by Mary Balogh
He was feeling ridiculously nervous. He was also wishing he had sought out Camille before today. It was going to be awkward meeting her for the first time since Sunday in a public setting and surrounded by all of her family. Sunday! It seemed like a bit of a dream. Why the devil had he not gone to see her since then? He was behaving like a gauche schoolboy with his first infatuation.
He arrived five or six minutes later than the time appointed for fear of being early and so, of course, had to make something of a grand entrance, or what felt like one. The Upper Rooms were crowded and humming with conversation. He stood upon the threshold of the tearoom and looked about for familiar faces. He spotted Miss Ford first and could see that she was sitting among a group of tables occupied by the Westcotts. Anna had raised her arm to attract his attention and was smiling broadly. He made his way toward them.
The Dowager Duchess of Netherby took it upon herself to introduce him to her mother and sister, the Dowager Countess of Riverdale and Lady Matilda Westcott. Joel made his bow to both ladies, greeted everyone else, and took a seat at a table with Lady Overfield, her brother the earl, and Camille’s mother. It was only as he did so that he saw Camille for the first time. She was sitting almost back-to-back with him at the next table with Mrs. Kingsley and Mr. and Mrs. Dance. He glanced at her and opened his mouth to speak, but she was impersonating her former self today, all stiff, aristocratic formality as she inclined her head to him with haughty condescension and turned her back.
She was annoyed with him, was she? Because she regretted last Sunday? Because she wished him to know that that was then and this was now and never the twain should meet? Because he had not been to see her? Because he had not spotted her immediately when he had entered the room?
He gave his attention to the conversation at his own table and strained his ears to listen to that at the next.
It was a while later when Riverdale uttered a muffled exclamation, a frown on his face, his eyes fixed on the doorway. Joel turned his head to look. Viscount Uxbury was standing there with the two men who had been at the funeral with him. They were looking about the room for an empty table. Suddenly Uxbury’s eyes alit upon Camille, or so it seemed to Joel, and remained on her as he moved away from the other two and strolled toward her table. Other members of the family were beginning to notice him and were falling silent one by one, but he seemed not to be aware of them. He had but the one object in his sights. He stopped by Camille’s table, raised a quizzing glass to his eyes, and regarded her insolently through it.
“I wonder,” he said, “if your companions and the other respectable citizens of Bath here present realize that they are rubbing shoulders with a bastard, Miss Westcott.”
What? What the devil? Had the man been so offended by the setdown she had given him a few days ago that he was willing to breach all semblance of good manners in order to get back at her?
Uxbury had not spoken loudly, Joel realized afterward. He had not drawn a great deal of attention his way. Conversation at all but the tables occupied by their group continued as usual while cutlery tinkled cheerfully against china and white-aproned waiters bearing trays wove their way among tables. Nonetheless, Riverdale rose from his place and set his linen napkin on the table. Netherby was doing likewise at his table. So was Lord Molenor. In another minute they would have ushered the viscount outside and dealt with him there in a perfectly well-bred manner for as long as it was likely they might be observed by people arriving or leaving or passing on the street. They also, very probably, would have made an appointment to meet him privately, as Netherby had done once before in London.
Joel was not well-bred. He knew nothing of the rules that governed a gentleman’s behavior, especially in the presence of ladies. He got to his feet, took two strides forward, and smashed his fist into Uxbury’s mouth.
The viscount, taken by surprise, went down heavily in a shower of blood, grasping with one flailing hand at the tablecloth of the table behind him as he went in a vain attempt to save himself. His fall was followed by a noisy shower of crockery and cutlery and smashing glassware and cream cakes and tea. One of the cakes landed upside down on the bridge of his nose.
There were screams, shouts, general mayhem. Everyone was standing. Some were trying to escape danger. Most were craning their necks to see what had happened. Others were moving closer to get a better look. Joel flexed his stinging knuckles.
“Oh, bravo,” Riverdale said quietly beneath the hubbub.
“Very well-done,” Lady Overfield agreed.
“Dear me,” the Duke of Netherby said, and somehow—how did the man do it?—all around him fell silent and those farther back shushed others so that they could hear. “New boots, my dear fellow? They can be embarrassingly slippery for a while, I have found. Too bad that you have made such a spectacle of yourself, though I daresay you are among friends here who will make every effort to forget the whole thing and never remind you of it. Allow me to help you to your feet.”
“He must have caught his mouth on the edge of a table on his way down, Netherby,” the Earl of Riverdale said, “and knocked out a tooth. Ah, Viscount Uxbury, is it not?”
Uxbury was not unconscious. He scrambled to his feet without assistance, brushing aside Netherby’s hand as he did so. He pulled a large handkerchief out of his pocket and held it to his bleeding mouth. His face was chalky white. His two relatives had come up to him and were taking an arm each to lead him out. He went quietly after glaring at Joel and speaking to him, his voice muffled by the handkerchief.
“You will be hearing from my lawyer,” he said.
“I shall look forward to it,” Joel told him.
He was standing, he realized, almost shoulder to shoulder with Camille. He turned his head toward her, and she turned hers to him.
