Taming an Impossible Rogue (24 page)

Finally he smiled. “Extremely ruined.”

Oh, yes. And despite the arrival of Lady Balthrow, and despite where her friendship and duty seemed to be leading her, she very much hoped she would have the chance to be ruined by him again.

Chapter Fifteen

“So first you barge into The Tantalus Club when I expressly asked you not to, and now you want me to bring you along to Lord and Lady Voss’s soiree. Do I have the word ‘halfwit’ scrawled across my face somewhere?”

Keating kept his annoyance deeply buried, and smiled at the Duke of Greaves. “I did not make a scene at the club, you’ll note.”

“No, you merely stood and gazed longingly at your cousin’s betrothed for ten minutes and then vanished. Very unnoticeable.”

“But you forget that as I’m always scandalous, the only thing people would remark on is if I did something proper.” Frowning, Keating followed his friend down the main staircase of Baswich House. Before, he’d never missed the invitations to various proper and semiproper parties, but tonight he did. Because Lady Voss was a dear old friend of Lady Balthrow’s, and as far as he knew they’d stayed in touch with each other over the past six years.

“No, Keating.”

“As if you’re a saint. Good God, Adam, when did you lose your nerve?”

The duke turned to glare at him. “I have not lost my nerve. I’m thirty years old, and I’m attempting to behave accordingly.”

“Time for you to be gelded and sold to a cart driver, then.”

“This is not how you convince me to change my mind.”

“Fine.” Blowing out his breath, Keating pulled the calling card he’d been carrying with him all day from his pocket and pushed it against Greaves’s chest. “I need to attend.”

Adam pulled the card free and looked at it. Unless Keating was mistaken, even his jaded friend’s face paled just a little. “When did you receive this?”

“Sometime yesterday afternoon. If she’ll be anywhere in public, it will be at the Voss soiree.”

“No good can come of a confrontation, Keating. You said you’ve been paying her way, so she has no reason to make trouble for you—unless you throw a gauntlet in her direction.”

For a long moment Keating looked at the duke. In six years he’d told one person what, precisely, lay between himself and Eleanor Howard. Camille had been shocked, but because she was a kind, fair-minded individual, she’d understood. Greaves’s heart was a much stonier place, but lately Keating had been exploring the value of … trust.

“I want to know if she’s brought my son with her to London,” he finally said.

Greaves blinked. “Your … son? You’re certain?”

“She was Balthrow’s second wife, and he was married for a total of sixteen years without producing an heir. And she gave birth nine months after I last slept with her.”

“So that’s why—”

“Yes, that’s why I need that damned blunt from Fenton. Eleanor may detest me for what I’ve done, and the boy may hate me as well, but by God he’ll have a comfortable life and a proper education. And she will not have to worry about money for the remainder of her life.” He took a breath. “Now. Will you take me with you to Voss’s party?”

“Yes, damn it all.”

“Thank you.”

As they made their way outside and climbed into Greaves’s coach, the duke eyed him. “Does Fenton know about the boy?”

“No. I think he’s realized that I fund Eleanor’s household, but I would never tell him about the parentage of her son. He barely tolerates me as it is.”

“And … your new friend?”

“She’s aware. I wanted her to know that Eleanor was in London on the off chance that the two of them set eyes on one another. Eleanor loathes me, and I don’t know if she’s above making a stir simply because she can. And that wouldn’t be fair to Cammy.”

There were several things that had already occurred that weren’t fair to Cammy, at least one of which Greaves knew about. But thankfully the duke seemed to realize that his good looks would be at risk if he brought any of them up at the moment.

When she’d asked him to arrange a second meeting with Fenton, he’d had the distinct feeling that she’d done it only for him. And that had hurt. Whatever he’d intended when he’d first arrived in London, he liked Camille Pryce. He liked her a great deal. And if she’d convinced herself to return to Fenton only because it would gain him ten thousand pounds …
Damnation.

Who the devil did he think he was, anyway, to even think of pursuing Camille Pryce, much less bedding her? And why was he still thinking about it? He’d wrecked himself, Eleanor, their son, and certainly Lord Balthrow. He had no right to receive affection from anyone, or to think he could manage to give it.

