Never Romance a Rake

by Liz Carlyle

  “So, on the off chance you might get your forty pieces of silver, you ruined that girl’s life and denied her a father who would have loved her and wanted her?” Rothewell sneered into his face. “You are not worthy, Valigny, to lick the dirt from Camille’s shoes—and the truth is, you couldn’t father a child if someone paid you.”

  The comte managed to look insulted. “Mais bien sûr!” he declared. “Why not? But I have never been fool enough. Non, my lord Rothewell, the little shrew is not mine—and thank le bon Dieu for that mercy.”

  Rothewell hauled Valigny onto his feet, and dragged him back through the archway. Nash stood in the shadows with a pair of his cronies, one shoulder propped against the wall, his thumbs hooked in the bearer of his trousers as they passed.

  “Rough justice, old chap,” said one of the gentlemen, glancing down at Valigny. “But long past due.”

  Rothewell grunted, hauled Valigny through to the other side, and tossed him into the lane beyond. The comte staggered, attempting to keep his feet. “You have until noon tomorrow, Valigny, to quit England,” said Rothewell coldly. “If ever I lay eyes upon you again, the beating you got this afternoon will pale by comparison to what you’ll get then.”

  “You cannot order me away,” Valigny hissed. “Those gentlemen have seen what you did to me. You are younger, Rothewell, and hulking in the bargain. They know you for what you are—a big, brutish thug.”

  Rothewell eyed him nastily. “What those gentlemen know is that you once unfairly shot Halburne in a duel, damn near killing him,” he returned. “And soon they will know you have kept him from his only child. But they don’t know anything about the beating you got today. If you do not believe me, Valigny, fetch a magistrate down here and see if you can find a witness.”

  For an instant, Valigny managed to draw himself up like a bantam rooster. Then, suddenly, his shoulders fell. With one last dark glance at Rothewell, he spit at his feet, then turned and went slinking up the narrow lane toward Hyde Park Corner.

  Rothewell turned around to see that Nash had followed him out. His brother-in-law stood quietly surveying Valigny’s departure, his arms crossed languidly over his chest. Humor, and a certain amount of sympathy, lurked in his eyes.

  “And let that be a lesson to us all,” he said. “Sic transit gloria mundi.”

  Rothewell cocked one eyebrow. “And for the less literate amongst us?”

  Nash smiled. “Thus passes the glory of the world,” he said, just as Valigny turned the corner and vanished. “He will be forgotten soon enough.”

  Rothewell began to laugh.

  Nash came away from the door frame. “That was not a bad piece of work for an invalid,” he said calmly. “But what the hell are you doing down here, Rothewell?”

  “Taking light exercise,” said Rothewell, dragging a coat sleeve over his forehead.

  “Indeed.” Nash’s gaze swept over him.

  “That’s my story,” he said darkly. “And it’s the story you’re going to tell my wife, old chap.”

  Nash just smiled, turned, and clapped a fraternal arm about Rothewell’s shoulders. “Valigny is right, you know,” he said as they went back inside together. “You are a bit of a thug.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Joyeux anniversaire

  What happened?” Camille whispered in bed that night. She was looking, of course, at the faint bruise which was beginning to appear at the corner of his left eye.

  Rothewell drew her nearer and laid his head beside hers on the pillow. “A lamppost,” he said, holding her gaze. “The ones in St. James’s are quite vicious, my dear.”

  Camille lifted her head enquiringly. “Mon Dieu, how did this happen?” she asked, instantly anxious. “And what were you doing in St. James’s? I thought you said you strolled along Hyde Park?”

  He looked at her, and stroked the backs of his fingers across her elegant cheekbone. “First I went to Hyde Park,” he said. “And then to St. James’s. I had an errand I wished to take care of.”

  “And you think that is light exercise?” she asked, mildly perturbed. “It is a good thing, I daresay, that I was still driving in the park with…with Lord Halburne when you returned.”

  Rothewell cupped her face in his hand. “I hope, my dear, that you will someday be able to call him Papa,” he said quietly. “I confess I feel for Halburne in that regard. I can only imagine how he longs to hear the words.”

