by Megan Mulry
Nora followed and took both of the small, etched-crystal glasses from him. “I will bring Selina her glass, shall I?”
“Yes, thank you.” Once again, he felt like a guest in his own house. In his own castle, damn it. He poured himself a stiff whisky for his troubles and walked over to stand near the fireplace, as far away from Selina as he could get without being obvious about it. Christopher came and stood to his left and began speaking about an experiment he was working on with an element related to osmium. Within seconds, Archie was barely paying attention.
“And then I let it dry in the phial overnight to see if it would crystallize a second time and thought it would be worth bringing it back up to a boil, just to see if it happened again. I lit the burner with a strand of Selina’s beautiful blonde hair—”
He nearly choked on his whisky.
“Are you all right, dear?” Nora asked him from across the room.
“Yes. Thank you for inquiring. I’ve had a bit of a sore throat this past week. I’m better now.”
Nora nodded and resumed speaking with Vanessa and Selina.
Did she have to look so damned delectable? Of course no one would ever suspect Selina Ashby was a scheming voluptuary, the way she sat up so straight, taking only the most ladylike sips of her sherry, while she listened attentively to Vanessa’s description of the latest finds in the rare book room at Hookhams.
“You’d best put your panting tongue back in your mouth or she will have to scrape it off the floor with a shovel.” Christopher spoke mostly into his glass so no one but Archie could hear him, but he realized Christopher was right: his lips were slightly parted. He slammed his mouth shut into a firm line.
“When was the last time you saw Miss Ashby?” Christopher asked casually.
“Two weeks ago.”
Christopher burst out laughing. Again the three ladies smiled kindly in the men’s direction. He waved them off. “Archie has the driest wit.”
“He does!” Vanessa agreed. “When he was younger I thought he was being serious all the time, and then I would think over what he had said and burst out laughing ten minutes after he had left the room. He has his father’s dark sense of humor.”
Selina looked into her glass, and Archie wanted to smack it from her hands and be very dark indeed. Her beautiful, delicate hands. She obviously hadn’t been writing or doing anything productive, if her lovely hands were any indication. Perhaps she’d gone back to Rockingham to have some debauched ménage with the affianced Stroughtons these past two weeks while he’d been hunched over his bench or running his legs off in the middle of the night worrying about her and how to reconcile their friendship. He nearly growled into his glass.
“Bad whisky?” Christopher asked.
“No. The liquor is fine.”
“You might start by talking to her. She’s sitting right there.” Christopher took a meditative sip. “And she’s quite spectacular. Why didn’t you tell me she was such a beauty?”
“Is she?”
“Are you blind?”
“I think I may be when it comes to her. Let’s change the subject.”
“Oh, you are such a one for changing subjects, Lord Camburton. Very well. If you are not going to pursue her, may I?”
He had never felt a fury of such immediacy. He turned slowly, and Christopher did not laugh. He didn’t even smile.
“Ah.” Christopher shook the ice in his glass. “It’s like that, is it? Dog in the manger? If you shan’t have her, nobody shall?”
“Stop it this instant.”
Narrowing his eyes, Christopher set his drink down on the mantle. “I’m glad I’ve come after all.” He lowered his voice and spoke with near malice. “I’m going to fuck some sense into you tonight, you brilliant, stupid man.”
Archie’s stomach fell a few inches. “How dare you speak to me like that in my own drawing room?”
Christopher tilted his head to one side and gave him a collegial slap on the arm. “Someone has to. Apparently the job has fallen to me. The dinner bell’s about to ring—”
“Now see here—” He was interrupted by the gong sounding in the hall.
“Dinner is served.” Christopher winked at him, then approached Selina. Archie suddenly despised his best friend and former bedmate, as he watched him bow slightly with easy grace and offer to take Miss Ashby into the dining room.
Nora and Vanessa had also stood up at the sound of the gong, and Archie walked over to them and set out each of his arms. “Ladies?”
Vanessa kissed him lightly on the cheek. “Aren’t you the kindest gentleman in all of England?”
