Down that path lay danger to her immortal soul. If she were a better person, she’d accept what she ought to be with a glad heart. But there were times Camilla quite resented her immortal soul.
Sometimes, Rector Miles spoke of the conflict between good and evil as if an angel and a devil stood, one on each shoulder, whispering suggestions. For whatever reason, Camilla had been assigned an entire regiment of devils. And her angel was—at best—defective. Still, it tried its best.
“There will always be people who donate to the church,” Bishop Lassiter was saying. “They’ll do so loudly, to appear virtuous to those around them. Mrs. Martin is no different. Trouble is always possible, but we should handle her as we have all the others.”
It was sobering. Camilla had to find her virtue elsewhere—in overheard conversations, perhaps. Camilla laid the scones in a straight line and made sure the jam and clotted cream had not spilled from their containers.
Trouble was always possible, and here she was, trying to justify her choices once again.
“But,” Rector Miles said, “she’s demanding—”
“Don’t give in.”
That was what Camilla had to remember. Her first impulse was wicked; her second no better. She usually didn’t start questioning if she was on the right path until ten minutes later, when she’d already made a fool of herself. At least now she was questioning what she was doing, even if it took her some time. That was improvement, was it not? She had just met Mr. Hunter. She had no business flirting with him.
One last check of the little cakes, and she nodded.
“We have official policy in place precisely for times such as these,” Bishop Lassiter said. “We cannot disclose the information she requests for reasons of parishioner privacy. It’s that simple.”
Camilla set the tray of sandwiches in front of the men with a flourish.
Bishop Lassiter stared at the silver tray, at the attractive display of sandwiches, then raised his head to contemplate her. He blinked and frowned, as if seeing her for the first time. “Girl. What are you doing here?”
“Me?” Camilla had thought that putting out tea things was self-explanatory. “Sandwiches, Your Grace?”
“She’s just laying out the tea, Lassiter,” Rector Miles said.
The bishop glared at Camilla as if she’d done something terribly wrong. As if he could intuit the legion of demons on her shoulder, urging her on to sin.
Oh look, whispered one of those demons. Here’s a man you have no inclination to flirt with. How bad can you be?
Horrible. She was absolutely horrible. Camilla ducked her head to hide her wicked smile. “My apologies.”
“Camilla,” Rector Miles said, a little harshly. “I think you have enough to do without dawdling over the scones. Get on with you.”
“Yes. Of course.” She curtsied again, then darted away. Stupid devils. She was going to be good, so good.
All she had to do was not flirt for the next few days. How hard could that be?
* * *
The servants’ table at dinner was a crowded affair. It did not bring back Adrian’s happiest memories to be seated at benches belowstairs, the air smelling of onions and yeast, packed thigh-to-thigh with the other servants.
The looks the other servants gave him were all too familiar—uncertain at best, suspicious at worst. The questions were no better—where are you from?
The footman who asked was unwilling to accept Bristol as the answer, even though it was the truth.
The fact that Adrian was, essentially, lying about his family made the endeavor even more fraught. He had never been particularly good at lying. The faster Adrian figured out what Lassiter was about, the sooner he could drop this stupid disguise and get back to his life.
It was, as his uncle had said, something to do with money. He was sure of it now. It was always something to do with money. Money made idiots of men.
The money didn’t make sense in Rector Miles’s household, either, and that always set off little alarms ringing in his head. Two maids, a housekeeper, a cook, two footmen—that was an utterly massive staff for a single widowed rector. Then there was the china upstairs, the sheets—brand new everywhere, turned just once even for the servants, the food—
“My apologies,” the cook was saying, “it’s nothing but potatoes and cheese. We’d no notice of visitors, and this was the best I could manage.”
Who apologized for potatoes and cheese?
“I’ve had far worse,” Adrian said, “at far superior households.” True.
“Well,” muttered one of the rector’s servants, “that’s no surprise, as—”
The woman he’d met earlier—Miss Winters—thumped the man on the arm with a metal spoon. “Don’t be an ass, Salton.”
The cook gave Miss Winters a slightly less casual tap with her spoon. “Don’t use language like that, Camilla. Not around guests. Whatever will the bishop’s men think of us?”
Adrian had made it a point to settle on the bench just opposite the delightful Miss Winters. She was pretty—dark hair that he suspected would fall in waves if she ever let it down from that white cap, and eyes that twinkled even though she was trying to look demure. She even had a little color to her skin, as if she weren’t afraid of sun.
He would have sat near her even if he wasn’t searching for information. As it was, she’d proven talkative earlier, and gossip was the best place to start.
“I mean it,” Adrian said, shifting in place. “I’ve visited deans who set a worse table, and who had not so fine a staff. You must all be very proud.”
Gossip was a delicate business, and Adrian didn’t usually indulge. Still, even the most loyal, closed-mouthed servants, the ones who would never speak an ill word, would not hesitate to boast of their employer out of pride. Wouldn’t they?
“It’s because Camilla is half-price,” said a maid across the table from him. “She’s inexpensive because—”
Miss Winters flushed red and jabbed an elbow into the woman’s side. “Kitty!”