“I have a thought.”

Keating shook himself. “What might that be?”

Greaves scowled. “You wait in the coach, and I’ll go inside and see whether Lady Balthrow is in attendance or means to attend this evening. Because if she sent you that card, she must know you’ll attempt to track her down. If she’s not at the soiree, there’s no reason for you to show your hand already.”

The man had a point. A good one. “Thank you, Adam.”

“Yes, well, I may be attempting to reform, but once a schemer, always a schemer.”

Adam gazed at his friend as Keating rolled his shoulders. Six years had made Keating Blackwood into a different man. He was more thoughtful, more reserved, and capable of emotions that Adam had once thought had never been present in his soul in the first place. Clearly Keating didn’t know what to do with them, but at least he was making the attempt.

And Adam
had
been a schemer, had spent years watching and manipulating the people around him. To some extent he still did so, though he’d lost the appetite for most of it. One thing his cynicism had granted him, however, was the ability to recognize the same quality in others. And Eleanor Howard had been a schemer herself. He had to wonder, then, whether she’d continued on that course as a widow whose life was being funded by the former lover who’d killed her husband.

Keating wouldn’t see it, because the idiot was racked with six years’ worth of guilt. Of course the lummox also didn’t see that he was halfway to falling in love with the very last woman he should ever be looking at. Or perhaps Keating did see that, and he was only attempting to cause himself more of the pain he thought he deserved.

It was a damned conundrum. Luckily, Adam still enjoyed unraveling conundrums. Especially for those few people he called friend.

*   *   *

Three days. For three days he’d been hunting for Eleanor, and she’d failed to appear. Her old favorite haunts—the shops on Bond Street, teatime at the Green Apple Inn, late-afternoon barouche rides in Hyde Park—were full of every chit in London with the exception of Lady Balthrow, and Camille, of course.

Keating stepped down from Greaves’s borrowed barouche and handed out Sophia White and Camille. Primrose Hill was part of St. James’s Park, but most of the
haut ton
stayed at the other end, where the carriage paths meandered. It was a park within a park, essentially, and while they were likely to encounter a few faces who might recognize them, the odds were at least in their favor.

Sophia took a turn to look all around them. “This is pretty. I thought perhaps we would have to drive well outside of London to go for a stroll.”

Camille made a face at her friend. “Hush, Sophia. We are behaving today.”

“Oh, very well.”

Light blue eyes glanced in his direction again, and then pointedly looked away. She’d been like that since he’d retrieved her from the club half an hour ago. He didn’t like it, but he understood it. At least part of the unease between them was his fault; after all, he hadn’t called on her for three days. Not since he’d informed her that Eleanor Howard was somewhere in London.

He understood why she might wish to distance herself a little from him. In fact, he’d anticipated that she would, which was one of the reasons he’d made himself scarce—despite the restless nights and the way she colored his every thought. She’d made a mess of her own life, and she now had a chance to set her cart back on the road. He’d destroyed four lives including his own, and the carnage continued.

And then there was what she’d implied—that she would make amends with Fenton not because it was what she necessarily wanted, but because of the blunt that would fill Keating’s pockets as a result. It was precisely what he wanted, but he didn’t like it. At all. He didn’t like the idea of her sacrificing herself, and he didn’t like that she would be removed from his embrace.

“Shall we?” he said, offering an arm to each woman.

“What about Lord Fenton?” Sophia asked.

“I think he’d prefer it if our meeting looked coincidental,” Camille put in, before Keating could do so. She wrapped her gloved fingers around his sleeve.

With a lovely lady on each arm, Keating left the carriage path and guided them in the direction of the low rise that comprised Primrose Hill. With the sun in the early afternoon the dew had fled the grass, and the breeze brought them the light scent of flowers and greenery. It was an oddly … content set of moments, despite the trouble that seemed to surround him. Both of them.

“I’ve been listening to the club gossip,” Camille said into the relative silence. “Gentlemen can be terrible wags.”

“You have no idea. They’re far worse than any chit,” Keating agreed with a smile.

“I haven’t heard any mention of Lady Balthrow. You haven’t tracked her down, have you?”

“No. Not yet. She’s being surprisingly subtle. And I have to say, that worries me.”

