Where Passion Leads (Berkeley-Faulkner #1)(32)

“It’s nothing you would care to hear about,” Rand said dismissively.

“You care so much about my opinion of you?” Rosalie inquired, her soft words taunting. She knew that he rarely, if ever, explained himself or his actions to anyone, but perhaps she could gain what she sought if she provoked him enough.

“You expect a Brummellian tale,” Rand said with a grim smile. “All I have to offer is a mundane recollection of childhood, sordid enough in its own way. No, I don’t think you would be interested.”

“Sordid backgrounds come by the baker’s dozen, anywhere you’d care to look.”

As Rand heard the hint of challenge in her tone, he suddenly felt the inexplicable need to shock her, to peel away the covering from his wounds and witness her disgust.

“You wonder why I never drink?” he asked, his tone light and honed, like the blade of a steel knife. “I used to. Quite a lot. Like a swine at a trough, as the earl so tactfully puts it. When I was younger, my father was told by a quack that red wine would cure his gout and prevent the affliction in someone who hadn’t developed it yet. He needed little encouragement to develop an already established habit of drinking constantly. And then Father affected a sudden concern for me, although I suspect he was mainly looking for some activity to ease his boredom. The gout would come and go, and when the pain had eased, he would become restless. I remember the first night it happened . . . he cornered me in the library with a wine bottle in his hand.” Rand looked down at his hands and unclenched them as he continued. “I took a swallow to placate him, and found to my immediate discomfort that he intended to pour half the bottle down my throat. I struggled, but he was a large man. Being of smaller stature, I wasn’t in much of a position to disagree with him. The same thing happened daily, as long as his gout wasn’t with him. I used to thank God when his pain would start again. Colin was next in line, but most of the time he managed to hide as I was getting my share of Father’s . . . attention.” Rosalie flinched at the way he spoke, his voice self-mocking, his face blunted with a mixture of emotions too complex to untangle. The awful, wrenching pity of it trickled steadily through her veins. “Your mother,” she asked in a voice as raspy as aging leaves, “did she know?”

“She knew. She didn’t take it upon herself to say anything. As I said, she preferred not to become too involved with us. She refused to leave London except for her occasional trips to her family chateau in France.” “Your grandparents—”

“Only suspected. They lived on the Severn, at Berkeley Castle. Not at Warwick.”

“How long did he . . . how long did this last?” Rand smiled, his expression tainted with the poison of memories that were never far from the surface. “Until I stopped resisting. And then . . . then I began to drink without hesitation. I drank freely. I wandered through the next two or three years in a sodden haze. You can imagine the types of situations I was in and out of. Then in eighty-nine, the first year of the French revolution, my mother died at Chateau d’Angoux in childbirth, taking the baby with her. My father might have mourned her more deeply had the child she carried been his.”

“And you?” Rosalie questioned softly. No wonder, she thought with compassion, no wonder that his eyes were sometimes so bleak. No wonder he had cut such a reckless swath through London. Some memories left no quarter for anything but the need to escape. “I drank myself into a two-day stupor as all the relatives gathered together at Warwick for the funeral. When I woke up, I was with my grandparents on the way to the castle. They attributed my . . . problem to the liberal amount of French blood in my veins. As soon as I dried out I was sent to school, while Colin stayed with the earl. A year later my father was gone.” Rand sent her a look filled with self-disgust. “I was born to follow in such a lofty tradition. I’m sure you agree I’ve shown the potential of living up to it.”

They were silent for a few minutes. In an effort to subdue the compassionate ache in her chest, Rosalie breathed in and out in a regular pattern. Frozen to her chair, she sifted rapidly through ideas of what to say to him. She didn’t know how to respond, how to act. The realization pounded through her head that he had trusted her enough to have confided in her, and the knowledge made her exultant and afraid. Rand, she cried silently, how can I help you? They both waited in the tense stillness for someone to make the first move. Gradually Rosalie came to the conclusion that any offering of sympathy on her part would be disastrous. He was a proud man, and in this moment he could be humiliated. In her confusion and concern, it didn’t occur to Rosalie that now was the perfect moment for revenge, that one cutting remark could scar him deeply. “I can understand a little of why you would be glad to get rid of the d’Angoux estates,” she said carefully. “It will be good to cast off reminders.” She had the impression that there was much that he had kept back from her, but Rosalie did not want to risk anything more by prying. Slowly Rand raised his head, and she saw the trace of relief in his gaze at her matter-offactness, her lack of pity.

“I’d like to leave today and get it over with.” “Of course,” Rosalie agreed instantly, her voice betraying none of her inner turmoil.

“You’ll be safe here for a few days while I make some arrangements.”

“I’ll be perfectly content.” Take me with you, she wanted to beg, and she bit her lip to keep the plea unheard.