He began to lead them to the large formal dining room, but Vanessa tugged in another direction. “Oh, since it’s only the five of us, I asked for the meal to be set in the family dining room.”
“Of course.” He turned down the hall, and dread crept up his spine. The small round room was for intimate suppers among immediate family. He had hoped the twenty-foot table in the formal dining room would grant him a much-needed physical distance from Selina. As usual, his hopes were dashed.
Vanessa released his forearm when they entered the cozy room. The fire crackled and the round table was set for five. He did feel a moment’s pyrrhic victory when he thought he heard Selina inhale with equal displeasure at the intimacy of the room.
“How snug,” she remarked pleasantly.
“Yes,” Vanessa agreed. “I love this family room after all the crowded suppers of summer, don’t you, Archie?”
“Yes, Mother.” Especially when it’s reserved for actual family, he wanted to add sarcastically.
“Please sit here, Selina.” Vanessa pointed to the chair next to the one that Archie usually occupied. “And of course, Archie, you always sit here. Then Nora, Christopher, and I am on your other side, Selina. I am simply dying to hear what you’ve been working on. Do you think you can bear having Camburys to the left of you and Camburys to the right?”
Archie supposed she was answering truthfully when she said, “I’m certain I can bear it if I must.”
Vanessa laughed at her supposed joke. “That’s the spirit.”
If only there were one of Aunt Diana’s trapdoors beneath this lovely family table, perhaps Selina could expire in peace. As it was, she had to pretend to be jolly when she felt like weeping, had to pretend to enjoy the food when she could barely taste it, and worst of all, she had to pretend not to feel the heat of Archie’s body mere inches away from her own.
She made it through the soup course. And she was almost through with her probably delicious main course. She would beg off dessert and flee soon enough. When Vanessa asked her how she was progressing on her latest novel, she swallowed her bite of tasteless food and replied, “I’ve nearly finished.”
“You have?” Archie and Vanessa replied in unison. She smiled at Vanessa and ignored Archie. It was all she could do. The few times she had looked at him, she had wanted to ravish him, and she knew how little that appealed to him. She vowed to herself that she would get through this meal and kindly decline any future invitations from the marchioness. Which would be easy because she planned to vacate her charming cottage the next day.
“Yes. The quiet and solitude of Camburton at this time of year have provided me with the greatest inspiration. I’m writing close to twenty pages each day . . . or night . . . as the case may be.”
“Camburton is so beautiful at this time of year. Lots of long walks and contemplation in nature; that gets the muse going, doesn’t it?” Vanessa was a glutton for the creative spirit, always celebrating those around her and spurring on their achievements.
Selina laughed, and it came out sounding more bitter than she had intended. “I’m sure it is quite beautiful, but I haven’t left the confines of my cottage in two weeks.”
The table fell silent, and she realized it sounded quite odd to admit that she had been holed up in a tiny shack when all the comfort and pleasure of Camburton Castle was a stone’s throw away.
“Surely you mean that figuratively,” Vanessa suggested. “Didn’t you dine at Camburton? Didn’t you invite her to dine at Camburton, Archie?” His mother was the picture of bohemian liberty about most things, but apparently this lack of hospitality was a breach of some importance.
“Miss Ashby chose to stay in her cottage, and I did not wish to disrespect her privacy.”
Vanessa set down her knife and fork. If Selina wasn’t mistaken, Vanessa might’ve preferred to slam them down if she hadn’t been in company. “Would someone please tell me why you keep referring to Selina as Miss Ashby? As we all know, that is her family name and she dislikes it.”
Apparently, Archie didn’t know that. He looked at Selina for a brief but meaningful moment. “I beg your pardon, Selina. I didn’t know. If you’ll all excuse me. I have a terrible headache.” With that, he stood up in the middle of the main course, and left the room.
Vanessa appeared to be on the verge of exerting her maternal rank and telling her son he had not been excused, when the door closed and she exhaled. “What in the world?” She turned to Nora for guidance and found none, then to Selina. “Have you quarreled? I thought you two were such good friends? Surely you can get to the bottom of it?”
