Page 53 of The Ruin of a Rake
“And when he negotiated Eleanor’s marriage settlements it was in much the same spirit, I gather. Really, Standish. You and Eleanor let yourself get led around like a dog on a string by an actual child. You, I can believe.” Julian had to bite the inside of his cheek to stop from laughing. “But Eleanor?”
Standish didn’t sound offended. “She always did whatever he said. I think it was because he had been so unwell.”
The truth of that left Julian slightly shaken.
“And yet you still didn’t understand why she had to go to England?” Courtenay snapped, again seeing things that he wasn’t meant to. “Most of us don’t enjoy watching our siblings die. She didn’t leave you. She was going to lose her brother to death or to England, and she chose to follow him to England. Or—wait now.” Julian could almost hear the gears turning in Courtenay’s mind. “She probably convinced him that she was going to England for her own purposes and trusted that he would follow her. She didn’t expect you to be such an idiot as not to come with her. I hope you apologize to her in grand style.”
“I see that now,” Standish protested.
“Pair of idiots,” Courtenay murmured, but not without fondness. “Really, I’m glad you patched it up. The two of you are too good to be with anyone else.” He said good like it was a synonym for daft.
Julian decided that this would be a wise moment to feign waking. “Do I smell Bath buns?” he croaked, raising his arms in a weak approximation of a stretch. It was an effort to get the words out and make them sound like the words of a man who gave a damn about baked goods rather than an invalid trying to stop his brother-in-law and lover—former lover?—from quarrelling in the drawing room.
“I’ll tell Eleanor you’re awake,” Standish said. Julian didn’t protest, because he knew Standish was only slipping out to give him and Courtenay time alone. When he left, he shut the door. Julian heard a key turn in the lock.
“He’s being very decent, you know,” Julian said.
“About what?”
Julian weakly gestured back and forth, to Courtenay and back to himself. “About this.”
Courtenay folded his arms across his chest. “You mean he isn’t scandalized by our very existence? How kind.”
“You know perfectly well most people would be.”
“I’ve been spoiled by only associating with the demimonde, then.”
“You’re grumpy.” Julian liked grumpy Courtenay.
“I’m fond of Standish. He has the good sense to know Eleanor’s worth, so that’s something in his favor.”
“Are they still quarreling?”
“God help me, no. There they are, nearly thirty, married, but acting like the most incompetently courting couple I’ve ever seen.”
They had never needed to court much the first time around. They might have, if Julian hadn’t swept in with his numbers and ledgers. But, he reminded himself, he had been eighteen years old, and he had been trying his damned best to help the one person he had in the world. “That’s much better than quarreling.”
“You only say that because you haven’t had to sit at table with them. Yesterday he presented her with a box of rocks.”
“Really?”
“Apparently, he picked up a rock everywhere he went—Shanghai, Lima, New Orleans, and everywhere in between.”
“What kind of rocks?” He hoped Standish had the sense not to scoop up handfuls of gravel. There were rocks and there werespecimens.
“Oh, they all have names, and long complicated ones at that. And he knew every one of them.”
“She must have loved that,” he managed. Perhaps the illness had left him emotional, because Julian felt tears prickling in his eyes.
It was too much to hope that Courtenay hadn’t noticed his tears. “The damnedest thing is that she did. I’ve spent thousands of pounds on rubies to less effect,” he said, not a hint of rancor in his voice.
“That’s probably because the lady—or the gentleman—wasn’t predisposed to fall in love with you.”
“Evidently not! How humbling. But that was never my goal until—” He broke off suddenly with an abashed look.
Had he meantuntilyou?“Indeed,” was all Julian said. And then, pushing himself more upright, “Are they trusting one another?” He remembered what Courtenay had told him, that love required trust, letting your heart be exposed and vulnerable.
“Yes,” Courtenay said, his mouth tightening. Perhaps the mention of trust reminded him of Julian’s deception.
