Never Romance a Rake Page 9

  “A horse’s arse?” Camille suppressed a laugh.

  “Quite so,” said Lord Nash with specious solemnity, “for it is a well-muscled and potentially dangerous thing which is nonetheless capable of respecting something far smaller than itself”—here, he gave his whip a demonstrative little snap—“but only if you can make it fear your sting just a little. And to do that, one must simply behave with more condescension.”

  “Oh, dear!” said Camille through her laughter. “Do I dare?”

  “My God, woman, you are half-French,” said Lord Nash. “I can think of no creature better suited to such a task.”

  “Très bien,” she said. “I shall try it.”

  Lord Nash looked down at her and smiled—a smile that reached all the way to his eyes. He did not dislike her. Indeed, even his wife had come to tea the day before. As a husband, Rothewell would doubtless be a cheat and a scoundrel, but at least his family was kind.

  Eventually, Lord Nash drew his phaeton up alongside the pavement in front of Hanover Street and leapt down to lift her out.

  “Your wife tells me that you are anticipating a blessed event,” she said when her feet touched the earth again. “Félicitations, monsieur.”

  He smiled again, but this time it was the smile of a worried husband. “And my congratulations to you,” he said quietly. “I understand you will be making an announcement in a few days’ time.”

  “Merci, monsieur.” Camille, too, flashed a weak smile. “It is a fearsome prospect, marriage, n’est-ce pas? I would welcome any advice which you should care to give.”

  Lord Nash seemed to hesitate. “I am sorry,” he said. “I do not know Lord Rothewell very well. I married his sister just a few months past. I know my wife both adores him and despairs of him. I speak for both of us, Mademoiselle Marchand, in wishing you good luck.”

  Good luck.

  As she went up the stairs and into the house, Camille considered Lord Nash’s choice of words. Not congratulations. Not may you have many happy years together. Just good luck—as if she were wagering on a lame horse, or investing in a lead mine. But Lord Rothewell was just a little more complicated than a horse’s arse. To manage him, she might need a very large whip indeed.

  By her second day in Hanover Street, Camille had had the great good fortune to find the nursery—with little Lord Longvale tucked happily in it. She had been initially taken aback to learn that Lady Sharpe had just borne a child, but not surprised to see that the countess doted upon the babe. No blanket could be soft enough, no bathwater temperate enough, no draft more dangerous than those which entered Lord Longvale’s sphere. The entire house revolved around the child’s needs, and within a few days, so did Camille.

  The countess was pleased when Camille asked to spend time with the boy. The nurse, Lady Sharpe suggested, would be glad to have an hour to herself, for she was a family retainer who had left retirement to attend the child. Lord Longvale was too young to do much more than sleep, but Camille was happy enough to sit by his cradle with a piece of needlework.

  When the nurse had errands, Camille would happily report to the nursery. From time to time, the child would stir, and sometimes even cling to the end of Camille’s finger when it was offered. Then, whilst his pale blue eyes gazed up at her, he would blow a spit bubble, or thrash his legs happily until he had kicked the covers from his feet. For Camille, it was utterly captivating—and utterly heartbreaking.

  On this particular day, Camille had taken a book to read, then laid it aside. A shaft of midmorning sun was slicing through the nursery’s draperies and illuminating the child’s face like some holy icon. Lord Longvale was a truly precious gift. Such a child would have been priceless to her. She was prickly and bitter, yes—perhaps life had made her so, or perhaps it was simply her nature—but she was still a woman. She still felt a woman’s yearnings.

  Camille closed her eyes and felt the babe’s tiny fingers clutching at her thumb. She prayed to God she had not waited too long. Surely, had she tried harder, she could have found a husband before now? Surely it needn’t have come to this? A marriage to a man she did not know. A man who would marry her for money, without even the pretense of affection.

  Ah, well. Maudlin sentiments brought one nothing. Camille extracted her thumb, pulled the child’s blanket back down to cover his woolen booties. A marriage. A child. Perhaps she was soon to have both.

