Page 6 of The Ruin of a Rake
“What’s this about, Eleanor?”
Courtenay had found her walking in the garden, where the first green shoots were emerging in a flower bed.
“The crocuses are late,” she answered. “They ought already to be in bloom.”
It had done nothing but snow, rain, and otherwise precipitate since he arrived in England a few months earlier. If the crocuses never bloomed he’d hardly be surprised. He would be glad to return to warmer climes, which he supposed he’d do if Radnor continued to succeed in keeping Simon from him. “True. But I was speaking of your brother. He’d rather eat glass than be seen with me, and yet he’s going with me to the opera, in plain view of God and everyone. Did you blackmail him?”
He had meant this last remark as a joke, something to smooth the furrow from her brow. But she stiffened, wrapping her shawl more tightly around her shoulders. “It wasnotblackmail, whatever he might have said.”
Courtenay took this to mean that she had most certainly blackmailed her brother. She was slightly ruthless—that was part of what he liked about her, after all—so he wasn’t surprised to discover a Machiavellian streak. The only thing that surprised him was that Medlock had any secrets worth keeping. Perhaps he had worn the wrong waistcoat or forgotten Sir Somebody’s name or committed some equally boring infraction.
“Whatever it was, thank you,” he said. He wasn’t accustomed to receiving favors, especially from people who had outright refused to share his bed, as Eleanor had done. “I don’t like my odds of success, but thank you.”
She looked up at him sharply now. “Radnor isn’t a monster, you know. He may yet come around.”
He shook his head. “But—”
“Give it a few weeks,” Eleanor said. “Things could work out for you. They don’t always, not for everyone.” There was a sorrowful note in her voice that made him want to take her by the hand, but she smiled with false brightness, forestalling any sympathy. “But they could for you.”
Courtenay wasn’t interested in discussing the shipwreck that was his future. “That bonnet is fetching. Blue becomes you. Is it new?”
“Flatterer.” She looked away, turning her attention to the weak shoots of green in the loamy flower bed. “That’s another reason you ought to let Julian try to help you. It’ll give him something to do other than buy me things. If he sends me so much as another parasol, I swear I’ll set it on fire. He’s bought me four dinner gowns in the last month. Four!”
Courtenay was surprised to learn that Medlock, who seemed a tight-fisted sort, bought his sister’s clothing. Eleanor was always dressed expensively, even lavishly. He had thought it a sweet, vain streak in his new friend, the care she took in selecting her attire while never seeming to notice what she was wearing.
Eleanor had been one of the first people he had met after arriving in England. She had been staying with Radnor at his godforsaken shambles of a house in Cornwall, doing something involving electricity.
He had promptly tried to seduce her. Unsuccessfully.
She had been amused by his attempt, as if it had never occurred to her that anyone would want to get her into his bed. Courtenay felt nothing but contempt for her absent husband, the fool. To abscond to the Orient, or the Antipodes, or wherever the fellow was when one had a wife like Eleanor seemed the height of idiocy.
They had fallen into an easy friendship, the sort of camaraderie that usually took years to establish. He had more or less followed her to London like a duckling after its mother. He hadn’t anywhere else to be, so he hired a set of rooms that wouldn’t put him too badly out of pocket. He frequented the sort of coffeehouses where artists and other clever people congregated, but he found himself most often at Eleanor’s house. Even after he spelled out to her the damage his friendship would cause her reputation, she had waved away his concern. “What, will I ruin my prospects?” And then she had laughed bitterly.
Over the past few months, Courtenay had come to understand that Eleanor—despite being sufficiently rich and utterly brilliant—was sad. Whatever was causing her sorrow, she wouldn’t talk about it, but Courtenay had formed his own opinions. Courtenay understood very well what it was like to have old troubles that lodged like a splinter in one’s brain.
“Give your frocks away,” he said blithely. “Found a charity to clothe fallen women.” He fell into the habit of talking nonsense to take her mind off her troubles. It was what he did.
“Ha! I doubt fallen women would have any interest in the sort of gown Julian fancies. Everything is correct, from the number of ruffles to the exact cut of the neckline. It would be an insult to fallen women to subject them to such boring frocks.”
“They’re very becoming,” he said, “in a sedate sort of way.” And it was true, but now that he knew the gowns weren’t Eleanor’s own choice, he could see the hand of the man who had chosen them. It was as if Medlock had an equation to solve, and the answer was a cornflower blue promenade gown with three flounces and a matching pelisse. Everything studiedly correct, painstakingly proper.
Then he remembered the fullness of the man’s lips, and the way he his eyes had flared at Courtenay’s coarseness. Perhaps not so proper after all.
“Come here.” He unknotted the ribbons of her bonnet and retied them in a bow under one ear. Much more fashionable that way. “There we go.” He took her by the shoulders, holding her at arm’s length to admire his handiwork. She scowled at him but didn’t retie the bow. Dropping his hands to his sides, he said, “I spoke with the cook. She won’t give notice.” He had begun by complimenting the cook’s pastry, comparing it favorably with the efforts of the chefs he had employed in Italy and France. “It seems that she had a row with your butler and each of them said a good many regrettable things.”
She shook her head. “I wasn’t worried about that.”
“I know, my dear, but I was.” He was fond of her, and she seemed on the precipice of something... irrevocable. He didn’t know precisely what, but he knew what someone looked like before they made a bad decision. He knew it very well indeed. “I’m not doing you any favors by spending so much time here.”
Eleanor crouched to poke at one of the emerging bits of green, the edge of her shawl dragging in the dirt. “We’ve been through this,” she said, steel in her voice. And so they had. Courtenay had no intention of reembarking on a subject that was tiresome to them both. The world was filled with enough tiresomeness without deliberately adding to it.
Courtenay only wished she sounded happier in saying so. It would all be well and good if Eleanor actually enjoyed consorting with disreputable artists and rogues such as had congregated here last night. But she had regarded the party like a spectator at a play: she wasn’t enjoying herself so much as staving off boredom. Or worse.
He bent forward and kissed her cheek. “Let’s go inside and have some tea.”
They went in arm in arm, Eleanor lost in her silent troubles and Courtenay considering how long he could in good conscience let Eleanor associate with him.
Perhaps it was just as well Radnor wouldn’t let Simon anywhere near him. Courtenay knew by now the havoc he wreaked on everyone close to him. There was a grave in an Italian churchyard testifying to that. Yes, Isabella had made her own choices, but Courtenay was her elder brother and ought to have known better. He had spent a decade doing whatever pleased him—going where he wanted, spending what he wished, bedding who he desired. Now his fortune was gone, his sister dead, his nephew lost, and Courtenay had come to think of himself as an agent of destruction. Even when he meant well, ruin followed in his wake like vultures after a hunt.
