Never Romance a Rake (23 page)

“No,
madame
.” Miss Obelienne stuffed the roots back into the raw silk sack. “Covent Garden Market.”

They returned to their cake and tea, now tepid. “In the past,” the cook continued in her lilting voice, “Miss Xanthia approved the menus each week. You will wish to resume this,
madame
?”

Camille considered it. “What have you been doing in her absence?”

Obelienne's eyes narrowed. “The master, he does not eat,” she said bitterly. “You must see that this is remedied.”

Camille's smile was muted. “I shall try,” she said. “But I fear he will prove hard to manage.”

“
Oui, madame,
but you must do it.” Her gold hoops swung as she reached for one of the baize ledgers on her worktable—a worn book labeled
Menus
. “I will show you a typical week in Miss Xanthia's time.”

She opened the ledger and passed it to Camille. Camille scanned the tidy columns. Many of the dishes were decidedly French, others Camille suspected were of West Indian origin. “You have experience with Continental cuisine, I see,” she remarked.

Obelienne inclined her head almost regally. “I come from Martinique,” she explained. “My mother was cook to an important French family.”

Camille regarded her with new interest. “You speak French,
oui
?”

The cook's smile was faint.
“Bien sûr, madame,”
she answered. “But mostly
Kwéyòl
, which you might not understand.”

This, then, explained the unusual rhythm of her voice. But Camille was still confused. “You worked for the Neville family in Barbados,
n'est-ce pas
?”

Again, the slow nod. “
Oui, madame,
but my mistress was from Martinique. She was sent to Barbados, and I was sent with her. I was a young girl in those days—a maid of all work, you would say. After a time, my mistress, she married. Into the Neville family.”

“Into the Neville family?” Camille echoed.

“Oh,
oui
. To Luke Neville,
madame
. The master's elder brother. He is gone now.”

Camille remembered what little Xanthia had said regarding her brother. “I don't know much about him,” she confessed. “Lord Rothewell has never really spoken of his brother.”

“
Oui,
he drinks brandy instead,” said Obelienne flatly. “To make the spirits go away. But in their place, devils come.”

Camille did not know what to make of that remark. Obelienne was looking at her impassively from across the worktable.

“Well,” said Camille as cheerfully as she could, “it would appear you have the kitchen in good hands, Miss Obelienne. I should look over the household accounts next, I suppose?”

Again, Obelienne regally inclined her head. She pulled another ledger from the stack, opened it, and passed it to Camille. “You have the look of her,” she said quietly.

“Pardon?”

“My mistress.” Obelienne let her dispassionate gaze drift over Camille. “
Non,
not the face. Not like the daughter. But the similarity—
oui,
it is there all the same.”

“The daughter?” Camille was confused. “You are speaking of my husband's niece?”

Obelienne slowly nodded. “You, too, are very dark and very beautiful,” she said quietly. “Like Annemarie. And so I will pray,
madame
, for you.”

“Pray?” Camille looked at her sharply.
“Pourquoi?”

“I will pray that your beauty does not become a burden to you.”

The remark would have seemed insolent, had not Obelienne appeared entirely sincere. But Camille's head was beginning to swim with names and grim warnings.
“Merci,”
she said awkwardly, reaching out for something more tangible; something she understood—an accounting ledger. “Now, what have we here? Are these the greengrocer's receipts?”

As if the strange moment had never occurred, Obelienne bent her head to the account book.

Camille spent the remainder of the morning meeting with Trammel, who was a good deal less enigmatic than his wife. Chin-Chin followed at their heels, venturing off only to sniff at a chair leg or poke his head behind a drapery as Trammel introduced the footmen and the maids, and asked Camille a great many questions about how she wished things done. Throughout it all, Camille simply kept her nose up a notch and pretended she knew what she was about. The manufactured confidence seemed to work. The servants bowed and scraped as if her marriage actually meant something.

At the same time, no one seemed especially shocked by the sudden appearance of a wife. Their impetuous ceremony aside, it seemed generally assumed that Lord Rothewell's marriage was one of convenience. His sister had married and gone. Someone was needed to keep house. At least no one expected starry-eyed bliss from Camille.

“Have you been with the family very long, Trammel?” she asked, as they looked over the china and plate.

Trammel pulled out the next drawer. “Yes, ma'am. Since I was a young man.”

Camille put the teacup she'd been toying with back on the shelf. “So you came from Barbados,” she said musingly. “Were you ever a—that is to say, legally, were you…” Her words faded.

“A slave?” Trammel suggested. He cut her a sidelong glance as he moved deeper into the pantry. “No, my lady, I was hired by Mr. Neville—Mr. Luke Neville—but he had a title by then, of course. He needed a servant to oversee the house properly. We were acquaintances.”

“As in friends?”

“Yes, after a fashion,” he agreed. “Mr. Neville was some years older than his brother and sister, and ran Neville Shipping out of Bridgetown. My father was in the business of refitting the ships which came into port, and he owned a large inn, which I managed for him.”

“Oh, my.” Absently, Camille bent down to scoop up the dog. “All that will be a tremendous responsibility for you someday.”

Trammel flashed a dry smile and set his hand down upon the pale marble top of the dish cupboard. “No, he has other children,” he said, looking at his bronze skin. “White children. Legitimate children.”

“You…you were not acknowledged?”

He shrugged and reached up to lift down a huge silver bowl. “Inasmuch as the children of a man's mistress can be,” he said. “You must understand, ma'am, that Barbados is not like England. There are many shades of skin—and kin—in the islands.”