Selina stared at Vanessa, then Nora, then turned to this stranger named Christopher Joseph who seemed to have such an easy intimacy with Archie. She was jealous of the friendship and camaraderie she had spied across the drawing room—the low comments and answering smiles the two men had shared. She and Archie had almost had that.
She paused, inhaling through her nose to temper her reply. “Yes. I’m afraid we quarreled. It seems we have some differences of opinion about which . . .” She hesitated. “About which we cannot agree to disagree. I thought of leaving and sending you a letter of gratitude—”
“Gratitude! This is preposterous! What could you and Archie possibly disagree about? He worships you—”
“Perhaps that’s the problem,” she interrupted softly. “I don’t believe I measure up to his idea of me.”
“Oh.” Vanessa finally showed the beginnings of understanding.
“Well, this is all very dramatic,” Christopher said in his easy manner. “May I be excused, Lady Camburton? I believe Archie needs some sense beaten into him.”
Nora smiled. Vanessa nodded. Selina was jealous. She would very much like to beat some sense into Archibald Cambury’s hard male body.
“Mrs. White. Lady Camburton . . . Selina?” Christopher stood and bowed slightly to each of them.
“Yes, please call me Selina. And please tell Archie I’m sorry if I’ve upset him . . .”
“Yes. I will tell him.” Christopher pushed his chair back under the table and departed.
She couldn’t bear it another moment. She pulled her napkin up to her face and began to weep.
“Oh my sweet dear!” Vanessa gripped her hands together in frustration. “I am such a dunce. Nora, you should have told me something was amiss. You are so prescient about these sorts of things and I am so dim-witted.”
“It’s not for you to worry, Vanessa.” Selina tried to speak between jagged sobs. “He is your son after all . . . your wonderful son . . .” She started crying harder.
“Oh! Oh! This is terrible!” Vanessa threw her napkin on the table and stood. “You must go talk to him, Selina. That’s all there is to it!” But she looked almost laughably uncertain. “Isn’t that what she must do, Nora?”
“I think we all need a stiff drink.” Nora stood up and helped Selina do the same. “Come. Let’s get all this out.” She guided Selina down the hall and into her painting studio, which also doubled as Vanessa’s study. The two women were nearly inseparable after twenty or so years of living together, and the spacious room reflected all of their shared interests.
Nora’s easel and paints had been put away for their recent stay in London, but the smell of linseed oil and canvas still lingered after her absence. Vanessa’s desk took up much of the other side of the room. It was a large partners desk with a tooled leather inlay top and a beautiful brass lamp at the corner. The desk was neat and free of papers, but there were a few stones and feathers, as well as a small self-portrait of Nora.
“What a beautiful room.” Selina sniffed. “I don’t want to impose.”
Nora soothed her and set her down in the soft corner of a red silk chaise. “Don’t be silly. We have both longed to get to know you better and we all know the summer months tend to be a riot of activity and fun, but rarely afford us the opportunity to talk at length. Will you have a whisky?”
Selina sighed and settled into the downy back cushion. “I think that sounds heavenly.”
Vanessa sat in the chair opposite the chaise and clasped her hands together. “Now start at the beginning. From what I could see, Archie’s been mooning over you since he first saw you in June. And then I thought you might have passed the mooning phase and, well, become friends. He’s very hard to know, and so private and reserved, and you are—” Vanessa held out her hands in a gesture of all-encompassing admiration. “You are splendid! And just the person to bring him out of his shell. And since he admires you so, and you are in love with Beatrix, I assumed you would pose no threat to his . . .”
Selina began weeping again. She had held on to the thick linen serviette from dinner, finding it much more efficient than her ladylike handkerchief, which would have been soaked through by now. “I do love Beatrix, but I fear I have fallen in love with Archie. Is that so wrong? I don’t even think there is a name for it. I want us all to be together. I am beginning to fear my parents are right and I am a damaged, selfish girl who dreams up fantastical stories that make no sense to anyone but my deranged self.”