  Camille wriggled onto her back and stared up at the ceiling. She sighed deeply, her bare breasts rising and falling with the effort. “This is all so very hard to accept,” she whispered. “And we shall never know for sure, n’es-ce pas? I feel…I feel a fraud, Kieran. I have never believed I belonged here, in this world. And now…can it be that I do?”

  Kieran rolled onto one shoulder. By the light of the dying fire, he searched her face, then kissed her lightly on the lips. “I saw him, Camille,” he said quietly. “Valigny, I mean.”

  She lifted her head. “Où?” she murmured. “At Tattersall’s?”

  Rothewell nodded. “We had a frank exchange of views,” he explained. “And Valigny realized the game was over. So he admitted it—oh, not that he was infertile, and one couldn’t expect that. But yes, he said…he said he knew all along that you were not his child. He confirmed it, Camille. What Halburne told us today is entirely true.”

  Camille’s head fell back into the softness of the pillow. “Mon Dieu!” she whispered. “He…He admits this?”

  Rothewell tucked a curl of hair behind her ear. “With a little convincing, yes,” he said softly. “So it is over, Camille. Whatever you had with Valigny—whatever hell he has put you through—it is over. Whatever you make with Halburne is to be your choice. Not his, and not mine. But your life with Valigny, that much is done.”

  Her soft gaze holding his, Camille exhaled again, a long sigh of relief. “Grâce à Dieu!” she whispered. “Oh, Kieran! I just don’t want his blood in my veins. I am just like my grandfather, n’est-ce pas? And I do not care. I am just so relieved. I do not know if I wish to thank Valigny or throttle him.”

  Rothewell did not have the nerve to tell her the throttling had already been done. “You shall have the opportunity to do neither, my dear,” he said. “Valigny returns to France tomorrow.”

  “Bah!” She might have been a quarter Spanish, but her language was still laced with French disdain. “Valigny can never remain long in one place. He is always on the run from his creditors. He will be back.”

  “No, not this time.”

  Camille turned to look at him, her fine black eyebrows drawing together.

  “Not this time, Camille.” Kieran tried to look innocent, but it was a stretch. “I have persuaded him that the air on the Continent will be far better for his health.”

  Her eyes narrowed in irritation. “Mon Dieu, Kieran, you are not yet well!” she scolded. “What did you do?”

  He lifted one bare shoulder. “Nothing remarkable,” he answered. “Ask Nash. He was there.”

  “Oui, I shall,” she declared. Then she closed her eyes as if savoring the moment. “But you are sure, are you not? And oui, it is a great burden lifted. As to what you have done, I shall discover the truth in time, I am sure—and report you to Dr. Hislop, most likely—but for now, I will just float here on this strange feeling of relief and…and of hope.”

  Unable to resist, Rothewell threaded his fingers through the fine hair at her temple and kissed her again, this time more thoroughly. They had made languorous love but half an hour past, and already he wanted her again.

  “It is my life’s ambition,” he said when her lips looked thoroughly ravished, “to make you happy, Camille. I have my life back because of you—and because of you, it is a life worth living. I love you, Camille. Do you know that? Can you see it in my heart?”

  She snared her bottom lip between her teeth and shook her head. “I…I did not know,” she whispered. “But you are a good man, Kieran. I know you will always be a good husband—”
r />   “A true and faithful husband,” he interjected.

  She nodded, her black curls scrubbing on the pillow, her eyes dampening. “I know that,” she answered. “I thought I married one sort of man, Kieran, but it was not long before I realized you were a complete and utter imposteur.”

  Her arms came round his neck. Her body to his body. Their lips became one, as they were one. It was absolute and eternal, and the reassurance the knowledge brought would comfort him, Rothewell was certain, into the waning years of his life.

  But his life was not waning. It was just beginning. He was increasingly certain of it. Gently, he pulled away, planting lighter, smaller kisses across her mouth, her cheek, and even her nose. “I have something for you,” he rasped. “Wait.”

  Rothewell rolled over to fumble at his night table. When he rolled back to her, he pressed a carved rosewood box into her hand.

