by Fine, Clara
“How interesting,” Brent said, and from the expression on his face Cam could tell that he didn’t believe a word of it.
“It’s actually quite boring,” Cam said, “but I don’t mind. I like leading a quiet life.”
“Really?” The cad even had the nerve to grin at that. “Like your grandmother?”
“My grandmother?” Cam hid her rising panic with a smile. “You ask ever so many questions, Mr. Anderson. Whatever are you up to?” She said it the way Marianne would have, as though she was flirting, but she had no intention of answering any more of his questions. “What are your hobbies, Mr. Anderson? Or do you only inquire after other people?”
“I ride. I hunt.” His smile was wolfish.
He hunts. Of course he does. Now he was hunting her.
“Riding and hunting?” Cam sighed. “How predictable. You’re no more interesting than I am.” He was staring at her, so she stared back, letting some of her anger creep into her eyes.
“I think you’re very interesting,” Brent said, and he looked strangely satisfied.
Cam didn’t smile back. “I think you’re wrong.”
“Cam! Mr. Anderson. Did you miss me terribly?” Marianne had returned, her dress almost dry, though there was still a mark where the lemonade had been. Strangely enough, Cam was rather pleased to have Marianne back. As catty as Marianne was, at least she was familiar and predictable. Brent was very unsettling, and it was relieving to have Marianne there to limit his intensity.
“We could think of nothing else,” Brent said gallantly, and Marianne beamed.
“Yes, indeed,” Cam said, trying not to be miffed. She stood up, “if you’ll both excuse me, I think my Aunt Beth needs me.” There was nothing left for her to do. She had played Brent’s game long enough to confirm Caro’s story, and if she stayed any longer, she might accidentally give him one of the clues that he was searching for.
“Oh, yes dear,” Marianne said. From the glint in her eyes, Cam could tell that the redhead wasn’t sorry to see her go.
“Your aunt doesn’t seem to require any assistance at the moment,” Brent said, gesturing to where Aunt Beth stood, calmly exchanging pleasantries with an elderly couple. He didn’t want her to go. Cam would have been smug if she didn’t know that he only wanted her so that he could wring information from her. The real question was: why did he want so desperately to know? What stake did he, a stranger to Gaynor County, have in it?
“I must greet some of the other guests,” Cam said firmly, and Marianne was already waving goodbye. She bid them both farewell and could tell from the faint frown on Brent’s face that he wasn’t pleased. Good, that meant that he hadn’t learned anything useful from her yet.
Cam walked slowly away from Brent and Marianne, making an effort to appear unruffled and unhurried, even though all she wanted to do was go back to the kitchen and report to Caro and Grandma. She couldn’t leave now, though. People would notice and her Aunt Beth would never forgive her. Cam glanced around the barbecue, trying to find someone she wouldn’t mind passing a few minutes with. It was difficult. It had been difficult ever since Diana’s scandal, when people who were supposed to be her friends had turned on her swiftly and ruthlessly. Now, Cam no longer saw neighbors, but enemies. There was Missy Dalton, who had been envious of Diana since they were all children. Missy had been one of the first to start circulating rumors. Then there was Thomas Brighton, who. . . .
Ah, there was Helen. Cam quickly pushed away thoughts of the many traitors who stood on her lawn and started toward her younger sister. Helen was standing in the filtered shade of an oak tree in her cherry organdy gown. She was staring at the guests around her with an expression that matched the way Cam felt. Neither woman could help but feel like a traitor to Diana for attending the barbecue.
Cam looked over her shoulder and saw Aunt Beth glance discreetly in Helen’s direction, the faintest of frowns evident in the slight wrinkle on her brow.
“Our Aunt isn’t pleased,” Cam said.
Helen nodded, already looking chastised. “I didn’t realize how late it was.”
“What were you doing?” Cam asked, casually leading her sister away from the barbecue so that they could speak privately together.
