Never Romance a Rake (12 page)

Camille froze. Then she realized he was watching her reflection in the window. “
Oui
, I thank you,” she said coolly. “And you,
monsieur
?”

He let his empty hand drop, and turned around. “Well enough, I daresay.” His voice was a low, emotionless rumble. He came away from the window and offered his arm. “Might I have the pleasure of your company in the garden?”

“
Mais oui.
” Camille laid her book on a table by the door, and tossed her woolen shawl about her shoulders.

Rothewell glanced down at the book and raised his eyebrows as his eyes trailed across the title,
An Epitome of Book Keeping by Double Entry.
“You have remarkable taste in reading,
Mademoiselle
Marchand,” he commented, drawing one finger lightly down the spine.

She regarded him levelly. “You would prefer, perhaps, a stack of novels,
monsieur
?” she remarked. “
Après tout,
money makes the world go round—and perhaps those who have little of it should at least understand how it works?”

For the first time, his sardonic smile almost reached his eyes. “Ah, but you shall eventually have plenty of it,” he remarked, “if all goes according to plan.”

“
Oui,
but what good is a fortune in the hands of a fool?” she asked. “If I am so fortunate,
monsieur,
then I mean to manage well what
le bon Dieu
has given me.”

To her surprise, he nodded solemnly. “Then you are very wise,
mademoiselle,
” he answered. “Never trust anyone else to steward your wealth or steer your future.”

She looked at him in some surprise. Camille had expected that he might argue. If she understood English law, her income would be his once they were wed. It was a risk she would have to take.

They went down the steps in silence, Rothewell deftly hooking his crop on the rear gatepost as they passed. In the garden, the breeze held a chill. Already the bitter tang of coal smoke spiked the autumn air. Winter was coming, thought Camille, cutting a sidelong glance up at Lord Rothewell. Coming, perhaps, into her life.

Her every instinct warned her to back away; that this, perhaps, was a man who was as much dangerous as dissolute. A man well beyond her range of experience. But she did not turn around. She did not even hesitate.

Halfway down, the lawn was terraced, but the steps were of uneven stone, and a little steep. Rothewell leapt down before her, graceful as a cat, then turned to slide his hands beneath her shawl, grasping her round the waist.

“
Merci, monsieur,
but I—”

Too late. He lifted her easily. Her hands grabbed instinctively at his shoulders, and when they spun round together, the moment felt suspended in time. As if he held her perfectly still in the air, their bodies entirely too close, her fingers curling into the soft wool of his coat. They were face-to-face, his mesmerizing gray eyes just inches from hers, her heart hammering oddly in her chest.

Watching her, Rothewell lowered her down his length. But the earth felt suddenly unsteady beneath her feet, and Camille did not remove her hands. Rothewell still grasped her waist, his large, heavy palms warming her skin through her dress. She remained there, looking up at him until a clatter in the alley beyond rent the silence.

He released her waist.

“
Merci,
” she murmured, lowering her hands. But her heart would not still, and the warm masculine scent of his cologne lingered in a dizzying, sensual cloud. Camille felt almost frighteningly aware of him as a man—but that was her only clear thought amidst the sudden, maddening whirl in her brain.

They strolled toward the center of the garden as Camille tried to still her heart and gather her thoughts. Farther on, a high arrangement of boxwoods concealed a sheltered circle of fading rosebushes, and here Rothewell stopped and laid his hand over hers where it rested upon his arm.

When he spoke again, his voice was surprisingly gentle. “I came to tell you, Mademoiselle Marchand, that I have sent your father a bank draft for his twenty-five thousand pounds,” he said in his impossibly deep voice. “You are now free of any obligation to him.”

She stopped abruptly on the path and looked up at him.
“Mon Dieu!”
she whispered. “Where did you get twenty-five thousand pounds?”

Rothewell hesitated for a moment. “Ah, that,” he said dryly. “I waylaid a Blackheath mail coach at gunpoint.”

She was almost relieved to see the glint of irritation in his silvery eyes.
“Vraiment, monsieur?”
she replied. “Then you robbed a coward. I should have waited to see how good a shot you were before stopping.”

“I don't doubt it,” said Rothewell. “The French are notoriously foolhardy in battle. But I am quite a good shot, Mademoiselle Marchand. You would have waited at your peril.”

Camille decided it prudent to alter the subject. “And you still wish to marry me,
monsieur
?” she said. “Otherwise, you see, I have no way to repay you.”

He looked down at her steadily. “I am here, am I not?” he answered.

“You must know by now that that your sister disapproves of our marrying,” said Camille. “Is she quite a good shot, too, I wonder?”

“Yes, as it happens.” His expression had tightened. “But in this, her opinion is of no consequence. Moreover, it is not you of whom she disapproves. It is I—and I shall deal with it.”

Ah, a family quarrel. Camille decided it might be more prudent to hold her tongue. As Lord Rothewell resumed his sedate pace, he cut a glance down at her, his expression inscrutable.

Why on earth was he marrying her, Camille wondered, if he could come up with twenty-five thousand pounds on a drunken whim and a few days' notice? But he had, and at last her foolish bargain with Valigny was over. She was surprised by the flood of relief that knowledge brought her. This made twice that Lord Rothewell had come to her rescue.

No. Camille jerked herself up sharp. She must not look at it like that. This man was no hero, and she must on no account romanticize the situation. Rothewell was, if not her father's friend, certainly his cohort. They were cut from the same piece of cloth, with the same vices. The same victims. And Rothewell had a good reason to marry her, for she had told him, foolishly perhaps, the one thing she had kept from Valigny—the true magnitude of her inheritance.