  She looked up, blinking. “Ça alors! What is it?”

  He smiled down at her. “My errand in St. James’s,” he said. “Happy Birthday, my love. A day early, yes. But then I have never been known for my patience, have I?”

  Camille laughed, a remarkably happy sound. “Mon Dieu, I have not had a birthday gift in years and years!”

  Rothewell tipped up her chin with his finger. “And that, my dear, is a tragedy,” he said quietly. “I love you, Camille. You have changed my life—no, given me back my life. And for as long as we are together, we will celebrate your birthday—and with a gift, too. Every year.”

  “Why?” she asked softly. “It sounds like a lovely gesture, oui, but not necessary.”

  Rothewell hesitated, searching for the right words. “I will celebrate it because it was your birthday which brought us together,” he finally said. “This birthday, Camille. Otherwise—admit it—you would never have spared me so much as a disdainful glance—and trust me, your glances can be supremely disdainful.”

  Fleetingly, she looked ashamed. “I was wrong about you,” she began.

  “No, you weren’t,” he interjected.

  Camille set her fingertips to his lips, gently pressing them shut. “I was wrong about you,” she said, looking into his eyes. “And what is worse, you were wrong about you. You have been wrong about yourself, mon amour, for so very, very long. And I love you, Kieran.”

  “Do you?” he asked quietly.

  Her eye were soft, almost dreamy now. “I have loved you, I think, from the moment I saw you standing in Lady Sharpe’s back parlor,” she confessed. “You…you were tapping that crop against your boot, so very impatient, and looking—ooh la la! So very large and wicked.”

  “Oh, come now, Camille!” He gave a self-deprecating laugh.

  “Non, it is true,” she insisted. “You…you made my breath catch, Kieran. For a moment, I could not breathe. Oui, even then I knew. I knew that there would be trouble for me. With you. And I feared that I was destined to…to fall in love with you. You see, my heart knew, from the very first moment I saw you, what my mind did not—that you were a good and honorable man. That I could trust you.”

  “Camille.” He lifted both hands to cradle her lovely face. “Camille, my love.”

  He started to kiss her again—this time with more serious intentions—and then he remembered the box. “I thought women were supposed to be inquisitive creatures,” he teased, pulling back. “Do you mean to open that box tonight? Or must it wait until tomorrow is officially here?”

  “No,” she said, grinning. “No, mon cœur, it cannot wait.”

  She looked down and opened her hand to reveal the little box. Gingerly, she lifted the lid, then gasped. A short strand of diamonds lay upon white velvet, a ruby teardrop pendant dangling from the center. “Mon Dieu, such gems!” she whispered.

  “To match your wedding ring,” he whispered. “Because I love you madly. Because I am so proud that you are my wife—even if I do not deserve you. And because I think, my love, that like your grandmother, dark red is destined to be your color.”

  He lifted the necklace from the box. “Here, goose, turn round.”

  Camille did so, her long, slender neck lovely in the firelight. The diamonds twinkled as he lifted it, making her gasp again. Carefully, Rothewell set it around her throat and snapped shut the clasp.

  It was a perfect fit.

  Epilogue

  The Tell-Tale Kipper

  Lady Rothewell sat at her desk, so deeply absorbed in a voyage reconciliation report, she did not hear the faint squeal of the door hinges, or feel the rush of cool air which washed up the stairs to stir the draperies behind her.

  “Where is my little princess?” sang a soft voice from the threshold.

  At that, her head jerked up to see a thin, familiar face peeking round the door. “Papa!” she cried, tossing aside her pencil. “What a lovely surprise!”

  “Good morning, my dear.” Lord Halburne came in as his daughter dashed from behind her desk.

  Swiftly, she embraced him. “I certainly did not expect to see you today,” she said, setting him a little away so that she might study his lined face. “What on earth brings you to Wapping?”

  His expression turned wistful. “Ah, my princess, of course,” he replied, laying his cloak across a chair. “I was just struck by the wish to see her this morning. Remember, my dear, I am an old man, and must be indulged.”

