Never Romance a Rake (31 page)

Just then, Rothewell grunted, and drew almost double on a gasp of pain.

“Oh my God!” cried Lady Sharpe. “Something must be done. He needs laudanum.”

Camille cupped his face in her hand. “Kieran?”

“Brandy,” hissed Rothewell.

Lady Sharpe leaned urgently forward. “Oh, for God's sake, Kieran! You cannot treat every ill with brandy.”

Camille looked up at Trammel and dared him with her eyes. He drew back, and did not fetch the brandy.

After a time, Rothewell's pain seemed to relent again. He lay upon the chaise with his legs flat, both his brow and his breathing smoother. Camille looked down at their hands, which had somehow become entwined, and suddenly wanted to cry.

“Buck up, old girl,” he whispered, squeezing her fingers. “If I die, at least you'll have Jim-Jim.”

“
Mon Dieu,
how can you jest at such a time?” Camille wanted, suddenly, to be alone with him. Still kneeling on the floor in a puddle of silk, she looked up at Lady Sharpe. “Please,
madame,
you should go now,” she said, blinking back the tears. “I will see him safely to bed and stay with him through the night. And tomorrow I shall send you word of how he goes on,
oui
?”

Rothewell smiled weakly. “Go on, old girl,” he said to his cousin. “Go home. I have a wife to plague me now, remember? Just as you wished.”

At last, the countess gave in. After another round of reassurances, Lord Sharpe patted his wife's shoulder, then urged her out. A second later, Camille heard the front door shut behind him.

Still staring at their hands, Camille opened her mouth, but nothing came out. Her husband's blithe words did not comfort her. Pain in one's organs was dangerous. A putrid appendix—or something equally untreatable—and he could be dead by morning. Or he could be up dancing a jig. There really was no knowing. The realization terrified her, even as the memories of her many vigils by her mother's bed haunted her.

Camille bit her lip to keep from crying. He was her husband, and he was suffering. It brought home to her once again the significance of what she had pledged.

Wilt thou love, honor, and keep him in sickness and in health?

Perhaps she had not meant those words when she'd spoken her vows, but she meant them now. She did not have to fail as a wife. Perhaps she did not have to be cold—if she was willing to risk opening that heart she had once wished only to shutter. Camille lifted her head, kissed his hand, then rose.

Rothewell looked up, his gaze holding hers. “Perhaps this is nothing,” he rasped. “Perhaps it will pass.” But he spoke as a man unconvinced, and she saw an ache in his eyes which went beyond physical pain.

She squeezed his hand, and set her shoulders back determinedly. “Randolph, come here, please,” she ordered the hovering footman. “You and Trammel help him up to bed.”

“Yes, my lady.”

“I can go on my own, damn it,” said her husband, moving as if to stand.

“Very well,” she said tartly. “Then they shall merely walk beside you holding on to your shoulders.”

Rothewell shot her a wry look as the servants did as she ordered, escorting him from the room.

“And Trammel?” said Camille. “We shall want the doctor next,
s'il vous plaît
.”

“No doctor,” muttered Rothewell, looking up the stairs as if dreading the climb.

Camille shook her head and looked at Trammel. “Send someone.”

Rothewell managed a weak laugh. “Your new mistress is proving persistent, Trammel,” he said. “Camille, my dear, you are not a nursemaid.”

“No, I am your wife,” she calmly returned. “And I think even Trammel will tell you that you would do well to heed me.”

“That's as may be,” he answered, “but what I want is my bed and my brandy—in that order. I am sure it will pass by morning.”

Camille saw the exasperated look which flashed across the butler's face, but Trammel said nothing. Even now, however, some of Rothewell's color was returning. He was no longer grimacing against the pain.

“Très bien,”
she said, as they reached the top of the steps. “But only until dawn,
monsieur,
will we wait,
oui
? After that, we will do it my way.”

“I didn't say that,” he growled.

Camille shrugged. “It little matters,” she answered. “As you are, you are too weak, I think, to chase me back down the steps and stop me. So it will be done as I wish.”

He cursed beneath his breath and shot her a dark look, but Trammel's faint smile was triumphant.

T
o Camille's relief, Rothewell awoke the following morning much recovered. He had passed a bad night, she knew, for even though he had adamantly refused her a place in his bed, Camille had insisted on keeping the connecting door open. Twice he had been up retching, and had paced the floor for a time—during the short weeks of their marriage, she had come to sense his every move and mood, it seemed—but with each instance, he had appeared vaguely mortified by his weakness and demanded she return to bed when the worst was past.

Despite all this, he was sitting up in bed with the dog on his lap when she rose sometime near dawn. Camille perched on the edge of his mattress and watched as Miss Obelienne personally urged upon him a few bites of porridge and some hot tea.

When at last he forced the cook away he lay back, with Chin-Chin tucked beneath his arm. Camille rose to open the door so that Miss Obelienne might carry the tray back out again, then went out into the passageway with her.

“His color is much improved, I think,” Camille remarked hopefully.

Miss Obelienne cast a worried look at the door. “
Oui,
for now,” she conceded.

