Never Romance a Rake (25 page)

“Oh, yes.” Xanthia appeared to be blinking back tears, but whether it was from the cold air or grief remembered, Camille could not say. “But Luke put most of his effort into the shipping business, and I followed him there. Kieran continued to build up the family fortunes and expand our plantations. Kieran did very well for us. Together, he and Luke made us rich.”

“And the new wife? She was happy?”

“Yes, but society accepted her most grudgingly,” Xanthia confessed.

“Because of her blood?”

Xanthia shook her head. “She never talked about it, though some did know,” she said. “Annemarie's complexion was…like the creamiest of coffee. So lovely. But her years with the Frenchman—and poor Martinique's birth—those things she did not entirely outrun. And I remember on that first day—the very moment she swept into our home—there was this…this faint look of
triumph
. Like she had got what she was after.”

“She sounds unpleasant.”

“That's part of the sadness,” Xanthia said. “She wasn't. Annemarie was a loving mother, and she was very kind to me when she really did not have to be. But her life had been so hard. She had risen from toiling barefoot in the cane fields to being a rich man's mistress—and she did not intend to go back to the fields ever again. Unfortunately, on her way up the social ladder, she stepped on Kieran. And he has never—
never
—got over it.”

“
Oui,
that explains much,” said Camille quietly. “He must have loved her desperately.”

Xanthia shook her head. “As I said, it was more of an obsession,” she answered. “And he has allowed guilt and hatred to fester like a boil in his heart—a boil he won't lance, and will scarcely even acknowledge. All of us have had to pay the price for that; myself, Martinique, sometimes even Gareth.”

“But…But whom does he hate?”

Xanthia looked at her, her eyes bleak. “Himself,” she whispered. “Camille, he hates himself.”

“And now your brother Luke is dead, and the hurt between them cannot be mended,” said Camille hollowly. “What a sad end.
Alors,
she is dead now?”

“Yes, a long time ago.” Xanthia sighed deeply. “The rest of it you must get from Kieran. Perhaps I have already spoken too freely.”

“
Mais non!
” Camille protested. “Is it not best that I should know? And who else was to tell me? Your brother? He will never share such things with me.”

“Then it is his loss.” Xanthia rose and stared unseeingly down the hill. Just then, a clock somewhere below in Whitehall tolled the hour, the sound heavy and melancholy beneath the leaden sky. “It has grown cold, has it not?” she murmured. “And late. Perhaps we should go back?”

Camille realized her hands were freezing despite her kid gloves. “
Très bien,
” she murmured. “Let us go.”

Xanthia smiled with specious gaiety. “Well,” she said, as they set off again, “what color, Camille, shall I paint the nursery in Park Lane? And I shall have a second one, you know, at our counting house in Wapping.”

“Something bright, I suppose?” Camille suggested. “Yellow is
très jolie
.”

But even a discussion about nurseries could not quite lift the pall which had been cast over Camille. This was the first day of her marriage, and she had not seen her husband since the early morning—something which bothered her far more than she wished to admit. And now his sister had opened another painful window on his past.

Once again the impenitent rake she had believed she was marrying was becoming a real and complex person before her eyes. Camille was beginning to
feel
a myriad of emotions for him—frustration, anger, lust, and now a strange sort of tenderness—when what she really wished to feel was nothing at all.

Xanthia went up the steps with her when they reached the house.

“Will you come in?” Camille asked.

Xanthia smiled brightly. “Just long enough to see Kieran,” she said. “I am sure they finished at Tattersall's eons ago.”

But Camille's husband had not returned. And as the hours dragged on into evening, it occurred to Camille that perhaps he did not mean to do so. He was making, she supposed, some sort of point. Despite his flashes of tenderness, Rothewell had made it plain this was a marriage of convenience.

Well. His point was most assuredly taken.

T
he news of Baron Rothewell's marriage was received with very little fanfare by those whom it reached that day. He was not well enough known in decent circles to create much of a stir, and within the indecent circles, he was to be mourned as a man who had likely surrendered to a scoundrel's last refuge—marrying for money—and would doubtless return to his senses, and his old haunts, sooner rather than later. No one, however, could have predicted that “sooner” would mean the day after his wedding.

At the Satyr's Club, Rothewell spent the early afternoon being entertained in one of the lounges by a nearly bare-bottomed lass named Periwinkle whose primary skill appeared to be—as the Duke of Warneham would later describe it to his wife—giggling and sipping the club's cheap champagne whilst squirming about on Rothewell's lap.

The duke looked around the tawdry room and felt his skin crawl. On the opposite end of the lounge, a pair of nightingales at the pianoforte were feigning refinement by singing a duet from a comic opera currently popular in the West End. A third was attempting to step through the dance which went with it, but having little success despite the crowd of men who cheered her on.

The establishment was a far cry from St. James's bastions of upper-class masculinity, such as White's Club. Here, the musty velvet draperies and poor lighting aside, one could plainly see the furniture was worn. The walls were hung with faded silk, and the carpets possessed several suspicious stains. The place reeked of sex and of sin—and of several less savory things. It was quite obviously designed for the sort of man who did not give a damn about ambience or class. The sort of man who preferred to sate his passions and drown his soul with life's darker pleasures. A man like Rothewell.

