Someone to Hold

by Mary Balogh

  “What Avery did was quite splendid in its context,” she said, reaching up for the worn leather strap as the carriage rattled out of the driveway and onto the road. “According to your account, he had been challenged to a duel, and honor as well as pride dictated that he accept. Today’s context was different. Both of you were guests of a dying man, and in his presence in his home. It would have been inappropriate to come to blows with Viscount Uxbury or even to engage in heated words. He did not behave like a gentleman. You did. You behaved with dignity and restraint, and for that, I thank you.”

  “You had the last word, though,” he said, grinning at the memory, “by hoping he had recovered from the kick to his chin.”

  “I lied.” She smiled suddenly, a bright, mischievous expression. “I did not hope any such thing. But I did want him to know that I know.”

  “Well, I am sorry any of it happened,” he said. “It was poor thanks for your kindness in accompanying me here.”

  “I suppose,” she said, “it was punishment for forcing my company upon you. I am not sorry I came, however. Mr. Cox-Phillips is very ill indeed, is he not?”

  “Yes,” he agreed, and was assailed by a wholly unexpected wave of near panic. His mother and his grandparents were dead, and his great-uncle, his last link with them, was dying. There could be no doubt about that.

  “Will you go back yet again?” she asked.

  Part of him wanted to do it right now, to lean forward and knock urgently on the front panel and instruct the coachman to turn around.

  “Very probably not,” he said. “There are more questions I would like to ask. Anecdotal questions. I would like to hear stories about his boyhood with his sister, my grandmother, about the arrival of my grandfather in the household, about the infancy and childhood of my mother. He must have stories to tell, must he not? But I doubt he would be willing to tell them even if he were fit and well. Why should he, after all? He does not know me. I am merely the bastard son of a niece for whom he does not appear to have felt much fondness. Anyway, he is neither fit nor well and would not even have told me as much as he did today if he had not been annoyed by the high-handed behavior of his kinsman. Besides, Uxbury has clearly come to stay, and the old man seems to believe that the other two claimants to his property and fortune will not be far behind him. I have no desire whatsoever to confront any of them.”

  “Even though they are your relatives too?” she said.

  “Exactly because of that,” he admitted. “I am not proud that Uxbury is somehow connected to me. I do not even know how and am not much interested in learning.”

  “But I do wish circumstances had permitted you to smash his nose and blacken both his eyes and ram his teeth down his throat,” she added.

  He grinned, remembering how at Sally Lunn’s she had wished she could string the man up by his thumbs. She chuckled, perhaps remembering the same thing, and then they were holding hands and almost doubled up with laughter. He did not know why they were quite so amused except that it had been a miserable and emotionally charged visit in a number of ways, and life had a way of reasserting itself in face of insult and sickness and imminent death.

  “Thank you for coming with me, Camille,” he said when he could, and he squeezed her hand, which was still in his, and laced their fingers.

  “I have been fearing that I ought not to have talked you into it,” she said. “It was really none of my business.”

  “I learned the names of my mother and her parents,” he said. “It is not a great deal, but even that much knowledge gives me more identity.”

  “And you have the painting,” she said

  “Yes, I have that,” he agreed. “But I am afraid to look at it.”

  She tipped her head to one side as she gazed at him and frowned in thought for a few moments. “I believe I would be too in your place,” she said. “You will look at it when you are ready.”

  “It is not just that the painting is of my mother,” he said. “It is also that it was painted by my father. Or by the man who was supposedly my father.”

  “They must have been in company together a good deal when he was painting her portrait,” she said. “She would have been gazing at him and he at her for hours on end. It is perfectly understandable that they fell in love.”

  “He did not love her, though, did he?” he said, and closed his eyes for a few moments. “There is no point in trying to romanticize what happened between them. He ran away as soon as he learned their affair had had consequences—me. I am not the product of a grand passion between ill-fated lovers who died of broken hearts after being plucked asunder. It was all far more mundane. Lust pure and simple, I would guess. And cowardice.”

  “You do not know all the facts,” she said.

  “No, I do not,” he admitted. Would he know better when he saw the painting? Would he sense whether there had been love—in the eyes of his mother, in the brushstrokes of his father? Probably not. What had happened between those two had died with them, and that was the way it ought to be. Perhaps. Except that he was left to wonder. “I do know something about the son they produced, however. I would never abandon a woman I had impregnated. Or our child.”

  They traveled the rest of the way in silence, their hands still joined, their shoulders touching as the carriage swayed and bounced over the road. When they arrived back at the orphanage, he opened the door and jumped down to the pavement before turning to help her alight.

  “Thank you for coming,” he said again.

  “Go back again,” she told him, but she did not offer to accompany him this time or press the point. She hurried inside and closed the door.

