by Liz Carlyle
Trammel neatly snipped off the string, then reached for Rothewell’s brocade waistcoat. As he slid it up the baron’s arms, he gave a tsk of disapproval.
“What now?” Rothewell grumbled. “My petticoat showing?”
The butler stepped round, then flicked a glance up at Rothewell’s face. “You have lost more weight, my lord,” he said. “You need to eat more regularly.”
“Just give me my coat, damn it,” said Rothewell. “Miss Obelienne’s been complaining again, I collect.”
Trammel shrugged, and fetched the coat. “When the plates go back but half-eaten, my lord, a cook takes it personally.”
“Get a damned dog to sit under the bloody table, then,” Rothewell complained, “if it will stop her nagging.”
The butler started toward the dressing room, shooting him a reproving glance as he went. “You are soon to be a married man, my lord,” he said. “You must learn to endure a female’s nagging with a little more grace.”
Rothewell closed his eyes and pinched hard at the bridge of his nose. There was no point in snapping at Trammel—not when he likely spoke the truth. What had he been thinking, to enter into this mad scheme? And if he meant to do such a foolhardy thing, why had he not done it at once, as Mademoiselle Marchand had wished? By now he could have wed her, bedded her, and got this bloody damned itch out of his system.
It was as if Trammel read his thoughts. “There was a message from Lady Sharpe this morning,” he called from the dressing room. “Did Slocum give it to you?”
“Oh, yes.” Rothewell suppressed a groan. He was in Pam’s black books, and deservedly so.
The butler brought out a freshly folded handkerchief.
“That will be all, Trammel,” said Rothewell, tucking it away. “Take the evening off—no, even better—take all the lads down to the King’s Arms for a pint. Someone may as well enjoy this evening. God knows I won’t.”
“Yes, sir.” Trammel bowed, and left.
Rothewell went to the sideboard, and yanked the crystal stopper from a decanter of cognac. Then, on second thought, he shoved it back in again. In his present mood, he would likely not stop drinking once he started, and the notion of being less than completely sober in Mademoiselle Marchand’s presence was a daunting one.
He needed his wits about him when dealing with her. She had already persuaded him to marry her. To impregnate her. To kiss and fondle her in broad daylight like some bought-and-paid-for tart. Even now, if he closed his eyes, his head swam with her exotic, spicy scent. God only knew what might come next. Well, perhaps nothing. Perhaps they would not even be on speaking terms. It was likely, given their last exchange.
God damn it, he hated this. Hated having to care what another human being thought of him—even if he had asked for it. Even if it was her. And he probably wouldn’t care in the end. Mademoiselle Marchand would understand soon enough just what she had married and be glad to leave him to himself.
In any case, the brandy was best left alone for now. Rothewell paced across the room and looked at the mantel clock. He was not due at Nash’s for another half hour, and it was less than a ten-minute stroll to Park Lane.
He went to the window and stared out almost blindly. A lone carriage was circling the empty square—a shabby hackney coach with a tired brown horse. It went round twice, and then a third time, as if the driver were lost amongst the opulent lanes of Mayfair. Rothewell felt a sudden stab of pity for the poor devil. He knew the feeling—that sense of being disoriented. Of being an insignificant thing in a greater and grander place.
Was that what he was? Lost?
He did not know. Rothewell left the window and looked about the vast, empty room in his vast, empty house with a strange sense of dread, a feeling so old and so familiar, he could no longer shake it off with ease. After almost a year, this place still was not his home. Nor had Barbados ever been home. He had been sent there—shipped off like a load of coal slag—after the death of his parents, along with Luke and Zee, then but a babe. And on that hellish plantation, they had lived through horrors unimaginable to anyone—anyone, that is, who was not a slave.
They had worked, he and Luke, until their fingers bled. They had borne drunken beatings and emotional torment so horrific and so often he could no longer remember it, so deep had he shoved it in the recesses of his mind.
Food and clothing had been luxuries, shoes nonexistent—not because their uncle couldn’t afford them but because he took pleasure in his wards’ deprivation. There had been no education save that which could be had by lamplight after Uncle passed out drunk, using what books they could take from the dusty library shelves. No joy. No hope. The three of them had clung together unflinchingly and loved one another fiercely—and in this way, they had somehow survived.
