Julian recognized this as a chance to make things better but he couldn’t for the life of him imagine what he was supposed to say. “I didn’t lie,” he protested feebly, and even as he spoke he knew he was making things worse.
He could see the disappointment and rising anger in Courtenay’s face. “You saw me reading it. Christ, Medlock, I read parts aloud to you. You had every opportunity to tell me early on, to get it out of the way. Why the devil didn’t you?”
“I didn’t tell you because it was a secret,” Julian said. “I wrote it anonymously. I couldn’t admit to having written such a thing.”
Courtenay sucked in a breath of air. “I’m to understand that in addition to penning an entire volume dedicated to itemizing and immortalizing my flaws, you also didn’t trust me to keep a secret. I see.”
“No! I meant at first. The first days, I didn’t trust you. Later on—”
“Later on you had reasons to keep me in good cheer. I see. Quite understandable. I would not have taken you into my bed if I had known you held me in such low regard.”
“That’s not what I meant.” Julian shook his head in frustration. “I didn’t write the book about you. I hadn’t met you when I wrote the first draft of the manuscript. It was only later that I saw you at Radnor’s house and I borrowed some of your quirks.”
“Some of my quirks,” Courtenay repeated. “Just enough to convince the world that I’m as much a villain as they always suspected.”
“First of all, I didn’t think anyone would read the stupid book. And even if they did, I assumed they wouldn’t recognize you based on my description. But even if I had done what you think, that was before I knew you.” It was different now, couldn’t Courtenay see that? “It was before . . .” He gestured between them, because he couldn’t find words to describe what he meant, and even if he could he wouldn’t have had the courage to speak them aloud.
“That is my point. You were content to slander and libel a man who had done you no wrong. You think that I’m beneath reproach, but I never stooped to such a depth as you did when you published that book. I ought to have realized that this fucking obsession of yours with propriety was to cover up something truly vile.”
The words hit Julian like a slap. The riding crop fell from his hands into the dust and he didn’t stoop to pick it up. Something truly vile. That was how he thought of himself when he was ill—sweaty and dirty and the exact opposite of the face he tried to present to the world. And he knew that wasn’t what Courtenay meant, but it didn’t matter. Julian recognized it as the truth he tried to conceal from the world and even from himself. He straightened his back and tried to draw on the reserve of sangfroid and rectitude he always relied on.
“Why me? Why not choose somebody else to ruin?”
Somebody else? There wasn’t anybody else. “It wasn’t like that,” he said, hardly believing he was about to admit this. “You were the most beautiful thing I had ever seen and I had to put you in the book. That’s what the book was. It was everything I couldn’t have.”
Courtenay’s eyes somehow got even colder, his jaw harder. “You were angry that I didn’t want to fuck you and so you decided to destroy my name?”
That wasn’t it at all. Julian had thought that maybe Courtenay would understand, but he didn’t, and Julian wasn’t going to waste his breath and humiliate himself by trying to explain it any further. He wasn’t going to grovel, he wasn’t going to demean himself when their friendship—or whatever it had been—was over now, and nothing Julian could say would change that. “You didn’t have much of a name,” Julian hissed.
For a moment Julian thought he was going to get thrashed. Courtenay’s fists were clenched at his sides, his cheeks livid with fury. This was so far from the bored, languid man he had first met that Julian was suddenly struck with the idea that Courtenay’s entire demeanor was as much a series of illusions as Julian’s own. Then Courtenay shook his head and took a step backwards, holding his hands out as if dismissing his temper and Julian all at once.
The look on Courtenay’s face was one of pure disgust. “Spare yourself the trouble of another falsehood, Medlock. I know you’re not a particularly honest man, that whatever matters in your warped mind, it isn’t earnestness or sincerity. I knew you were wrapped up in layers of propriety and pomposity but I thought there was something real within all that. More fool me. But I never could have guessed you were capable of this level of deceit. You were contemptuous of me from the beginning. I ought to have known. But now I do, and I can stop wasting my time. I only wish I had known earlier.”
