Page 13 of The Ruin of a Rake
“Your brother or the mongoose?”
She threw a wadded-up piece of paper at his head. “The mongoose! Really, there was nobody to stop Julian from having a mongoose in every room. He was so sick, one did tend to indulge him.”
Oh Lord. Medlock as a sickly child cuddling wounded animals was just the limit.
“And our grandfather gave Julian whatever he wanted, mainly to annoy Papa.” A cloud passed over her features.
Courtenay curled his fingers around the geode, temporarily stopping the play of light across the room, and studied his friend’s face. They had known one another since Christmas and now it was just past Easter. This was the first time she had spoken of her father. He had noticed the omission, which, in his experience, was generally not a good sign. And now that she had mentioned her father, she hardly seemed to know what to say, as if she had never before spoken aloud of him. “Not a good sort?” he asked casually.
She opened her mouth and closed it again before finally saying, “What a gloomy topic.”
“Is it?” he asked mildly.
“Papa was... I suppose you’d call him a bon vivant.”
That didn’t sound so bad, certainly not bad enough to warrant the way Eleanor was twisting the fabric of her skirt. “I thought he was some kind of shipping magnate.” Courtenay was under the impression that those fellows did nothing but count their coins and arrange for them to multiply much in the way of Eleanor’s cats.
“Oh, no. My grandfather kept the business out of my father’s hands, and instead brought Julian up to manage all of it. And that’s what he did, from the time he could add a column of numbers. Julian is excessively good at that kind of thing,” she said with a hint of pride.
Eleanor stared pointedly at the letter she had been trying to write, and Courtenay took the hint and returned to his chair, still gripping the now warm rock. He didn’t like any of the things he had learned about Medlock today: rescuing animals was bad enough, but being some kind of mathematical prodigy was worse. Courtenay could feel himself starting to like Medlock—or at least a theoretical version of Medlock—entirely despite himself. And then there were the circumstances under which he had been conscripted into the family business while his father had been idling about; that was far enough from common practice that Courtenay had no doubt there was an unpleasant story behind it.
He settled back in his chair, again watching the flecks of light from the geode sparkle across the room. It was impossible to think of anything else. Everything was glints of color, a universe of dazzling light that he held in the palm of his hand. Nothing else could possibly matter. It reminded him of the days when people had flitted in and out of his life like so many glittering flecks, everything dissolving into a confusion of dancing light, beautiful and joyful and fun. He had thought it would always be like that. That was what hope felt like, he realized. How long had it been since he felt that way?
He clapped his hand over the top of the crystal, causing the sparkles to die.
He didn’t leave until the sun had set, long after Eleanor had forgotten his presence. He lit a lamp so Eleanor could continue to work, quietly shut the door behind him, and walked back to his own lonely lodgings.
With only half his attention on his horse, Julian put the animal through her paces. It was early enough that the park was still largely deserted, but for once he wasn’t here to see or be seen. He had been restless since the opera, his fingers itching for something to do, and riding his horse was the best he could come up with. He didn’t even enjoy riding, and had only learned because he thought it was something a gentleman ought to do, but at the moment, he didn’t think there was a damned thing he did enjoy.
What Julian really wanted was to make himself useful at the dockyards. Perhaps he could inspect the shipment of silks he knew had recently arrived. Maybe he’d review the books, watch the numbers add up in the satisfying way money did when treated properly. But he had no place there now. The men he had hired to do the actual work of managing the enterprise wouldn’t be able to get their job done with him prowling about, asking questions and recalculating sums. He’d only be a hindrance.
It had taken him years to accept that he couldn’t properly run a business when he might be taken ill at any time. There were men whose livelihoods depended on Medlock Shipping remaining a going concern, and he couldn’t properly ensure that when he was delirious and feverish. The realization that his bouts of illness were going to continue forever, bringing his life to a grinding halt with no warning, had finally dawned on him this past year. There would always be relapses and recurrences; he might not die, but he wouldn’t get better. Regardless of how well he felt when he was healthy, there would always be another attack waiting for him around the corner. Eleanor’s tinctures only did so much. Bloodletting and special teas did nothing at all. He would spend the rest of his life trying to cram his living into the space between illnesses, his life a sentence with the ugliest punctuation.