Even now, Rothewell wasn’t sure how it had all happened. His parents had loved them; that much he did remember.
The Nevilles had been poor, in a shabby-genteel sort of way; their father a simple country squire, their mother the sixth daughter of an obscure baronet. They had died as simply as they had lived, of a bilious fever, which tore through the village, striking down high and low alike.
In the tragic aftermath, none of their relations in England had been willing to take their children, not even Pamela’s mother, Lady Bledsoe, their aunt Olivia, a singularly coldhearted woman. So they had been sent out to the West Indies, where their father’s elder brother, a devil and a drunk and a violent son of a bitch, had been exiled.
As a young man, the sixth Baron Rothewell had throttled a footman in a drunken rage—his sister’s lover, to be precise—a fool who’d had the grave misjudgment to blackmail Aunt Olivia just weeks before her wedding. The future Lady Bledsoe, who was as sharp as her brother was stupid, had not taken it well. Knowing her brother’s propensity for drink and violence, she had suggested that the footman, rather than his own ineptitude at the card tables, was the root of his nagging insolvency.
The footman, of course, had stolen nothing save Olivia’s virtue, and probably not even that. After he lay dead, Olivia cried and swore the footman had tried to attack her. Her father swept it all under a rug as best he could, and bought his dolt of an heir a one-way passage to Barbados.
Uncle figured much of it out, of course, once he’d sobered up—somewhere off the coast of Portugal. The realization had served only to make him more vicious. Once or twice he’d got drunk enough—and angry enough—to complain of his sister’s duplicity, and in this way, the tale had fallen on Luke’s ears. Rothewell kept Aunt Olivia’s secret, which was more than she’d ever done for him.
So, after living through that sort of childhood with those sorts of relatives, here he was. Thirty years later, he still had no home. No place where he felt—well, whatever it was one was supposed to feel. Was he fool enough to hope that some last-ditch effort at marriage would fill these rooms and take away that awful blackness?
At that, he laughed aloud, and briefly reconsidered the cognac bottle. Surely it had not come to this? If his life was empty, it was because he had made it so—willingly, and with his eyes wide open. And the ache he sometimes felt in the pit of his stomach was just that; his ruthless innards repaying him for a lifetime of abuse.
And so it would be. His mouth curled in a bitter, inward smile. He was not a man much given to repentance. God knew the truth of what a man was, and no last-minute conversion or contrition could cover it up. His bargain with Valigny had been no act of Christian charity; no long shot at redemption. He had felt sorry for the girl, yes. But beyond that, it had been an act of raw lust, plain and simple, and he could not let himself think otherwise.
Restless and on edge, Rothewell threw himself into a chair and snatched up Pamela’s letter again. The words dashed awkward position and utter lack of thought fairly leapt off the page to smack him in the face again. Then there was grievous insult topped by unimaginable humiliation—the former in regard to Christine Ambrose, the latter to Mademoiselle Marchand. But Pamela’s obloquies were
interchangeable, were they not? He had managed to antagonize everyone equally.
Rothewell threw the letter down, and scrubbed a hand round his freshly shaved chin. He did not tolerate criticism especially well—not even when it was deserved. But this was Pamela. And Christine was her sister-in-law. He should have thought of that before hauling Mademoiselle Marchand across town and dumping her on Pamela’s doorstep.
And yet the notion had never occurred to him. He and Christine were not a couple. They both regularly took other lovers, but even that limited arrangement had gone stale of late, and their relationship had assumed the qualities of an old shoe, comfortable, but a little worn.
Regrettably, it now appeared Christine had ascribed an entirely different meaning to that lull. She had marched down Sharpe’s front steps, her eyes blazing, her whisper laced with icy certitude. “Oh, you are going to pay for this, Rothewell,” she had said. “On that you may depend.”
