by Liz Carlyle
She found Kieran standing at one of the windows which overlooked the garden, his massive frame blocking much of the light. He held a brandy glass in hand and did not turn round until she spoke.
“My God, it is barely eleven,” she said, trying to untie her bonnet. “Rather early for spirits, isn’t it?”
He turned slowly, but looked entirely sober. “Eleven, is it?” He took a deliberate sip, eyeing her over the glass. “That would make it rather late, not early. I have not yet been to bed, you see.”
To her annoyance, the bonnet strings had snarled again. “Honestly, Kieran, have you lost your mind?” she cried, dropping her hands, with her bonnet half-askew on her head. “I have just come from Pamela’s! Do you know what I found there? Do you?”
Some strange emotion sketched across his face. “Ah, that,” he said softly. He set his glass on his massive mahogany desk and circled around toward her. “Hold still,” he ordered. “You are making the tangle worse.”
“Honestly, Kieran!” she said again, as he bent over the knot. “What were you thinking? A woman you just met? Besides, you cannot possibly wish to be married.”
He crooked one dark eyebrow. “Can I not?” he murmured, glancing up from his work. “Have you some hidden power of omniscience you’ve been keeping from me, Zee?” At last he pulled the ribbons apart and gingerly lifted the bonnet from her head.
Xanthia was still glowering at him as he set the hat aside. “You have never shown the slightest interest in marriage,” she complained. “You have never even been seen in the company of a respectable woman—and no, I do not count Christine! And now this poor, poor girl.”
“What is so bloody poor about her?” he asked, going to his desk and pulling out a cheroot.
Xanthia began to wave her hand. “Oh, for God’s sake don’t light that thing!” she said. “I shall retch, I tell you.”
“I see.” Kieran pulled open a drawer and dropped the cheroot into it.
“No, you don’t see!” Xanthia knew her voice was rising as she marched toward the desk, but she seemed unable to stop it. “My mouth hung open so long, she now thinks I disapprove of her. She was horrified. I was horrified.”
“Do you disapprove of her?” There was a hint of warning in his tone.
“Why, I hardly know,” said Xanthia. “I certainly do not want you to marry her!”
“Because—?” He arched his eyebrow again, as if to intimidate her.
“Because you will ruin her life, Kieran,” she said, “unless you mean to mend your wicked ways. And you don’t, do you?”
“I am afraid it is rather too late for that, old thing,” he said. “I am a wretched old reprobate and habituated in sin.”
Xanthia circled round the desk and settled gingerly into a side chair. This was not going well. Since the babe had begun to grow, she had felt irritable and restless. Thoughts, sounds, smells, frustrations; everything was magnified tenfold. And that included her temper. Still, she mustn’t take it out on her brother—even if he did deserve it.
“How on earth, Kieran, did you manage to meet Valigny’s daughter?” she asked quietly. “Surely he did not formally introduce you?”
“No, I won her,” he said, picking up his brandy, “in a card game.”
“Oh, God!” Xanthia squeezed her eyes shut and set a hand on her belly. She was beginning to feel clammy, and a little weak in the knees. “Oh, I am going into labor! I just know it. And it shall be all your fault.”
To her surprise, Kieran lost a bit of his color, and came round the desk with a magazine in his hand. “You are just overwrought,” he said, gently fanning her. “Breathe, Zee, for pity’s sake. You cannot have the child yet—can you?”
Xanthia did not open her eyes. “I think not,” she murmured. “But what does either of us know? I do feel as though I might faint. Please tell me, Kieran, that you did not just claim to have won Mademoiselle Marchand in a card game?”
“Well, I won the right to marry her,” he qualified. “It isn’t quite the same thing, I daresay.”
Xanthia opened her eyes, and somehow pulled herself erect in the chair. “You are perfectly, serious,” she said.
“Quite so,” he said. “I was at Valigny’s last night.”
“Yes, I know,” said Xanthia dryly. “I pried that much out of Pamela. Who else witnessed this debacle?”
“Enders and Calvert,” said her brother.
