Never Romance a Rake (36 page)

His faint smile faltered. “You are too wise, Camille, to fall in love with me,” he assured her. “Today, after all that we have shared, you feel sorry for me, perhaps. But I assure you that I am unworthy of either sentiment—particularly your love.”

But it was too late for her, Camille realized. She could neither look away nor leave him. Not in any sense of the word. His silvery gaze held hers warily, seeing, she was sure, into the pit of her soul. “Kiss me,” she whispered. “Kiss me, Kieran. And let me decide your worth.”

Something like regret sketched across his face. Then his hand came up, hesitated, and slid round her face. His eyes dropped shut, and when his lips touched hers, Camille flew to him, her arms going round his neck. This time his kiss was infinite and aching in its sweetness. Not a kiss of heated lust or of tempting invitation, but a gentle, languid thing, which was almost reverent. A kiss which was not his, and yet was the very essence of him.

Kieran's hands cupped her face gently, his thumbs stroking slowly across her cheekbones as he kissed her mouth, her brow, and the delicate bones beneath her eyes. Finally, he kissed the length of her neck, his mouth warm and soft against her skin, then set his forehead upon her shoulder

“My beautiful girl,” he murmured. “My beautiful Camille. What in God's name have I done?”

“Nothing,” she said fervently. “
Mon Dieu,
you have done nothing.”

He gave a muffled, humorless laugh. “I thought you so wonderfully coldhearted,” he murmured, one hand making soft, soothing circles between her shoulder blades. “But I miscalculated, did I not? Beneath that hard façade of yours beats a heart as tender as a ripe peach. And I am sorry for it.”

“Just kiss me again,” she whispered. “
Vraiment,
Kieran, we think too much, you and I.”

He obliged her, kissing her languidly and thoroughly, then rolled a little away. Camille turned onto her back, still watching him. His gaze drifted down to the slight swell of her belly. His hand settled over it, heavy and warm.

“What do you think, my dear?” he whispered. “Is there…any chance?”

Camille hesitated. “It is too soon,
chéri.
”

He must have caught the uncertainty in her tone. His gaze jerked up, catching hers. “How much too soon?”

Camille caught her lip between her teeth. “I…I do not know,” she finally said. “I have no experience in such things.”

His hands caught hers, squeezing them urgently. “But there
is
a chance?” he said. “You have a reason to hope?”

Slowly, she exhaled. “
Oui,
a reason to hope,” she agreed. “But a very tenuous one.”

He settled back onto the bed, and slid an arm beneath his head. “Nine months,” he whispered. “It seems an eternity.”

But to any normal man, it was not an eternity. It was a very short while indeed—and in terms of raising one's child, it was a mere twinkling of an eye. But to Kieran, perhaps it really would be an eternity.

Vowing not to think of it—refusing to let a moment of uncertainty cloud her pure and certain joy—Camille drew up the covers, tucked herself against her husband, and fell into a restless sleep.

Camille passed a night fraught with snatches of half-formed dreams, then awoke to find herself alone when Emily came in to draw the curtains and pour her hot water. The door to Kieran's room was closed, and though she had not felt him leave her bed, Camille knew he had risen and left the house sometime in the early hours before dawn. In the short weeks since their marriage, she had developed an innate sense of his presence.

After putting on her best walking dress, a deep burgundy redingote of wool ottoman, which she hoped flattered her coloring, Camille went down to breakfast. Once there, however, mild nausea overcame her, and she left after a slice of dry toast and half a cup of tea. She glanced at the longcase clock as she ascended the steps. Half past eight. Far too early for her purpose this morning.

She returned to her room to hear Chin-Chin scratching at the connecting door. She opened it to see the butler at Kieran's washstand, a deeply troubled look upon his face.

“Good morning, Trammel,” said Camille, scooping up the wiggling dog and settling him across her shoulder. “His lordship left early, I see.”

“Yes, my lady.” Swiftly, Trammel snatched a towel from the floor, and picked up the basin. Camille watched him suspiciously as Chin-Chin dashed her cheek with a kiss.

“Have you any idea where he went?”

“I couldn't say, ma'am,” said the butler. “He called for his phaeton well before dawn.”

“His phaeton?” Camille echoed. “
Ça alors.
Was he in some sort of rush?”

“I daresay,” said the butler. “His lordship keeps his own counsel, ma'am.”

“
Oui,
I noticed,” said Camille dryly.

Trammel hesitated, then relented. “He did have a pair under the pole, ma'am,” he remarked. “And he had me put up his kit—just in case, he said.”

“He might be away the night, then.” Camille frowned.

Trammel smiled wanly. “Well, if you will excuse me, ma'am, I shall—”

“Wait,
s'il vous plaît.
” Camille stepped into the room, and looked pointedly at the towel. “How ill was he this morning, Trammel? And please do not pretend. I am, after all, his wife.”

Something like sympathy sketched across Trammel's dark face. “Just a touch of nausea, ma'am,” he said. “We must hope that it is nothing.”

Camille set her shoulder to the door frame and regarded him pensively. “But I think we are both beyond hoping it is
nothing
,” she softly challenged. “It is—how do you say it?—
un maladie du foie
?”

“His liver?' A little unsteadily, Trammel set the basin down, and this time Camille saw the bright red bloodstain on the towel. “I simply cannot say, ma'am. His lordship does not confide in me. Indeed, he confides in no one—not even Lady Nash.”

“But he knows what it is,
oui
?” Camille pressed.

Trammel lifted one shoulder. “I believe he suspects, ma'am,” he answered. “But his…his habits are unchanged, and one would think—”

“You mean his drinking?” Camille interjected. “Not to mention the fact that he rarely sleeps? Scarcely eats?”