  Camille laughed and kissed him lightly on the cheek. “Nothing would please me more than to indulge you,” she said. “Isabella is next door in the nursery. Will you have a cup of coffee first?”

  “That would be most welcome.” Halburne’s gaze was drifting about the room now. “Do you know, my dear girl, I still cannot fathom this.” His tone was musing, but not disapproving. “The fact that you come here—all the way to this place—just to…to do what, precisely?”

  “Papa!” she chided, drawing him to a chair. “It is but two days a week, and I come because I wish to, not because—”

  “Oh, no, my dear.” Halburne patted her hand affectionately, then sat down. “I do not criticize. I mightn’t understand what you do, but I do understand this is what you want.”

  “Merci.” She smiled at him affectionately.

  Halburne’s gaze went to the map which covered the adjacent wall. “What I would have envisioned for you, Camille—an easy life as a lady of leisure—well, I see now that it never would have done at all.”

  Camille laughed. “I am a lady of leisure—five days a week.”

  “That’s nonsense, and you know it,” he calmly answered. “The other five days of the week you are poring over those papers and ledgers your grandfather’s solicitors keep sending. I have seen the stacks, dear child, in the study in Berkeley Square.”

  “Kieran is helping with all that,” she replied. “After all, what is the difference, really, between a cotton mill and a sugar mill? Together, we are learning how to go on.”

  Her father’s gaze returned to her face, his eyes softening. “You have a good husband, my dear,” he said quietly. “If I had had the honor of choosing a husband for you, I could not have chosen better. I account myself fortunate that you have done so well for yourself—and all by yourself, I might add.”

  Camille patted his hand again and blinked back a tear. Her father—her newfound, much-loved father who had come to her by such an amazing twist of fate—was but one of the many new blessings in her life. And since Isabella’s birth, she inwardly considered, the woman who rarely cried had become something of a silly watering pot.

  After the coffee came, they passed a few moments in idle conversation, catching up on the fortnight which they had spent apart, and discussing Halburne’s visit to his country estate. The earl had remained almost the whole of the year in Town, even venturing out into society again, once or twice with his daughter on his arm. Society’s whispers about Valigny had faded by midseason, and with them, much of Halburne’s reclusion and melancholy.

  Halburne had just broached the subject of a hobbyhorse he wished to buy for Isabella when Mr.
Bakely came in with the morning’s post, distributing it evenly over the three desks which the office now contained.

  “Well!” said Camille’s father, rising. “Bakely has things for you to do, I collect. Let me leave you to it. Perhaps Isabella’s nurse will permit me to read to her again today?”

  “She would not dare stop you.” Camille rose and kissed his cheek again. At only three months of age, Isabella paid no attention to books, but she had learned the rhythm of her doting grandfather’s voice. “May we expect you for Wednesday dinner as usual?”

  When Halburne was happily ensconced in the nursery, Camille returned to her desk and to her reconciliations, but her efforts were short-lived. In moments, Kieran came elbowing his way through the door, a wicker basket in the crook of his arms.

  “Oranges,” he announced, setting the basket down on his desk. “The Queen Anne just came in. I plucked these right off the top of the best barrel.”

  “Kieran, mon amour.” Camille rose, set her palms against her husband’s lapels, and kissed him lightly on the lips. “How did you find things at the docks?”

  “All on schedule, just as Xanthia said.” Kieran tilted his head at the dark gray cloak which lay draped across one of the chairs. “Halburne has dropped by?”

  Camille smiled. “He’s just back from the country and could not wait to see Isabella.”

  “His little princess,” said Kieran, studying his wife’s face.

  She laughed. “Yes, he treats her like a princess, too.”

  Kieran kissed her again, swift but hard. “I think someone should treat you like a princess,” he said suggestively. “Tonight, perhaps?”

  Camille leaned nearer. “Oh, you may certainly do so, mon amour,” she murmured against his ear. “But I am no princess.”

  To her shock, his hand came up to cup her cheek. “Oh, but I think you might be,” he murmured, his voice oddly gentle. “Indeed, I think you have known it all along in your heart.”

  She drew back and laughed. “Whatever are you talking about?”