He turned on his heel and walked away, leaving Julian alone in the lane.
Chapter Eighteen
Julian didn’t know how long he stood in the lane behind the stables. He couldn’t even think of Courtenay without a fresh wash of shame. He knew he had done wrong by writing that book, and he was not used to being in the wrong, but beneath that obvious problem was the fact that he had hurt Courtenay, which was the one thing in the world he wished to prevent. He had the sense that another man—a better man, a more honest one—could have said something to make Courtenay understand how much he regretted harming him. Another man could have said something to reclaim that future of shared pastries and rides in the park. But Julian wasn’t that man. It was just as well that Courtenay had walked away from him. The life he had deluded himself into thinking possible was a figment of his imagination.
He managed to get back to his lodgings and out of his riding clothes. Once he was properly attired he was at an utter loss as to what to do with himself. He couldn’t go to Eleanor’s house—that was where he was most likely to run into Courtenay, which was obviously something he was going to spend the rest of his life avoiding. Besides, he now realized that Eleanor, the one person who knew Julian had authored the book, had told Standish. He didn’t know if this was a betrayal or a normal thing for a wife to tell a husband, and the fact that he couldn’t puzzle it out only went to show how sadly unfit he was for any kind of partnership.
He had taken extra care in dressing, seeking the fortification of a perfect cravat and excellently polished boots. Briggs, sensing that his employer was in need of extra defenses, combed and pomaded his hair to an unnatural degree of brilliance and brushed his already pristine coat. He set out from his lodgings with no real destination. In the end he found himself on the doorstep of Lady Montbray’s house. When he handed his card to the surpassingly stoic butler who answered the door—really, he was developing grave misgivings about Eleanor’s Tilbury and his presumptions—he doubted Lady Montbray would see him. It was a strange hour for callers, that awkward period when everyone in polite society seemed to be dressing for dinner.
But the butler showed him into the drawing room, where he found Lady Montbray sitting among the remnants of tea with her brother. When the butler opened the door, both Lady Montbray and Rivington sat up a bit straighter, an irritating reminder that they were at their ease around one another and he was an utter outsider.
That’s what he always had been, always would be. It didn’t matter that his desk was covered in invitations. It didn’t matter that the finest gentry in the land treated him as an equal. He had arrived where he was by making a study of how people responded to everything he did, by calibrating his every decision—from the cut of his coat to the company he kept—to achieve a favorable reaction from society. And it had worked.
But there was a difference between acceptance and friendship, and Julian had never felt that gap as acutely as he did now. He tried not to think about the fact that Courtenay had been glad to see him. The last few times they had seen one another, Julian had seen Courtenay’s face light with a lazy smile at the sight of him. It had been a mistake, Julian now realized, to let things get to that point. It had been safer to keep everyone at a comfortable distance. He hadn’t let himself want real friendship until he had a taste of it with Courtenay. Now that it was gone, he didn’t know how he would settle for less. His polished façade now
seemed more an obstacle than a protection.
“Good heavens,” Lady Montbray said, rising to her feet and ushering him toward a chair. “Were you accosted? Is Lady Standish well?”
Oh, damn. He must have distress writ across his face. He made an effort to compose himself, but judging by Lady Montbray and Rivington’s increased expressions of concern, he didn’t quite manage it. He touched his immaculate lapels, as if confirming that they were still there, his only armor.
“No, I just . . .” He nearly made up a story about an accident, some way to preserve the illusion of anodyne Mr. Medlock. But suddenly he wanted to shatter that illusion. It hadn’t done him any good and now he didn’t know why he had bothered in the first place. It had started as a sort of gift for Eleanor, but it had never meant anything to her and now he realized it had come at a cost to himself.
As things stood, he feared nobody cared much for him except as a bachelor to even out the numbers at a dinner table, a gentleman whose presence was guaranteed not to offend. He might as well toss that away too. He would tell them something true, something ugly about himself, and see what happened.