“Thank you,” she murmured before turning back to resume her seat. She was not the haughty aristocrat now. She was the marble lady with the complexion to match the title.
The three men left without further incident, everyone sat down again, conversation buzzed, waiters rushed about clearing debris, making up the table again with fresh linen and bringing fresh tea and food, and within minutes anyone arriving at the Upper Rooms would not have known that something very ungenteel had just happened there. Indeed, it seemed probable to Joel that many people who had been there the whole time did not realize it either. A number of conversations were probably on the topic of how dangerous new boots and shoes could be before the soles had become properly scuffed by use.
Perhaps it was as well he had been unable to purchase a ready-made pair yesterday.
“I owe you a debt of gratitude, Mr. Cunningham,” Camille’s mother said to him. “I am deeply ashamed that I once approved that young man’s courtship of my daughter.”
“I understand we are to go picnicking tomorrow, Mr. Cunningham,” Lady Overfield said. “I look forward to it enormously. I confess to a great curiosity to see your new home.”
Twenty-one
Camille was basking in the sunshine out in the garden the following morning. She was seated on a stone bench while Sarah sat at her feet, grasping blades of grass and pulling them out before looking up at Camille, thoroughly proud of herself. Winifred was sitting cross-legged on the ground, watching her. Several other children were outside, involved in various games. Everyone was enjoying the brief holiday from school, though most of the children had greeted Camille cheerfully.
She had not been invited. The family was going up to Mr. Cox-Phillips’s house, now Joel’s, this afternoon for a picnic and probably a tour of the house.
She had not been invited.
Yesterday, on her first full appearance in public, she had been called a bastard. She hugged her elbows with both hands and smiled down at the baby, whose triumphant smile displayed her two new bottom teeth. Joel, like a knight errant, had punched Viscount Uxbury in her defense. And somehow Avery’s words had covered up
the whole potential scandal, at least temporarily. It was too much to hope, of course, that absolutely no one outside their family group had seen what happened or heard the fatal words. Joel was the one who had acted, and he had drawn blood and possibly a tooth.
And then he had sat down again with Mama and Elizabeth and Alexander and continued with his tea and conversation as though nothing had happened. He had not spoken a word to her.
He had not invited her to today’s picnic.
If he had taken a horn up onto a rooftop and bellowed through it, his message could not be louder than his silence was. Well, then. She squared her shoulders and wished the bench was not quite so hard.
“I prayed every night that Sarah’s teeth would come through,” Winifred said as the baby held up her arms and Camille picked her up and set her on her lap, “and they did.”
Winifred’s occasional piety could be even more annoying than her general righteousness. But Camille smiled. “It is good to know,” she said, “that prayers are answered. She is a good deal more contented now.”
And then, suddenly, he was there, standing in front of the bench in his old coat and scuffed boots, looking down at them, a smile in his eyes. His head blocked the sun and made Camille feel chilly. And Sarah, the treacherous child, gurgled and reached up her arms again. He swung her up, held her above his head while she chuckled and drooled onto his neckcloth, and lowered her to sit on one arm.
“Good morning, ladies,” he said.
“Sarah has two teeth,” Winifred told him. “I prayed that they would come through and they did.”
“That’s the girl,” he said, patting her shoulder with his free hand. But Hannah was coming for Sarah. It was time for her feed. Winifred went inside with them. Joel stayed where he was, his eyes fixed upon Camille. “I had a note from Anna this morning. She told me you are not coming to the picnic.”
Damn Anna, Camille thought, using a shocking word in her mind she would not dream of speaking aloud. “No,” she said. “I have other things to do.”
He folded his arms and stared down at her. “I am sorry, Camille,” he said. “I have been behaving like an ass. It is just that— Well, the earth moved on Sunday. It moved more than it always does, that is. I—”
“That is quite all right,” she said. “You do not need to explain or apologize if that was your intention. Sunday was my suggestion, if you will recall, and I do not regret it in any way. It was very enjoyable. But that was the past, and it is always wise to let the past go and concentrate upon the present and as much of the future as can be reasonably planned for.”
“Damn it,” he said, “I have hurt you.”
“I would be obliged if you would watch your language,” she said, ignoring the fact that her mind had quite consciously used the same word a mere minute or so ago.
“Why will you not come?” he asked.
She looked hard at him. “I have not been invited,” she said. “In my world—in my former world that is, one does not attend events to which one has not been invited.”
He scratched his head, leaving his hair untidy. It was growing, she noticed. “Good God, Camille,” he said, “you were so central to the whole plan that it did not occur to me that you would need an invitation.”
Indignation warred with something else. She was central to the whole plan? Whatever did that mean?
“I want you to see it,” he said. “I went up there on Wednesday and saw the house and the garden. Garden is actually a misleading word. It is more like a park. And house is the wrong word too. It is huge and terribly impressive. My great-uncle may have been elderly, but nothing has been neglected and allowed to grow shabby. I still cannot believe it is mine. I still cannot imagine myself living there. But ideas went teeming through my head while I was there and I wished you were with me.”
“Not Anna?” she said stiffly.
