The Ruin of a Rake by Cat Sebastian

Author:Cat Sebastian
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2017-07-04T00:00:00+00:00

Courtenay felt his light mood evaporate with every furlong as they got closer to Carrington Hall. Looking out the window of Medlock’s predictably first-rate carriage, he saw a road that he remembered all too well. It wasn’t so very long ago that he had happily traveled along this route to visit his mother and Isabella. Even then, his mother had blamed him for his father’s death, but she still received him, albeit grudgingly and with a good deal of drama. Isabella had been a different story. He remembered her half hanging out the schoolroom window, awaiting his return.

Medlock must have noticed Courtenay’s quiet, because he was babbling nervously in a plain attempt to fill the silence.

“If you don’t want to toss your mother out part and parcel, do you perhaps have a dower house you can put her in somewhere on the property and let Radnor have the main house?”

“I daresay Radnor and that secretary of his want more privacy than that. They’re used to rattling about in that old pile down in Cornwall. They most certainly won’t want my mother and her family poking in the windows, which is exactly what she’d do if she knew she had the famous Mad Earl on the premises.” Only after the words had left his mouth did he realize he shouldn’t have exposed Radnor, even though he knew Medlock shared the same secret. “Let’s forget that I said anything.”

Medlock made a frustrated noise. “Give me some credit, Courtenay. But Radnor and the secretary,” he said musingly. “I wouldn’t have thought Radnor needed privacy of that sort. But the secretary. Yes, I can see that. I met him before, you know.”

Courtenay looked over at Medlock with some interest. “Did you? I tried to find out who he was, since Simon seemed terribly fond of the fellow and I wanted to make sure he was all right. But he seems to have materialized out of thin air.”

“He was using a different name when I knew him. He duped an acquaintance of mine. Poor fellow had to go to South Africa.”

It took Courtenay a second to realize what Medlock was saying. “Are you telling me my nephew is being raised by a confidence artist?”

“He seems aboveboard now.” Medlock said this with the naive certainty of a man who still believed that a person could change his ways.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Courtenay might have used that information to barter in exchange for time with Simon.

“Because I can’t see how it’s my business what Radnor’s pretty secretary did to keep his bread buttered. We’ve all done things we’re not proud of,” Medlock snapped. Courtenay wasn’t sure whether to ask what Medlock meant. Then, in his earlier offhand tone Medlock asked, “But he and Radnor, you say?”

“Can’t be sure. I never saw them together. But I used to know Radnor rather well. Radnor, was, shall we say, inclined as we are. And nobody would go to that dilapidated rabbit warren of his in Cornwall without damned good

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