All the more reason to polish the veneer that stood between his inner self—sick, sweaty, helpless, scared—and the rest of the world. All the more reason to keep everyone at arm’s length. Nobody needed access to his humiliating reality.
He spurred the horse faster, feeling the still-cold spring air bite against his flesh. The horse had been as restless as he was, and now flew down the path as Julian bent low over her neck.
Ordinarily, when he was at loose ends, he went to Eleanor. She usually allowed herself to be persuaded to make morning calls or do some shopping or just have tea together. But when he had called on her yesterday, Tilbury gravely informed him that Courtenay had already arrived, and Julian had left with a request that Tilbury not inform his mistress of his visit. Julian was afraid that Eleanor, who had known him since he was a motherless infant, would immediately sense that something had happened between him and Courtenay. How could she not, when Julian felt that his own attraction to the man was practically a tangible, visible thing? And after he had been so rude to her about what he thought was her own liaison with the man, he couldn’t very well let her know that he had actually done what he had accused her of.
He had a vague sense that he ought to be honest with her, that secrets would only compound this new chill between them. But lurking at the edges of his memory was what Courtenay had suggested to him about Eleanor’s situation, and—worse—his own responsibility for it. He didn’t want to think about Eleanor being lonely or sad or anything less than what he had meant to happen, which was for her to be rich and respected and safe.
But perhaps Julian had been a trifle ham-fisted in his meddling when he pushed Eleanor and Standish together. Even though it was quite clear that Standish needed to marry, his wastrel father having left him with nothing but debt, perhaps he ought to have let the two of them come to that conclusion on their own. At eighteen his meddling lacked the finesse he had since acquired. He knew Eleanor thought he ought to interfere less with other people’s lives, but the fact was that most people needed help managing the simplest things, and Julian had both the talent and the time to be of assistance. It was a service, really.
He rode until the horse started to flag, and by then the sun was high in the sky. On his way back to the stables, he tipped his hat to a small group of ladies and gentlemen on foot. There was the barest pause before they greeted him in return, and he saw two bonneted heads tip towards one another, lips moving silently.
It had been years since he had been the subject of whispers. He didn’t know whether the ladies had been whispering about his appearance at the opera with Courtenay or Eleanor’s supposed affair with the man. Either way, it was Courtenay.
The only way to remedy it was to make Courtenay a success; then, there would be nothing to whisper about.
That wouldn’t solve Eleanor’s problems. But it would keep Julian busy. It might do something to abate the cold purposelessness that had driven Julian out to the park early in the morning. And it just might help Courtenay. Julian tried to ignore the fact that this alone felt like a good reason to exert himself.
Chapter Seven
Julian’s machinations at the opera house had garnered Courtenay a dinner invitation from Mrs. Fitzwilliam. This wasn’t precisely the top tier of London society, but it was a damned good start and Julian was quite satisfied with himself. As he allowed his valet to comb his hair and straighten his cravat, he was cautiously optimistic that if Courtenay could simply refrain from bawdy language or licentious behavior, they’d have the situation quite in hand.
“If you’ll pardon me for saying so,” said Briggs as he gave Julian’s coat a final brushing, “you look pale. Might you be coming down with—”
“I’m quite all right,” Julian snapped. And then, because Briggs had endured him and his illnesses for several years now, he added, “But thank you for taking care of me.” And he probably didn’t sound in the least bit grateful because he hated being taken care of almost as much as he hated being sick. But tonight, at least, he was fine. He’d had half a lifetime to learn the symptoms that signaled an oncoming attack, and he didn’t have any of them now. He went to Mrs. Fitzwilliam’s house in relatively high spirits.