Christine had had the great good fortune to catch him with his defenses down, his mind obsessed by what had just transpired in Sharpe’s garden. With the taste of Mademoiselle Marchand’s lush, exquisite mouth still in his, and the sting of her cold barb still burning in his flesh. She did not want to be kissed. Or embraced. Or dallied with. Fine, then. He would just fuck her. That was all he wanted to do anyway.
Again, Rothewell pinched his nose. Dear God, what was wrong with him? Yes, he very much feared he was going to pay—but not in the way Christine had envisioned. Camille Marchand—if he were placing money on a fight—would make a far more chilling opponent. With her, there was no explosion of temper, no idle posturing. She was hard. Hard in an unflinching, almost ruthless way. Funny how a man could recognize his own traits in others.
In any case, he was not risking money, he was risking his peace of mind, or what little of it was left to him. And now he might well have to live out his last with a haughty shrew. A haughty shrew who did not wish to be kissed, but merely impregnated. Good God, what had he done?
Tonight they were to be toasted and congratulated by his extended family—or whatever of it Pamela and Lord Nash had managed to dredge up. They would be expected to smile at one another, perhaps even to dance with one another. To look happy and proud. But he was none of those things, and he seriously doubted Mademoiselle Marchand was either. Instead, she would be looking daggers at him the whole evening, and expecting him to curry her favor and forgiveness. Well, to hell with that. The sooner she knew what she was marrying, the easier her life would be. Perhaps she would cry off and put a bullet through the head of this ill-considered farce.
Perhaps he needed that drink after all? Rothewell looked up. The mantel clock was about to strike the hour. He was now late. Damn. Late for his betrothal dinner.
No one, of course, would be surprised.
In Park Lane that night, the row of fine carriages stretched from Lord Nash’s door all the way to Upper Brook Street. Camille sat opposite Lord and Lady Sharpe in their elegantly appointed barouche, though the drive to Park Lane had been short.
“We shall have our hems to worry about,” Lady Sharpe had fussed over breakfast. “There will be rain before the evening is out, mark me.”
Camille craned her neck to look up at what little of the sky she could see. Lady Sharpe, she feared, had been right. So she had taken the precaution of wearing one of her darker gowns, a forest green satin which had been her mother’s. With no money for a new wardrobe, Camille had kept those things of her mother’s which were still fashionable and at least marginally modest. The gowns she had taken up an inch, and that was that. The green was daring, Lady Sharpe had agreed, but still this side of propriety, given Camille’s age.
Camille smoothed her hands anxiously down her skirts and awaited their chance to alight. She was almost disconcertingly eager to see Lord Rothewell again. She owed him, perhaps, an apology—but he owed her an explanation.
Oh, she could not stop him from keeping a mistress. But she would not have that cat hissing and spitting in her face again, and the sooner Rothewell knew it, the smoother life would go for both of them.
As she watched the scenery inch forward, Camille told herself she was not jealous of Mrs. Ambrose. The woman’s ivory skin and pale blond locks meant less than nothing to her. But then she remembered Rothewell’s lips on hers in the garden, and the strange ache began anew. She tried to force it away by returning her gaze to Lady Sharpe.
“It is most kind of Lord Nash to host this dinner party, madame,” Camille said. “But I feel…oh, I don’t know the right word.”
“Nervous, I daresay,” Lady Sharpe murmured. “Poor dear. In a few days’ time, you will be married to a man you scarcely know. And tonight you must meet a great many more relatives.”
“Oui, madame,” said Camille quietly. “It is daunting.”
“Daunting but necessary.” The feathers in her small hat bounced as she nodded. “Nash’s stepmother, the Dowager Lady Nash, and her sister Lady Henslow shall be there—the most frightful gossips in town.”
“Gossips?” said Camille. “Ça alors, this will make matters more difficult.”
The countess wagged a finger. “No, no, no, dear child,” she said. “Gossip is unavoidable. One can only hope to steer it. Tomorrow the talk will be of Rothewell’s engagement, and yes, of your mother’s unfortunate situation. That will be but a five-minute conversation. Then the gossips will have to acknowledge that the family has embraced you, and has trotted you out just as we would any blueblooded bride.”
Camille had to acknowledge it made a certain amount of sense.