“Thank you, no,” said Gareth when Periwinkle attempted to spread her assets around. “My wife would likely have my fingernails ripped out.”

This sentiment served merely to make Periwinkle laugh so hard some of the champagne went up her nose and she had to excuse herself.

“This really is perfectly disgusting,” Gareth complained to Rothewell, who had one arm slung carelessly along the back of the settee. “Half-naked girls dancing and singing—and the fully naked ones just a staircase away. Not to mention the whiff of opium I caught round by that back parlor.”

“Opium?” Languidly, Rothewell extracted a cheroot from its silver case.

“Oh, don't come the innocent with me, Kieran!” Gareth snapped. “You cannot be at sea for as long as I was and not know the stench of that vile scourge. I did not know London had been so tainted by it.”

“Indeed?” Rothewell looked supremely bored.

“And in Limehouse, for God's sake,” Gareth continued. “What kind of gentlemen come out here, anyway? I think, Kieran, that you should go home to your wife.”

Rothewell surveyed him from beneath heavily hooded eyes and drew on his cheroot. “You may be henpecked, old chap, but I don't intend to be,” he finally replied. “Besides, who invited you to follow me here? I was trying to escape you and your damned moralizing.”

“So you are merely making a point? You wish to show your new wife who's in charge? Is that it?”

Rothewell was quiet for a moment. “I'm beginning as I mean to go on,” he finally said. “I don't wish my wife to harbor any fantasies. My marriage is not like yours, Gareth. It is not a love match.”

“No, and it never will be if you ‘mean to go on' like this.” Gareth waved an arm about the room. “Why would you want this, Kieran, when you haven't even attempted to make something better with her? Perhaps it isn't to be—God knows I'm not naïve about such things—but you'll never know if you don't try. Instead, you are already trying to escape her.”

“Better? What will be better for her is never to be disappointed.” Rothewell had begun to tap one finger upon the back of the sofa. “Besides, women ask too many questions.”

The duke looked at him pointedly. “What kinds of questions? And what harm would it do you to simply answer them?”

Rothewell remained impassive. “I don't have to answer your questions, either.”

The duke glowered at him. “You do not need to, Kieran,” he snapped. “I know the answers. You come here because this is what you think you deserve. And because you wish to be numbed by the wretched excess of it.”

Abruptly, Rothewell jerked to his feet. “Bugger off, Gareth,” he said, heading toward the door.

The duke sighed, and rose. “Always so eloquent! Where are you going now?”

“To Soho,” the baron snapped. “To play cards. And don't follow me, damn you. I don't want a bloody nursemaid.”

But Rothewell was to find no peace in Soho, either. There was an especially pernicious gaming hell he favored beneath a tobacconist's shop just off Carlisle Street. The dark little hole of a place was run by a retired blackleg with no ears by the name of Straight—which he wasn't—whilst the shop upstairs fronted for a notorious fence from Seven Dials who dealt stolen watches and snuffboxes out the back.

Rothewell still wasn't sure what had happened to Eddie Straight's ears—and didn't really want to know—but he knew the hell drew just the right sort of crowd if a man wished to avoid the petty yammerings of the
beau monde
. Save for the occasional young buck on a lark, the
ton
never darkened doors like Straight's. And since it was a good way to get a shiv in the back, no one at Straight's ever asked a man questions, either.

Rothewell found himself a trio of disreputable cohorts—East End sharpers whose tricks he already knew—who were in want of a fourth for their table. Then, whilst tossing off the better part of a decanter of brandy, he proceeded to throw away some two or three hundred pounds over the course of a few hours. He did not care enough to actually keep count. And that, he knew, was fatal.

The mantel clock struck midnight. Rothewell tossed down his hand and stabbed out his cheroot. “Gentlemen,” he said, using the term liberally, “fortune has forsaken me tonight.”

“That may be,” said Pettinger, the chap holding the bank. “But there were some remarkable rumors going round Lufton's earlier this evening.”

“What sort of rumors?” demanded one of the other men.

“Rumors which suggested that Rothewell had had some very
good
fortune yesterday,” he chortled. “If Valigny is to be believed.”

Rothewell felt his jaw twitch. “Valigny is almost never to be believed, Pettinger,” he snapped. “You've played cards with him often enough to know that.”

Pettinger laughed. “Very true! But tell us, Rothewell, was he lying this time?”

Rothewell rose abruptly. He did not like the suggestion in Pettinger's tone. “You may congratulate me, gentlemen,” he replied. “I have had the honor of making Valigny's daughter my wife. Now if you will excuse me, I believe I shall try my hand at the dice.”

Rothewell bowed to the sharpers and retreated to the hazard table.

“Gawd save 'im,” he heard one say as he departed. “The chit must be a reg'lar gorgon.”

It was a fair assumption, Rothewell admitted to himself. And it was like vinegar to his stinging wounds—the ones Gareth had already inflicted. People were already speculating about his wife, he grudgingly admitted, when the fault lay not with her, but with him. A reasonable man—a man wed under convivial and happy circumstances—would have been at home with his bride.

