Page 45 of The Ruin of a Rake
Julian heard the ice in Courtenay’s voice before it registered that he had reverted to using Julian’s surname. Turning, he saw on Courtenay’s face a glacial expression that matched his tone. Courtenay’s jaw was set, his eyes as cold as Julian had ever seen, with none of the usual laughter in them.
“I had this chestnut saddled for you,” Julian ventured, but stopped talking when he realized Courtenay wasn’t wearing riding clothes. Instinctively, he led to the way to the stable door. They could have a measure of privacy in the lane.
Once outside, Julian could see exactly how grave Courtenay looked. He wanted to touch him, even to comfort him, but when he reached out, Courtenay stiffened. Julian pulled his hand back as if from open flame. Instead he wrapped his fingers tightly around the riding crop he still held and waited for Courtenay to speak.
“We’re not riding today.” Courtenay took a deep breath and paused just long enough for Julian’s mind to race through every bad piece of news Courtenay could deliver. Had his nephew fallen ill? Or Eleanor? “How much of it was an act?”
“Pardon?” Julian wasn’t following. He couldn’t make his brain work when Courtenay was looking at him like that. Had it only been last night that Julian thought Courtenay’s eyes the green of a warm, foreign sea? Today they were ice.
Courtenay made a scoffing noise. “When you fucked me, Medlock, did it give you an extra thrill knowing you had ruined me beforehand? I never would have guessed that you hated me enough to write an entire book about it.”
The blood drained from Julian’s face. He wanted to grab for something to steady himself but he didn’t. He opened his mouth to speak, but for once he had nothing at the ready. His years of calculating his every utterance to strike the precisely the right tone left him without anything to say in this situation. “What book?” he asked, hoping against hope that there had been a mistake and Courtenay didn’t know the truth.
“Don’t lie to me,” Courtenay said, his teeth clenched. “Standish told me. Aren’t you going to say anything?” he demanded. “Don’t you think you owe me at least that? I’m trying to understand why you would do this and you aren’t making it easy for me.”
Julian recognized this as a chance to make things better but he couldn’t for the life of him imagine what he was supposed to say. “I didn’t lie,” he protested feebly, and even as he spoke he knew he was making things worse.
He could see the disappointment and rising anger in Courtenay’s face. “You saw me reading it. Christ, Medlock, I read parts aloud to you. You had every opportunity to tell me early on, to get it out of the way. Why the devil didn’t you?”
“I didn’t tell you because it was a secret,” Julian said. “I wrote it anonymously. I couldn’t admit to having written such a thing.”
Courtenay sucked in a breath of air. “I’m to understand that in addition to penning an entire volume dedicated to itemizing and immortalizing my flaws, you also didn’t trust me to keep a secret. I see.”
“No! I meant at first. The first days, I didn’t trust you. Later on—”
“Later on you had reasons to keep me in good cheer. I see. Quite understandable. I would not have taken you into my bed if I had known you held me in such low regard.”
“That’s not what I meant.” Julian shook his head in frustration. “I didn’t write the book about you. I hadn’t met you when I wrote the first draft of the manuscript. It was only later that I saw you at Radnor’s house and I borrowed some of your quirks.”
“Some of my quirks,” Courtenay repeated. “Just enough to convince the world that I’m as much a villain as they always suspected.”
“First of all, I didn’t think anyone would read the stupid book. And even if they did, I assumed they wouldn’t recognize you based on my description. But even if I had done what you think, that was before I knew you.” It was different now, couldn’t Courtenay see that? “It was before...” He gestured between them, because he couldn’t find words to describe what he meant, and even if he could he wouldn’t have had the courage to speak them aloud.
“That is my point. You were content to slander and libel a man who had done you no wrong. You think that I’m beneath reproach, but I never stooped to such a depth as you did when you published that book. I ought to have realized that this fucking obsession of yours with propriety was to cover up something truly vile.”