“Drink this, Selina.” Nora handed her the whisky and sat down next to her on the chaise. “You are not deranged. You are human. You have a grand capacity for love and that is not something you should be ashamed of or fearful about. But . . .” She looked into her own glass of whisky, then lifted her chin and smiled across the small distance to Vanessa. “But sometimes society sounds loud and powerful in our ears. Especially in the ears of a man like Archie—”
Vanessa leapt up and began pacing the room. “I resent that.”
Nora pursed her lips.
“Oh, I don’t resent you saying it, darling.” Vanessa circled behind the chaise and trailed her hand on Nora’s shoulder for a moment, then she scowled and kept pacing. “I raised him to be open-minded and loving, to be a good man who didn’t let society dictate his actions. Why is he behaving in this deplorable manner?”
“I think I’ve shocked him,” Selina said quietly.
“Well, I should certainly hope so! He needs to be shocked.” Vanessa stopped at the far end of the room, behind her desk, and picked up a glass paperweight from the curio shelf. “He reminds me so much of his father sometimes, all that restraint. But, oh my dear, when he would let himself be free of that, when he would let his guard down . . .” Vanessa was lost in the memory, moving the heavy glass from one hand to another. When the silence of her reminiscence had filled the room, she set down the paperweight and turned to face Nora and Selina.
“His uncle was just the same,” Nora recalled fondly. “That is how Vanessa and I first met, you know. She’d come to Spain to find the woman her brother-in-law had intended to marry, to deliver the harrowing news that both brothers had died at sea. I was not in very good shape when she found me.”
Vanessa picked up the thread of conversation. “All of that is to say that Nora and I are perfectly familiar with the species Camburton Male.”
It was delightfully typical of Vanessa to refer to her husband and the other Camburton men as if they were part of some Linnaean system.
Nora continued in her gentle way. “They need to be cracked open like one of those French bonbons with the almond inside. You need to break through that hard shell to reveal all the sweetness in the center. And that is just what you must do with Archie. You must break him, perhaps physically, but mostly i
n his mind—of the shackles of convention with which he has imprisoned himself.”
“He has seen things . . .” Selina pictured Constance at her breast and the look on Archie’s face when he saw them together. “Unforgivable things.”
“Nothing is unforgivable, dear.” Nora patted her arm. “Is it something you can share?”
Wiping her runny nose with the thick napkin, she looked from Nora to Vanessa. “I don’t know. It happened at Rockingham, and I think Archie believes it proves my guilt or some such thing, but . . . This all feels far too forward.”
Vanessa kicked off her shoes and sat back down in the comfortable armchair, tucking her stockinged feet under her legs. “Oh good! I love forward! Let me guess . . . did he walk in on you making love to another woman?”
“Vanessa!” Nora gasped.
Selina’s eyes widened, but she remained silent.
Vanessa started laughing. “Oh my dear! He did, didn’t he? You are quite certainly the best thing that could have ever happened to my son.”
Still, Selina could not let the impression rest. “In a way, that is what he thinks he saw.”
“Oh. I can tell it was not what you wished, is that it?” Again, Nora provided the gentle counterpoint to Vanessa’s bold nature.
Taking a deep breath, Selina thought about how best to describe what had happened with Constance. She ended up blurting the whole episode out in one breathless recounting, from the moment she had walked into the drawing room and seen her childhood friend, until the moment she’d threatened to tug on the bell pull and have Constance forcibly removed from the chamber.
Vanessa leapt up again, unable to quell her anger. “Haven’t I told you how infuriating this is, Nora?”
“Yes, darling, you have.”
“What exactly?” Selina asked.
Vanessa turned with her hands fisted on her hips. “This absurd notion that only men can be rapacious, that only men can use intimidation and raw sexuality to bend someone to their will. This so-called friend of yours is as much of a predator as any man who takes advantage of any young innocent woman. Of course I am disgusted with her behavior. But oh, Archie!”