Someone to Hold

by Mary Balogh

  Camille, what happened to you must surely have been the very best thing that could possibly have happened.

  . . . I wonder if the advent of Anna into your life was in its way as much of a blessing as her advent into mine has been.

  Two very different men, saying essentially the same thing—that the greatest catastrophe of her life was perhaps also its greatest blessing.

  “Ah,” Avery said, “the lovelorn swain if I am not mistaken.”

  She glanced up at him inquiringly and then ahead to where he was looking. Joel was outside the orphanage.

  “The what?” she said, frowning.

  But Joel had spotted her and was striding toward her along the pavement. He looked a bit disheveled as well as shabby.

  “There you are,” he said when he was still some distance away. “At last.”

  * * *

  Joel had been to an early church service but had decided to spend the rest of the day at home. He felt the urge to work despite the fact that it was Sunday. He was ready to paint Abigail Westcott. He could not literally do that, of course, because first he would have to pose her in the right clothes and with the right hairstyle and in the right light and setting. He would do that one day in the coming week if her time was not too much taken up with the visit of her family. But he could and would work on a preliminary sketch.

  This was different from all the other sketches he did of his subjects. They were fleeting impressions, often capturing only one facet of character or mood that had struck him. In them he made no attempt to achieve a comprehensive impression of who that person was. The preliminary sketch was far closer to what the final sketch and then the portrait would be. In it he attempted to put those fleeting, myriad impressions together to form something that captured the whole person. Before he could do it, however, he had to decide what the predominating character trait was and how much of each of the others would be included—and, more significantly, how. He had to decide too how best to pose his subject in order to capture character. It was a tricky and crucial stage of the process and needed a fine balance of rational thought and intuition—and total concentration.

  He started it on Sunday morning rather than observe the day of rest because he was sick of the fractured, tumbling thoughts brought on by the various events in the last couple of weeks and wanted to recapture his familiar quiet routine. And soon enough he was absorbed in the sketch.

  He wanted to paint her seated, straight backed but leaning slightly forward, gazing directly out at the viewer as though she were about to speak or laugh at any moment. He wanted her face slightly flushed, her lips slightly parted, her eyes bright with eagerness and . . . Ah, the eyes were to be the key to the whole thing, as they often were in his portraits, but more than ever with her. For everything about her suggested light and cheerfulness and the joyful expectation that life would bring her good things and an eagerness to give happiness in return. Even the eyes must suggest those things, though they must do a great deal more than that. For he must not give the impression that she was just a pretty, basically shallow girl who knew nothing about life and its often harsh realities. In the eyes there must be the vulnerability he had sensed in her, the wistfulness, the bewilderment, even the pain, but the essential strength of hope in the power of goodness to overcome evil—or, if perhaps those words were too strong for what he sensed in so young a girl, then the power of light to overcome darkness.

  Had he sensed correctly? Were there the depths of character in her that he thought there were? Or was she just a sweet girl who had suffered some sadness in the past few months? He had talked with her for a number of hours. He had made numerous sketches. He had observed her last evening at dinner. He knew a lot of facts. But ultimately, as always, he must sketch and paint from intuition and trust that it was more true than all the facts he had amassed. Facts missed a great deal. Facts missed what lay beneath the facts. Facts missed spirit.

  He felt a great tenderness for Abigail Westcott—as he did for all his subjects. For there was nothing like the process of painting someone’s portrait to help one know the person from the inside, and knowing, one could not help but feel empathy.

  He had just finished the sketch and taken a step back from his easel in order to look upon it with a little more objectivity when a knock sounded upon the door and startled him back to reality. He had no idea what time it was, but he did know that when he became immersed in his work, hours disappeared without a trace and left him feeling that surely he had started only minutes ago. His stomach felt hollow, a sure sign that he must have missed a meal by more than an hour or two. Perhaps it was Marvin or Edgar, come to rescue him and drag him off to eat somewhere.

  It was neither. The man who was standing outside his door was a stranger, an older man of firm, upright bearing and severe, handsome countenance. He carried his hat in his hand. His dark hair was silvered at the temples.

  “Mr. Joel Cunningham?” he asked.

  “Yes.” Joel raised his eyebrows.

  “Your neighbor below answered the door to my knock,” the man explained, “and suggested that I come up.”

  What Edgar ought to have done, Joel thought, was call him down. Obviously he had judged the man to be respectable enough to let in.

  “I explained,” the man said as though reading his thoughts, “that I am a solicitor and have personal business of some importance with you.”

  “On a Sunday?” Joel said.

  “The matter is something of a delicate one,” the man said. “May I come in? I am Lowell Crabtree of the legal firm of Henley, Parsons, and Crabtree.”

  Joel stood to one side and gestured the man in. He led the way to the living room and offered him a seat. He began to have a horrible premonition.

  “I am the solicitor in charge of the estate of the late Mr. Adrian Cox-Phillips,” Crabtree said. “I understand that you have already been apprised of his sad passing yesterday morning.”

  “I have,” Joel said, sitting opposite him.

  “It is my usual practice,” the solicitor said, “to read a will to the family after the deceased person has been laid to rest—on Tuesday in this particular case.”