Camille laid a hand upon the older woman's arm. “What do you think is the matter with him?” she asked. “Is it just the drinking?”

Miss Obelienne shook her head. “It is the devils eating him.” Her voice was grim despite her island lilt. “The past,
oui
? It is like a cancer in the belly.”

But it was more than that, Camille sensed, as she watched Miss Obelienne's proud, rigid form descend the stairs. For a moment she stood there in the cool, dark stillness of the passageway, wondering at the cook's strange diagnosis. Guilt and anger, yes, it could eat at a man. But not like this. Not in such violent, irregular attacks.

With a sigh, she returned to Rothewell's bedchamber to begin anew the fight over calling in a doctor. But it was a fight she was destined to lose. By the time she pushed open the door, her husband was up and stropping his razor.

Camille took up a sentinel's position in one of his wide armchairs and watched assessingly as the servants brought his hot water and laid out his clothes for the day. Rothewell's hand was unerringly steady as he drew the blade down in firm, straight strokes, neatly scraping away the soap.

“I am going out later today,” he said, his gaze steadily watching her in the mirror. “I won't be back until late.”

The argument, Camille realized, was again lost.

He bent over the basin to sluice away the remaining soap, then turned around, toweling off his face. He was naked from the waist up, and he looked incredibly, vigorously male, with his broad chest, and the trail of dark hair which disappeared beneath the drawers, which hung loosely from his lean hips. His eyes were again piercing, his jaw firmly set in its usual manner. It was almost as if the water had washed away not just soap and stubble, but all evidence of the previous night.

Yes, she grimly considered, he was definitely well enough today to chase her back down the stairs. The doctor would not be coming. She tried to feel relieved. To feel hope. Perhaps, as he said, it had been nothing.

“I'm to meet Nash and his brother Hayden-Worth at their club,” he went on, tossing down the towel. “And then to play cards. Have you something with which to occupy yourself?”

It was the first time he had bothered to inform her of his plans. Camille had risen and made her way to the door. There, she hesitated, and cut him a sidelong glance. “
Oui,
the new piano will occupy me,” she said softly. “I have some practicing, I think, to do?”

He smiled, a soft, faintly wicked smile which definitely lit his eyes. “Ah, a capital notion,” he murmured. “Perhaps I shan't be so late after all.”

Two days after her husband's sudden illness, Camille went down for luncheon only to find, strangely, that the table had not been set and that no footmen were in attendance. Instead, Miss Obelienne awaited her with a leather satchel in hand.

“What is this?” Camille asked, confused.

Miss Obelienne's eyes were stubbornly narrowed. “Food,” she said, tilting her head toward the satchel. “He must get out of this house—in the daylight, I am saying. The night has an evil grip. You will take him to the park today.”

Camille frowned. “I—I do not comprehend. To the park as in…” She searched her mind for the right word, “—a
picnic
?”

“Oui,”
said Miss Obelienne. “Out in the air. It is a good day. The Lord has brought us sun.”

To her surprise, Rothewell came in behind her, carrying a fold of paper. “Camille, Xanthia has written to ask—” He drew to a halt and looked at them, surprised. “What have you there, Miss Obelienne?”

“Spiced chicken. Cheese. Apple tart. Cassava pone.” She glared at him, then hefted the bag onto the table with a heavy
thunk
! “Your luncheon.”

Camille turned to him with a specious smile. “Apparently we are going on a picnic.”

Miss Obelienne had her arms crossed over her chest. Rothewell's gaze trailed back to the satchel. “A picnic?” he echoed. “In London?”

“Oui,”
said the cook. She made a dismissive motion with one finger, as if he were Chin-Chin being sent from the room. “Go. The outdoors will give you appetite.”

Finally, Rothewell laughed and lifted both hands. “Obelienne has spoken,” he conceded. “I'll send for my gig.”

Camille let her gaze run down him.
“Ça alors!”
she murmured. “Perhaps I should engage Obelienne's assistance more often.”

Rothewell turned to go, and a look of relief passed fleetingly over the cook's usually impassive face. Only then did Camille realize what Obelienne's bravado had cost her. She had not been at all sure of her employer's cooperation. She had counted, perhaps, on Camille's presence to defuse Rothewell's temper. A remarkable notion.

Half an hour later, they sat beneath a tree near the quiet westerly end of the Serpentine Pond, amidst the bare trees and shrubs. Rothewell's horse was tied nearby. The fashionable rarely came so far, Camille assumed, for this part of the park was empty today and far less manicured.

Camille lifted her face to the sun, and fleetingly closed her eyes. The weather was not warm by any measure, but it was a brilliant, cloudless day rarely seen on either side of the Channel at this time of year, and she found herself in a strange, slightly giddy mood.

Beside her, Rothewell had tossed aside his hat, and was removing the parcels of food carefully wrapped in cheesecloth and setting them out atop his driving cloak, which he'd spread upon the ground. He had not thought to bring a blanket. Certainly she had not.

So far as she could recall, she had never dined out of doors. Her mother's interests had run more to late-night affairs—masques, soirées, gaming salons, and the like. Rarely had the Countess of Halburne risen before midafternoon. Not until those final years, when she had scarce left her bed save to rummage round for a bottle of wine, or the dregs of whatever drink she could wheedle from the servants.