“The rector came into a little money some years back,” the cook said. “His aunt or some such? I hadn’t the details, but he’s able to do the household proud, far beyond a rector’s means.”
Maybe the answer was just that prosaic.
Adrian doubted it.
He probed a little deeper. “Certainly there’s no need for apologies as to the fare. Why, the bishop received a telegram just yesterday and rushed here immediately. You must have had no notice to speak of.”
“None,” moaned the woman who had been called Kitty. She was willow-thin and white-capped, and half again as old as Miss Winters. “We had no idea you were coming until everyone arrived just after noon.”
“I wonder what all the commotion could be about,” Adrian said, hoping he sounded idly curious. “What could occasion such a swift arrival?”
“Well, if anyone knows, it’s Camilla,” Kitty said. “She brings the rector his tea because her soul is most in need of his prayers.”
Miss Winters’s eyes narrowed. She bit her lip, looked at Adrian, and blushed. Then she shook her head and applied herself to her potato. “In this instance, I know nothing.”
He was getting quite the idea of Miss Winters. He could just imagine. She was young enough that she should have had a family to pray for her soul, not a rector who employed her at…half-price, had they said? Likely she was an orphan being taught a trade—so they would say—and she was told to be grateful for anything she could get. Her parents had no doubt been in debt or some such and her employment—at half-wages, good lord—had been presented to her as charity, not avarice. Adrian had seen it often enough.
Alas, this was business as usual, not a scandal—and even if it had been a scandal, it was the rector’s, not Lassiter’s. Adrian wasn’t here to convince maids to demand a full salary.
“You may not know, Miss Winters,” he said to her across the table, “but perhaps you would speculate. I imagine you’re good at piecing together a story.”
Their eyes met over the table and Miss Winters flushed again.
Adrian had pegged her about a minute after meeting her. She was young enough to still have dreams, and lonely enough that she’d attach them to anyone who was kind to her. A smile, a slight hint of preference, and she’d tell him anything he asked.
Her eyes met his. There was a hopeless glow in them. She licked her lips, as if she had suddenly become aware of her mouth.
Adrian tried not to think of his in return. She seemed susceptible enough to kindness, and he didn’t need complications. He was bad at lying, as it was—if he let himself think too much about how pretty she was, his preference would show. He didn’t need to make her feel uncomfortable.
But Miss Winters, blush and all, just shook her head and looked away, smoothing her skirts. “No,” she said quietly. “I could speculate, but I shouldn’t. I have nothing interesting to add.”
“Good for you,” the cook said. “You don’t want to be Half-Price Camilla forever, do you?”
Her eyes flashed. My God, that appellation. Half-Price Camilla? Adrian knew too well how unkind servants could be. Those who had little always wanted to shout to the rooftops that someone else had less.
He’d been put in his place often enough that he knew what it looked like.
He could track her rebellion by the pink splotches rising on her neck, the thinning of her lips, the way her shoulder blades drew up, tight and full of tension.
He almost thought she would burst with the effort of holding in her response.
But she didn’t. That light in her eyes faltered; she looked down and took another bite.
Ah. Damn. Adrian had met people—men and women—who had had their hopes crushed right out of them. He’d known youths who still had their heads in the clouds.
This was the first time he’d seen someone in the process of getting crushed.
You know, he thought idly, perhaps it would not hurt if I said a word to her… But no. He had so much to do as it was. He needed to be back at Harvil within a week. Sooner would be better.
It rubbed him the wrong way to stay silent, but this entire endeavor rubbed him the wrong way. She couldn’t be his concern. Either she had useful information or she didn’t.
Miss Winters didn’t look at him again during the meal. She didn’t look at him so assiduously that he twice saw her on the brink of looking and coloring, before turning away again.
He shouldn’t care.
But as he finished his potato, he wondered how long it took to crush a woman’s spirit, and if there was anything to be done about it.
At the end of the meal, when she was standing up and clearing the table, he offered to help gather the plates.
She turned toward him, head down, hands full with the bread basket.
“You’re kind.” It sounded like an accusation when she spoke. She shook her head, as if dispelling a dream. “You’re very kind,” she said again, “and I don’t need it. But thank you.”
* * *
The day had been long, and Camilla had tried so hard to be good.
She had not flirted over dinner, not even when Mr. Hunter had almost made her laugh four times.
It was unfair that she should run into him on the stairs after she’d finished the dishes and banked the fires for the night. Entirely unfair—and since he had undoubtedly dressed the bishop for the evening, extremely understandable.
“Miss Winters.” He nodded at her.
It was an open stairway. She was a maid-of-all-work. There was nothing wrong with wishing him a good night. She did so to the other male servants all the time.
Nothing, except she’d have to look him in the eyes, and no matter what her single, overworked angel told her, she still liked him. She could feel the beat of her pulse in her wrist just because she stood close to him. She kept her head down, nodded in his direction, and turned to go into the room shared by the female servants.
“Oh, no,” he said softly behind her. “It happened.”
Before she could think, she turned to him.