The path narrowed as they approached the end of the garden. Lord Rothewell stood quite close now; so close she could again catch the scent of his cologne on the air; something that smelled distinctively of sandalwood and citrus. It was an infinitely male scent, one which she remembered well from that fateful night at Valigny's.

Just then, his arm brushed hers as they walked, and her heart gave another of those odd little flip-flops. Suddenly, Camille was seized with the notion to bolt.

But to what? She had little money. No formal education to speak of. And no family that would own her, unless one counted Valigny's shallow-minded kin, who, whilst not precisely throwing her into the street, had nonetheless ignored her existence.

Rothewell must have read her thoughts. He stopped on the path and turned her to face him. When he spoke, the mood surrounding them suddenly altered in a way which made her unaccountably nervous.

“Mademoiselle Marchand, Pamela's delay has given me time to think,” he said, his warm, heavy hands settling on her shoulders. “You do not have to marry me. This bargain was Valigny's, not yours. You can walk away if you choose.”

“
Oui,
but to what,
monsieur
?” she asked simply. “And with what?”

“You have a cousin, have you not?” he suggested. “The man who inherited your grandfather's title? Perhaps he has the connections to arrange a marriage?”

She laughed bitterly. “I don't even know his name, and I am sure he does not wish to know mine,” she replied. “Consider,
monsieur
. I am the bastard daughter of the woman who shamed his family,
n'est-ce pas
? And if I never marry, never bear a child, then he will probably inherit all, instead of just a long title and a big house. No, he will not thank me for turning up on his doorstep.”

Rothewell winced. “I fear you are a good judge of human nature,” he muttered. “Perhaps a situation could be found for you?”

“Employment,
oui
?” she answered. “Such as a companion or a—a
gouvernante
?”

“A governess, yes. But that dooms you to a life of poverty, I daresay.”

“I am not afraid of hard work,
monsieur,
” she said honestly. “I should thrive on it. To use my brain—
oui,
it would be like a dream. But the things I could best do, no woman would be allowed. And the things society permits women to do—
non,
for the daughter of the disreputable Comte de Valigny, it will never happen.”

His silvery gaze drifted over her face for a moment as if searching for something. “Pamela tells me you adore children. Do you, Camille?”

“
Oui,
” she said casually. “Who does not? But no one is going to hire Valigny's by-blow to care for their children.”

“No, not likely.” He smiled faintly. “But do you wish for children of your own? Your grandfather's will not withstanding?”

“I should like it very well,” she replied equivocally. But she was lying, and she wondered if he knew it. A child to love—oh, it was her deepest wish. Her only hope, it often seemed.

For an instant, their eyes locked, and again she had the sense that he was searching for something. Grappling with some notion she could not comprehend. She was beginning to think she better understood him as a drunken roué. This strong, stern man seemed far more controlled, and much less predictable.

“You once spoke, Camille, of your wish to live alone,” he continued, his voice a low, soft rumble. “I dislike the notion, but we live in a world of uncertainty. Are you strong enough to rear a child alone?”

“I am strong enough,” she answered firmly. “Never doubt me, my lord. I am strong enough. To persevere. To survive. To do whatever must be done.”

When she said no more, Rothewell led her toward one of a pair of benches which sat in the center of the rose garden and drew her down beside him. She noticed he had begun, unbidden, to use her Christian name.

“I want to understand something,” he finally said. “I want to know how you came to be here in England. What led up to this point in your life.”

It was not an unreasonable demand, given the circumstances. Lord Rothewell wished to know more about her. He was going to marry her. In all likelihood, she would bear him a child. So why did his curiosity feel intrusive? Had she somehow imagined the man would simply turn up one day with a parson in tow, no questions asked?

And then it struck her that his questions, his explanations—all of this—was a sort of intimacy. The giving and sharing of one's life. But she had no wish to share her life with anyone; to be emotionally bound by even such a simple act as this—getting to know one another. She was afraid of Lord Rothewell. She did not wish him to rescue her. She could not bear to have her heart broken as her mother's had been. She just wanted a child. Someone of her own to love. And then she wanted to be left alone by Rothewell and by the rest of the world—because in the end, that was how life worked anyway.

But Rothewell was holding her gaze, his eyes unwavering, and to her shock, Camille felt that odd sensation in the pit of her stomach again. She knew it for what it was, too, though she had rarely felt it. Lord Rothewell was not a beautiful man, no. But he was striking, with his hooded gray eyes and his hard facial bones. And the set of his jaw said he wanted an answer to his question.

Camille dropped her gaze to her lap. “
Très bien,
” she finally said. “What do you wish to know,
monsieur
?”

“I am not perfectly sure,” he admitted.

Fleetingly, Camille wondered if perhaps this was as awkward for him as it was for her.

“I suppose I wish to know what happened between your mother and Valigny,” he said. “She was the Countess of Halburne, was she not?”

Camille nodded. “
Oui,
or so she called herself,” she answered. “But Halburne divorced her when I was two or three. Perhaps the name was no longer hers to use?”

Rothewell shrugged. “I cannot say,” he admitted. “There were no divorces where I came from.”

“Where you came from?” She looked at him in some surprise. “Do you not come from here,
monsieur
?”

He shook his head. “No, I spent the whole of my life—or pretty near it—in the West Indies,” he said. “I have lived in London less than a year. The place still strikes me as strange.”