  * * *

  After school one day earlier in the week, when the children were all outside playing or otherwise occupied elsewhere and the playroom was empty, Camille had sat down at the old neglected pianoforte, which had been pushed off into one corner, and played softly to herself. She had never been more than a tolerably skilled musician, but playing the pianoforte was a necessary accomplishment for a properly brought-up young lady and she had persevered. She had been missing playing as well as embroidering and watercolor painting—all strictly according to the rules set down by her governess. Sometimes she wished she could go back and relive her girlhood with more of a questioning, even rebellious spirit, but it could not be done. Going back was never possible, and there was no point in wallowing in regrets for what might have been.

  When she had looked up from the pianoforte after a few minutes, it was to the discovery that three children had crept into the room unnoticed and were standing perfectly still, watching her. They would go about their play soon enough, she had thought after smiling vaguely at them and turning her attention to another remembered piece, but after that there were two more children watching her, as well as the original three and one of the housemothers. The next time she looked up, she was forced to the startled conclusion that there must surely not be a child left in the garden or any other part of the building. The playroom was as full as she had ever seen it.

  She had switched to playing some folk songs that everyone knew—everyone in her old world, anyway, but apparently not in the new. She had picked out a few of the simplest tunes and taught the melody and the words of the first verses. The girls had soon been singing along with her while the boys looked warily at one another and held their peace while at the same time holding their ground.

  Music in the form of folk songs and simple hymns and a few rounds had become a part of the school curriculum from that day, and Camille had soon been scheming for a way to bring in the boys. She had done it by brushing up on her knowledge of sailors’ working chants and explaining them as exclusively male music. Indeed, for a while she banned the girls from singing them, something that proved highly successful when the girls burned with resentment and the boys preened themselves and sang loudly and lustily and not necessarily musically.

 
; It was not singing she was teaching early on the Friday afternoon after the visit to Mr. Cox-Phillips’s house, however. It was dancing. It had all started during the morning, when Camille had unveiled the purple knitted rope, whose various parts she had stayed up late the night before weaving together into one. It could not be unveiled, of course, without being put to immediate use. They had gone out as far as Bath Abbey, where Camille had given a brief lecture on the architecture of the church before leading the way to the Roman baths just a few yards from the abbey and below the Pump Room. Both the expedition and the rope had been an enormous success, the latter having drawn amused attention from several passersby. Not one child had either lagged behind or surged ahead without the others, and an occasional head count had satisfied Camille each time that she still had the correct number of children.

  Their return to the school had been delayed by the presence in the abbey yard of some musicians—first a flautist, whom the children found enthralling mainly, Camille suspected, because watching and listening to him shortened the school day, and then by a troop of energetic dancers, who performed the steps of several vigorous and intricate country dances to the accompaniment of the flute and a violin. The children had been genuinely enchanted by them, and it would have been nothing short of cruel to drag them away before the performance came to an end.

  On the way back to school a few of the older children had recalled the time when a former teacher had taught dancing. Miss Snow had not continued the lessons—the Duchess of Netherby, Winifred Hamlin had interrupted the speaker to remind him—because she could not sing the music and teach the steps at the same time. And Miss Nunce had not because . . . well, because.

  If they wished to learn to dance, Camille had said rashly, then she would teach them. And had they noticed that in the troupe they had just watched there were exactly as many men dancers as women? One of the recently hired housemothers had even admitted to some skill at the pianoforte and might be persuaded to play while their teacher taught the steps. Her offer had been met with such enthusiasm—a public cheer in the middle of the street that would have scandalized Lady Camille Westcott even without the conspicuous addition of the purple rope—that she had decided to waste no time but to begin immediately after luncheon. Ursula Trask, the housemother in question, had agreed to play for them, though she had warned that her fingers were rusty and might well hit as many wrong notes as right.

  It was only when she was already hot and bothered and disheveled and barking out instructions as she tried to teach the steps of the Roger de Coverley, however, that Camille recalled this was one of the days for art instruction. It was amazing she had forgotten when she had thought of little else but Joel Cunningham and their journey up into the hills all last evening and most of last night—she had slept only in fits and starts—and much of this morning too. But she had indeed forgotten and would not have remembered now if she had not suddenly noticed him standing, or rather, slouching in the doorway, one shoulder propping up the frame, one booted foot crossed over the other ankle, his arms folded over his chest, a smirk on his face.

  She stopped barking abruptly and the music faltered and children went prancing off in all directions.

  “Oh,” she said. “Oh goodness. Children. Artists. It is time for your painting lesson.”

  She was horribly aware of her appearance, and of his. Since when had shabby men started to look impossibly attractive when immaculately tailored ones merely looked . . . well, immaculately tailored? Though it was not shabby men exactly—was it?—but a certain shabby man. It was really very puzzling.

  There were sounds of protest from the art pupils, even, surprisingly, the boys. Joel held up one hand, palm out, and pushed himself away from the doorframe.

  “Dancing?” he said. “It has not been taught here since Miss Rutledge’s days. Most of you will not even remember her. But everyone should know how to dance. Among other things, it is an art form. A dancing lesson can conceivably be considered an art class. Let it proceed, then, and I will lend my support to Miss Westcott.”

