“Of course,” Doyle said at last, but his voice lacked the conviction it had before.
There was a long silence, as Rohan fumed. No matter how he tried to suppress it, he had developed a fondness for the young girl. Even though he would still be able to enjoy her training, he could not help but feel a vacuum in his chest. The pain of it had caused him, he realized now, to treat her much more harshly than he might have.
He swallowed his drink.
“You are correct,” Rohan said, facing the wall. “I was much more harsh with her than required. A girl of such a temperament must be handled with more delicacy.”
Doyle said nothing.
Rohan turned to him, and anger began to flare inside of him, rising up to his neck and turning into heat beneath his collar.
Callum, accustomed to his friend’s temper, raised a finger in warning. It was Doyle’s duty, in their strange friendship, to rein in the irascible Rohan, to push him back inside of the boundaries of his carefully constructed facade and make sure that he remained there.
Rohan straightened his jacket and waited for Doyle to speak, for he knew that he would.
“Itisinteresting to me,” he said, much too slowly for Rohan’s patience, “that she was so insistent upon denying her impropriety with that young man.”
Rohan tugged at his shirtsleeves to straighten them and inhaled through his nose to calm his temper, which was yet again flaring.
“Ah,” Doyle said suddenly, shaking his head before taking a final sip of his drink. He seemed to have thought better of his own argument. “Any woman will tell any number of lies to defend her virtue. It serves as proof of nothing.”
Doyle rose, and clapped Rohan on the shoulder, careful to avoid his collarbone, which had never fully healed. “Laroui has already departed, as it is, and he shall be very pleased with your selection. I imagine your debt to him shall be considered paid in full.”
Rohan said nothing and stared at the volumes on his shelves, many of which were titled in French, brought back with him from many years of living in Morocco and France. He narrowed his eyes at the thought of Laroui, who would soon possess the lovely Miss Blanchet, in exchange for keeping Rohan’s secrets to his grave.
He shook himself inwardly and swallowed the last of his drink before turning to pour himself another. Doyle was right; he knew that a woman like Miss Blanchet, who would so easily and wantonly have relations of any kind with a man while engaged, could not be trusted as a bride—especially not for this delicate situation, and all of the secrets within these walls.
“You are right, Callum, as always,” he said. “Good night.”
Callum may or may not have been planning to retire, but he took his cue, gave Rohan a brief nod, and left the room. Rohan fell into the sofa, sipped his drink, and brooded.
He had chosen Carolina Blanchet because he had very few suitable possibilities for a wife, should he wish to marry and live his life as he chose. Which he did. Among those choices there had been few virtuous women, and among those few women, even fewer beautiful women. Her beauty, by itself, might have taken the girl to a modestly decent marriage, but once Rohan saw her for himself he had been overcome by lust. Callum had been in agreement. He was, after all, the one who had scouted her.
When news had reached him of her disappointing and un-virtuous behavior, he had been unnervingly crushed. Before Carolina he had considered taking other women as wives, women who had marred their reputations and would have no choice but to accept the arrangements of his household in exchange for a stable and wealthy existence. He had been unbothered by their behavior. But Carolina, who he had first laid eyes upon in the stormy field, cheeks stained pink with the cold, hair disheveled, temperament defiant and glorious—Carolina’s “betrayal” had struck him deeply.
Callum had advised him to wait, to at least hear Carolina’s version of the story, or perhaps to decide if it mattered, but he had gone wild with jealousy, which had turned to anger, and then, because it was the sort of man he was, he had acted decisively. Cruelly, and—he liked to tell himself, anyway—without remorse. He had sent for Laroui, to whom he owed a great favor, and told him that he had finally located a perfect English rose for Laroui’s collection.
That Laroui had asked him to train the girl was unexpected. Perhaps he had, in a way, been pleased; he could have his fill of the chestnut-haired beauty, take a kind of revenge on her for her betrayal, and then eliminate her from his life as though she had never happened.
Another woman could always be found, and his debt with Laroui would be settled.
But now that he had Carolina here, her skin beneath his, her body responding as he only could have hoped that it might, he was—
He stopped himself from thinking about it further.
It was done, and she was Laroui’s.
Laroui would give her riches and treat her well. He expected obedient women but was nowhere near the disciplinarian that Blackstone was, and all the women of his harem seemed quite content with their lives.
The glass in his hand was in the air before his mind even registered that he had thrown it. Rage filled his veins, this time directed at himself.
He stood up, straightened his collar, and wiped a droplet of sweat that had formed there with a handkerchief. He was a gentleman now, though they might never accept him fully, and he would act the part. Always. Even alone, in his own enormous house.
His fist balled again, and he unclenched it.
Damn Carolina Blanchet.
He was not a man who lost control.
