Never Romance a Rake (28 page)

His words hung in the air for a long moment. “You are sick,” she said again. This time it was not a question.

Rothewell threw back the covers and rose from the bed, the dog following him. There was nothing more to be said. “It will be daylight soon, Camille,” he answered. “I will leave you to your rest.”

He gathered his clothes from the floor in silence and made his way through the gloom to the door. But she was hurt, he knew. Already, damn it, he was doing what he had vowed not to do. And for the first time since that fateful day in Harley Street, he suddenly wanted to cry. To mourn the missed opportunities and rage at the cruelties of fate. He wanted to weep for the young man he had once been, and for the lovely young woman who deserved something so much better.

She sat up, and spoke again as his hand touched the knob. “Rothewell,” she said quietly, “you will remember what I said?”

He turned and studied her through the candlelight. “About what, Camille?”

“About asking again.” Her voice dropped to a tremulous whisper. “I shan't, I tell you. I
shan't
. I will not beg you—not for anything. Ever. Not even for this—what we do in bed together—no matter how much pleasure you give me. Do you understand?”

And as he stood there naked, his hand on the door, his heart half-breaking, he understood. She was forcing him to make a choice—the choice, perhaps, between true intimacy and raw pleasure. But he wasn't sure he had ever known true intimacy—not even with Luke or with Xanthia—and his decision was already made. He would not burden her. He would not cast a shadow over her hope, when her hope was to conceive their child.

Camille was still staring at him, her eyes wide in the gloom. Stiffly, he nodded and drew open the door.

T
he following days in Berkeley Square took on a strange, almost otherworldly rhythm. Camille lived them mechanically, torn and a little heartsick.

To the bewilderment of his staff, Rothewell began to spend a greater part of each day at home, where he would shut himself up in his study with his brandy, his books, and the little spaniel, a creature he nonetheless disavowed at every turn. Occasionally, however, Camille would pass the closed door and hear Rothewell talking, and she knew, strangely, that it was the dog to whom he spoke. She began to feel a little twinge of envy.

At times Rothewell also looked decidedly unwell, but if he suffered violent spells of illness—which Camille suspected he did—then he hid it from her. Neither of them mentioned her parting words on the night of their argument; it was as if a silent truce had been drawn between them.

In hindsight, Camille realized she had been foolish to interfere. From the very first, Rothewell had asked nothing of her, save that she be faithful, and if possible, amiable. He had made it plain that his life would never really include her.

“
You would be well advised not to depend upon me,
” he had said. “
You must build a life for yourself.
” And she had agreed to that. Indeed, it was what she had wanted. So why did his words cut her so deeply now?

As was his habit, Rothewell scarcely slept, but he came to Camille's bed most nights, often in the hours just before dawn, when he returned home from an evening spent doing God only knew what. She no longer questioned him about it, and otherwise saw little of him. Camille tried to tell herself it scarcely mattered. Despite the lovemaking and the occasional shared meal, there was a carefully cultivated distance between them. And though it hurt, Camille did not attempt to eliminate that distance. Her husband had put it there quite deliberately—and, after all, she tried to convince herself, intimacy was not what she required. In fact, it was what she had sworn to avoid.

But her efforts to save her heart, she feared, were in vain, and slowly, Camille was beginning to face a second bleak truth. His broad shoulders and overt masculinity aside, her husband was ill. Even in the short weeks she had known him, his face had thinned.

And then there were the other signs, the signs Camille knew too well from her mother's long illness. The restlessness. The hollow eyes. The inappetence and bad temper. Rothewell was drinking—and perhaps grieving—himself to death.

She told herself she would not do it. She would not dance attendance on another person who was bent on slowly killing themselves. And yet, she could not leave him—because, she told herself—she wanted a child. But the reality was becoming far more complicated than that.

Camille tried not to think about it. Tried not to think of
him
. Of his whispered words and heated touch. Of how she lay restless and eager in her bed each night, awaiting the moment when he would come to her. And so the days passed quietly and all too slowly in Rothewell's bland, empty house. It was a lonely existence, but Camille was accustomed to solitude.

