Never Romance a Rake

by Liz Carlyle

  The argument, Camille realized, was again lost.

  He bent over the basin to sluice away the remaining soap, then turned around, toweling off his face. He was naked from the waist up, and he looked incredibly, vigorously male, with his broad chest, and the trail of dark hair which disappeared beneath the drawers, which hung loosely from his lean hips. His eyes were again piercing, his jaw firmly set in its usual manner. It was almost as if the water had washed away not just soap and stubble, but all evidence of the previous night.

  Yes, she grimly considered, he was definitely well enough today to chase her back down the stairs. The doctor would not be coming. She tried to feel relieved. To feel hope. Perhaps, as he said, it had been nothing.

  “I’m to meet Nash and his brother Hayden-Worth at their club,” he went on, tossing down the towel. “And then to play cards. Have you something with which to occupy yourself?”

  It was the first time he had bothered to inform her of his plans. Camille had risen and made her way to the door. There, she hesitated, and cut him a sidelong glance. “Oui, the new piano will occupy me,” she said softly. “I have some practicing, I think, to do?”

  He smiled, a soft, faintly wicked smile which definitely lit his eyes. “Ah, a capital notion,” he murmured. “Perhaps I shan’t be so late after all.”

  Two days after her husband’s sudden illness, Camille went down for luncheon only to find, strangely, that the table had not been set and that no footmen were in attendance. Instead, Miss Obelienne awaited her with a leather satchel in hand.

  “What is this?” Camille asked, confused.

  Miss Obelienne’s eyes were stubbornly narrowed. “Food,” she said, tilting her head toward the satchel. “He must get out of this house—in the daylight, I am saying. The night has an evil grip. You will take him to the park today.”

  Camille frowned. “I—I do not comprehend. To the park as in…” She searched her mind for the right word, “—a picnic?”

  “Oui,” said Miss Obelienne. “Out in the air. It is a good day. The Lord has brought us sun.”

  To her surprise, Rothewell came in behind her, carrying a fold of paper. “Camille, Xanthia has written to ask—” He drew to a halt and looked at them, surprised. “What have you there, Miss Obelienne?”

  “Spiced chicken. Cheese. Apple tart. Cassava pone.” She glared at him, then hefted the bag onto the table with a heavy thunk! “Your luncheon.”

  Camille turned to him with a specious smile. “Apparently we are going on a picnic.”

  Miss Obelienne had her arms crossed over her chest. Rothewell’s gaze trailed back to the satchel. “A picnic?” he echoed. “In London?”

  “Oui,” said the cook. She made a dismissive motion with one finger, as if he were Chin-Chin being sent from the room. “Go. The outdoors will give you appetite.”

  Finally, Rothewell laughed and lifted both hands. “Obelienne has spoken,” he conceded. “I’ll send for my gig.”

  Camille let her gaze run down him. “Ça alors!” she murmured. “Perhaps I should engage Obelienne’s assistance more often.”

  Rothewell turned to go, and a look of relief passed fleetingly over the cook’s usually impassive face. Only then did Camille realize what Obelienne’s bravado had cost her. She had not been at all sure of her employer’s cooperation. She had counted, perhaps, on Camille’s presence to defuse Rothewell’s temper. A remarkable notion.

  Half an hour later, they sat beneath a tree near the quiet westerly end of the Serpentine Pond, amidst the bare trees and shrubs. Rothewell’s horse was tied nearby. The fashionable rarely came so far, Camille assumed, for this part of the park was empty today and far less manicured.

  Camille lifted her face to the sun, and fleetingly closed her eyes. The weather was not warm by any measure, but it was a brilliant, cloudless day rarely seen on either side of the Channel at this time of year, and she found herself in a strange, slightly giddy mood.

  Beside her, Rothewell had tossed aside his hat, and was removing the parcels of food carefully wrapped in cheesecloth and setting them out atop his driving cloak, which he’d spread upon the ground. He had not thought to bring a blanket. Certainly she had not.

  So far as she could recall, she had never dined out of doors. Her mother’s interests had run more to late-night affairs—masques, soirées, gaming salons, and the like. Rarely had the Countess of Halburne risen before midafternoon. Not until those final years, when she had scarce left her bed save to rummage round for a bottle of wine, or the dregs of whatever drink she could wheedle from the servants.