“Lady Balthrow?” Sophia squeaked from his right. “Is she in London? Oh, dear. You never said, Cammy.”

“I asked her not to say anything until I was certain what Eleanor was about,” Keating responded, before Camille could.

Sophia looked all around, as if she expected Eleanor might be lurking in the shrubbery. “Is she as pretty as everyone says?”

“Yes.” Or she had been, six years ago. That was the entire reason he’d bothered with her.

He hadn’t cared anything about wit or morality or character—unless either of the latter two happened to oppose his seductions. And he distinctly recalled that Eleanor had lifted her skirts for him on the first evening they’d met. In the silver closet of Lord and Lady Wincott’s home. The salvers had received an excellent polish while her thick husband dined in the next room with three dozen other guests.

Beside him walked a woman who’d made a poor decision and suffered its consequences, just as Eleanor had. Never, however, would he compare the two otherwise. Camille was by turns shy and then brazenly bold, cautious and foolhardy, still naïve about some things and completely jaded in others. And eminently desirable, always.

She fascinated him. As a man who’d allowed his past to govern his present, she seemed a breath of fresh air. For God’s sake, she’d carved out a new life for herself in a matter of weeks, and had managed to tolerate it for a year now. And while she might not be entirely happy with it, she hadn’t sunk into the bottom of a bottle and vanished from the accusing glances of her peers as he had done.

“Why are you staring at me?” she muttered, keeping her gaze on the park.

“Am I?” he returned, inwardly shaking himself. She wasn’t his. She couldn’t be. Regardless of what he wanted. “Perhaps I’m merely attempting to look in that direction and you’re blocking my view.”

“I see.” The soft curve of her mouth jumped upward.

“Oh, there he is,” Sophia whispered.

Keating glanced over his shoulder to see Stephen Pollard dismount from Brownie, his imaginatively named brown Thoroughbred. His arrival was supposed to be good news, but it didn’t feel that way. With a hard breath Keating stopped and waited. Kicking and scratching against the inevitable would only gain him bloody fingers, he supposed.

“Good afternoon, Lady Camille, Miss White, Keating.” The marquis sketched a shallow bow and then offered his arm to Camille.

Well, that was promising, if a bit surprising. Camille relinquished her grip on Keating’s sleeve and transferred her hold to the marquis. Unclenching his jaw, Keating nodded at his cousin. “I’ve made assurances that everyone will be behaving themselves this afternoon. Even me, odd as that is.”

“Of course. I pride myself on being a gentleman.”

He prides himself on nearly everything,
Keating reflected, but kept that thought to himself. Reconciliation was the best thing for everyone concerned, and if Fenton had decided to make the effort of being charming, that could only bode well for Cammy.

Stephen pointed out a falcon and a wayward goose and then a brown-and-green-feathered chiffchaff. “Ornithologist Louis Viellot formally classified it just last year as
Sylvia collybita
in his
Nouvelle Dictionnaire d’Histoire Naturelle.
”

“I had no idea you were an ornithologist,” Camille said with a slight smile.

“Oh, I’ve always been a bird-watcher, haven’t I, Keating?”

Not that he recalled.
“Yes. Since we were children,” Keating said aloud.

It was more likely that Stephen had known they were going to be walking in the park and had therefore fished about for a topic of conversation that wouldn’t have everyone hanging themselves from the tree branches. If he’d bothered to look up the Latin names of local birds, however, Keating had to give him some credit for making an effort.

As the marquis continued reciting the various classifications of birds found in the area of London, Keating attempted to distract himself from his unkind mental commentary, and from the way his gaze seemed to insist on lowering to Camille’s swaying hips. “Were you friends with Cammy before you both went to the club for employment?” he asked the petite, scarlet-haired chit walking beside him.

She shook her head. “I was raised by my aunt and uncle in Warwickshire. At age eighteen they turned me out, and that’s when I came to London.”

“You seem well educated.”

“Oh, I am. I think the duke must have sent a stipend of some sort to my uncle Harold, because I had a governess and went to boarding school. But then someone found out about my parentage and that I grew up on a farm all at the same time the income stopped and my aunt and uncle lost interest in me, so I had to look out for myself.”