“Lord Enders! Horrors!” said Xanthia. “That vile man!—Oh, lud! Will either of them talk? If they do, you know, the girl will be quite ruined.”
“I have been musing on that.” Kieran sounded perfectly detached. “Calvert is marginally a gentleman. Enders I shall have to threaten. Valigny, too, before it’s over, I daresay.”
How could anyone contemplate marriage with such an utter lack of emotion, Xanthia wondered? Mademoiselle Marchand might be improving her situation—but only a tad. “Her own father!” she whispered. “And with Lord Enders! How could he?”
Kieran lifted one shoulder, and tossed off the last of his brandy. “Valigny has no scruples—and he keeps low company. Myself, for example.”
“Well, you are a rank amateur compared to Lord Enders.”
“Thank you,” he said, “for your unshakable faith in me.”
Xanthia scowled at him. “So you really mean to go through with this?”
Kieran opened the drawer again, extracted a piece of heavy foolscap, and tossed it onto the desk. Xanthia took it. A special license. It was written out in crisp, blue-black ink, properly signed and sealed.
“How?” Xanthia demanded, rattling the paper. “How did you get this so fast?”
“Your old friend Lord de Vendenheim down in Whitehall,” said her brother. “He knows people who know people. And, as it happens, he owes me for a rather large favor, so this morning I went round to Whitehall and called in my debt.”
“He also owes me a thing or two, you will remember,” she said in an injured tone. “I very nearly got myself killed in that smuggling business of his.”
“Oh, no, my girl!” said Kieran, propping one hip against his desk. “What you got was married and pregnant—probably not in that order—neither of which was Vendenheim’s doing.”
Xanthia lifted both hands as if she might tear her hair out. “This is not about me!”
Her brother looked at her unblinkingly. “But I should far rather talk about you than myself, my dear. It feels so much less…what is the word? Intrusive, I think, will do nicely.”
“Why, Kieran?” she cried. “Just tell me why you are doing this! I have my suspicions, you see. I want—no, I need—for you to tell me I am wrong.”
“Careful, my dear,” he said. “You are sounding just a little histrionic.”
He was right, but she hated to admit it. “Just answer the question,” she snapped. “Expectant mothers are not quite sane at the best of times, and just now I am favoring that silver paper knife on your desk.”
Rothewell cast a glance down at it, then shrugged. “You shall have to stab me in the back, then,” he said, going to the sideboard. “Because I need another brandy desperately enough to risk death. As to your question, I don’t suppose you would believe I felt sorry for the girl?”
“Sorry enough to marry her?” Xanthia scoffed. “Not in a million years.”
She listened to the crystal stopper being pulled from the decanter. Her brother’s hand was perfectly steady as he poured. It always was. Only his temper seemed to suffer from his bad habits. Kieran did not sleep when he should, eat when he ought, or stop drinking when any reasonable man would have done. Moderation was not in his dictionary. Nor was marriage, Xanthia could have sworn.
Suddenly, he set the bottle down. “You are having a child,” he said, bracing his hands wide on the sideboard. He looked not at her, but at the gilt mirror above it. “Nash’s heir, quite likely. And Pamela has done the same for Sharpe. Sometimes, Zee, a man—even one so steeped in depravity as I—begins to wonder at his legacy. One wonde
rs if…if there will be anything left when one is gone.”
At last he turned around. She watched him warily for a long moment. Legacy, her arse, thought Xanthia. She had suspected from the first, really, what this was about. Now she was almost sure. Sorry enough to marry her? Telling words, those.
“No,” she finally said. “No, you won’t cozen me with that one, either. You’ve never give a thought to your legacy and you aren’t now. Don’t forget, Kieran. I have seen her. Pamela has not.”
Kieran looked at her strangely. “Don’t be ridiculous,” he said. “You just said you saw her with Pamela.”
Slowly, Xanthia shook her head. “No, I am not speaking of Mademoiselle Marchand,” she said. “I am talking about Annemarie.”
Her brother’s visage stiffened. “What the devil do you mean by that?”
But he knew what she meant; Xanthia could see it in the taunt lines of his mouth, and in the faint twitch of his cheek where he had clamped his jaw together.