“I was writing.” Helen said. “I meant to come back soon, but I had a very strange dream last night which I wanted to record. By the time I’d reached the bit where I woke up, the barbecue had already started. Is something wrong?” She asked Cam. She seemed to realize that Cam’s question wasn’t an idle one.
“I don’t know,” Cam said honestly. “You’re sure that’s all you were doing in the woods? You weren’t meeting anyone, were you?” Cam asked. She kept her voice so low that it was barely audible. Those were dangerous words to speak aloud, especially given Diana’s scandal.
“Meeting someone?” Helen looked stunned by the very idea. “Who would I meet?”
She had a point. Helen was popular enough, despite the fact that she was a Johnson girl, but she had never seemed particularly interested in any of her admirers. Helen wasn’t very fond of most people. She was honest and sincere, and most social interactions exhausted her.
“Very well,” Cam allowed, and turned to go. Her mind was churning.
“Why would you ask that?” Helen asked. “Something is wrong, isn’t it?”
“Don’t worry about anything,” Cam said. Of all of them, Helen was the most protected the most sheltered from the horrors of their world. “Enjoy the barbecue.” She turned to go, but Helen followed her.
“I saw you speaking to Mr. Anderson,” Helen said, walking alongside Cam.
“Yes.”
“He’s quite . . . handsome, isn’t he?” Helen said. She couldn’t even speak the word without blushing. Cam sighed inwardly. This was the girl that Aunt Beth was hoping would ruthlessly pursue the local bachelors until she made an acceptable match.
I’m sorry, Aunt Beth, but a new strategy is in order.
“I hadn’t noticed,” Cam lied.
“They say that because his family is from Philadelphia, they don’t keep any slaves. They say that their cook and maids and everyone else, that they’re all… hired. Freedmen.”
“I don’t particularly care who he has working for him,” Cam said abruptly, though that wasn’t entirely true. She and both of her sisters were closet abolitionists, and she couldn’t quite suppress the pang of admiration she felt when she heard that Brent didn’t have any slaves.
“Oh.” Helen said in surprise. “I thought it was quite admirable. I thought maybe that was why you were talking to him.”
“Do you know Mr. Anderson?” Cam asked. Helen appeared to have given a great deal of thought to their new neighbor. Then again, that wasn’t unusual. Helen liked to know every detail there was about everybody, so that she could record even the most insignificant ones in her diary.
“No. Well, we were introduced, but I haven’t spoken with him beyond that.”
“Good,” Cam said firmly. “Whatever you do, don’t answer any of his questions.” They had reached the porch of Cypress Hall, and she stared at her sister meaningfully.
The smile slid from Helen’s face. “Questions? What questions?”
“Just don’t answer them,” Cam said, turning away.
“Where are you going?”
“I’m going to lie down for a few minutes.”
“Aunt Beth won’t be happy.”
“I won’t be absent for long. I can’t be. I have to make a satisfactory appearance at the barbecue, since I have no intention of attending the ball tonight.”
Cam slipped indoors and closed the door behind her, resisting the urge to lock it. She stared at the foyer around her before sighing and climbing the stairs. Cypress Hall had been completed by Cam’s paternal grandfather Miles Johnson in 1827, just a year before his death. It was built in the Greek revival style, with tall white plaster columns and a small balcony. The dark marble that had been used to detail the façade was beautiful and expensive
, if a bit cheerless, and a shortage of windows made the interior darker than Cam would have preferred. But beyond these slight faults it was a lovely house, and the only home that Cam had ever known. She knew by heart which floorboards creaked and which were silent, and when she sat up at night completing charm bags or writing letters by the light of a single candle, she was familiar with every shadow. She could identify every sound, from the scrape of branches against the glass to the sigh of the wind as it rushed across the porch.