“Yes, I see,” said Camille quietly. It seemed as if there was at least one thing she and Trammel shared. “The uncle,” she said, “the old baron, I mean. Did you know him?”

Trammel shook his head. “Only by reputation.” The words—and his tone—held a wealth of meaning.

“Someone once suggested he was cruel,” said Camille vaguely. “Perhaps it was Lady Nash.”

Trammel studied the silver bowl. “The man was possessed by devils, or so his slaves said,” the butler murmured. “But then, what else would one expect them to say?”

Possessed by devils.
It was hauntingly similar to what Obelienne had said of Rothewell.

The remainder of the morning passed without incident, and Camille's starry-eyed bliss looked even more improbable when Rothewell did not return home for luncheon. She ignored the stab of irrational disappointment, asked the attending footmen to take Chin-Chin for a walk, then ate a meal of cold roasted chicken in the dining room alone.

As she did so, her gaze drifted about the space which, like the rest of the house, was a little bare. Or perhaps bleak was the better term? Oh, each room was furnished with life's essentials, and they were of fine quality, too. But there was no character. No soul. No paintings or portraits. No needlework or flowers or even empty vases. It was the house of a family with no memories.

Or perhaps the house of a family with memories they wished to forget? Suddenly, a vision of Rothewell's scarred back flashed before her eyes. Camille dropped her fork onto the china plate with an awkward clatter.

It had been horrible. Deep, disfiguring welts cut into the flesh across the whole of his back. But the scars were white with age, and if the memories of them left Rothewell with any emotion stronger than aggravation, one could not have discerned it by his response.

“If you think this looks bad, you should have seen his slaves,”
he had said.
“Or my brother.”

Camille shoved back her chair and rose. She could not think about the inhumanity of it. She could not concern herself with the hurts he might have suffered or the cold emptiness of his home. She could not begin to worry whether he ate, or if he was ill. If she did, it was but another step nearer that slippery slope of emotional attachment. She could not grow fond of him. She could
not
.

But it was almost too late, and she knew it. Her fingertips going to her mouth, Camille pondered it. Surely—
surely
—she was not falling in love with the infernal man? Surely it was just simple lust? She was, after all, her mother's daughter.

But had not her mother also fallen for a scoundrel? And once done, no amount of Valigny's maltreatment had been unable to undo it.

Surely she was stronger than that. Wiser than that. She had to be. It was one thing to feel sorry for Rothewell and quite another to be a fool for him. She had to live with him, yes—at least for a time. And she desperately wanted his child. She wanted to make love with him, but not love him, and the line between those two things was beginning to seem so agonizingly fine, she could only pray for the ability to walk it. For if she slipped, she feared she would be tumbling into an emotional abyss.

So deep was she in these contemplations that she leapt when the dining-room door suddenly swung open.

“Camille!” Rothewell's sister swept in, her arms open. “I just had to drop by. Yesterday seemed so…unfinished.”

“Unfinished?” Camille smiled and accepted Xanthia's embrace.

“Kieran is such a wretch!” his sister declared, her eyes dancing good-humoredly. “Have you any idea how much he frustrates me? I was hoping for a big wedding.”

“
Mais non!
Even I did not wish that. I am sure your brother did not.”

Xanthia drew back and caught Camille by the elbows. “Well?” she demanded. “Where is he?”

Camille felt her eyes widen. “Why, he said he was going out to meet Nash. Do you need him?”

Xanthia's gaze darkened. “Do you mean to say he is out?” she asked. “Out on the first day of his marriage?”

Camille let her hands fall, and Xanthia did likewise. “You need not chastise him, Xanthia,” she said. “This is a marriage of convenience. It would be best if we all accepted that.”

Xanthia tossed her shawl across a chair as if she meant to stay. “Perhaps the two of you might make a little more of it if he were to actually remain at home,” she complained, drifting deeper into the room. “Besides, his appearance worries me. I wish he would rest. The night of our dinner party, I feared he was having another sick spell.”

“Another?” Camille pounced upon the word. “How often does he have them?”

Halfway down the length of the dining table, Xanthia spun around. “Why, I don't know,” she said. “Kieran will tell me nothing, the stubborn man. He claims his stomach is merely dyspeptic—which one cannot doubt, given how he abuses it.”

Camille motioned toward the two wide doors which opened onto the withdrawing room. “Will you stay a moment?” she asked. “We might ring for tea. The day is growing chilly.”

Xanthia gave a sideways grin. “Congratulations, my dear. You deflect the topic almost as cleverly as he does.”

Camille's smile was quiet. “The tea, Xanthia?”

Xanthia stuck out her lower lip. “Very well,” she said. “Your point is taken.”

“
Pardon,
” said Camille. “But my position here is a difficult one. Your brother is not in love with me. Certainly he is not obedient. I have no leverage—yet.”

“
Yet.
” Xanthia's face broke out into a smile. “That sounds promising. Listen, why do we not go for a brisk walk in the park, Camille? I've been shut up in Wapping all day. The doctor says I need exercise.” She set her hand over her belly in that sweetly protective gesture now familiar to Camille. It left her just a little envious.

“I shall just fetch my cloak.”

Camille found herself inexplicably eager to escape her new home, a place which should have felt like a refuge from all the uncertainty in her life. A bastion against the loneliness. Instead, she found herself feeling more alone than ever. She was suddenly very glad for her new sister-in-law's company.