  Camille remembered her mother’s histrionics when she had announced, at the age of seventeen, her intent to elope with the gardener’s son. Hartshorne in hand, Lady Halburne had taken to her bed for a se’night.

  It was not that her mother had believed Camille too young—and probably not that she’d thought the gardener’s son beneath them. Indeed, she rarely thought of Camille at all until Camille announced her intention of leaving. And then the illnesses and the petulance would come on. The swoons. The chills. The lingering diseases which she swore were certain to ravage her beauty and leave her with nothing but her precious daughter’s love and companionship.

  It was easy to be taking in by such balderdash when one was young, and craved a parent’s affection—or anyone’s affection, come to that. In those times, Camille at last became her mother’s foremost concern. Her most treasured possession. Until the next handsome gentleman came along, or her mother scratched up enough money to go to Paris for a few months’ amusement.

  And so her dreams of the gardener’s son had gone the way of all flesh—along with a local squire of comfortable means, a hollow-faced widower with four children, and a novice priest who suffered a sudden crisis of faith upon glimpsing Camille’s ankles as she hopped across a puddle. None of those men had been meant for her—but any of them would have done better than the debauchee she had landed. Any of them could have given the babe she longed for. And yet she had let the clock tick on.

  Lord Rothewell no doubt thought she wanted a child for financial reasons—if, there again, he thought of her at all. If he was as much like Valigny as one would assume, he thought only of the money she would bring him and the pleasures on which he would squander it.

  Her somber musings were interrupted by the squeak of door hinges. She looked up to see Lady Sharpe enter the room. “Rothewell has come to call,” she said, her voice grave. “He wishes to stroll in the garden with you.”

  Camille felt a sudden panic. “But the babe—”

  The countess was offering her hand. “No, up with you, my dear,” she said. “Take your shawl. I shall stay until Thornton returns.”

  Camille rose. Lady Sharpe gave her hand an encouraging squeeze. “You do not have to marry him, Camille,” she said quietly. “No one would blame you if you did not. But you do have to speak to him privately.”

  She set her shoulders stiffly back. “I am not afraid of him, madame,” she said. “His bark is loud, perhaps? But I, too, can bite.”

  The countess smiled. “Dear, dear,” she murmured, sliding into Camille’s chair. “Has my wicked cousin met his match, I wonder?”

  Camille snatched her shawl and her book, then made her way downstairs to find her betrothed husband. She prayed to God the man was a little more sober and a lot less disheveled than the last time she had been alone with him. He had seemed irascible, too. But then again, staying up all night drinking and gaming doubtless took a toll on one’s temperament and wardrobe. Camille hoped, too, that he did not cast one of those silvery, sidelong looks in her direction and set her knees to melting. Surely she was not such a fool as that?

  Lord Rothewell awaited her in a sunny parlor toward the back of the house. Camille found him staring out into the gardens, his legs slightly spread, one hand grasping a thin black crop, which he was slapping impatiently against his riding boot, the other set at the small of his back. And in looking at him thus, she was struck once again by the sheer size of the man.

  She had thought perhaps his height and breadth had been some sort of emotional misimpression brought on by her anger the first night they had met. But she was increasing
ly aware that it was not. Rothewell was simply a large man and a commanding presence. His dark coat seemed stretched over dauntingly wide shoulders, and the black leather boots which encased his calves rose far higher than any mortal man’s ought.

  Yes, from this angle, at least, there was a good deal to admire—and yet no one would have thought him elegant, despite his obviously expensive clothes. When she broke this spell by speaking his name, would he turn round and disappoint? His complexion, she knew, was too dark; his hair nearly black, and from this vantage point, far too long. Indeed, Lord Rothewell looked like a man who belonged in the countryside, for he was simply too large and too austere for the elegant environs of Mayfair. And for some reason, looking at him today made her breath catch.

  She lingered on the threshold an instant too long.

  “Good morning, mademoiselle,” he said without turning. “I trust I find you well?”

  Camille froze. Then she realized he was watching her reflection in the window. “Oui, I thank you,” she said coolly. “And you, monsieur?”