The butler's gaze fell. “Yes, those things,” he agreed. “I find it strange he wouldn't do—but then, it really isn't my place, is it? And his lordship is…well, difficult, at best.”

Camille surveyed him levelly. “Ah,
difficult
!” she echoed softly. “Perhaps, Trammel, it is time that came to an end?”

Trammel cast her one last glance—one which seemed to say
good luck
!—then picked up the basin and hastened from the room.

Forcing away her grief and fear, Camille spent the morning going over the household accounts, and meeting with Miss Obelienne to sort out the linen press, but she went through the process like an automaton. Her crates had finally arrived from Limousin, sent at Camille's request by the elderly housekeeper, and together with Emily, Camille busied herself with unpacking them.

The landscapes she hung in the withdrawing room, assisted by Trammel and one of the footmen. The needlepoint pillows she arranged on Kieran's bed to give his room some much-needed color. But the rest of the crates could not hold her interest, and by midafternoon, she had sequestered herself in the upstairs parlor to sit by the fire with Chin-Chin in her lap.

What on earth had prompted Kieran to leave at such a frightful hour this morning? He had not gone merely to one of his low clubs or gaming hells, she was sure. Not in his phaeton—a vehicle made for speed—drawn by two horses. And he had asked Trammel to pack his things—after yet another spate of illness.

She remembered the urgency of Kieran's questions last night and absently set a hand over her belly, mimicking the gesture she had so often seen from Lady Nash. Fleetingly, she closed her eyes.
It was too soon.
It simply was.

She had hated to disappoint him, given the emotionally wrought day they had shared, and the yearning in his eyes. But however desperately either of them might wish otherwise, a week late—or even a fortnight—meant nothing.

Except that she had never, ever been so much as a day late. Moreover, she just
knew
. God help her if she was wrong, but she was simply certain. She was with child—in a world where she knew almost no one. A world where her husband was gravely ill, if not dying.

It had seemed such a simple thing in the abstract to raise a child with no father, and almost no family. It was the way in which she had been raised, and Kieran, too.

Well. Perhaps she had just answered her own question. Perhaps that was why it seemed such a horrific fate.

Camille opened her eyes, and stared at the world beyond her window—the fine brick town houses and glossy, crested coaches which went flying past, their liveried footmen clinging to the rear.
That
was the world in which her child would live; the world of aristocratic England. Not some far-flung colonial outpost like the West Indies, or the anonymity of rural France.

With or without two parents, her child would need to be a part of a society in which neither she nor Kieran was entirely comfortable. Which made her errand this morning all the more critical—and Kieran's absence, perhaps, all the more convenient.

Camille rose and walked to the window, considering that moment in Hyde Park when she'd first glimpsed Lord Halburne. What was he like, this man her mother had once wed? He had worn a sweeping gray cloak, she recalled, but no hat, having removed it in order to greet two young ladies by the Serpentine Pond. His hair had been snowy white, and at first glance, he'd appeared remarkably tall and thin, but then he had leaned forward to address a little black poodle which one of the ladies held on a leash.

Camille wished she could have heard Halburne's words—or at least his voice. Had he been sincere? Kind? Surely an
unkind
man would not have wasted his time cooing at a mere dog? It wasn't much comfort to seize upon, but it was all Camille had. So when she heard the clock strike four, Camille gathered her courage and went back downstairs. As she pulled on her gloves and cloak, she informed Trammel she was going for a long walk. She declined the escort of a footman. This was a deeply personal errand, and one which did not need an audience.

By noon, rain had swept in from the Channel, drowning all which lay in its path as it made its way toward London. Confined to the house, the Duke of Warneham was in his butler's office by the great hall at Selsdon Court when a racket arose in the carriage drive beyond.

“What the devil?” he said, looking up from the papers they had been reviewing.

Coggins rose. “I shall have a look, Your Grace,” he said, going to the window. He turned almost at once. “It is a phaeton, sir, coming in fast. Looks like he's taken out the upper gatepost.”

“The devil!” said Warneham again, striding out and round the corner into the great hall.

Here, the roar of the storm was louder. Two footmen had already thrown open the door and gone down the steps before him, bearing great black umbrellas with which to greet the guest and protect whatever luggage there might be from the now-torrential rain.

Warneham glowered down at the familiar, solid black carriage drawing up at the steps, and at the pair of lathered black horses still prancing in the downpour.

“You!” he shouted irascibly. “You and my damned gateposts! It's constant carnage, I tell you!”

The duke was already choosing the words with which he might further lash his friend when Lord Rothewell awkwardly gripped the edge of the phaeton's calash and attempted to descend—attempted being the operative word, for the baron did not so much leap from the high-perched conveyance as fall forward, almost tumbling onto the graveled drive.

“Good God!” The duke was out and down the steps in a trice.

The footmen had tossed down their umbrellas and were hitching Lord Rothewell up by both arms by the time the duke reached him. “Good God,” he said again, shouting over the rain. “What has happened?”

Despite the calash, Rothewell's clothes were drenched by the rain, his hat sodden, his heavy black hair plastered. His expression when he looked at his old friend was bleak. “Get me inside,” he rasped. “I need to speak with you.”

“What were you thinking to ride south into the face of a storm?” the duke demanded when he had the baron ensconced in his private study and was more certain Rothewell was not apt to die. The baron had at first appeared to be in some pain, but was steadier—and a little dryer—now.

“I didn't know a storm was brewing.” Rothewell was wrapped in a dry robe by a roaring fire, his expression pensive. “I have some papers in my coat—something I must discuss with you.”