To the left of Cypress Hall stood the first Johnson homestead, an old brick building almost seventy years old that had been converted into a kitchen following the construction of Cypress Hall. The kitchen was the domain of Caro and Cam’s grandmother, Daphne. Cam was the only one of her sisters who regularly passed time there. Aunt Beth came out occasionally to supervise, but she seemed to sense that there was something unusual, perhaps even dangerous, about the kitchen, and she never stayed long.
Cam had just placed her hand on the knob of her bedroom door when there was a low creaking sound, and her sister Diana emerged from her bedroom. Diana was twenty-three, and though many Southern belles were thought to be past their prime at that age, Diana seemed to be getting lovelier every day. It was a shame that since her affair with Edgar and her resulting ruin she was so rarely seen, because she was still the most beautiful woman in the county. Her eyes were the same as Cam’s, but her hair was black and straight, not brown and curly. There was something darkly ethereal about her, all piercing dark eyes, black hair and deep red lips.
“Is it a pleasant barbecue?” Diana asked, lounging in her doorway. She was still wearing her dressing gown, and the darkness of her room suggested that her curtains were closed. Her state of undress was probably some form of protest against Aunt Beth, who had specifically asked Diana not to attend the barbecue.
“Not really,” Cam said honestly.
Surprisingly enough, that didn’t seem to be what Diana wanted to hear. Her eyes narrowed, and she stared at Cam hostilely. “Society is wasted on you,” she said finally. “You and Helen both,” and before Cam could answer Diana had slipped back into her room and closed the door behind her.
Cam briefly debated knocking on her sister’s door, but so far her day had been one difficult conversation after another, and she didn’t have the energy to talk to Diana too.
Diana hadn’t always been this way. It had taken her some time to recover after their mother’s death, but eventually Diana had put on a brave face and soldiered on. She was one of those people who could act happy even when she was most miserable. For most of Cam’s childhood, Diana had been bright, vivacious, the life of every party and their father’s favorite. But after Edgar Marlkress had told a few of his friends about his relationship with Diana, and they had told a few of their friends, who had told a few of their friends, and so on, Diana’s life had changed. It had become apparent that she would never be able to find a decent husband, and girls who couldn’t find decent husbands lived at home, a burden to their families. It had been difficult for Diana to make the transition from Papa’s Little Darling to Papa’s Big Burden, and while at first Diana had done her best to rise to the occasion, lately she seemed increasingly angry and resentful. Not that Cam could blame her.
Fortunately, Cam didn’t have long to dwell on her sister’s plight. Aunt Beth would expect her back downstairs soon, so Cam had just a few minutes to savor the peace and quiet of her room before she would be thrust back downstairs and forced to continue the charade.
Chapter Three
“Cam, you can wear the taffeta. You have had it for three months and haven't worn it. Don't you like it?” Aunt Beth asked from where she stood in the hall, and Cam was grateful for the lock on her bedroom door. Aunt Beth was normally the picture of propriety, but she had occasionally been known to enter her nieces’ bedrooms without knocking, if she considered her errand important enough. If Aunt Beth barged in tonight, she would see that Cam was sitting on her bed in a simple visiting dress, not dressing for the ball. Cam was waiting for everyone else in the house to go downstairs so that she could retire to the kitchen with her grandmother and Caro.
“I'm very tired. I think it's the heat,” Cam told her aunt, taking the small portrait of her mother that sat by her bedside and turning it over, as was her habit when she was lying. She hated the idea of her mother witnessing her dishonesty.
“Are you sure that's all?” Cam heard her aunt's hand on the doorknob and smiled to herself when the door refused to open.
“Quite sure. Some rest and I will be as good as new. Please don't worry on my account. I want you to enjoy the ball. You took such time and care planning it.”
“Very well,” her aunt said reluctantly, and as she turned to go, Cam just barely caught her aunt's words, “the ball wasn't for me, it’s for you girls.”
Cam experienced a sharp pang of guilt at that. Her aunt was trying so hard. Beth always had, from the day that she had first come to live with them. Elizabeth had been widowed young and made up her mind never to marry again. When her baby brother had been left with three small girls to raise, she had moved in to help care for them without a second thought.