Oh. A terrible idea, that. He was still handsome and a stranger, and with only the one guttering oil lamp standing at the head of the stairs, he seemed mysterious and enticing to boot. Golden shadows glittered across his skin. Camilla set one hand over her belly to quiet a sudden riot of butterflies.
“What happened?”
He smiled at her. “You perished after all.”
It took her a moment to remember their earlier conversation, the one where she’d…flirted with him by claiming death? Oh, excellent work, Camilla.
She had only felt dead earlier; she came to life under his perusal, as if she were a parched plant drinking the first rain after a drought.
“I did,” Camilla said slowly. “I am a walking corpse, shambling about the countryside.”
Damn, damn, damn. She was doing it again. She was flirting—awkwardly, with talk of walking corpses—but no matter how badly she was doing it, she was still flirting.
“Does Kitty get your wire brooch, then?”
He recalled their conversation. He’d paid attention to her. She felt another burst of warmth.
No. She couldn’t give in. Memory, she scolded herself, was not affection. She was not going to fall in love, not again. She was going to be good.
But he had remembered. Camilla exhaled and looked over her shoulder, at the servants’ beds laid out in a row. Kitty was already under the covers. Cook would be up shortly.
“No.” Camilla shook her head. “I am a jealous corpse. If she took it, I’d rise from the grave and do hateful things to her.”
He smiled as if she’d made a joke. Probably because she had.
“Well.” He nodded to the room behind him. “Rest in peace, then. I’m glad I got to meet you before you passed away.” He tapped her arm, ever so slightly.
It was just a friendly gesture, but still her heart leapt. God. She wanted so much more than the brush of a finger. She felt absolutely starved for touch.
But Camilla knew how these things went, these little flirtations. One went from trading witticisms and smiles to trading…more. She was Half-Price Camilla because of that more.
She didn’t fool herself, either.
She wasn’t good; she never would be. But if she pretended hard enough, maybe she’d eventually fool everyone else.
She bit her cheeks to hide her smile.
“Good night,” he said.
And because she wasn’t good, she could feel her heart thump in reply. “Sleep well,” she offered tentatively.
His eyes met hers one last time, and she thought of all that sleep entailed—beds and removal of clothing and vulnerability…
Her cold covers awaited her, and for a moment, a thread of unadulterated loneliness rose up inside her, twining cold tendrils around her heart. “Sleep well,” she said again, and retreated as best she could.
Chapter Four
Thankfully, Camilla didn’t encounter him the next morning. She made plans—good plans, sober plans—to maintain a reasonable distance with no swearing or flirting or talk of shambling corpses at all.
Still, she felt sore and raw all day. That haunting feeling of loneliness from last night had not abandoned her; she was more aware than ever that her heart ached.
Maybe it was because she’d spent all yesterday tearing up and down stairs, carrying sheets and polishing silver until her arms ached. Maybe it was because of the way Mr. Hunter had looked at her the prior evening—with pity, as if he could see through Camilla’s attempts to be good, and knew how little chance she had of succeeding.
For whatever reason, she felt particularly low when she slunk into the rector’s study that afternoon with the tea things.
“There are rumors that Shoreham is stepping down,” the bishop was saying, “and you’ve positioned yourself perfectly to…”
The conversation stopped as the plates on her tray clinked, drawing the men’s attention. They looked up at her as if irritated at t
he intrusion.
Camilla bowed her head and laid everything in place as quickly and silently as possible—toast points, tea, milk, sugar, lemon tarts. Her fingers lingered a second on the dish of tarts. She had loved lemon tarts once. No. She wasn’t going to look back at a time when she’d had them regularly herself. She didn’t think she could eat one any longer.
“Miss Winters,” said the bishop.
Camilla jumped, yanking her hand away. “My apologies, my most abject apologies.”
One moment. One moment, one little lapse of judgment, and there she was—straying into dangerous territory. Dreaming. Remembering.
His frown deepened at this. “What are you apologizing for?”
“For—taking so long?”
He blinked. “Well. Don’t do that, then. I’ve been told that you are not, in fact, Miss Camilla Winters.”
Camilla swallowed.
“That your name is Miss Camilla Worth.”
It was, to be technical, Lady Camilla Worth, but after all that had happened to her, insisting on her title would do more harm than good. She couldn’t get above herself. She didn’t dare reveal the truth. She didn’t answer this query with anything more than a nod. Her heart pounded heavily in her chest.
“That’s an interesting family name.”
She would not say a word.
“It’s the family name of the late Earl of Linney,” he said, examining his fingernails. “The one who was executed for treason a handful of years ago.”
Nine years ago, it had been. Camilla tried not to think of the date, but she remembered it too perfectly. Almost half of Camilla’s life—if that barely remembered past really belonged to her. Her father was dead and a traitor; her brother was dead and transported. Next to them, Camilla’s sins were merely banal.
Camilla knew she should hate her father for what he had done—to her, to her family, to the country. But the very thought of him—her brothers, her sisters—opened up that cavern of loneliness in her heart. She’d never been good at hating anyone.
No. Don’t look back.
“Is that right?” She glanced at the rector who was watching her. “How very unfortunate that I should share a family name with them, then.”
After the Wedding Page 4