The solitude was briefly severed one afternoon when Rothewell escorted Camille into the City to meet her grandfather's solicitors, so that she might give them the evidence of her marriage. It was a meeting she had dreaded since discovering her grandfather's letter hidden amongst her mother's things. But the visit had been easier with Rothewell's stern, forbidding presence at her side.

To his credit, Rothewell took pains to give every impression theirs was a marriage of respect, if nothing more. He allowed her to speak for herself, whilst he remained standing in the background, leaning on his gold-knobbed walking stick and staring out the window.

When at last the senior solicitor finished his business, his brow was furrowed. “Well, thank you for coming in, Lady Rothewell,” he said. “Our felicitations on your marriage. My lord, we will arrange a draw of fifty thousand on the late earl's estate when the banks open tomorrow.”

Rothewell turned from the window. “For the dowry, do you mean?” He lifted a forestalling hand. “I have no need of it. You may hold it in trust for my wife, or if she prefers, for any children of the marriage.”

Camille managed not to gape. “We shall discuss it,” she said swiftly, “and let you know.”

The solicitor's look of confusion deepened. “Then we shall await your decision.” He rose as if to show them out, then hesitated. “You understand, do you not, that the balance of your grandfather's estate remains in trust pending—we hope—the birth of your first child?”

“We understand,” said Camille, rising to her feet.

Still the man hesitated. “I must confess, my lady, to a deep curiosity,” he said. “Why did your mother not answer this letter twenty years ago, when it was still possible you might have been reconciled with your grandfather?”

The question stung. Remembering Lord Nash's advice, Camille stood and looked down her nose at him. “What need had I of a reconciliation,
monsieur
?” she asked. “One cannot reconcile with a man one has never met.”

The solicitor was immediately flustered. “I beg your pardon,” he answered. “What I meant to say was…well, why did…” He was clearly searching for a tactful phrase.

“Why did my mother hide his letter from me?” Camille supplied. “Because, I daresay, there was one thing she feared more than poverty. She feared dying alone. A human frailty,
n'est-ce pas
?”

“I see,” said the solicitor somberly. “Perhaps you are right.”

Camille managed a distant smile. “My grandfather would never have taken her back,” she said. “
Maman
knew that. Why would she give her only child a reason—and the means—to abandon her?”

The solicitor did not argue but instead merely thanked her again for coming.

Rothewell came away from the window, offered his arm, and saw her safely back down the stairs. Together, they left the solicitors bowing obsequiously in their wake, and for the first time, Camille felt the full import of being an earl's granddaughter and a baron's wife.

Rothewell, however, looked preoccupied as he helped her into his coach. He followed her in, and Chin-Chin immediately leapt into his lap. The dog had insisted upon following them from the house, whining until Rothewell simply picked him up and took him along.

“You did not need to do that, Rothewell,” said Camille as the carriage rocked into motion.

“What, the money?” he said, scratching the dog's ear. He fished in his coat pocket, and extracted something, which he fed the dog.

“
Oui,
because already you paid Valigny half, so by rights, half of it should be—”

Rothewell cut her off. “I did as I pleased, Camille,” he interjected. “I usually do, you'll recall.”

Camille hesitated, and he pinned her with a pointed stare. “As you wish,” she answered. “And stop feeding the dog,
s'il vous plaît.
You are making him fat.”

After a few moments had passed, he spoke again. “What, precisely, did that old letter say, Camille?” he asked, his long fingers absently stroking the dog's silky fur.

Camille looked at him, surprised he cared. “It was just the ramblings of a bitter man.”

“This is the letter you never showed Valigny?”

“I dared not,” she said quietly. “I learnt young that one must never fully trust Valigny. Why? Do you wish to see it?”

Rothewell looked out the window. “I rather think I should like to,” he murmured.

“
Bien sûr,
I shall find it.”

She watched the shadows move and shift across his stern profile as they turned into Cheapside. A quiet fell over the carriage, broken only by the rhythmic
clop-clop-clop
of the horses' hooves and the rumble of the carriage wheels as they lumbered back toward St. Paul's. His hand never stilled, rhythmically stroking the dog. It was as if he sought solace from the creature, solace, perhaps, which he should have received from his wife. Fleetingly, she closed her eyes and wondered if she was an utter failure.