  The children cheered and Camille wished she had realized before she started that knowing how to dance was somewhat different from knowing how to teach dancing. There was so much to teach. There were the steps and the figures, of course, but there were also things like daintiness and grace and the correct positioning of one’s head and hands to consider, and even the expression upon one’s face. And it was different for boys and girls. This could well be her biggest failure in two weeks of dubious successes—except that the children were obviously enjoying themselves enough to want to continue. And younger children and housemothers and even Roger and Miss Ford kept poking their heads about the door, smiles on their faces.

  After Joel had explained that when he learned to dance they had all moved about with great enthusiasm and a bounce in their steps and no regard for style or grace, the process became easier and far more fun. He taught the boys the steps. Camille taught the girls. Together they pushed and prodded and led and coaxed and bullied and applauded the class into performing a dance that had some sort of resemblance to the Roger de Coverley. And since everyone ended up flushed and bright eyed and clamoring for more lessons and different dances another day, Camille supposed they had achieved some success after all.

  She dismissed school early rather than herd everyone back to the schoolroom for a mere half hour. She thanked Ursula for playing the pianoforte and went back to the schoolroom to tidy up. Joel followed her there.

  “Is this not the final day of your two-week trial?” he asked.

  “It is.” She half grimaced. “Miss Ford told me during luncheon that if I wish to stay for the next twenty years or so she will put no obstacle in my way. Is it because no one else has applied for the position, do you suppose?”

  “What I suppose,” he said, “is that it is because you are an excellent teacher and the children love you.”

  “I cannot imagine why,” she said, straightening the books in the bookcase. “I seem to have brought nothing but chaos to the schoolroom. And I have no idea what I am doing.”

  He grinned at her. “Have you heard of the waltz?” he asked.

  “The waltz?” She frowned. “Of course.”

  “Have you danced it?” he asked.

  “Of course.”

  “It is said to be both risqué and hopelessly romantic,” he said. “Which is it, in your estimation? Or is it both?”

  She had never considered it particularly romantic. But then, she had never found anything romantic. Romance was not for the likes of people like Lady Camille Westcott. She had never found it risqué either. If it was danced properly, with the emphasis upon grace and elegance, then it was a perfectly unexceptionable dance. Her partners had always been chosen with great care, of course. She had waltzed a number of times with Viscount Uxbury, and no one was more proper than he—until, that was, he had begun calling her a doxy. Was that what he had called her, she wondered, when Avery and Alexander had chucked him out of the ball in London?

  “Or is it neither?” Joel asked when she did not immediately reply.

  “I believe,” she said, “it could be the most romantic dance ever conceived.”

  “Could?” he said. “But it never has been in your experience?”

  “I did not look for romance on the ballroom floor,” she told him.

  “Or anywhere else?” He was leaning back against the teacher’s desk, his arms crossed. He was almost always relaxed and leaning, arms crossed. Was that part of his appeal—his total lack of formality and studied elegance?

  “Or anywhere else,” she said severely. “You have never seen the waltz performed?”

  “I had never even heard of it until recently,” he said. “Teach me.”

  What?

  “Here?” she said. “Now? But there is no music and there are desks everywhere. Besides . . .”

  “The desks ar
e easily disposed of,” he said, and to Camille’s dismay he started to push them aside to create something of a space in the center of the room. “The music should be easy to provide. You have a voice, do you not?”

  “I do,” she said. “But no one, having once heard it, has ever pressed me to favor any gathering with a solo.”

  “A fair warning,” he said. “But there is no gathering of people here. You must know a tune that would fit the waltz.”

  “Must I?” He was not going to let this go, was he?

  He strode to her side, took the book she was holding from her hands, replaced it any-old-where on a shelf, and held out a hand for hers. “Madam,” he said, “will you do me the great honor of waltzing with me?” And he made her a tolerably elegant leg, scuffed boots and all—boots for waltzing?—and bowed with a flourish.

  “You sound like something out of the last century,” she told him. “I expect to see lace and frills and a powdered wig and buckled shoes.” But she set her hand in his, and with the greatest reluctance allowed herself to be led onto the cleared space.

  “All that remains,” he said, flashing his grin at her again, “is for you to teach me how to do it.”

  “It is relatively easy,” she said doubtfully, “but first you have to know how to . . . hold me.” She took his right hand and set it against the back of her waist before placing her left hand on his shoulder. She set her other hand within his and raised them to shoulder height. “There must always be space between us, not too much or we cannot move together with any symmetry, but not so little that we touch anywhere but where we are already touching.” She moved half a step closer to him, arching her spine slightly so that she could look up at him.

  Good heavens, why had she not simply said a firm no? She suddenly remembered his telling her yesterday afternoon that he would never abandon a woman he had impregnated—or their child. She did not believe she had ever heard that word spoken aloud before—impregnated. She had been shocked right down to her toes, and she was shocked again now. She glared at him as though the words had only just come out of his mouth.