“I wrote The Brigand Prince,” he blurted out. He was tearing up his reputation and scattering it in the breeze. What did any of it matter, anyway?
Rivington and Lady Montbray stared at him, then flicked a glance at one another, the sort of telling glance that he used to share with Eleanor before he ruined everything.
Inferring that he would no longer be wanted after divulging that information, Julian rose to his feet and prepared to leave. But before he could get out the necessary words, Lady Montbray put a hand on his arm.
“Wait. You wrote that? Anne and I spent a week reading it aloud to one another and trying to sneak the book away when the other wasn’t looking. We adored it.”
“So did I,” Rivington chimed in.
“So did everyone. But—” Lady Montbray paused, and looked as if she were doing a sum in her head “—you must have written that book before meeting Courtenay, so it can’t truly be about him. How disappointing.”
“It is not about Courtenay,” Julian said firmly. “I was idle last autumn and you know what they say about idle hands. I did add details about Courtenay later on and I regret it. Eleanor is most displeased with me.”
“Oh, that is bad, then. Does Courtenay know?”
Julian hesitated. “Now he does.”
“Will he spread it about?”
“I don’t much care.” And that was the truth. If he were known as the author of a book in questionable taste, the betrayer of a friend, that was the least of his problems. “It’s his tale to tell, if that’s what he wants.”
Before he knew what had happened, he had been drawn into conversation about nothing in particular—the virtues of private tutors as opposed to public schools for educating Lady Montbray’s young son, the talents of Rivington’s new cook, the fact that Lady Montbray was nearly finished with her mourning.
It wasn’t until Julian was half asleep, alone in his bed in his impeccable lodgings, that he realized what had been different about this afternoon at Lady Montbray’s house. It was the closest thing to friendship he had experienced in the years since coming to England. And it had happened after he had deliberately aired some of his dirtiest laundry in front of the son and daughter of an earl, the very sort of people he had always sought to impress.
He felt slightly less alone, slightly less miserable, but his bed was still empty and his future as bleak as it had ever been. But perhaps he wouldn’t be going into that future entirely alone.
Courtenay went to a brothel. It was a time-honored tradition, this ceremonial visiting of a whorehouse on the occasion of a broken heart. He had left the stables, gone directly to Norton’s lodgings and roused him, and embarked on a round of drunken carousing.
Except for how he was neither drunk nor engaged in much carousing. This was the soberest he ever had been in a whorehouse, to say nothing of how his breeches were resolutely fastened and his prick bored. Instead, he was leaning against the wall of Madame Louise’s parlor, watching Norton entertain a damsel who had artfully disposed herself on his lap. She was whispering in Norton’s ear, no doubt telling him exactly what she intended to do with him upstairs. One of Norton’s hands was on her ample hip, the other trailing across the bodice of her satin gown. Another place, another time, he might have followed them up and either watched or joined in—he knew from a holiday in Venice that Norton was game for that sort of thing.
Now he had no appetite for anyone but Medlock. It wasn’t possible to go from his bed to paid company, no matter how compelling and beguiling. The pleasures of Madame Louise’s establishment were as ashes in his mouth.
Courtenay idly felt for the piece of card stock he had in his coat pocket. The invitation had come in this morning’s post and he had been eager to show it to Julian, proof of their joined success embodied in a piece of expensive stationery requesting the pleasure of his company at the Preston ball. But to hell with that now—to hell with parties and society and most definitely to hell with Medlock. He would have ripped it up, but for how stupidly solid it felt in his pocket. It was just the right shade of ivory, with just the right linenlike texture and the perfect slanting script to remind him of everything he would never have, to remind him of the world that had cast him out. To remind him of Medlock.