Cam knew that her aunt tried to connect with them, tried to share her interests with them. When Elizabeth was their age, dances had excited her, so she tried to organize balls and social events for them. She had loved dresses when she was young (and still did, though as an aging widow she usually chose only the most sedate clothing for herself) and so the three of them always had the finest gowns. Diana loved pretty dresses, but couldn't wear them anywhere because she wasn't entertained anymore. Cam hated dressing up, and Helen submitted to her aunt’s grooming and then scrambled over walls or trekked through the forest in her finery. Together, the three of them left Aunt Beth at a loss.
Cam stopped at that point and put her aunt out of her mind, because she was truly starting to feel sorry for her. It was a little disturbing to feel such pity for the woman who had raised her. Within a few minutes the music began, and Cam could hear the sounds of dancing and conversation floating up the main staircase and down the hall to her bedroom, where it slipped under the door and mingled with the sounds that drifted in Cam's open window. The cheeriest of waltzes was accompanied by the hum of the cicadas and with every bout of laughter from downstairs she could hear the shrill of a cricket from some corner of her room.
Downstairs girls like Marianne were at their best, and Helen probably at her fair share of admirers too, for all that she had embarrassed the family by climbing over a wall in her haste to reach the barbecue. No one but the gossips would miss Cam, which was fine by her. She was comfortable with being the shadow upstairs.
Or in the kitchen, as the case may be, Cam thought. She stood and crossed her room to unlatch her bedroom window. The balcony that graced the front of the house could only be accessed by the three front bedrooms, which were inhabited by Cam and her sisters. With Cam’s bedroom door locked no one would know that she was missing. Aunt Beth and Helen were downstairs, preoccupied with the dance, and Diana was likely still brooding. Cam opened her window, carefully swung one leg over the sill, and then climbed out onto the balcony. Night had fallen outside, so it was unlikely that she would be seen, but Cam kept her head down anyway as she crept across the balcony.
***
The middle Johnson sister was not at the ball. Brent was surprised by how disappointed he was. He'd been rather interested to see her at a ball: how she behaved, how she danced, how many men she danced with. . . He'd been especially curious about the men. As it was there were only been the usual suspects there, the same girls that he had been dancing with for two months. There were plenty of girls who were interested and just as many mothers trying to foist off their daughters on him. He managed to avoid Marianne, which was a miracle in itself, because for a girl who liked to act silly and scatterbrained she was as tenacious as a bulldog.
He did dance once with Helen Johnson. Meeting Cam had made him curious about
her sisters. The eldest one was nowhere to be found, but Helen was actually quite popular. She reminded him strongly of Cam in some ways, but was very different in others. She had the same carefully balanced gaze, and her answers came readily, almost too easily. It was as if she expected to be interrogated and so already had a very detailed cover story planned. She smiled more than Cam and was a little shyer. She lacked the challenge that Cam had in her eyes, but when she laughed, she laughed heartily, especially when Brent inquired about her sister.
“I've heard that Miss Camilla is indisposed?” He asked. It was a little improper to inquire about a lady's indisposition, but Cam hadn't looked like the sickly sort and he was curious.
“Oh?” Helen's eyes danced, “Well, I'm sure that's the story,” she laughed, and Brent wondered if Cam sounded that way when she laughed. It was hard to imagine her laughing, but he'd like to see it.
Yes, well, you'd also like to know what they're hiding, he reminded himself, but you're going to have to settle for one or the other, and your brother...
The thought of his brother at home, hovering over his dying wife, was enough to put him out of the dancing mood. He excused himself in between the fourth and fifth dance and stepped out onto the porch. It was still hot enough to snatch the breath from his lungs, though the sun had been down for more than an hour, but there was a warm wind, and that was better than the stifling interior of the ballroom.