance, Camille, I shall be forever in your debt. Use Windley’s desk.”

  “I should be pleased to try,” she answered.

  A little surprised at Rothewell’s suggestion, Camille took the book and sat, plucking a pencil from a box on the desk. With Xanthia standing over him, pointing out various bits of language in the papers they were reviewing, Rothewell read dutifully for a time, then began to dash his signature here and there as his sister instructed.

  Camille rose uncertainly when they were done. “Here,” she said, carrying the book, open, to Xanthia. “The clerk failed to carry over this charge for sailcloth. And the digits got reversed in that last line item for victualing.”

  Eyes widening, Xanthia looked down at the book. “Indeed?” she said. “Why, look! I do think you must be right. Does it balance?”

  “Oui, it should do,” said Camille. Swiftly, she finished the last of her calculations, moving her pencil down the page. “Oui, it is in order,” she finally said. She closed the book and handed it back to Xanthia.

  “Lovely!” said Xanthia brightly. “And fast, too.”

  Camille glanced at the floor. “I kept our accounts at Limousin,” she explained. “Economy—and good arithmetic—were necessary.”

  Just then, a young servant came in carrying a tea tray. They retired to the chairs by the window. For the next half hour, they drank tea and spoke of mundane things, but all the while, Camille’s eyes were roving about the room, taking in the charts, the bookcases stuffed with ledgers, and the huge map dotted with bright yellow pins, which covered nearly the whole of one wall. It seemed a new and exciting world to her; a world of commerce and of challenge.

  Every few minutes, footsteps would thunder up or down the steps, or the little bell downstairs would jingle merrily as people dashed in and out the door. Even the cries of the boatmen from the river seemed exciting to Camille. Indeed, the entire place seemed to thrum with a special kind of energy, and Camille was suddenly and inordinately jealous of her sister-in-law.

  “One would gather you do not darken Neville’s door very often,” she remarked, as Rothewell helped her back into the carriage. “Indeed, the staff seems to cower at your presence.”

  Rothewell’s expression was inscrutable, his eyes hooded. “I was never a part of it,” he said, settling into his seat. “It was my brother’s business, not mine. If Zee is away, I go down and bludgeon the staff a bit if I must. Otherwise, I keep out of the way.”

  “Oui, but it is yours, too, is it not?” Camille prodded. “And how very odd that your sister is there.”

  Rothewell cut his eyes toward the window. “Xanthia is more than capable.”

  “Bien sûr,” said Camille. “She seems quite devoted to her work—but devotion and competence are rarely enough to earn a woman respect. And soon, the child will come…”

  He looked at her impatiently. “What, precisely, are you trying to say, Camille?” he asked, as the carriage jerked, then rocked into motion.

  “I think you should talk to your sister,” she answered. “I think she wishes to have your help.”

  His dark, slashing brows lifted. “My help?” he echoed, as if he had never before considered it. “Good God!”

  Camille regarded him silently across the carriage.

  Finally, he spoke again. “Neville Shipping was always something…something special, which Xanthia and Luke shared,” he said pensively. “Something she has always loved. I never thought of it as a burden to her. It seems unfathomable.”

  “But she is to have a child now,” Camille repeated. “And she is right when she says that no one can run a business as well as an owner. After all, it was you, was it not, who advised me to trust no one else to steward my wealth and steer my future?”

  “Did I indeed?” he said quietly. “How very brilliant I am.”

  Her husband’s gaze turned inward, but he seemed disinclined to discuss it further. Wisely, Camille let the subject drop.

  For the duration of their journey, Rothewell fell quiet—not his usual grim silence, but more of a pensive lull. Camille wondered what he was thinking. And she tried not to think about how much she was enjoying the afternoons spent in his company. Indeed, there was little she would rather do.

  She was becoming foolish. She half wished Rothewell would come home raging drunk again, so that she might quarrel with him, and have a good excuse to jerk herself up short. She needed to realize that that was the man she had married. He had made himself—and his wishes—plain when he had agreed to marry her. Their short, shared interludes of true intimacy aside, Rothewell’s heart was still closed to her. He had given it long ago—given it to a dead woman, for whom he still grieved—and that was the end of it. She must not be a fool. She must be content with what she had.

  When they went up the steps at Berkeley Square, it was to find Lord and Lady Sharpe drawing up after them in a large, open carriage. Camille looked down to see that Lady Sharpe wore an elaborate lavender hat and was swathed in a heavy cloak of a deeper shade of purple.

  “There are our newlyweds!” she cried up at them. “My dears, Sharpe and I were just going for a drive in the park. Do join us.”

  But Camille was cold, and far more interested in remaining at home with her husband. After a swift, assessing glance at her, Rothewell declined, and asked them in to tea instead. A footman stepped forward to help Lady Sharpe from the carriage.

  Just then, a flash of motion caught Camille’s eye. Rothewell’s stick went clattering down the steps. Camille turned to watch in horror as his knees seemed to collapse beneath him. Lady Sharpe screamed, startling the horses. The footmen leapt back as the carriage jerked wildly.