  “Chicken?”

  “Pardon?” She looked around to see Rothewell leaning toward her on one elbow and holding up a drumstick for her inspection. Impulsively, she leaned over and took a bite.

  “Your personal servant now, am I?” he said laconically.

  Scowling, Camille chewed the bite into submission, then, “We haven’t any plates or forks,” she protested.

  “Never eaten with your fingers, eh?” Rothewell nibbled at the leg himself.

  “Non, I have not.” Camille dabbed at the corners of her mouth with her handkerchief. “And you do not seem much of a—a picnicker, either. If that is a proper English word?”

  Rothewell laughed, and laid the chicken aside. Her heart sank with it. She had hoped Miss Obelienne knew something that she did not, and that the great outdoors would have miraculously whetted her husband’s appetite. On an inward sigh, Camille picked over the food and took a piece of cheese to nibble on, but the taste disagreed with her, as food so often did of late. Indeed, her once-healthy appetite had waned to a mild revulsion. Soon, she would be little better than her husband.

  When she looked back, Rothewell was reclined on both elbows, his long, booted legs crossed at the ankles, staring across the water toward the farms and fields of Kensington. A faint breeze came off the Serpentine, gently teasing at his hair, and for an instant, he looked almost boyish. And surprisingly wistful.

  “I don’t think I have been on a picnic in fifteen or twenty years,” he said quietly.

  “Have you not?” she answered. “It seems such a quintessentially English thing to do.”

  “I daresay.” His gaze had turned distant. “It didn’t seem like much of a lark when one ate out of doors more often than not.”

  “Did you?” she asked. “Why?”

  He glanced up at her. “I lived in the cane fields, Camille,” he said. “I was a glorified farmer.”

  Camille had heard terrible stories about the work of harvesting and processing sugar cane. France had many such interests in the Caribbean. “Was sugar as dreadful a business as they say?”

  “Dreadful is such a relative term, my dear.” He flashed a sardonic smile. “It was hot, dirty, and dangerous work. For our slaves, though…yes, I daresay they found it dreadful indeed.”

  “Oui, I am sure.” Camille fell quiet for a time. “Who oversees the slaves, now that you are here?”

  “No one,” he said. “They are my tenant farmers now.”

  “Alors, you…you gave them freedom?” she asked. “That was generous.”

  He grunted dismissively. “It wasn’t generous,” he said. “It was right. We should have done so when Uncle died, but the estate was so deep in debt, Luke said—” His gaze had turned suddenly inward.

  “Oui?” Camille encouraged. “What did he say?”

  Rothewell shook his head. “He wanted to pay off Uncle’s debts,” he answered. “And after that…we debated it, the three of us. We decided everything together. But the pressure from the other planters—to set so many slaves free at once—it was frowned upon.”

  “Why?”

  “They feared another rebellion,” he said. “And slaves who are freed can move about at will. But it little matters now.”

  “Does it not? Why?”

  He shrugged. “The days of slavery need to end,” he said quietly. “It is a vile, corrupting institution, and it will eventually be outlawed, if what Anthony Hay
den-Worth says is true. It is one of his pet projects in the Commons.”

  Camille shivered, and tucked her cloak a little closer. “I have always thought slavery dreadful.”

  He was still staring into the distance. “But when you grow up with it,” he said, “you don’t think of it at all. It is simply the way of things. Then, as you get older, you begin to see that a slave is just a man like you, with his own hopes and fears and even dreams. And when you know that…when the knowledge comes clearer with every passing day…well, it takes a hardened soul to look past it.”

  “A great many people seem to have no trouble looking past it,” said Camille a little sarcastically.

  “I cannot speak for them,” he said quietly. “I speak only for myself. What I have seen. What I have learnt. Abolition is the only way—and it cannot happen soon enough.”

  “Perhaps…Perhaps you can support Mr. Hayden-Worth’s efforts in some way?” she tentatively suggested. “Perhaps if more people believed as you do, abolition would come sooner?”

  Rothewell shrugged, and looked away.