After a time, he spoke again, still without looking at her. “I am sorry, Camille, that Valigny is your father,” he said softly.

“As am I,” she answered. “
Maman
—she loved me, in her way. That I never doubted. But Valigny?
Non
. Never. I was but an annoyance to him.”

Some inscrutable emotion sketched across his face. “You deserve something better, Camille. Something better than”—here, he lifted his hand in a vague, dismissive gesture—“any of this.”

It was her turn to stare blindly through the window. “Perhaps I do not,” she said quietly. “I am just the bastard child of a selfish man. The world does not look kindly upon such as I.”

“Hush, Camille,” he said sharply. “Let the world think what it will, but never belittle yourself. You are nothing like your father.”

Camille did not answer him. What more was there to say? She had long ago stopped feeling sorry for herself. And long ago stopped trying to win Valigny's love. For all the paternal affection the man had shown her, she could have been the child of some stranger—or worse, of an enemy.

But was her coldness so deep and so permanent—were her emotions so tightly shut off—that she was failing as a wife? Was she no longer able to open her heart? That was not what she wanted. It was
not
the person she wished to be. Perhaps it was no longer the sort of marriage she wanted.

She looked again at her husband's profile, so grim and yet so handsome in the sun. Was there any hope for the two of them? Was there any chance of real intimacy? Intimacy which went beyond the bedchamber? And yet, even if she were willing to risk being hurt, she scarcely knew how to take that first step. How to reach out and shatter the glass wall they had erected between them.

“When I was five years old,” she said suddenly, “I decided that my name was Genevieve.”

Rothewell turned from the window, one eyebrow politely arched. “Did you indeed?”

“
Oui,
and that I was a princess who had been kidnapped by the evil Comte de Valigny,” she went on, feeling supremely foolish, but somehow driven. “I told my nurse that my real papa—a great and powerful king, of course—was coming to find me and take me away.”

Rothewell flashed a rueful smile. “Yes, and then they would all be sorry, wouldn't they?” he murmured. “Was that the idea?”

Her face fell.
“Oui,”
she said quietly. “You know how this fairy tale ends.”

“I fear so,” he said. “I liked to pretend that a powerful Ottoman corsair was my father, and that he had sent me to Barbados to keep me safe from his enemies. When he returned, I imagined, and saw what my uncle had done to me, he would cut off Uncle's head with his scimitar. I believe I even shared that sentiment with him—or something very like it.”

Camille gave a cluck of sympathy. “I daresay he laughed in your face.”

“No.” Rothewell's expression was suddenly emotionless. “No, he locked me in the slave hole for three days with no food or water. Then he passed out drunk, and Luke stole the key from his pocket. When he sobered up, Uncle was too preoccupied by stripping the hide off Luke's back with his bullwhip to spare me a moment's notice.”

“Mon Dieu!”
Camille's gloved hand had flown to her mouth. “You…you were but children!”

“Oh, not for long,” said her husband quietly. “Not for long.”

The horror of it chilled her. “Rothewell,” she managed to whisper, “what is this thing, this hole? Something very bad,
n'est-ce pas
?”

“Just a pit Uncle had dug in a swampy spot near one of the sugar mills.” Rothewell's gaze had returned to the window, but his mind had returned to the West Indies, Camille sensed. Even his hand had stilled, and now lay frozen upon Chin-Chin's back.

“It was a deep hole,” he finally continued, “like a sort of cistern or a well. There was always brackish water in the bottom, and if there was rain—and God, there was always rain—the hole would begin to fill.”

“Mon dieu!”
she whispered. “How did you get out?”

“You could not,” he said. “One simply prayed the water didn't rise too high. There was a heavy grate atop it, and my uncle had the only key. He built it to punish the slaves, but after our arrival, he grew increasingly fond of it.”

Camille felt herself begin to shake. “But this is monstrous!” she cried. “Why…Why did someone not stop him?”

Rothewell's head at last swiveled around, his gaze locking with hers. “Someone?” he said quietly. “Who is someone, Camille? There was no one who gave a damn.”

She shook her head rapidly.
“Non, non,”
she whispered. “This I cannot believe. There were people…the parish, the priest. A magistrate. Someone who should have looked out for such things.”