One Touch of Scandal Read Free Page A

butRuthveyn had believed what was to come inevitable. And as Claytor pointed out, for the last six months, Ruthveyn had made his home, more often than not, here in an upstairs suite at his private club, fetching down from Mayfair his valet and his secretary and whatever and whomever he wished—and whenever he wished it. Ruthveyn did not much care to be inconvenienced, even in exile.
    Claytor conceded defeat. “For dinner, then, my lord,” he murmured, stiffly inclining his head. “I shall tell Lady Anisha to expect you.”
    The secretary turned to go just as Fricke thrust out Ruthveyn’s cravat. Ruthveyn snatched it and relented. “Look here, Claytor,” he said over his shoulder. “I’m sorry, but I’ve a morning head and an ill temper. Still, no young man ever died of a fortnight spent in a sponging house. Indeed, I daresay it will do my brother a world of good.”
    â€œBut do you mean ever to get him out?” asked Claytor a little bitterly. “Or do you mean to grease his skids straight into debtors’ prison?”
    At that, Ruthveyn whirled about. “Careful, old boy.” His voice was deathly quiet. “Do not mistake an explanation as a license to make free with your opinion.”
    Claytor dropped his gaze. “I beg your pardon,” he replied. “But I can tell you, sir, what will happen. After another four or five days—after the bailiff has come round again with his demands, and a few more duns have piled up, Lady Anisha will go down to Houndsditch and start selling off her jewels. That, sir, is what will happen.”
    The galling thing was, Claytor might be right. But that had to be Anisha’s choice.
    â€œMy sister will not be made a prisoner in my home,” said Ruthveyn quietly. “Her jewels—and her life—are now hers to do with as she pleases. I only hope and praythat she means to raise Tom and Teddy a little more strictly than our stepmother raised Lucan.”
    â€œBut, my lord, it cannot have been so very—”
    â€œYou cannot know what it was like, Claytor,” Ruthveyn cut in. “You weren’t there. ”
    But turn poor Claytor’s words against him as he might, the truth was, Ruthveyn hadn’t been there either. Not very often, at least. He had been in the early years of his diplomatic career, and, like his father before him, haring about Hindustan risking life and limb in service to Her Majesty’s government and its well-shod bootheel, the East India Company. Then, as now, he had avoided his family. He had avoided intimacy. And he was not fool enough to confuse intimacy with sex or even with love.
    He did love them—even Lucan, cocky young fool that he was. He loved them more than life itself. But their coming out from Calcutta some six months past had taken the life he’d tried so desperately to hold together and rattled it at its very foundation.
    But Anisha was now a widow with two little hellions to raise. As to their half brother…well, Lucan simply needed a father. Pity he did not have one.
    â€œWhich coat, sir?” Fricke enquired as the door closed behind Claytor. “I brought down the dark blue superfine and last year’s black.”
    â€œThe black,” said Ruthveyn, stripping off the half-tied cravat. “And I want a black stock to go with it.”
    â€œIndeed,” murmured Fricke, carrying away the offending linen. “We’re in a black mood, I collect.”
    â€œIt was a black night,” said Ruthveyn.
    There was no need to say more. The detritus of a difficult evening lay cast about the room: an empty decanter of cognac, a corkless apothecary’s vial, filthy ashtrays,and the sharp scent of spiced tobacco and charas still hanging in the air.
    Fricke finished dressing him in silence, touching his master as little as possible. Ruthveyn’s odd quirks in this regard were made plain early on to anyone employed to serve