Someone to Hold

by Mary Balogh

  “Then I am happy for you,” she said, even as she realized that everything would change now, that she was probably about to lose this newfound friend whom she had only just begun to think of as such.

  His eyes searched her face. “It has turned into a lovely day after all,” he said, glancing upward at blue sky, from which all the morning’s clouds had disappeared. “Shall we go for a walk? Or have you walked enough already? You have just come from the Royal Crescent, I suppose. But . . . along by the river? It is not far and there are some seats there.”

  “Very well,” she said, and they made their way past the orphanage. But instead of crossing the Pulteney Bridge when they came to it, they turned down onto the footpath to stroll beside the river, past the weir, which was like a great arrowhead across much of its width, in the direction of Bath Abbey. The sun sparkled off the water and beamed warmly down upon them. A few ducks bobbed on the surface of the river. Children darted and whooped along the path, their accompanying adults coming along behind them at a more sedate pace. A couple of children on the other side were pulling a toy boat on a string parallel to the bank. Two elderly men occupied the first seat they passed. One of them was tossing bread crumbs to the ducks. A middle-aged couple vacated the next seat just before they reached it, and they sat down.

  “You really are quite happy with what has happened, then?” Camille asked, almost the first words either of them had spoken since they had started to walk.

  “It is very base of me, is it not?” he said. “I rejected what I thought was an offer a few days ago because I did not want to be used as a pawn in a game of Cox-Phillips’s devising and because I abhorred the idea of allowing my affections to be bought when I would have given them freely and gladly all through my boyhood. He left everything to me anyway. I do not know why, and I never will know now. My first reaction this afternoon was horror and denial. But I must confess it was only a momentary reaction. Then reality struck me—I was rich. I am rich. At least, I believe I am. Crabtree could not tell me how large the fortune is, but he assured me it is sizable, and it includes that mansion on the hill and even a house in London. How could anyone resist a fortune when it is thrust upon him? I keep thinking of how it might change my life—of how it will change my life.”

  He was leaning forward on the seat, his forearms resting on his thighs, his hands dangling between, gazing at the river, his expression intent. Camille could sense his leashed excitement and felt somehow chilled despite the heat of the sun. Yes, his life would change, and he would change. There was no doubt about it.

  “I could live in that house if I chose,” he said, “with servants. And with a carriage of my own. I could go to London. I have a house there, though it is leased at the moment. London. I could see it at last. I could go to Wales or Scotland. I could go to Wales and Scotland, and all over the world. I could cut back on portrait painting and paint more landscapes just for myself.”

  “You could buy yourself a new coat and new boots,” she said.

  He turned his head sharply toward her as though he had just remembered she was there. “You resisted a fortune,” he said. “Or one quarter of a fortune at least. How did you do it, Camille, when the alternative was penury?”

  It would not really have been taking charity, would it? Her father had made a will after Anastasia’s birth but had neglected to make another during the twenty-five years that followed. He had always acted as though they were his legitimate family, Mama and she and Harry and Abby, though he had never displayed any real love for any of them. Perhaps he had come to believe it. Surely he had intended to see them well provided for. Perhaps he had forgotten the earlier will. Or perhaps he had always meant to make another but had never got around to doing it. Or . . . perhaps he had deliberately enjoyed the joke of what was bound to happen after his death. Who knew? But surely Anastasia was being fair, not merely charitable, in her belief that the four of them should share the part of his property and fortune that was not entailed. They might have accepted without feeling unduly beholden to her.

  “I was not the only one concerned, you see,” she said. “Harry lost far more than I. He was the Earl of Riverdale, Joel. He was fabulously wealthy. He had been brought up to just the sort of life he had begun to live. He would have lived up to his responsibilities even though he was still sowing some rather wild oats. Everything, the very foundation of his life, was snatched away. And my mother lost far more than we did. She had married well and fulfilled her duties as countess and wife and mother for more than twenty years before everything, even her name, was taken away. And, quite unfairly, she had to bear the guilt of having given birth to three illegitimate children. She was left with nothing, though she did tell us today that the dowry my grandfather gave my father when she married has been returned with all the interest it has accrued. She will be able to live independently, though modestly, after all. I suspect it was Anastasia rather than her solicitor who thought of that way of helping us. Even Abby lost more than I. She was to make her come-out in society next spring with all the bright prospects that would have offered for her future. Instead she has had her youth taken from her and all her hopes.”

  “Hope is something that lights her eyes from within,” he told her. “She has not given it up, Camille. Perhaps she is fortunate to be so young. She will adjust her hopes to her circumstances. And youth has not been taken from her. She exudes youthfulness.”

  He was looking very directly at her, his head turned back over his shoulder. She was going to miss him, she thought, and berated herself for having allowed herself to become attached to him in so short a time. Was she that needy? Of course, there was the complication that she had lain with him and that she had enjoyed the experience and that he was powerfully attractive.

  “You are an incredibly strong person, Camille,” he said. “But sometimes you build a wall about yourself. You are doing it now. Is that the only way you can hold yourself together?”

