Never Romance a Rake (24 page)

In minutes, she and Xanthia were making their way down Berkeley Street. The few pedestrians whom they met all wore heavy cloaks or greatcoats, their collars turned up as they pushed through the wind which came rushing up from the river.

In the busy expanse of Piccadilly, carriages clogged the street. A tumbrel laden with hay had broken an axle, sending a golden brown cascade across the thoroughfare. One of the coachmen had begun to shake his fist and swear, whilst a beer cart was attempting to turn round near the top of St. James's Street, making matters even worse. And amongst it all, two newsboys competed to see who could shout out the most lurid headlines. London, Camille decided, was as madding as Paris.

Xanthia took Camille by the hand, and together they wound their way through the snarl of horses and carriages. Deep in Green Park, both the noise and the breeze finally subsided. They walked in silence for a time, but companionably close together. Camille was beginning to rather like Rothewell's sister.

“How much longer until the child comes?” Camille asked.

“Oh, several months,” said Xanthia vaguely. “But I feel as big as a cow.”

“
Mais non,
” said Camille. “You are slender still. With your cloak, one must look very closely to notice it at all.”

“My back hurts sometimes,” Xanthia admitted. “But oh, I
long
to feel the child move. When will that be, do you think?”

Camille narrowed her eyes against the sun, which was peeping through the clouds now. “I do not know,” she answered. “But I know you are very fortunate.”

Xanthia cut a strange glance in her direction. “You wish for children, then,” she remarked. “How many would you like?”

Camille drew her cloak a little tighter, and felt her cheeks color. “Oh, one,” she confessed. “I should be so happy with just one.”

“Knowing my brother, my dear girl, I daresay you'll have more than that,” said Xanthia dryly.

“Rothewell likes children?”

“No, he likes—” Xanthia's eyes twinkled. “Oh, never mind that! I just think that Kieran will adore children once they begin to appear. I think they will…oh, I don't know. Give him hope for the future?”

“Why does he not have hope now?” asked Camille. “
Pardon,
Xanthia, but your brother seems…
zut,
what is the right word for it?”

“Dare I say jaded?” Again, Xanthia's tone was dry

“Non.”
Camille's brow furrowed. “In French, we say
désolé.
”

“Sad?”

She shook her head. “More than that,” she answered. “A sadness that comes from regret. An emptiness in the heart.”

“Ah, that.” Xanthia cut a strange look at Camille.

Their pace had slowed, but for a time, neither spoke. The breeze picked up slightly, lifting the soft tendrils of hair which peeked from beneath Xanthia's bonnet. Her cheeks had grown pink in the sharp autumn air. Camille sensed that something was weighing on her.

Finally, Xanthia exhaled on a long sigh and turned to look at her. “Camille, are you in love with my brother?”

Camille shook her head. “
Non,
” she said, praying she spoke the truth. “I hardly know him.”

“He is thought a very handsome man,” Xanthia conceded. “Assuming one likes the rugged type. Many women do, you know.”

“Like Mrs. Ambrose?” Camille quietly suggested. “I fear your brother is in love with her.”

Xanthia halted on the path and laughed. “Lud, no! That spiteful cat? He would not dare.”

“You do not care for Mrs. Ambrose?”

Xanthia kicked a stone from their path with the toe of her shoe and slowly resumed her pace. “She once played a cruel trick on someone whom I love very much,” she said musingly. “My niece, Martinique. I cannot prove it, mind you. Still, I know she did it, and I shall never forgive her. And she will wish you to the devil as soon as she lays eyes on you.”

“
Oui,
I am already wished there,” said Camille. Hesitantly, she explained to Xanthia what had transpired at Lady Sharpe's.

At the end, Xanthia was laughing. “Oh, I
do
wish I'd seen it!” she said. “What a minx you are, Camille! No wonder Pamela is so sure you are right for Kieran.”

Camille wished she had Lady Sharpe's confidence. “I was just so angry,” she returned. “And angry at him for having put Lady Sharpe in such an awkward position when she had been so very kind to me.”

There was a bench just ahead near the top of Constitution Hill. Impulsively, Xanthia took Camille's hand and drew her to it. “Sit down,” she said. “I wish to tell you something.”

“
Oui?
” said Camille, wondering at her urgency.

Xanthia sat and snagged her lip between her teeth. “It is something I ought not tell,” she said. “But it is something you ought to know.”

“Which means it is something else which your brother should explain,” said Camille. “But again, you know he likely will not.”

Xanthia flashed a relieved smile. “You understand,” she said. “I am not by nature a gossip.”

“Never could I think such a thing.”

Xanthia paused as if gathering her thoughts, her eyes distant. “My brother was in love once,” she said. “At least I think he was in love. Actually, it was something worse—obsession, perhaps. But he was very young, and he handled it badly.”

“The very young often do,” said Camille pensively. “It is so very hard to be in love when one is young,
n'est-ce pas
? All the world seems a tragedy.”

“A tragedy, yes.” Xanthia clasped her hands in her lap, an almost girlish gesture. “You see, Kieran fell head over heels for Martinique's mother,” she confessed. “But then, every man who saw her did.”

Camille's brow furrowed. “
Oui,
but was she not the—the
sœur du conjoint
?—the wife of your brother?”

“No.” Xanthia shook her head vehemently. “No, not then. At first, Luke merely felt sorry for her. Her name was Annemarie, and she was breathtakingly lovely.”

“And she was French?”