“I mean our dearly departed sister-in-law,” she repeated, gentling her tone. “Yes, Mademoiselle Marchand bears more than a passing similarity to Luke’s dead wife. The dark hair and eyes. That lovely dark skin. The rich French accent. Perhaps she doesn’t look like Annemarie—not the way Annemarie’s daughter does, no—but there are some striking similarities.”
Her brother stared at her, his gray eyes suddenly glittering like silver. “I will thank you to cease this line of conversation, Xanthia,” he gritted. “Get out. Go home now. I am tired, and I’ve no wish to listen to such nonsense.”
Xanthia braced her hands to rise. “You cannot even admit it, can you?” she answered. “But you must, Kieran. That poor girl deserves to marry for love. Not because you pity her. Not because she reminds you of someone you once loved, but because—”
“Just get out, damn you!” he exploded. Then, to her horror, he hurled his glass into the fireplace. Crystal crashed and splintered. “Just get out, Xanthia! The dead are simply dead, and they aren’t coming back. Do you think I don’t know that? Do you?”
His face was twisted with rage. The brandy had caught on the banked coals and was licking up the back of the hearth in delicate blue flames. Unsteadily, Xanthia rose. Dear God. She really had pushed him too hard this time. “Kieran, I never meant—”
“Just get out!” he bellowed. “You did mean it, Xanthia. You always do. You just keep dredging it up.” He set the heel of one hand to his temple as if it hurt. “I swear to God, sometimes I think you’d needle at a bleeding wound. But Luke is still dead. His wife is still dead—and I have done all I could bring myself to do for her daughter. I have done my duty, damn you.”
“And Martinique knows that you have always looked after her,” said Xanthia. “But you couldn’t look at her, Kieran. Good God, you sent her two thousand miles away from Barbados just because she reminded you of her dead mother. Of Annemarie. And now this poor girl—Camille—she deserves to marry someone who will love her for who she is. Not because she is another dark-eyed beauty who needs to be rescued.”
Kieran stalked toward her. “But I did not rescue Annemarie, did I?” he snarled. “Luke had the pleasure—and the pain—of that task.”
Xanthia laid a trembling hand on his arm. “Just wait a while, Kieran,” she whispered. “That is all I ask. Just wait until you and Mademoiselle Marchand come to know one another.”
“Why?” he gritted. “So she can refuse me? So that she can find a way out? That is what you mean, isn’t it?”
Xanthia lifted her hand uncertainly. “I am so sorry,” she murmured, dropping her gaze to the rug beneath them. “You are quite right. This really isn’t my business, is it? I will go, Kieran. Just promise me…promise me you will get some rest?”
When he did not snap back one of his angry retorts, Xanthia looked up. Her brother’s face had gone white. His silvery eyes were shut, his visage twisted—not with rage, but with pain.
“Kieran?” She returned her hand to his arm. “Kieran, what is it?”
She felt a deep shudder run through him. “Aaahh, God!” he cried. Then he seemed to collapse beneath her like a house of cards, going down onto one knee, his fingers clawing desperately at the edge of the desk, the other hand clutching his lower ribs.
She had run to the door and flung it open before she knew what she meant to do. “Trammel!” she cried. “Trammel! For God’s sake, come here!”
The butler was there in an instant. Panic sketched across his face when he saw Kieran. He knelt beside him on the floor, and hooked one arm under her brother’s. “Can you get up, sir?” he asked. “I shall help you up to bed.”
Xanthia stared down at their bent heads, Trammel’s tight gray curls contrasting sharply with Kieran’s dark mane. When Trammel lifted, her brother grunted, and tried to stand. Somehow, the butler got him up, then turned to look at her.
“It’s all right, Miss Zee,” he said. “He gets like this sometimes.”
“As of when?” Xanthia demanded.
“A while now,” he said vaguely. “Your brother needs a warm meal and a rest, Miss Zee, that’s all. He’s not been to bed”—here, the butler flashed a faint smile—“not in this house, at any rate—for three days.”