  Camille recalled the story about their dead brother’s wife, the woman Rothewell had loved—and would perhaps always love. No doubt that circumstance, more than any other, had altered his thinking.

  “Xanthia told me about your brother’s wife,” she blurted, staring at her hands, which were clasped in her lap. “That she was of mixed race, and that she was not always welcome in society. I am sure that was hurtful.”

  She watched his jaw go rigid, a bad sign. “Xanthia spoke out of turn,” he gritted. He sounded angrier, even, than she had expected.

  “Non,” said Camille sharply. “She did not. That woman was a part of your family. Her daughter still is.”

  “She is dead,” he replied, his words curt. “My brother is dead. There is nothing to talk about, and by God, Xanthia knows it. But apparently I am going to have to remind her of that fact.”

  Camille’s temper slipped. “How can you be angry with Xanthia?” she demanded. “I am your wife, Rothewell, and this has to do with your family. I have a right to know such things, especially if I’m to bear your child.”

  His sensuous lips turned into a sneer. “Oh, that’s high talk, Camille, from a woman who not so many days past, wanted nothing more than my seed,” he returned. “A woman who called our marriage a ‘transaction.’”

  “Rothewell, that is not fair—”

  “No, it is a fact,” he interjected. Rothewell had turned to face her, his eyes glittering with emotion. “Even now, Camille, you cannot even call me by my name.”

  “I—I have.”

  “Aye, once? Twice?” He sneered again. “You said you didn’t care where I went, what I did, or who I did it with.”

  Something inside Camille snapped. “How dare you?” she whispered. “Mon Dieu, how dare you? You have already made it plain—more than plain—that those things are none of my concern. Alors, has that changed? Is this to be a real marriage? You wish to be accountable to me now?”

  He turned his head, and glared into the distance.

  “Non,” she said quietly. “Non, I did not think so.”

  Rothewell cursed beneath his breath, then jerked to his feet and strode away.

  “Zut!” Camille’s hands balled into fists. “You are an ass, Kieran!” she cried after him. “An obstinate ass. Et voilà!—I have used your name!”

  He went down the slight slope to the water’s edge, one hand set at his waist. The other hand dragged through his hair, then fell. His shoulders slumped as if with fatigue. But when she thought that he would turn around, or at least stop, he strode off down the path which edged along the pond.

  Should she follow him and plead with him? Apologize? But for what? And why should she? He was wrong—and stubborn in the bargain.

  And sick, she reminded herself as he disappeared behind the trees. Guilt began to needle at her. He must have loved Annemarie very deeply. Though it hurt her to think of it, how could she judge him for it? All her girlish infatuations aside, Camille had never loved anyone save her mother and her nurse—well, not until now. And now it was her fate to love a man whose heart was not whole.

  Behind her, Rothewell’s horse whinnied a little pitifully.

  Camille glanced over her shoulder. “He will come back, Monsieur Cheval,” she said a little sadly. “Oui, he must, mustn’t he?”

  With that, she fell back onto the driving cloak, shut her eyes, and sighed. Rothewell was right—at least in part. In the beginning of this pathetically misbegotten marriage, she had not known what she wanted. She had demanded one thing of him, and secretly begun to long for another—a thing which frightened her, and shook her to her very core. She wanted his love. She wanted a true marriage. And now she had raised the worst possible topic—his lost love. A picnic, indeed!

  She was not certain how long she lay there mentally thrashing herself and trying to determine the precise moment when she had fallen in love with her husband. But eventually, she felt a shadow move over her, and opened her eyes.

  Rothewell stood above her, but not looking at her, his eyes narrowed against the sun, his mouth grim. “What the devil do you want of me, Camille?” he rasped. “What? Can you tell me that?”

  She sat up, and looked at him unflinchingly. “Oui, I want you to be happy,” she said. “To be whole and happy, instead of sick and angry—angry with the whole world around you. I want you to have a purpose in your life. To feel joy instead of despair. You may believe it or not as you please.”

  He looked away, his expression strained. “You are going to be disappointed, Camille,” he said quietly. “I cannot be the kind of man you need. It isn’t in me.”

  “Wait!” She held up one hand. “Did I ask you to be anything? Are my ears and my tongue deceiving me?”