He sighed aloud. “I did not think of her even once while I was there,” he said. “I wanted you.”
“I plan to be busy today.” She looked down sharply at her hands.
“Doing what?” he asked.
“That is not your concern,” she told him.
“Yes, it is,” he said. “There is no school today and no family. You are planning to be busy doing nothing merely to punish me. I deserve to be punished. I have been shy about coming to see you since Sunday, but I ought to have done so, especially as I wanted to come. And if I am sounding horribly confused and contradictory and idiotic, that is because I am all those things. Camille, please come.” He had stooped down on his haunches before her and reached for her hands before apparently remembering the playing, shrieking children all about them and setting his hands on his knees instead. “Please?”
He had been shy about coming?
She looked at him for long moments. “I am going home,” she said abruptly. “My mother is going back to Hinsford Manor to live—Anna has persuaded her. Abby is going with her. And so am I.” She had no idea if she spoke the truth. Surely not. But how could she stay . . .
He frowned as his eyes searched her face. “Come this afternoon anyway,” he said. “Come with your family. You have only a few days left here with them, and it is a lovely spot for a picnic. It looks as if it is going to remain a beautiful day too. Come, Camille, if not for my sake, then for theirs and yours.”
She frowned back at him and he suddenly smiled.
“But come for my sake too,” he said. “The earth really did move on Sunday. I think it did for you too.”
“I will come,” she said stiffly. “I will ask someone from the family to take me up in one of the carriages.”
He stood up. “Thank you,” he said.
But she noticed something suddenly and grabbed his right hand with both of hers. His knuckles, if not quite raw, were red enough to look sore.
“I would guess,” he said, “that his mouth looks and feels considerably worse.”
“I hope,” she said, “he really did lose a tooth.”
* * *
Judge Fanshawe had called upon Joel on Wednesday just after he returned from being measured for new clothes and boots. The judge was an elderly gentleman much bent by age and had sent his servant to summon Joel down to the street, where he stood waiting outside his carriage. He had told Joel that he had never been more offended in his life than when he discovered that Viscount Uxbury, Mr. Martin Cox-Phillips, and Mr. Blake Norton were contesting the will.
“I look forward with great glee to crushing them to powder beneath my bootheel, should they persist, which, alas, I fear they will not do when they take a closer look at the list of witnesses,” he had said. “I was one of them, and even the others are formidable. You may safely consider your inheritance your own, Mr. Cunningham.”
He had shaken Joel’s hand with a surprisingly strong grip before climbing back inside the carriage with his servant’s help and going on his way.
So, on impulse, Joel had gone up to see his new property, which he would probably sell as soon as all the business of the will had been settled. He had spoken with the butler—Mr. Nibbs—and assured him that all the servants might remain until further notice and that Mr. Crabtree would be directed to pay their salaries. Nibbs had shown him about the house before summoning the head gardener to take him through the gardens. Afterward Joel had spent another hour wandering about the house on his own. It was all far larger and more imposing than he had realized, and intimidating too. But something had happened when he had stood at last in the library behind the chair where his great-uncle had sat, his hands resting on the high back. He had felt . . . a connection, a longing, though he could put neither feeling into clear words in his mind.
His mother had grown up here. His grandparents had lived here as well as his great-uncle. He had not felt the presence of ghosts exactly, but he had felt . . . well, a connection. It was the one thing that had always been absent from his l
ife. Not that he was complaining. His life so far had been remarkably blessed, even if he omitted the happenings of the last couple of weeks. But . . .
Well, he had fallen in love. And, perhaps by an association of thought, he had wished Camille were with him. He had been fairly bursting with thoughts, ideas, needs . . .
He had informed Mr. Nibbs of Friday’s picnic and warned him that the guests would wish a tour of the house. He had asked that some chairs and blankets be carried out to the front lawn, weather permitting, and that arrangements be made for horses and carriages. He had assured the butler, however, that he had engaged the services of a caterer in Bath so that the cook and kitchen staff need not be thrown into consternation. He had not been sure they would be up to catering to a large party of aristocrats after having worked for some time with an ailing old gentleman who probably had not entertained a great deal. He had given only one other direction before he left.
“If you could arrange to have those blind-eyed busts removed from the hall as soon as humanly possible, Mr. Nibbs,” he had said, “I would be much obliged to you.”
The butler was too well-bred to smirk, but Joel would have sworn he was doing it inwardly. “I shall give the order, sir,” he had said. “They were a wedding gift to Mr. and Mrs. Cunningham, but Mr. Cox-Phillips was never overfond of them.”
And now Joel was back, pacing the terrace before the house, noting that the lawns had been freshly scythed, that five chairs had been set out in a semicircle on the lawn so that no one would have to face away from the view. There was a neat pile of blankets to one side of them. And what the devil was he doing? Joel wondered. He had no idea how to host anything more grand than an evening gathering of his male friends in his rooms. When the caterer had asked him what specifically he wanted for food and drink, he had gaped—he hoped he had not literally done so—and asked for advice. He had had enough money to pay for the picnic, but only just. His meager savings were wiped out, and he could only hope that Judge Fanshawe was correct.