  “Oh, mon Dieu!” Terrified, Camille knelt.

  “Well, bless me!” Lord Sharpe clambered down, heedless of the carriage’s movement.

  “Kieran!” cried Lady Sharpe. “What is it?”

  By now, Trammel had flung open the front door. Sharpe and the butler knelt on either side of Rothewell, and when Camille glimpsed his face in the afternoon light, her terror deepened. Deathly pale was not too strong a term.

  “All right, old chap?” asked Sharpe.

  Her heart in her throat, Camille could not make out Rothewell’s response. Sharpe and the butler somehow got him to his feet and into th
e house.

  “I’m fine,” Rothewell managed. “Just…light-headed.”

  “Into the library, sir, if you please,” said the butler to Sharpe.

  Rothewell tried to shake them off, insisting he could walk. But his pain was obvious. In moments, he was half-sitting, half–stretched out on a red chaise which faced the fireplace, his face still twisted in agony, his hand clasping one side of his ribs.

  “Build up the fire, Trammel,” Lady Sharpe ordered. “And send for a doctor.”

  Rothewell reached out, and grasped Sharpe by his wrist. “No…doctor,” he gritted.

  “Rothewell, don’t be a fool!” Lady Sharpe bent over the side of the divan. “Where does it hurt? Are you queasy?”

  “Yes,” Rothewell managed.

  The butler returned from summoning a footman for the fire. “The pain will pass, ma’am, I believe,” he suggested. “He just needs air and rest.”

  Lady Sharpe looked indignant. “What do you mean to say, Trammel? Has this happened before?”

  Camille had pulled a chair to the divan, and sat stroking Rothewell’s shoulder. His posture, she noted, was relaxing. She tried to remain calm, though a deep sense of despair was spreading over her.

  Heedless of the others, she knelt by the chaise. “Where is the pain?” she said softly, taking his hand. “Is it le cœur?”

  He shook his head. “The heart, no,” he rasped. He winced again, and sucked air through his teeth. “Christ, this is humiliating.”

  “Don’t be an imbecile,” she said, forcing her voice to be calm. “Just tell me where it hurts.”

  “I thought”—his breath hitched—“I thought you weren’t going to ask questions. That you meant to stay out of this.”

  Stay out of this? She had threatened as much, yes. But it had been a lie, she now realized. “Is that what you thought?” she said, struggling to steady her voice. “That I would let you quietly kill yourself? Non. Now, where does it hurt?”

  A look of resignation passed over his face. “The ribs, then. Under them. Everywhere, really.”

  Camille released his hand and began to unbutton his waistcoat. She wished desperately she could summon Xanthia, for she might better know how to influence her brother. But Xanthia was with child, and there was always a risk…

  “What did you have to eat?” she asked.

  “Toast,” he answered, his head falling back. “Some…eggs, I think.”

  The room had gone perfectly still. With one less layer of clothing to hamper her, Camille set a hand flat on his rib cage and began to feel her way gingerly outward. At a point just below the last rib, he winced again.

  “You must have a doctor.” Camille’s hand was shaking a little. “I insist.”

  “No doctor, damn it,” he swore. “Not yet. Not…yet. Please, Camille. Don’t harangue me.”

  Camille hesitated, looking around at the others. “Madame, the two of you should go. It is possible he might be—how do you say—contagieux?”

  “Contagious?” Lady Sharpe’s expression was anguished. “Oh, no.”

  “Nonetheless, you must think of the little one,” said Camille.

  Just then, Rothewell grunted, and drew almost double on a gasp of pain.

  “Oh my God!” cried Lady Sharpe. “Something must be done. He needs laudanum.”

  Camille cupped his face in her hand. “Kieran?”

  “Brandy,” hissed Rothewell.

  Lady Sharpe leaned urgently forward. “Oh, for God’s sake, Kieran! You cannot treat every ill with brandy.”

  Camille looked up at Trammel and dared him with her eyes. He drew back, and did not fetch the brandy.

  After a time, Rothewell’s pain seemed to relent again. He lay upon the chaise with his legs flat, both his brow and his breathing smoother. Camille looked down at their hands, which had somehow become entwined, and suddenly wanted to cry.

  “Buck up, old girl,” he whispered, squeezing her fingers. “If I die, at least you’ll have Jim-Jim.”

  “Mon Dieu, how can you jest at such a time?” Camille wanted, suddenly, to be alone with him. Still kneeling on the floor in a puddle of silk, she looked up at Lady Sharpe. “Please, madame, you should go now,” she said, blinking back the tears. “I will see him safely to bed and stay with him through the night. And tomorrow I shall send you word of how he goes on, oui?”

  Rothewell smiled weakly. “Go on, old girl,” he said to his cousin. “Go home. I have a wife to plague me now, remember? Just as you wished.”