“Chicken?”

“Pardon?”
She looked around to see Rothewell leaning toward her on one elbow and holding up a drumstick for her inspection. Impulsively, she leaned over and took a bite.

“Your personal servant now, am I?” he said laconically.

Scowling, Camille chewed the bite into submission, then, “We haven't any plates or forks,” she protested.

“Never eaten with your fingers, eh?” Rothewell nibbled at the leg himself.

“
Non,
I have not.” Camille dabbed at the corners of her mouth with her handkerchief. “And you do not seem much of a—a picnicker, either. If that is a proper English word?”

Rothewell laughed, and laid the chicken aside. Her heart sank with it. She had hoped Miss Obelienne knew something that she did not, and that the great outdoors would have miraculously whetted her husband's appetite. On an inward sigh, Camille picked over the food and took a piece of cheese to nibble on, but the taste disagreed with her, as food so often did of late. Indeed, her once-healthy appetite had waned to a mild revulsion. Soon, she would be little better than her husband.

When she looked back, Rothewell was reclined on both elbows, his long, booted legs crossed at the ankles, staring across the water toward the farms and fields of Kensington. A faint breeze came off the Serpentine, gently teasing at his hair, and for an instant, he looked almost boyish. And surprisingly wistful.

“I don't think I have been on a picnic in fifteen or twenty years,” he said quietly.

“Have you not?” she answered. “It seems such a quintessentially English thing to do.”

“I daresay.” His gaze had turned distant. “It didn't seem like much of a lark when one ate out of doors more often than not.”

“Did you?” she asked. “Why?”

He glanced up at her. “I lived in the cane fields, Camille,” he said. “I was a glorified farmer.”

Camille had heard terrible stories about the work of harvesting and processing sugar cane. France had many such interests in the Caribbean. “Was sugar as dreadful a business as they say?”

“Dreadful is such a relative term, my dear.” He flashed a sardonic smile. “It was hot, dirty, and dangerous work. For our slaves, though…yes, I daresay they found it dreadful indeed.”

“
Oui,
I am sure.” Camille fell quiet for a time. “Who oversees the slaves, now that you are here?”

“No one,” he said. “They are my tenant farmers now.”

“
Alors,
you…you gave them freedom?” she asked. “That was generous.”

He grunted dismissively. “It wasn't generous,” he said. “It was
right
. We should have done so when Uncle died, but the estate was so deep in debt, Luke said—” His gaze had turned suddenly inward.

“Oui?”
Camille encouraged. “What did he say?”

Rothewell shook his head. “He wanted to pay off Uncle's debts,” he answered. “And after that…we debated it, the three of us. We decided everything together. But the pressure from the other planters—to set so many slaves free at once—it was frowned upon.”

“Why?”

“They feared another rebellion,” he said. “And slaves who are freed can move about at will. But it little matters now.”

“Does it not? Why?”

He shrugged. “The days of slavery need to end,” he said quietly. “It is a vile, corrupting institution, and it will eventually be outlawed, if what Anthony Hayden-Worth says is true. It is one of his pet projects in the Commons.”

Camille shivered, and tucked her cloak a little closer. “I have always thought slavery dreadful.”

He was still staring into the distance. “But when you grow up with it,” he said, “you don't think of it at all. It is simply the way of things. Then, as you get older, you begin to see that a slave is just a man like you, with his own hopes and fears and even dreams. And when you know that…when the knowledge comes clearer with every passing day…well, it takes a hardened soul to look past it.”

“A great many people seem to have no trouble looking past it,” said Camille a little sarcastically.

“I cannot speak for them,” he said quietly. “I speak only for myself. What I have seen. What I have learnt. Abolition is the only way—and it cannot happen soon enough.”

“Perhaps…Perhaps you can support Mr. Hayden-Worth's efforts in some way?” she tentatively suggested. “Perhaps if more people believed as you do, abolition would come sooner?”

Rothewell shrugged, and looked away.

Camille recalled the story about their dead brother's wife, the woman Rothewell had loved—and would perhaps always love. No doubt that circumstance, more than any other, had altered his thinking.

“Xanthia told me about your brother's wife,” she blurted, staring at her hands, which were clasped in her lap. “That she was of mixed race, and that she was not always welcome in society. I am sure that was hurtful.”

She watched his jaw go rigid, a bad sign. “Xanthia spoke out of turn,” he gritted. He sounded angrier, even, than she had expected.

“Non,”
said Camille sharply. “She did not. That woman was a part of your family. Her daughter still is.”

“She is dead,” he replied, his words curt. “My brother is dead. There is nothing to talk about, and by God, Xanthia knows it. But apparently I am going to have to remind her of that fact.”

Camille's temper slipped. “How can you be angry with Xanthia?” she demanded. “I am your wife, Rothewell, and this has to do with your family. I have a right to know such things, especially if I'm to bear your child.”

His sensuous lips turned into a sneer. “Oh, that's high talk, Camille, from a woman who not so many days past, wanted nothing more than my seed,” he returned. “A woman who called our marriage a ‘transaction.'”