The carriage rocked to a halt, and Camille felt a flush of heat from her breasts up her throat. Soon. Soon, she would see him again.
Oh, but what a goose she was! Lady Sharpe’s optimism aside, Rothewell was not apt to be a faithful husband. He had no reason to be. For her part, Camille understood how the world worked. She must remember she wanted but one thing of Lord Rothewell—and it was not, she reminded herself, the man’s heart.
They were greeted at the door by Rothewell’s sister, who smiled, and clasped both of Camille’s hands in her own. Lady Nash had reconciled herself, it seemed, to her brother’s unfortunate marriage. Camille forced a smile and kissed her hostess’s cheek.
A whirlwind of introductions followed, along with the oft-repeated tale of Lady Sharpe’s French governess. The first to hear it were Nash’s stepmother, a lovely but rather silly woman, and her sister, a stout, good-humored matron of perhaps sixty years. The matron’s husband, Lord Henslow, attended, as did two pretty girls, Lord Nash’s half sisters. There was a handsome golden-haired gentleman—a business associate of Lady Nash’s—and his wife, a quiet, strikingly beautiful woman. The pair was introduced as the Duke and Duchess of Warneham. And Lord Nash had a younger brother, Anthony Hayden-Worth, a politician who flirted charmingly with the ladies.
It was all a bit much to take in. Camille had been prepared to be faintly snubbed—that, she could have borne. But these people were entirely civil. Even warm. She went in to dinner on Lord Nash’s arm and passed what should have been a pleasant two hours. Except that it was not. She kept looking down the table at Rothewell. She knew what he was, yes. So why did she keep remembering their kiss in the garden? Remembering how his mouth had molded to hers? How he had touched her, arousing in her a hundred complicated emotions?
Fleetingly, she closed her eyes. Oh, he was not for her, that dark-haired devil with his lean, hard face and somnolent eyes. She might well marry him, but she could ill afford to be besotted by him. She knew his type too well and had seen the ruin heartbreak brought firsthand.
But even now, she could not quite take her eyes from him—not even when Mr. Hayden-Worth had asked her a perfectly earnest question about the resignation of the Villèle cabinet. Camille had been required to turn round and ask him to repeat himself. The gentleman had cheerfully done so, then tore off on a rattle about France’s position on covert slave-trading, a subject of obvious interest to him. Camille was
compelled to nod and answer his questions until his mother appeared to kick him beneath the table, ordering him to keep his politics from the dining room.
And so Camille’s gaze had returned to Rothewell, almost against her will. He was picking at his food, she noticed. That seemed odd, for he looked to be a man of great appetites, in every sense of the word.
He had been late tonight, arriving well after all the other guests, and Camille’s pique had been replaced by a sudden sense of foreboding. Rothewell’s sister’s smile, too, had begun to look a little brittle as her eyes kept darting toward the door. Whilst a withdrawing room full of guests had laughed, sipped champagne, and offered their congratulations, Camille had quietly convinced herself that Rothewell was not coming at all.
She was trying to decide if she felt relieved or jilted when he swept into the entrance hall wearing a long black opera cloak and carrying a gold-knobbed walking stick. Camille watched through the double doors of the withdrawing room as a footman lifted the cloak from his shoulders. Beneath it Rothewell wore his usual black, accented by a pewter brocade waistcoat and an expression just as forbidding as Camille remembered.
Upon seeing her, however, he had crossed the room at once, then shocked her by pressing a kiss to her hand; a surprisingly fervent kiss, too, not some faint gesture made upon the air. Camille had found herself blushing, much to the delight of Lord Nash’s stepmother and aunt.
Now the dinner was over and the ladies were awaiting the gentlemen in the long blue-and-gold withdrawing room. Camille watched from a distance as Rothewell’s sister poured more coffee for those who wished it, then turned her attention to the lady next to her. Camille drifted toward the grand piano which she had noticed upon her arrival. It was a gorgeous beast of an instrument in warm, burled wood with gilt trim and carved legs so delicate one wondered how it held its weight. A little awed, she sat down upon the bench, and stroked her hand across the wood.
“Beautiful, is it not?”