  So soon? Joel frowned. He had decided last night that he would try to find out when the funeral was to be and attend, though he would not make himself known to any other mourners. He did not imagine that Viscount Uxbury would take any notice of him.

  “It was Mr. Cox-Phillips’s wish,” Crabtree explained, “that he be laid to rest as quickly as possible and with as little fuss as possible. He has . . . three surviving relatives, all of whom are currently staying at his house. Two of them have been particularly insistent that I not wait until after the funeral to read the will. They need to return to their busy lives as soon as they have paid homage to their relative.”

  Joel read some disapproval into the stiffness of the man’s manner.

  “They have insisted that I read the will tomorrow morning,” Crabtree said. “My senior partners have seen fit to persuade me to agree, though Monday—especially Monday morning—is an inconvenient time, coming as it does after Sunday, which I have always observed quite strictly as the Sabbath with Mrs. Crabtree and our children. However, Monday morning it is to be. Mr. Cox-Phillips extracted a promise from me when I conducted business with him a few days ago. He instructed me to find and speak to you privately before I read the will to his relatives.”

  Joel’s sense of foreboding grew stronger. “To what end?” he asked, though the question was doubtless unnecessary. Having said so much, the solicitor was hardly about to stop right there and take his leave. “Although related to Mr. Cox-Phillips, I am merely the bastard son of his niece.”

  Crabtree drew some papers out of a leather case he had with him, rustled them in his hands, and looked with solemn severity at Joel. “According to his will,” he said, “generous pensions are to be paid to certain of his servants who have
been with him for many years, and similarly generous payments are to be made to the others. A sizable sum has been left to an orphanage on Northumberland Place to which he has made large annual donations for almost thirty years past. The rest of his property and fortune, Mr. Cunningham, including his home in the hills above Bath and another in London, which is currently leased out, has been left to you.”

  There was a buzzing in Joel’s ears. It had never occurred to him . . . Good God.

  “But I refused,” he said. “When he offered to change his will in my favor, I refused.”

  “But he changed it anyway,” Crabtree said. “I cannot put an exact monetary value on your inheritance at the moment, Mr. Cunningham. This has all been rather sudden and I will need to work upon the matter. I suggest you come into my office one day this week and I can at least give you some idea of where your investments lie and what their approximate worth is likely to be. But it is a sizable fortune, sir.”

  “But my great-uncle’s relatives?” Joel asked, his eyebrows raised.

  “I believe,” the solicitor said, a certain note of satisfaction in his voice, “that Viscount Uxbury, Mr. Martin Cox-Phillips, and Mr. Blake Norton will be disappointed. It is altogether possible that one or more of them will contest the will. However, they will be further disappointed if they do. Mr. Cox-Phillips was careful to choose six highly respectable men to witness the signing of his new will. They included his physician, the vicar of his parish church, and two of his closest neighbors, one of whom is a prominent Member of Parliament, while the other is a baronet, the sixth of his line. Yet another is a judge whose word not even the boldest of lawyers would dream of questioning.”

  Mr. Crabtree did not linger. Having delivered his message, he rose, shook Joel by the hand, expressed the hope of seeing him soon at his office, wished him a good day, and was gone.

  Joel locked the door behind him, went back into the living room, and stood at the window looking out but seeing nothing, not even the departure of the solicitor along the street. No, it had not once occurred to him that his great-uncle would go ahead with his plan to cut his legitimate relatives out of his will even after he, Joel, had told him in no uncertain terms that he had no wish to be used as a pawn in a game of spite.

  He had done it anyway.

  His great-uncle had been contributing to the orphanage for almost thirty years. Twenty-seven to be exact? That was Joel’s age. Why? His grandmother had always supported him there.

  Was it just spite against those other three that had determined him to change his will in Joel’s favor?

  Why had he not made himself known a long time ago?

  Shame?

  Why had he summoned Joel to tell him about the planned change? And had he just made up that story of wanting to thumb his nose so to speak to three men who had never shown any affection for him apart from his money? Had his real reason been a wish to leave everything to a closer relative, grandson, albeit an illegitimate one, of his sister, of whom he had clearly been fond? At the very end had he not been able to resist taking a look at Joel just once before he died? Joel remembered standing for what had seemed a long time in that shaft of sunlight while the old man’s eyes moved over him from head to foot, perhaps looking for some likeness to his sister or his niece.

  It was too late to ask the questions. There was the soreness of unshed tears in Joel’s throat.

  His first instinct had been to repudiate the will, to tell Crabtree that he still did not want anything, that he would not accept what he had been left. Would it have been possible? The answer did not matter, though, for he had found on more honest reflection that after all he did not want to refuse.

  That house was his. Apparently there was another in London. He did not know the extent of the fortune he had inherited, but the solicitor had said it was sizable. Joel had no idea what sort of amount comprised a sizable fortune, but even a few hundred pounds would seem vast to him. He suspected there would be more than that. Thousands, perhaps?

  He was rich.