  He let his empty hand drop, and turned around. “Well enough, I daresay.” His voice was a low, emotionless rumble. He came away from the window and offered his arm. “Might I have the pleasure of your company in the garden?”

  “Mais oui.” Camille laid her book on a table by the door, and tossed her woolen shawl about her shoulders.

  Rothewell glanced down at the book and raised his eyebrows as his eyes trailed across the title, An Epitome of Book Keeping by Double Entry. “You have remarkable taste in reading, Mademoiselle Marchand,” he commented, drawing one finger lightly down the spine.

  She regarded him levelly. “You would prefer, perhaps, a stack of novels, monsieur?” she remarked. “Après tout, money makes the world go round—and perhaps those who have little of it should at least understand how it works?”

  For the first time, his sardonic smile almost reached his eyes. “Ah, but you shall eventually have plenty of it,” he remarked, “if all goes according to plan.”

  “Oui, but what good is a fortune in the hands of a fool?” she asked. “If I am so fortunate, monsieur, then I mean to manage well what le bon Dieu has given me.”

  To her surprise, he nodded solemnly. “Then you are very wise, mademoiselle,” he answered. “Never trust anyone else to steward your wealth or steer your future.”

  She looked at him in some surprise. Camille had expected that he might argue. If she understood English law, her income would be his once they were wed. It was a risk she would have to take.

  They went down the steps in silence, Rothewell deftly hooking his crop on the rear gatepost as they passed. In the garden, the breeze held a chill. Already the bitter tang of coal smoke spiked the autumn air. Winter was coming, thought Camille, cutting a sidelong glance up at Lord Rothewell. Coming, perhaps, into her life.

  Her every instinct warned her to back away; that this, perhaps, was a man who was as much dangerous as dissolute. A man well beyond her range of experience. But she did not turn around. She did not even hesitate.

  Halfway down, the lawn was terraced, but the steps were of uneven stone, and a little steep. Rothewell leapt down before her, graceful as a cat, then turned to slide his hands beneath her shawl, grasping her round the waist.

  “Merci, monsieur, but I—”

  Too late. He lifted her easily. Her hands grabbed instinctively at his shoulders, and when they spun round together, the moment felt suspended in time. As if he held her perfectly still in the air, their bodies entirely too close, her fingers curling into the soft wool of his coat. They were face-to-face, his mesmerizing gray eyes just inches from hers, her heart hammering oddly in her chest.

  Watching her, Rothewell lowered her down his length. But the earth felt suddenly unsteady beneath her feet, and Camille did not remove her hands. Rothewell still grasped her waist, his large, heavy palms warming her skin through her dress. She remained there, looking up at him until a clatter in the alley beyond rent the silence.

  He released her waist.

  “Merci,” she murmured, lowering her hands. But her heart would not still, and the warm masculine scent of his cologne lingered in a dizzying, sensual cloud. Camille felt almost frighteningly aware of him as a man—but that was her only clear thought amidst the sudden, maddening whirl in her brain.

  They strolled toward the center of the garden as Camille tried to still her heart and gather her thoughts. Farther on, a high arrangement of boxwoods concealed a sheltered circle of fading rosebushes, and here Rothewell stopped and laid his hand over hers where it rested upon his arm.

  When he spoke again, his voice was surprisingly gentle. “I came to tell you, Mademoiselle Marchand, that I have sent your father a bank draft for his twenty-five thousand pounds,” he said in his impossibly deep voice. “You are now free of any obligation to him.”

  She stopped abruptly on the path and looked up at him. “Mon Dieu!” she whispered. “Where did you get twenty-five thousand pounds?”

  Rothewell hesitated for a moment. “Ah, that,” he said dryly. “I waylaid a Blackheath mail coach at gunpoint.”

  She was almost relieved to see the glint of irritation in his silvery eyes. “Vraiment, monsieur?” she replied. “Then you robbed a coward. I should have waited to see how good a shot you were before stopping.”

  “I don’t doubt it,” said Rothewell. “The French are notoriously foolhardy in battle. But I am quite a good shot, Mademoiselle Marchand. You would have waited at your peril.”