Xanthia surveyed him anxiously. Kieran must have had more to drink than she realized. But now he did indeed look steadier on his feet. The twisted agony had left his face to be replaced by a mere grimace. “Oh, go home, Zee, for God’s sake,” he managed. “Haven’t you a husband now to meddle with?”
Xanthia watched them go, Trammel’s steps slow and dependable, Kieran’s heavier but steady now. She was worried. Very worried. This business with Mademoiselle Marchand made less sense the more she learned of it. Kieran’s was a logical and incisive mind, one which did not rationalize or cloud the truth, even when it brought him pain. He was a sinner, yes, but one who carried the burden of his own sin like a penance on his back. And his love for Annemarie—well, that he had worn like a heavy chain about his heart.
So what had changed since Xanthia’s leaving this house? Kieran. He had changed. And she realized now, more than ever, how little she understood him—and what was worse—how little Kieran understood himself.
Chapter Four
A stroll in the Garden
In the end, Lord Rothewell did not return to his cousin’s house the following morning with a parson in tow. Lady Sharpe persuaded him that perhaps a fortnight’s delay in marrying would do little harm and, quite possibly, a vast deal of good. Camille could not find it in her heart to explain that she no longer cared what society thought of her; not when the countess herself so clearly did care. And so Camille embarked on a whirlwind tour of fashionable London—or what little there was of it, given the lateness of the year.
On Tuesday there was an afternoon of shopping in Oxford Street with Lady Sharpe and her daughter Lady Louisa, who lived nearby. Friday brought a visit to the Royal Academy with Lord Sharpe, a large, affable man who knew nothing of art, but happily squired her around and introduced her to everyone they met. In between were a small soiree in Belgravia, a literary reading in Bloomsbury, and a visit to Kew Gardens.
At each outing, Lady Sharpe would introduce her to an endless stream of new faces—some of whom inevitably strolled away whispering. The countess’s glib anecdote about her late governess went over well enough, but the subject of Camille’s parentage was unavoidable.
“Never mind, my dear,” the countess would console her. “By next season—when it really matters—your name won’t raise so much as an eyebrow.”
Indeed, despite the whispers, Lady Sharpe seemed to know everyone who was anyone, and to be able to almost extract invitations from thin air. Lord Rothewell might have been persona non grata within the ton, but his family certainly had connections.
As to Rothewell, he surprised Camille by paying a very brief call each day, usually in the afternoon. He said little but merely watched her across the room with his silvery, glittering gaze as Lady Sharpe served tea and prat
tled on about their plans.
For the most part, Rothewell looked as dissolute and brooding as ever, putting Camille in mind of an angry, caged beast, and to her undying annoyance, his occasional sidelong glance could still make her stomach bottom out most alarmingly. She wished desperately to forget that hot, mad kiss they had shared in her sitting room, and to stop thinking of how his body had felt as he had pressed her so relentlessly against the door.
But she could forget neither, and oftentimes, could not even take her eyes from the infernal man. Oh, it would not do to fall in love with Lord Rothewell. He would give her his name. He would give her, she prayed, a child to love. But never, ever would he give her his heart, and she must not become so weak and so naive as to hope for it.
On Saturday, Camille was invited to drive in the park with Rothewell’s brother-in-law, Lord Nash, a man so elegant he could have cast the most debonair of Parisian dandies into the shade. He drove a team of twitchy black geldings hitched to a phaeton so delicate and so high Camille feared they’d strike a pothole and splinter to kindling. But Lord Nash proved to be both an admirable whip and a kindred spirit, being but half-English himself.
He put her at ease talking about his childhood spent on the Continent, outrunning Napoleon’s mayhem, and about the death of his uncle, which had required his family to come to England.
“And was it terribly hard, monsieur?” she found herself asking. “Did you feel like a fish out of the pond?”
He laughed. “Yes, the ton was a challenge,” he confessed, cutting his horses neatly through the Cumberland Gate. “Until I grasped the fact that one must simply look down one’s nose at them.”
“Look down one’s nose?” Camille echoed.
“Indeed, for that is the only thing they respect,” he replied. “You see, Mademoiselle Marchand, one must think of the beau monde as something like a horse’s arse.”