  “I know what you want,” he said darkly. “But I’ve disappointed every woman in my life save, perhaps, for my sister.”

  “Stop, s’il vous plaît.” Camille still held her hand up, palm out. “You will not play this trick of words on me, monsieur. I meant just what I said. You are a vile-tempered, unhappy man, and you worry all who care for you—your sister, Lady Sharpe, oui, even your servants.” Then, fortuitously, she recalled Xanthia’s words. “Your love and your grief for this dead woman is like a boil on your heart, Rothewell. And you will not lance it. You make your whole family suffer the pain.”

  Some powerful emotion flickered in his eyes, and for an instant, she feared his face might crumple. But Rothewell was made of sterner stuff than that. He set his jaw grimly and looked out across the water.

  “I do not hurt for a dead woman, Camille,” he said, pushing back his coat as he set one hand on his hip. “In that, you are wrong. Xanthia is wrong.”

  “Alors, what is it, then?” Camille challenged, not certain what folly drove her. “Do you think, Rothewell, that I do not hear you pacing the floors all hours of the night?—when, that is, you choose to come home. You do not eat or sleep, but keep only to your brandy and your solitude. Mon Dieu, I have already nursed to the grave one miserable human being bent on drinking herself to death because love was lost to her. I do not relish a second.”

  “By God, what do you want to know, then?” he snapped. “All of it? Every filthy truth—and the lies that go with it? And be damned sure of your answer, Camille. Be damned sure—for once it is said, it cannot be unsaid, and you will have to think of it every time you look at me.”

  “Non, I shan’t—”

  “Yes,” he interjected with icy certainty. “You will. Every time I come to your bed, you will remember this day.”

  “Will I?” Camille offered up her hand. “Then I shall risk it. Sit down, s’il vous plaît?”

  Rothewell still did not look at her, but he sat back down on the cloak and braced his elbows on his knees. After many moments had passed, he exhaled, a sound of surrender and of grief. “Her name was Annemarie,” he finally said. “Did Xanthia tell you that, too?”

  “Oui, s
he told me that,” Camille murmured.

  “Annemarie was older than I—and a good deal more polished.” His gaze was still fixed in the distance. “She was…a fallen woman, I suppose. And I fancied myself in love with her.”

  Camille resisted the urge to touch him, but the raw emotion in his eyes tugged at her heart.

  He dropped his head, and stared at his boots. “Although I was young, I was…well, not without experience,” he said. “Luke and I—we had lived unsheltered lives, to say the least. But nothing had prepared me for Annemarie.”

  “Oui? In what way?” asked Camille softly.

  He shook his head. “She was…she was ephemeral and worldly all at once,” he said. “She was dark and very French, and her eyes—Christ, they simply smoldered. Men fought one another for the mere favor of helping her across the street. And she was my lover before she married Luke.”

  “Xanthia suggested as much,” Camille quietly acknowledged.

  But Rothewell’s eyes had gone black and fierce, his fists squeezed tight as if he might pummel someone. The suppressed anger inside him was palpable now.

  Suddenly, Camille was anxious. She had said she would risk it, yes—but what if he were right? What if this changed everything? Was not a skilled lover and sometimes-friend better than the nothing she had been living with for so long?

  She licked her lips uncertainly. “Je ne sais pas,” she whispered to herself. “Perhaps, Kieran, you were right—”

  “No.” He held up one hand, palm out. “You started this, Camille,” he said, his voice hoarse. “You started it. You and Xanthia. So now you can sit there and listen to this…this thing. This awful thing I wanted to take to the grave. I will tell you—and then I don’t want to hear of it ever again. Do you hear me?”

  “Mais oui, if you wish it.” She curled her fingers into the fabric of her skirt, for to her horror, her hands had begun to shake. “For what it is worth, I have known many women like your Annemarie.”

  He swallowed hard, and dropped the hand. “She was not…she was not my Annemarie,” he rasped. “Not ever. I asked her to be my mistress—many times. I gave her money, yes, and a bit of jewelry here and there. But each time I pressed her for an answer, she would hesitate. She wanted me—in her bed, at least. She would even cry, and swear she loved me. But apparently, I was not quite what she was looking for.”