  She was about to utter an angry retort. But she was feeling weary. Her feet were sore. “Yes,” she said.

  His eyes continued to search her face. “Yet behind the wall,” he said, “you are amazingly tenderhearted. And loyal hearted.”

  A little boy dashed past at that moment, bowling a metal hoop and making a great deal of noise. A woman—his governess? his mother?—called to him from some distance behind to slow down.

  Camille felt a bit like crying. It was becoming an increasingly familiar feeling, as though the tears she had not shed from the age of seven until a week or so ago were determined to make up for lost time.

  Joel sat back so that his shoulder was touching hers, and looked out toward the river. “Or,” he said, “I could sell the houses, invest all the money somewhere, and forget about it. Would it be possible? Would it always be there, beckoning and tempting me? Or I could give it all away. But would I then forever regret having done so? What do you think, Camille? Do you ever regret having said no?”

  Did she? She had never allowed herself to think about it. But the thought had seeped in anyway, specifically the realization that she had turned her back on more than just the money. She would not easily forget that fleeting look of yearning on Anastasia’s face earlier when Camille had congratulated her on being with child. And she would not forget Avery’s scold as they walked down the hill on the way home—and that was what it had been. And she would not forget Alexander’s suggestion that she allow herself to be loved. Was that what the money meant to Anastasia? Love? Was that what she, Camille, had rejected?

  Joel turned his head again when she did not immediately answer. Their faces were very close—uncomfortably close. His eyes looked intensely dark beneath the brim of his hat. “An honest answer?” he said.

  “I do not regret this road of self-discovery I am on,” she said, “though it is incredibly painful.”

  “Is it?” His eyes dropped to her lips.

  “You will feel pain too
,” she told him. “Being forced out of the life one has always led without any great deal of introspection is painful. Most people never have to do it. Most people never really know themselves.”

  “And you know yourself now?” His eyes smiled suddenly beneath the brim of his hat. “You did not on the day we went to Sally Lunn’s. You told me so.”

  She knew something then with mind-shattering clarity, and it was something that would have shocked Lady Camille Westcott to the core. She wanted him to kiss her even though they were in a horribly public place. She wanted to go to bed with him again. Was this self-knowledge? Was she promiscuous? But no. She had never wanted any such thing with any other man and could not imagine ever doing so. And what did that tell her about herself?

  “I am learning,” she said.

  His gaze did not shift. It was most disconcerting, but she would not lean away from him or look away either. She was no longer that prim, oh-so-correct aristocrat. It was a beautiful day and she was sitting by the river on a public path with a man she desired in a most shocking way, but she would not feel either shocked or ashamed. Even though he was going to change and move into a world where she could not follow. She had guarded her feelings all her life, and where had it got her?

  His lips touched hers very briefly before he seemed to remember where they were and sat back again, his shoulder against hers. The boy with the hoop came roaring back along the path, the same female calling plaintively to him from behind. A mother duck was gliding across the river, five ducklings coming along behind her in a slightly crooked line. An infant squealed with delight and pointed at them while she bounced astride her father’s shoulders and her mother held a hand behind her lest she pitch backward.

  “Joel,” Camille said, “take me home with you.”

  * * *

  He ought not to have done it, of course, but how could he have said no when it had been what he wanted too? Joel had no idea if her comings and goings had been noted by any of the neighbors on the street, but certainly this time they were fortunate inside the house. Either his fellow tenants were out, or they were occupying themselves quietly in their own rooms.

  Camille made no pretense of having come with him for any other reason than the obvious one. Having removed and hung up her bonnet and shawl, she turned into the bedchamber and looked around. He was glad he had cleaned and tidied yesterday. He had even changed the bed linen.

  She undressed herself today, methodically and efficiently, her back to him. They had scarcely exchanged a word since leaving that seat by the river. Her hair came down last. She drew out the pins, set them on the table beside his book, and shook her head. Her hair was dark and thick and shining and fell in waves almost to her waist. Despite the fullness of her figure evident through her clothes, one would never guess that she was so voluptuously beautiful. And young. In most of the personas she adopted for the outside world, she looked ageless, but certainly not youthful. Now she looked her age—she must be all of five years younger than he—and youthful and vibrant and so desirable that the blood seemed to be singing through his veins and filling him with an almost painful desire.

  She drew back the bedcovers and lay down, apparently without self-consciousness as he finished undressing and joined her on the bed. She turned onto her side and reached for him. She had been a virgin the first time, of course, and somewhat passive, though not by any means cold or shrinking. Today she made love with a fierce abandon that he soon matched, her hands, her mouth, even her teeth, all over him while he set about the wholly unnecessary task of arousing her. He rolled onto her and thrust into her far sooner than proper finesse would have dictated, but not too soon, by God. She was hot and wet and eager, and she matched him stroke for stroke with rolling hips and inner muscles and straining hands and twined legs until she cried out her release a moment before he spilled into her.