The words hit Julian like a slap. The riding crop fell from his hands into the dust and he didn’t stoop to pick it up.Something truly vile. That was how he thought of himself when he was ill—sweaty and dirty and the exact opposite of the face he tried to present to the world. And he knew that wasn’t what Courtenay meant, but it didn’t matter. Julian recognized it as the truth he tried to conceal from the world and even from himself. He straightened his back and tried to draw on the reserve of sangfroid and rectitude he always relied on.
“Why me? Why not choose somebody else to ruin?”
Somebody else? There wasn’t anybody else. “It wasn’t like that,” he said, hardly believing he was about to admit this. “You were the most beautiful thing I had ever seen and I had to put you in the book. That’s what the book was. It was everything I couldn’t have.”
Courtenay’s eyes somehow got even colder, his jaw harder. “You were angry that I didn’t want to fuck you and so you decided to destroy my name?”
That wasn’t it at all. Julian had thought that maybe Courtenay would understand, but he didn’t, and Julian wasn’t going to waste his breath and humiliate himself by trying to explain it any further. He wasn’t going to grovel, he wasn’t going to demean himself when their friendship—or whatever it had been—was over now, and nothing Julian could say would change that. “You didn’t have much of a name,” Julian hissed.
For a moment Julian thought he was going to get thrashed. Courtenay’s fists were clenched at his sides, his cheeks livid with fury. This was so far from the bored, languid man he had first met that Julian was suddenly struck with the idea that Courtenay’s entire demeanor was as much a series of illusions as Julian’s own. Then Courtenay shook his head and took a step backwards, holding his hands out as if dismissing his temper and Julian all at once.
The look on Courtenay’s face was one of pure disgust. “Spare yourself the trouble of another falsehood, Medlock. I know you’re not a particularly honest man, that whatever matters in your warped mind, it isn’t earnestness or sincerity. I knew you were wrapped up in layers of propriety and pomposity but I thought there was something real within all that. More fool me. But I never could have guessed you were capable of this level of deceit. You were contemptuous of me from the beginning. I ought to have known. But now I do, and I can stop wasting my time. I only wish I had known earlier.”
He turned on his heel and walked away, leaving Julian alone in the lane.
Chapter Eighteen
Julian didn’t know how long he stood in the lane behind the stables. He couldn’t even think of Courtenay without a fresh wash of shame. He knew he had done wrong by writing that book, and he was not used to being in the wrong, but beneath that obvious problem was the fact that he had hurt Courtenay, which was the one thing in the world he wished to prevent. He had the sense that another man—a better man, a more honest one—could have said something to make Courtenay understand how much he regretted harming him. Another man could have said something to reclaim that future of shared pastries and rides in the park. But Julian wasn’t that man. It was just as well that Courtenay had walked away from him. The life he had deluded himself into thinking possible was a figment of his imagination.
He managed to get back to his lodgings and out of his riding clothes. Once he was properly attired he was at an utter loss as to what to do with himself. He couldn’t go to Eleanor’s house—that was where he was most likely to run into Courtenay, which was obviously something he was going to spend the rest of his life avoiding. Besides, he now realized that Eleanor, the one person who knew Julian had authored the book, had told Standish. He didn’t know if this was a betrayal or a normal thing for a wife to tell a husband, and the fact that he couldn’t puzzle it out only went to show how sadly unfit he was for any kind of partnership.
He had taken extra care in dressing, seeking the fortification of a perfect cravat and excellently polished boots. Briggs, sensing that his employer was in need of extra defenses, combed and pomaded his hair to an unnatural degree of brilliance and brushed his already pristine coat. He set out from his lodgings with no real destination. In the end he found himself on the doorstep of Lady Montbray’s house. When he handed his card to the surpassingly stoic butler who answered the door—really, he was developing grave misgivings about Eleanor’s Tilbury and his presumptions—he doubted Lady Montbray would see him. It was a strange hour for callers, that awkward period when everyone in polite society seemed to be dressing for dinner.