  At last, the countess gave in. After another round of reassurances, Lord Sharpe patted his wife’s shoulder, then urged her out. A second later, Camille heard the front door shut behind him.

  Still staring at their hands, Camille opened her mouth, but nothing came out. Her husband’s blithe words did not comfort her. Pain in one’s organs was dangerous. A putrid appendix—or something equally untreatable—and he could be dead by morning. Or he could be up dancing a jig. There really was no knowing. The realization terrified her, even as the memories of her many vigils by her mother’s bed haunted her.

  Camille bit her lip to keep from crying. He was her husband, and he was suffering. It brought home to her once again the significance of what she had pledged.

  Wilt thou love, honor, and keep him in sickness and in health?

  Perhaps she had not meant those words when she’d spoken her vows, but she meant them now. She did not have to fail as a wife. Perhaps she did not have to be cold—if she was willing to risk opening that heart she had once wished only to shutter. Camille lifted her head, kissed his hand, then rose.

  Rothewell looked up, his gaze holding hers. “Perhaps this is nothing,” he rasped. “Perhaps it will pass.” But he spoke as a man unconvinced, and she saw an ache in his eyes which went beyond physical pain.

  She squeezed his hand, and set her shoulders back determinedly. “Randolph, come here, please,” she ordered the hovering footman. “You and Trammel help him up to bed.”

  “Yes, my lady.”

  “I can go on my own, damn it,” said her husband, moving as if to stand.

  “Very well,” she said tartly. “Then they shall merely walk beside you holding on to your shoulders.”

  Rothewell shot her a wry look as the servants did as she ordered, escorting him from the room.

  “And Trammel?” said Camille. “We shall want the doctor next, s’il vous plaît.”

  “No doctor,” muttered Rothewell, looking up the stairs as if dreading the climb.

  Camille shook her head and looked at Trammel. “Send someone.”

  Rothewell managed a weak laugh. “Your new mistress is proving persistent, Trammel,” he said. “Camille, my dear, you are not a nursemaid.”

  “No, I am your wife,” she calmly returned. “And I think even Trammel will tell you that you would do well to heed me.”

  “That’s as may be,” he answered, “but what I want is my bed and my brandy—in that order. I am sure it will pass by morning.”

  Camille saw the exasperated look which flashed across the butler’s face, but Trammel said nothing. Even now, however, some of Rothewell’s color was returning. He was no longer grimacing against the pain.

  “Très bien,” she said, as they reached the top of the steps. “But only until dawn, monsieur, will we wait, oui? After that, we will do it my way.”

  “I didn’t say that,” he growled.

  Camille shrugged. “It little matters,” she answered. “As you are, you are too weak, I think, to chase me back down the steps and stop me. So it will be done as I wish.”

  He cursed beneath his breath and shot her a dark look, but Trammel’s faint smile was triumphant.

  Chapter Eleven

  In which Lord Rothewell dines Al Fresco

  To Camille’s relief, Rothewell awoke the following morning much recovered. He had passed a bad night, she knew, for even though he had adamantly refused her a place in his bed, Camille had insisted on keeping the connecting door open. Twice he had bee
n up retching, and had paced the floor for a time—during the short weeks of their marriage, she had come to sense his every move and mood, it seemed—but with each instance, he had appeared vaguely mortified by his weakness and demanded she return to bed when the worst was past.

  Despite all this, he was sitting up in bed with the dog on his lap when she rose sometime near dawn. Camille perched on the edge of his mattress and watched as Miss Obelienne personally urged upon him a few bites of porridge and some hot tea.

  When at last he forced the cook away he lay back, with Chin-Chin tucked beneath his arm. Camille rose to open the door so that Miss Obelienne might carry the tray back out again, then went out into the passageway with her.

  “His color is much improved, I think,” Camille remarked hopefully.

  Miss Obelienne cast a worried look at the door. “Oui, for now,” she conceded.

  Camille laid a hand upon the older woman’s arm. “What do you think is the matter with him?” she asked. “Is it just the drinking?”

  Miss Obelienne shook her head. “It is the devils eating him.” Her voice was grim despite her island lilt. “The past, oui? It is like a cancer in the belly.”

  But it was more than that, Camille sensed, as she watched Miss Obelienne’s proud, rigid form descend the stairs. For a moment she stood there in the cool, dark stillness of the passageway, wondering at the cook’s strange diagnosis. Guilt and anger, yes, it could eat at a man. But not like this. Not in such violent, irregular attacks.

  With a sigh, she returned to Rothewell’s bedchamber to begin anew the fight over calling in a doctor. But it was a fight she was destined to lose. By the time she pushed open the door, her husband was up and stropping his razor.

  Camille took up a sentinel’s position in one of his wide armchairs and watched assessingly as the servants brought his hot water and laid out his clothes for the day. Rothewell’s hand was unerringly steady as he drew the blade down in firm, straight strokes, neatly scraping away the soap.

  “I am going out later today,” he said, his gaze steadily watching her in the mirror. “I won’t be back until late.”