  And who did not, in his heart of hearts, wish for a windfall to come his way just once in his lifetime? Who did not secretly dream of all he could have and all he could do with an unexpected fortune?

  He and Anna—and the other children too—had played the game numerous times during their growing years. What would you do if someone gave you ten pounds, a hundred pounds, a thousand pounds, a million pounds . . .

  And thinking of Anna led him to thinking of Camille. And suddenly he felt the overwhelming, almost panicked need to see her, to tell her, to . . . He did not stop to analyze. He grabbed his hat and his key and left his rooms without looking back. He remembered when he was crossing the bridge that she had been going up to the Royal Crescent this afternoon to visit her mother. Would she be back yet? Would she stay there for dinner? Perhaps for the night?

  She was nowhere in the orphanage, and no one knew with any certainty when she would be back, though she had said nothing about not returning tonight. He paced the pavement outside for a few minutes, wondering if he should go up to the Crescent to speak with her there or just go home. It would be thought most peculiar if he went up there, and he might miss her if she came home by a different route from the one he took. He was still undecided when she turned onto the street. Joel hurried toward her, not even noticing that she was not alone.

  “There you are,” he said, his whole being flooded with relief. “At last.”

  Eighteen

  “He took no notice of what I said,” Joel said, grabbing both of Camille’s hands and squeezing tightly. “He did it anyway.”

  Camille looked her inquiry while she returned the pressure of his hands. But, strangely, she knew exactly what he was talking about.

  “He has left everything to me,” he blurted, “apart from a few bequests to faithful servants and to the orphanage, Camille, to which he has been donating annual sums my whole life. Good God, he has left me everything.” At which moment he became aware of Avery, who was standing quietly beside her. “I beg your pardon. I did not see you there.”

  “Dear me,” Avery said faintly. “Am I to understand that you have just inherited Cox-Phillips’s fortune? Allow me to felicitate you.”

  “You do not understand,” Joel said, his hands sliding away from Camille’s. “When he informed me at our first meeting a few days ago that he intended changing his will in my favor, I refused the offer quite adamantly.”

  “Cox-Phillips informed you? You refused his offer?” Avery said. Inevitably his quizzing glass had found its way into his hand, though he had not raised it quite to his eye. “Rich and powerful men do far more telling than asking, my dear fellow. In many cases it is why they are rich and powerful.”

  “It did not occur to me,” Joel said, “that he would not take me at my word.”

  “Joel,” Camille said, “I am so sorry.”

  Avery’s quizzing glass swung in her direction, all the way to his eye this time. “Extraordinary,” he said. “It must run in the family. You refused a share of your father’s fortune a few months ago, Camille, as did Harry and Abigail; Anna would have refused the whole of it if she had been able; now you are commiserating with this poor man because he has just inherited a fortune. It is enough to make me quite rejoice that no Westcott blood runs in my veins—though some will in my children’s veins, I recall.”

  “I beg your pardon,” Joel said again. “Had I seen you, Netherby, I would not have blurted my news as I did.”

  “And I have the distinct impression that my continued presence here as my stepcousin’s escort would be decidedly de trop,” Avery said. “I shall assume she has been delivered safely home and take myself off.” He proceeded to do just that without another word, returning the way they had come.

  “It must seem peculiar,” Joel said, frowning after him, “that I did not even notice he was with you.”

  “I am flatte
red,” Camille told him. “Avery usually draws all eyes wherever he goes. It is that extraordinary sense of presence he has cultivated. Everyone else might as well be invisible. But that’s not what’s important now. Joel, how do you know about the will?”

  “Those three kinsmen of my great-uncle’s have insisted that the will be read tomorrow morning,” he told her, “even before the funeral on Tuesday. But he left specific instructions that his solicitor seek me out beforehand and inform me privately of the contents of the will rather than summon me to the official reading. Perhaps he hoped to spare me any unpleasantness my presence might arouse.”

  “One could only wish,” Camille said, “that my father’s solicitor had exercised similar discretion.”

  “Mr. Crabtree—my great-uncle’s solicitor, that is—came to my rooms this afternoon,” Joel told her, “even though it is Sunday.”

  “So the other three will not know until tomorrow morning,” she said.

  “No.” He frowned. “I do not imagine they will be thrilled. But Crabtree assured me that if they try to contest the will, they will not succeed.”

  “I do wish I could be hidden somewhere in that room tomorrow,” she said, “as Anastasia was hidden in the branches of a tree in Hyde Park on the morning of the duel. I wish I could see Viscount Uxbury’s face when the will is read. Are you very unhappy about inheriting?”

  He hesitated for a few moments. “I am almost ashamed to admit it,” he said, “but I do not believe I am.”

  Anastasia grew up at this orphanage, Camille thought, glancing ahead at it, and had recently discovered that she was sole heiress to great wealth. Joel grew up here and had just discovered that he was sole heir to a fortune. What were the odds? They must be millions to one—perhaps billions. Or perhaps not. It was, after all, an orphanage at which a number of the children were supported by rich benefactors, mothers, fathers, or other relatives. It had happened, anyway. She, on the other hand, had gone in quite the opposite direction. But she was not about to sink into self-pity.