Page 54 of The Ruin of a Rake
“How about one of those buns?” Julian said weakly.
Courtenay reached for the bag.
“First, help me to sit by you.” It was pathetic, a transparent effort to have some last bit of closeness before this was done between them. “I think I can get there on my own, but I doubt my pride can take stumbling in front of you.” He said this with the consciousness that he had likely done a good deal worse than stumble in front of Courtenay in the last few days. And still, Courtenay was looking at him with unmistakable affection. Maybe even hunger. But not trust. Julian didn’t think he would ever earn that.
Courtenay’s arm was around him in an instant, though, guiding him the short distance from the chair to the sofa. His arm stayed around Julian even after they sat side by side, and Julian let his head sink onto Courtenay’s shoulder, the bun momentarily forgotten as Courtenay traced circles on the sleeve of Julian’s dressing gown.
One of the kittens leapt onto Julian’s lap. “That creature has adopted you,” Courtenay said. “He makes himself agreeable so you’ll let him nap by your side.”
Indeed, Julian had noticed the sleek black kitten whenever he opened his eyes. “I’ve named him after you. Dark hair. Insinuating ways.”
Courtenay snorted. “Come here,” he said, pulling Julian closer.
“I’m already there.”
Courtenay put a finger under Julian’s chin and tilted it up.
“You can’t possibly mean to kiss me. I’m revolting.”Please kiss me.
“You aren’t. And even if you were, you’d be other things too.”
It was a gentle kiss, the sort of patient and meandering kiss Courtenay liked and Julian had never understood before. It wasn’t a prelude to fucking, it wasn’t even a prelude to a more thorough kiss. It was a conversation, without the burden of words.Please, Julian wanted to say.Let me try again.Julian’s heart felt full of something terrifying, something more dangerous than anything he had ever thought possible. And he didn’t care. He was throwing himself into an abyss he couldn’t even see, and that was fine, at least for the duration of the kiss.
Courtenay kissed the corner of his mouth and pulled back, looking at him with an expression Julian couldn’t read.
Then there was the sound of a key in the lock, and the door opened to reveal Eleanor standing on the threshold, an expression of shocked betrayal on her face.
“I cannot believe you have the nerve,” Eleanor said, slamming the door behind her. Courtenay quickly pulled away from Julian, but she could apparently tell they had just kissed or were about to do so again.
Courtenay was no stranger to being on the receiving end of angry protests. But Eleanor wasn’t speaking to him. Her furious gaze was focused entirely on her brother.
“After the way you acted when you thought I was going to bed with Courtenay, I can hardly believe it. You should be ashamed of yourself. I don’t expect any better fromyou, Courtenay,” she said, sparing him an indifferent glance before turning her wrath back to Julian. “Butyou.” She shook her head. “So officious, so eager to tell everyone else when they’ve stepped out of line. And you’re carrying on with Courtenay in my drawing room?” These last words she whispered—more like hissed—but the previous part of her tirade had been loud enough for the entire household to hear.
“Lower your voice, Eleanor,” Julian said. His voice was very soft, weak and hoarse from his illness, with none of his usual acerbic edge.
Eleanor opened her mouth to say something but Courtenay held his hand up. “Now is not the time,” Courtenay said. “We don’t know who is listening.” Courtenay had no intention of finding out whether a man as rich as Julian Medlock and a peer of the realm, however dissolute, would actually be tried for sodomy in England, or if instead he and Medlock would only be barred from all decent society. Julian would be devastated. He had worked so damned hard to be accepted. Courtenay wouldn’t let him lose that, not on his account. “And besides,” he added, “Julian isn’t well.”
“I’m plenty well,” Julian retorted, sitting up straight in a way that pulled him entirely away from Courtenay. Their bodies were no longer touching in even the most innocent way. Courtenay didn’t want to think it was a repudiation or a dismissal, but he felt the affront in his bones.
“You didn’t even tell me?” Eleanor demanded. “You know I don’t object to your liaisons with men.”
“Well, given how you’re handling yourself, can you blame me?”
Away went one of the last pathetic wisps of hope that he had meant something to Julian, that this had been more than fucking. He hadn’t told Eleanor, hadn’t meant to ever tell Eleanor, even though she evidently already knew about her brother’s preference for men. Indeed, Eleanor’s shock had nothing to do with finding out her brother was involved with a man, but rather that he was involved with a man who was beneath contempt.
“Yes! You were so cut up when you thought I was involved with Courtenay. You could have at least let me know you—arbiter of right and wrong—absolved me of that one sin.”
More flimsy hope, blown away on the wind. So, going to bed with Courtenay, or kissing him gently in a drawing room, was the worst one could do. Good to know. And Julian wasn’t protesting. What a fool Courtenay had been to think that he could have something lasting, something meaningful for once in his life, with a man who thought he was a walking scandal.
“I ought to go,” Courtenay said, rising to his feet. Nobody stopped him, although he heard Julian say something that sounded like farewell.
He opened the door to find the butler and a housemaid loitering in the vestibule, the better to pick up the strains of raised voices. He couldn’t be sure how much they had overheard, or if any of it was particularly incriminating in the first place. He had been too busy watching his last idiotic particles of hope being crushed beneath Julian’s heel.
Damn it. He didn’t know whether these two servants were likely to spread tales. Tilbury, for all his distaste for Courtenay, seemed devoted to Julian. But Courtenay knew better than to overestimate a servant’s interest in protecting an employer, even less an employer’s brother. No, Courtenay would need to do something about this.
Even if Julian didn’t care a jot for him, Courtenay wasn’t going to let him be besieged by scandal. And Julian was in no condition to solve this problem on his own. Grimly, he knocked on the door to Standish’s study.
Chapter Twenty-Two