  Camille decided it prudent to alter the subject. “And you still wish to marry me, monsieur?” she said. “Otherwise, you see, I have no way to repay you.”

  He looked down at her steadily. “I am here, am I not?” he answered.

  “You must know by now that that your sister disapproves of our marrying,” said Camille. “Is she quite a good shot, too, I wonder?”

  “Yes, as it happens.” His expression had tightened. “But in this, her opinion is of no consequence. Moreover, it is not you of whom she disapproves. It is I—and I shall deal with it.”

  Ah, a family quarrel. Camille decided it might be more prudent to hold her tongue. As Lord Rothewell resumed his sedate pace, he cut a glance down at her, his expression inscrutable.

  Why on earth was he marrying her, Camille wondered, if he could come up with twenty-five thousand pounds on a drunken whim and a few days’ notice? But he had, and at last her foolish bargain with Valigny was over. She was surprised by the flood of relief that knowledge brought her. This made twice that Lord Rothewell had come to her rescue.

  No. Camille jerked herself up sharp. She must not look at it like that. This man was no hero, and she must on no account romanticize the situation. Rothewell was, if not her father’s friend, certainly his cohort. They were cut from the same piece of cloth, with the same vices. The same victims. And Rothewell had a good reason to marry her, for she had told him, foolishly perhaps, the one thing she had kept from Valigny—the true magnitude of her inheritance.

  The path narrowed as they approached the end of the garden. Lord Rothewell stood quite close now; so close she could again catch the scent of his cologne on the air; something that smelled distinctively of sandalwood and citrus. It was an infinitely male scent, one which she remembered well from that fateful night at Valigny’s.

  Just then, his arm brushed hers as they walked, and her heart gave another of those odd little flip-flops. Suddenly, Camille was seized with the notion to bolt.

  But to what? She had little money. No formal education to speak of. And no family that would own her, unless one counted Valigny’s shallow-minded kin, who, whilst not precisely throwing her into the street, had nonetheless ignored her existence.

  Rothewell must have read her thoughts. He stopped on the path and turned her to face him. When he spoke, the mood surrounding them suddenly altered in a way which made her unaccountably nervous.

  “Mademoiselle Marchand, Pamela’s delay has given me time to think,” he sa
id, his warm, heavy hands settling on her shoulders. “You do not have to marry me. This bargain was Valigny’s, not yours. You can walk away if you choose.”

  “Oui, but to what, monsieur?” she asked simply. “And with what?”

  “You have a cousin, have you not?” he suggested. “The man who inherited your grandfather’s title? Perhaps he has the connections to arrange a marriage?”

  She laughed bitterly. “I don’t even know his name, and I am sure he does not wish to know mine,” she replied. “Consider, monsieur. I am the bastard daughter of the woman who shamed his family, n’est-ce pas? And if I never marry, never bear a child, then he will probably inherit all, instead of just a long title and a big house. No, he will not thank me for turning up on his doorstep.”

  Rothewell winced. “I fear you are a good judge of human nature,” he muttered. “Perhaps a situation could be found for you?”

  “Employment, oui?” she answered. “Such as a companion or a—a gouvernante?”

  “A governess, yes. But that dooms you to a life of poverty, I daresay.”

  “I am not afraid of hard work, monsieur,” she said honestly. “I should thrive on it. To use my brain—oui, it would be like a dream. But the things I could best do, no woman would be allowed. And the things society permits women to do—non, for the daughter of the disreputable Comte de Valigny, it will never happen.”

  His silvery gaze drifted over her face for a moment as if searching for something. “Pamela tells me you adore children. Do you, Camille?”

  “Oui,” she said casually. “Who does not? But no one is going to hire Valigny’s by-blow to care for their children.”

  “No, not likely.” He smiled faintly. “But do you wish for children of your own? Your grandfather’s will not withstanding?”

  “I should like it very well,” she replied equivocally. But she was lying, and she wondered if he knew it. A child to love—oh, it was her deepest wish. Her only hope, it often seemed.