  “Camille.” He disengaged from her, moved to her side without taking his arms from about her, settled her hot, damp body against his own, and smiled as she sighed and slid into a deep, totally relaxed sleep.

  He had enjoyed regular sex with Edwina for two years or longer without ever feeling the need to examine his feelings or wonder about hers or consider his obligations. He did all three as he lay there, comfortable and sated and teetering on the brink of sleep but not quite falling asleep. She smelled of that faint fragrant soap he had noticed before—and of sweat and woman. She smelled wonderful.

  She woke up sometime later and moved her head back far enough to gaze at him. He wondered if he was in for another stinging slap across the face, but no—she was the one who had asked to be brought here for just what had happened between them. Besides, she had explained that she slapped him that other time because he had apologized and thus cheapened what for her had been a lovely experience.

  “I am not about to apologize,” he said.

  She smiled slowly. It began in her eyes and spread down to her mouth—a lazy, amused, happy smile. And oh, God, when had that ghastly Amazonian woman he remembered from a couple of weeks ago metamorphosed into this infinitely desirable woman in his arms and in his bed?

  “A pity,” she said. “I could have slapped your other cheek and evened things up a bit.”

  Camille Westcott making jokes?

  He kissed her, moving his lips warmly, lazily over hers, and by unspoken consent they made love again, slowly this time, in no hurry to get where they were going, taking their time, enjoying every moment, every touch and caress along the way. And when it came time to join their bodies, he took her on top of him, drawing her knees up to hug his hips, and penetrated her before they rode together for long minutes of pure pleasure until desire turned the ride into something more urgent and they reached the climax together. He stayed deep and she clenched tightly about him and then opened as he spilled his seed into her once more.

  He walked her home in the middle of the evening after they had eaten and talked and laughed and he had sketched her and she had pulled gargoyle faces—which he had drawn—and they had laughed more, like a couple of children, and they had made love once more, fully clothed except for essential places, on the sofa.

  They would marry, he thought as they walked. They almost certainly would even apart from the fact that three separate times he had made it more likely that he had impregnated her. But he did not ask. He was not certain of her answer. And—foolishly—he did not know how to go about it. There was a great deal of turmoil facing him in the coming days. She had her family to be concerned about for the next week. He would wait. And there was no great hurry anyway. A baby took nine months to be born, did it not?

  They said good night when they reached the orphanage, and she let herself in with her key and closed the door behind her without looking back at him. He ought to have asked anyway. But it was too late now.

  Did all men feel gauche and slightly clammy with panic when it came time to propose marriage?

  He walked home with his head down and found himself longing illogically for his old life, just a couple of weeks or so ago, when the only complications to be dealt with were a leftover love he could not quite shake off and not enough hours in the day to paint all the portraits people wanted.

  Nineteen

  Viola Kingsley, formerly Countess of Riverdale, Camille’s mother, chose to accompany her own mother and Abigail to the Pump Room on Tuesday morning. It was a courageous move, since it was the first time she had appeared to Bath society, many of whose members knew her well, since the scandal of her invalid marriage had supplied enough gossip to keep polite drawing rooms abuzz almost to the exclusion of all else for a week and more just a few months ago.

  She went because she could not hide forever and because her mother and her younger daughter had faced down the gossip before her and made her feel cowardly, and because her elder daughter had stepped out into the new world with incredible courage and determination to make it her own. She wondered how she cou
ld have given birth to such admirable children—Harry was on the Peninsula, fighting the forces of Napoleon Bonaparte and risking his life every day—and be so abjectly timorous herself, cowering in her brother’s vicarage, where she was not really needed and where she was impeding his path to happiness with a lady who deserved him.

  She was not received in the Pump Room with the flattering deference she had once commanded as a countess, but neither was she given the cut direct. A few of her mother’s friends greeted her kindly and a few others nodded politely, while some simply pretended not to have seen her. Soon, however, her former mother-in-law, the Dowager Countess of Riverdale, arrived with Matilda and Louise and Jessica. The dowager countess, having received Abigail’s bright smile and curtsy with a smile of her own, a hand beneath her chin, and a comment that she was looking as pretty as ever, linked an arm through Viola’s, leaned upon it, and joined the morning promenade about the room with her, nodding graciously from side to side as they went. Matilda and Louise came behind them, all nodding feathered bonnets and benevolent hauteur.

  Abigail, who had no young friends in Bath yet, Viola had learned since her arrival, happily made the promenade with Jessica, their arms linked, their heads bent toward each other, their smiles bright and genuine.

  When Avery and Anastasia arrived a short time later, a buzz of excitement raised the noise level in the room. Avery was not only a duke, something that would have caused a stir in itself, but he was also . . . well, he was the Duke of Netherby, and no one played the part of bored, haughty, glittering aristocrat better than he. And everyone present knew the story of his duchess, who had grown up and taught at an orphanage little more than a stone’s throw from the Pump Room until it had been discovered earlier this spring that she was the legitimate daughter of an earl and wealthy beyond belief. Her story quite cast Cinderella into the shade.