It wasn’t an Eden, this polite society symbolized by inconspicuous yet costly ivory card stock; more like an inner circle of Dante’s hell. But it had cast him out all the same, all those years ago, and as such it was more important to him than perhaps it ought to have been. Or perhaps it was the fact that the only three people he cared about in England—Eleanor, Simon, and Julian Medlock—swam in this very sea that he was barred from.
He’d leave as soon as possible, even if it meant borrowing the money from Eleanor for a packet to Calais. No, not Calais. He’d let his exile take him farther than had been possible the last time, when he’d had a woman and a small child to consider. He’d go to the Argentine or to Siam. Far enough that nobody would have heard of him and he could fill his eyes and ears with new sights and sounds to replace the memories he didn’t want. His mistake—well, one mistake on a list as long as his arm—had been coming back here in the first place. London—hell, all of England, as far as he knew—was filled with regret and disappointment. He was made for warmer weather anyway.
“Lord Courtenay?”
Courtenay looked in the direction of the voice to see a slim man with dark hair looking up at him. He looked dimly familiar. “At your service,” he said.
“I’m George Turner, Radnor’s secretary. We met only briefly.”
Well, well. “Right before you stole my bag and all the money in it, in fact.”
Turner only shrugged vaguely, neither confirming nor denying the accusation. “I came to London to meet with you regarding the lease of your house.”
Courtenay tried to cast his mind back over the past forty-eight hours. “But I only visited my estate yesterday.”
“Mr. Medlock wrote last week. But I thought I’d speak to you directly.”
Courtenay remembered what Julian had said about recognizing Turner as a confidence artist. “I’ll bet you did,” he said.
Turner examined his nails, as if Courtenay’s insinuations failed to hold his interest. “I visited it this morning. It will suit.”
“Oh will it?” Courtenay didn’t know whether to be amused or affronted that a confidence artist and thief considered Courtenay’s own property a suitable residence for his eccentric employer. “How gratifying.”
“It’s near enough to Harrow that we’ll be able to visit Simon when he’s at school, and there seem to be several outbuildings nobody would mind sacrificing to Lord Radnor’s scientific achievements, so yes, it will suit. And the amount Mr. Medlock proposed is likewise satisfactory.”
The rent Medlock proposed had been enough to keep Courtenay in reasonable funds for the duration of the lease.
Courtenay had thought it preposterous, but Medlock had insisted it was low enough to buy Radnor’s goodwill. Which just went to show that Courtenay would never understand money.
Courtenay’s thoughts were interrupted by a trill of high-pitched laughter and he was forcibly reminded of his surroundings. “How did you hunt me down at a whorehouse?”
Turner looked at him as if he were an imbecile. “I asked around. You’re not exactly inconspicuous. People do recognize you.”
Another reason to get on the first ship leaving Southampton, then. Suddenly he was angry. “But why bother following me tonight? Why not wait until tomorrow? Your employer has already made up his mind that my moral turpitude renders me unfit company for a child. You hardly need more evidence.” Radnor had already made up his mind about Courtenay, and now was twisting the knife in the wound. “Let me tell you, my good man, I’m quite out of patience with people acting as if my character is so egregious it puts me in a different class from the rest of the world. I’m no different from most any other man, except that I don’t make a secret of my vices. I hardly gamble anymore, it’s been months since I had anything to drink, and I’m not going to apologize for taking my pleasure in the beds of willing partners.”
Courtenay didn’t lose his patience often, and certainly not with a roomful of lookers-on, but he was furious. He had enough shame and guilt without the rest of the rest of the world compounding it. If he wanted to castigate himself, he’d bloody well do it, but he didn’t need Medlock or Radnor or anybody else to make it even worse.
“Good night,” he said, and headed for the door.
He was already on the street when he heard his name being called. He assumed it was a footman bringing him the hat he had left behind in his haste. But it was Turner.
“I don’t have time for this, Turner. Leave me in peace. I’ll sail for Calais on the next tide, and I’ll be sure not to burden Radnor or my nephew with any correspondence.” Damn his voice for cracking on nephew.
The Ruin of a Rake Page 17