Xanthia looked at her strangely. “No, not French,” she answered. “Not entirely, at any rate. But she had been the…well, there is no pretty way to put it. When Annemarie was very young, she had been kept by a wealthy shipping magnate in the French West Indies. Martinique's father.”

“
Mon Dieu!
” said Camille, feeling at once in sympathy with the girl. “This is not known, for your niece's sake, I hope?”

“Not here in England,” said Xanthia. “But on the island there were always rumors. When the Frenchman cast Annemarie off, you see, he sent her away—she and the child, along with a couple of underservants. He sent them to Barbados and gave her two of his oldest ships, which he told her she could sell when she got there. But Annemarie did not sell them. She decided to try to run rum and sugar herself—as an owner, of course, hiring her own captains. And that's how she met Luke, you see. He was often round the docks, and he had a head for business. He tried to help her learn to make a living.”

“Beautiful women rarely have such a burden,” said Camille a little dryly. “Could she find no one to keep her?”

“Kieran offered,” said Xanthia swiftly. “Many times, apparently. He was foolishly young and besotted, too—along with every other man in Bridgetown. But Annemarie knew lovers did not last. She tried to keep the business afloat, quite literally, but soon she was drowning in debt. Dishonest captains and merchants took advantage of her. She could be overcharged for refitting, for victualing, and never know the difference.”

Camille didn't quite grasp it, but she nodded.
“Oui.”

Xanthia's shoulders fell. “Luke tried to help,” she said. “But finally, her creditors swooped down to pick over what little carrion was left. Annemarie really was quite desperate. I daresay Kieran thought it was his chance. I will never forget that afternoon. He came in from the fields early, which he never did, then dressed in his best and rode into town.”

“Oh,” said Camille softly. “This story does not end well, does it?”

Xanthia's eyes were sorrowful. “No,” she answered. “Of course, Kieran didn't tell me why he was going, but like any younger sister, I always had my ear to the door. He meant, he said, to make her one last offer—a house in town, a carriage, servants, and a governess to tend the child—things he could barely afford, for we were still undoing the damage Uncle had wrought. But in the end, she accepted him.”

Camille could not suppress a gasp.
“Mais non!”

Xanthia nodded. “Oh, yes,” she answered sadly. “She did. Kieran spent the whole afternoon with her, and when he returned late that evening, he was the happiest man on earth.”

“Mon Dieu!”
Camille was horrified. “And then?”

Xanthia's face fell even further, if such a thing were possible. “And then Luke came home,” she said. “He had been up at Speightstown on some sort of business. That night at dinner, Kieran was cock of the walk. Finally, Luke asked why. And when Kieran told him—well, I can honestly say I had never seen Luke so angry. Not even when Uncle was at his worst. Luke was simply enraged that Kieran would make such a proposal to her. He accused Kieran of taking advantage of Annemarie when she was desperate.”

“And what did Kieran say?”

Xanthia closed her eyes. “He said,
‘But she is a sangmêlé, Luke. A sangmêlé who sleeps with men for her living. What did you expect me to propose? Marriage?'
”

“
Ça alors,
” Camille whispered.

Xanthia's lips were a thin line. “You know the term, then?”

“
Oui,
” said Camille. “Of mixed blood. Like
Monsieur
Trammel?”

“Similar, yes,” said Xanthia. “But he didn't mean it, Camille. He didn't mean that she was a whore. He was only repeating things he'd heard round the docks. He was so young. Younger, even, than Annemarie. And she—why she could have refused him. She could have kissed him on the cheek or swatted him on the rear, and sent him politely home again. But she didn't. She said
yes
.”

“And your brother Luke?” asked Camille quietly. “What did he do?”

Xanthia shook her head again. “He threw down his linen napkin and called for his horse,” she said. “And when he came home the next day, it was done. He had married her. I suppose he had been in love with her all along. I really don't know. Luke…he had been both brother and father to us, I suppose, and he believed in always doing the right thing. Kieran used to call him our white knight—and there was a time when he meant that as a compliment.”

Camille felt heartsick. “What a sad story,” she whispered.

“I think it is worse than that,” Xanthia replied.

Camille turned to look at her. “What do you mean?”

Xanthia would not hold her gaze. “God help me, but I think…I think Annemarie knew what she was doing,” she whispered. “I think she knew—or suspected—that Luke was in love with her. And she simply used Kieran as leverage.”

“
Mon Dieu!
That is despicable.”

Xanthia just shook her head. “You cannot fully grasp these things, I think, until you've grown up,” she said. “But now I believe that if Annemarie had really wanted a protector, she would have chosen one of her more wealthy suitors. Most sugar barons had money to burn, but Kieran—well, he was still working daybreak to dusk just to get our plantation out of debt. He was handsome, yes. Perhaps the handsomest man on the island. But what courtesan would choose looks over money?”

“C'est vrai,”
Camille murmured. It had been the one difference between her mother—who had been born to assume a man would provide her life's every luxury, and was bewildered when it did not happen—and a more practical woman who had been born into poverty “Always, it is the money. The security.”

“And what is more secure than marriage?” Xanthia lifted both shoulders a little wearily. “Kieran, of course, moved out of the house.”

“Where did he go?”

“To a vacant overseer's cottage,” said Xanthia quietly. “It was the first time the three of us had been apart—ever. I missed him terribly, of course, even though the cottage was nearby. After a while he began to come to dinner on occasion, and soon Gareth—he's the Duke of Warneham now—turned up on the island, and Luke took him into the business. But things were never the same again.”

“Yet your brothers continued to work together?”