At the hazard table, Rothewell found himself leaning into the action as if he cared, but placing minimal bets unthinkingly. Inside, he was seething—at himself, and at Valigny. That goddamned jumped up Frog had spies everywhere.

Who else, he wondered, was busy leaping to unfair assumptions about Camille? It was the one thing, illogically, which he had not considered when stalking out of the house this morning. He had not wished to bring that down upon her. She would have trouble enough as it was, he expected, before their marriage was over. And then, if the story of Valigny's card game ever got out…good Lord. Camille would be utterly humiliated. And all of it—
all
of it—would be partly his fault.

He was jolted from his contemplations by a nudging elbow. “Stamp 'em, Rothewell,” said the young man impatiently, shoving the dice box into his hand. “You're casting.”

Pettinger, who had followed him to the table, promptly laid a hundred pounds against him. Someone across the table gave a low whistle.

“Gentlemen?” Rothewell lifted his eyebrows. “Anyone else have so little faith in me?”

The remaining bets were laid and finished. Rothewell promptly tossed out double fours.

“Eight!” said the man at the head of the table. “That's the main.”

Rothewell hesitated. He had the sense luck wasn't with him tonight. But now it was too late to pass. With a flick of his wrist, he sent the dice smacking against the opposite rail.

“Bloody hell!” someone uttered. “Eleven!”

Rothewell groaned, and many of the spectators with him. The throw meant an automatic loss for him. At least his punishment had not been drawn-out, and his death had been swift. What more could a man hope for in the end?

Rothewell passed the dice box, and wished the next fellow luck. After that, he watched and bet haphazardly for a time, but his heart was not in it. He began to drink more earnestly. Oh, he'd
been
drinking all evening. But now it felt more like a plan than a pastime.

He soon gave up hazard altogether and took his brandy to a dark and empty corner where he could sulk and smoke alone. But restlessness and dissatisfaction still pricked at him like a sharp needle. Gareth had been wrong, he realized. It wasn't Camille he was trying to escape. It was himself.

When the brandy was half-gone and the crowd twice as thick, Rothewell gave up all pretense of contentment. Tonight, for whatever reason, he simply did not belong here. Even half-sotted, he found nothing in this place to tempt him. He shoved his glass away with the back of his hand and prepared to rise.

“Rothewell!”

He looked up to see a lean, elegant figure waving as he slipped through the crowd toward his table. Rothewell cursed beneath his breath.
Good God.
He really was not in the mood for this.

George Kemble was looking extraordinarily well—but then he always did. “
You,
here at Eddie's?” Kemble flapped his hand at the thick cloud of smoke. “A little too refined for your tastes, I should have said.”

Rothewell scowled at the insult but didn't bother to throttle him as he might have with a lesser man. Kemble was a friend of his sister's—and, he supposed, of his. Though the last time they'd seen one another, Kemble had stolen his phaeton and his two best horses on a whim.

“I ought to choke the breath of life from you, Kem,” he said. “But today, old chap, is your lucky day. I haven't enough ambition in me to kill anyone.”

Kemble lifted both eyebrows and pulled out a chair. “Well, they do say marriage tames a man,” he said, sitting down uninvited. “But a great, strapping stallion such as yourself? Rothewell, you disappoint. And you look at death's door, by the way.”

“Queue up, damn you, if you mean to complain about it.” Rothewell shoved his glass away. “It'll be a dashed long wait.”

Kemble feigned a chiding expression. “I do hope you've not taken up the Chinese vice, dear boy,” he said. “The Satyr's Club is rife with it.”

“I'm ill-humored, not witless.” Rothewell pushed the brandy bottle toward him. “Here. Have the rest of this swill. It will occupy your tongue.”

Kemble wrinkled his nose. “Surely you jest? I wouldn't even drink Eddie's water if I saw it running out the pipe with my own two eyes. But everyone knows you haven't any standards.” He scowled at the label. “My God. You really are sick. This is tolerable Frog water.”

“Then drink it, and be quiet,” he said. “What are you doing in here anyway?”

Kemble's smile was muted. “Never ask such things, old boy,” he answered, wagging a finger. “That way you'll never be an accessory after the fact.”

Rothewell snorted. “A friend of Straight's, are you?”

“Since we were young hooligans running loose in Whitechapel.” Kemble pulled the cork and filled the empty glass. “Want to know how Eddie lost his ears?”

Rothewell blanched. “God, no.”

Kemble's face fell. “It's a delightfully gruesome story,” he said, sighing. “Oh, well. I can always rag you about your marriage to Valigny's daughter. Poor, poor girl. Really, Rothewell. He's nothing but Continental trash.”

“Just keep it up,” said Rothewell, rising, “and I'll drag you out back to that thieves' den they call an alley and beat the living hell out of you—and remember, Kem, I know your little tricks. Your shivs and your brass knuckle covers and the like. And I outweigh you by about five stone. Yes, by God, the mere notion of pummeling something has my blood stirring again after all.”