Page 19 of The Ruin of a Rake
“Correct.”
Julian narrowed his eyes. “I suppose you support her in a style of great elegance as well?”
Courtenay laughed with no rancor whatsoever, which was more than Julian was capable of. “No, thank God. She’s married and has a couple of children.”
“How many other relations are you supporting?”
Courtenay paused, as if performing a mental calculation. Julian inwardly grimaced.
“No other relations, but there are a few former servants. An old nurse, a groom. I can’t quite remember who. They get annuities.”
“Of course they do,” Julian said acerbically. “Who needs the Poor Laws when instead we can have viscounts living in squalor in order to pay annuities to aged servants and estranged parents. That’s quite a system.” Perhaps it was the lateness of the hour, perhaps it was the ill-judged quantity of port he had consumed earlier, but he was developing odd protective urges where Courtenay was concerned.
“It’s not squalor,” Courtenay said, sounding peeved. He had now rolled to face Julian, his head propped in one hand. “These lodgings suit me as well as any.”
“Then why do you spend all your time with my sister?” Julian didn’t mean for it to sound like an accusation, but perhaps it was. “Aren’t you meant to be gaming and whoring and doing all the things reprobates do?” But even as the words left his mouth, he realized what he ought to have noticed weeks ago: whatever Courtenay had done in the past, he wasn’t dissipating himself in that manner currently.
Courtenay held his gaze for a moment before speaking. “Your sister is my friend. And, besides, I suppose I don’t like to be alone.” He said this almost sheepishly, as if he were confessing a great secret.
“Nor do I,” Julian admitted.
Julian was suddenly aware that at some point in the last few minutes, he had twisted in his chair so he was fully facing Courtenay, in fact leaning towards him. Courtenay was evidently aware as well, because when Julian’s gaze caught on Courtenay’s, Courtenay raised a single dark eyebrow.
It had to be some kind of witchcraft, that was the only explanation, because during the hours of sifting through Courtenay’s papers, Julian had let the idea creep into his mind that perhaps it wouldn’t be so terrible to pick up where they had left off at the opera. He wasn’t opposed to discreet affairs, in fact considered them necessary to the orderly functioning of his life. An interlude in the privacy of Courtenay’s lodgings was nothing if not discreet, entirely safe, nothing to worry about.
He was dimly aware of a voice deep within some very sensible but utterly tired part of his mind that was shouting at him not to be such a blasted fool. There was nothing safe about Courtenay, not when Julian’s desire for him was so drastically out of proportion to what he was used to.
But in the dark and the quiet and in such close quarters, it didn’t seem to matter.
“Well, this is a regular orgy of emotions we’re having,” Medlock said briskly. The fellow really had no idea about emotions or orgies if he thought this qualified as either. “On to your affairs. Why did your mother disown you?”
Courtenay regarded Medlock quizzically. This topic had nothing to do with Courtenay’s financial affairs, and in fact was a direct route to the dreaded emotional orgy. “Why wouldn’t she have disowned me?” he said easily. “I’ve been a thorn in her side since I was in leading strings. Imagine such a one as me as your only son.”
“Oh, your mother sounds charming.” There was something about the angry twist of Medlock’s mouth that went straight to a part of Courtenay’s heart that he hadn’t known was still there. It had been years since anyone had thought to defend him, even longer since he had believed he merited any kind of defense. And having a man like Medlock—stuffy, prim Medlock—take one’s part made it worth even more.
“I expect she’s very pretty,” Medlock continued, wrinkling his nose. “Otherwise nobody would tolerate such airs. You probably got your looks from her, I daresay. Why are you laughing like that? I don’t gamble, but if I did I’d wager twenty crowns that I have the right of it.”
He did, of course. “I got sent down from Oxford for carrying on an affair with the chancellor’s wife.”
“Did you? Good Lord. How ambitious. And she disinherited you over that?”
“Not yet. My father died and she blamed my carousing and expensive habits for overtaxing his heart.” Medlock sucked in an angry breath through his teeth and Courtenay had the demented sense that this was how people felt when duels were fought for their honor. “Then I came to London and started to run through my inheritance. Drinking, gaming, whoring. The usual.” All the things Medlock had accused him of only a few minutes earlier. “My younger sister made her debut during that time, and I had the bad judgment to introduce her to some of my more dissolute friends.” There were some things he wouldn’t tell Medlock, because they weren’t his secrets to share—properly speaking, they were Simon’s—and they didn’t matter much anyway. “She found herself ruined—”
“Wait. You’re missing some crucial steps. One doesn’t go from an introduction to ruination without a good many adventures in between. Had she no chaperone?”
“Our older sister—the one in Somerset—was supposed to—”
“But she made a terrible job of it, evidently.”
“I suppose she did.” He hadn’t ever really thought of it in that light.
“And that’s why your younger sister, Isabella, married Lord Radnor so precipitously. I see.” He only saw part of it, but it was enough. “Then Simon was born, and within the year your sister had run off with some blackguard. One of your acquaintances?”
“Yes.” The same married man who had gotten her with child, in fact. “I didn’t trust him, so I followed her to Italy to make certain she was safe. She eventually tired of the fellow, and he of her, but of course she would have been a pariah in England, so we stayed in Italy. My mother thought I ought to have brought Isabella back to England, tail between her legs, and forced a reconciliation with Radnor.”
“What an idiot.”
That was a bit too much. “You really can’t talk that way about my mother, Medlock.”
