Page 26 of The Ruin of a Rake
Julian left as soon as decently possible.
He hired a hackney to take him to his lodgings, but when the carriage pulled up to his door, he hesitated. He didn’t want to go upstairs and endure the ministrations of his valet, the unwinding of his tie and the hanging of his coat silent reminders of the status and position he only acquired through Eleanor’s excellent marriage and subsequent unhappiness.
He had been deluded to think it was a bargain. Even at eighteen, he ought to have known that Eleanor gained nothing by leaving India. She didn’t care about London society and he had been a rank fool to have believed her. She had done it for him; she had left her home and somehow lost her husband along the way, in order to convince Julian to move to a climate more conducive to his health. He never would have left for his own good and she must have known it. So she convinced him it was a bargain, a fair trade: she would go to London a newly minted baroness, and he would go with her to assist her rise to the top.
They had left the worsening cycles of illness that Julian had endured in India; he had never liked to dwell on how that required Eleanor to leave her bridegroom. But he had always assumed Standish would come along eventually. If he allowed himself to think about this for another minute he was fairly sure he’d puzzle out how that was his fault too.
He rapped on the roof. “I’ve changed my mind. Take me to Flitcroft Street.” He didn’t want to be alone, stewing in his guilt.
“You sure about that?”
It was the only thing he was sure of.
There was a dreadful pounding at the door. Courtenay ignored it and went back to staring at the liquid in his glass.
“Open the door, Courtenay.” It was Medlock, and the people in the downstairs flat were not going to be impressed with this banging. “I know you’re in there. I could see the light from the street.”
Courtenay staggered up from his chair and opened the door. Medlock was all neat and tidy again, wearing his usual boring clothes and the beginnings of a frown. Courtenay had quite enjoyed the sight of the younger man rumpled and sweaty at the fencing parlor. “What do you want?”
“I came to tell you that you’re staying with my sister for the next fortnight,” Medlock said.
“That’s a terrible idea.” Courtenay hadn’t missed the look of fury on Standish’s face when he saw his wife with another man.
“It’s a brilliant idea. You and Standish are to be the best of friends.” Medlock peered over Courtenay’s shoulder into the room beyond. “I knew you hadn’t any ladies here!”
He shouldn’t find it so adorable that Medlock referred to the sort of women who might be found in a bachelor’s lodgings asladies. “My plans changed.”
“No, I don’t think they did.” Medlock shouldered past him into the room. “These are not the lodgings of somebody who does much in the way of whoring. It’s like a monastic cell.” He turned in a slow circle but stopped short. “Is that a bullet hole in the wall?” He stepped back and surveyed the wall. “Were you aiming for that stain?” He indicated a patch of damp.
Courtenay cleared his throat. “I was aiming for a pigeon across the way.”
“You were—” Medlock looked at the open window, then at the bullet hole, half a yard away. “Either your pistol is faulty or you’re a terrible shot.”
“It’s definitely the latter.”
“Or perhaps you were drunk.” Medlock looked around the room, his gaze catching on the bottle of brandy and the glass. He held the bottle up to the light, then approached Courtenay and performed an exaggerated sniff.
“You’ve noticed my irresistible scent, I see.”
“Shut up,” Medlock said. “You aren’t drunk at all. There’s hardly a glass’s worth of brandy missing from the bottle, and your glass seems untouched. And I don’t smell any spirits on you, so I know you didn’t stop at a gin palace.”
“I was working up to it.”
Medlock gave him an appraising glance. “It’s like that, is it?” And then he took the bottle and the glass and poured the contents of both out the window.
“What the hell are you doing?” He could ill afford another bottle.
“If you wanted to drink it, you would have done so hours ago. I think you wantednotto drink it, so I helped.”
He was right, but that only made it more annoying. “It wasn’t yours to pour out.”
“I’ll buy it off you.” Medlock resumed his inspection of the room. “It was dark last night or I think I would have noticed the absence of vice.” Courtenay suppressed a smile, trying not to imagine what Medlock would have considered evidence of vice if not the presence of his prick in Courtenay’s mouth. “I think you’ve been trying to be on your best behavior since arriving in England.”
“I’m too old to carry on the way I used to.”
“That would hardly stop you if you really meant to continue debauching yourself. My father drank and caroused until he died.”
Eleanor had hinted that the late Mr. Medlock had not been an exemplar of virtue. “What else did your father do?”
