“So there’s no relation?”
“I would hardly be setting out tea things if my father were an earl.” Camilla ducked her head. “Now, if you’ll excuse me…”
“So you don’t know Lady Judith Worth.”
Judith. A separate wash of forlorn desolation hit Camilla. Once, when she had been younger and even more stupid, her uncle had offered to take her in. Her and Judith and Benedict—and not their younger sister Theresa. She could scarcely recall why any longer—something about Theresa being difficult.
Camilla had said yes to the offer. He’d said she could have gowns, lemon tarts, and a come out, after all. Judith, her eldest sister, had tried to argue.
He doesn’t love us, her sister had told her.
I won’t starve, Camilla had responded, stupid at twelve.
It seemed a fitting punishment for Camilla, that she’d been granted none of her wishes—not the gowns nor the come out nor the lemon tarts. She’d spent every year since yearning more and more desperately for the love she’d dismissed out of hand.
She’d chosen to live without it; still, somehow, the demons on her shoulder whispered that she might still have it. Someday.
“Ah,” the bishop said. “You do know her.”
Camilla hadn’t seen Judith once in the years since—Judith had made it clear she was unwelcome.
Camilla shook her head and spoke through the lump in her throat. “I don’t. How would I know the Marchioness of Ashford?”
A pause. She could feel her longing, an almost tangible presence in her chest.
She’d heard the news about Judith’s marriage shortly after Rector Miles had taken her in. He was the one who had impressed on her the seriousness of her misbehavior. He had told her that she should not long to be loved so, that it would drive her to destruction. He’d told her that she hadn’t earned the right to such care, that the impulse that welled up inside her insisting that she might one day belong somewhere was the devil trying to seduce her.
Judith was married to a marquess, of all things. It was what Camilla had dreamed about when she’d abandoned her family. Rector Miles was right; Camilla didn’t deserve what Judith had. Still, she could not stop herself from dreaming.
The bishop was watching her with a troubled air. “You seem to know her well enough to know of her wedding. Interesting, for someone who claims not to be related.”
Camilla exhaled. “Well. Who doesn’t follow the nobility? Particularly when one family—entirely coincidentally—shares one’s name.”
“Hmm.” He didn’t sound as if he believed her. Rector Miles must have disclosed something of Camilla’s past if he knew her abandoned last name.
She hated admitting the truth. She hated even thinking it. “It really is the best that I’m no relation, don’t you think?”
“Is it?”
“Well—what you’ve described. The treason.” She swallowed. “Judith—I mean, Lady Judith’s new marriage. The family’s position in society must be terribly precarious.” She could hear her own voice shaking as she spoke. She pressed her hands into her skirts to stop them trembling.
“Is that so?”
She felt speared by his eyes. “There was talk after the father and the brother had that incident, you know. People said the family was nothing but bad blood.”
He examined his fingernails. “You do know quite a bit about them.”
“If people thought someone like me was related to the likes of them?” Her whole being ached, just thinking of what it would mean. “I imagine it would ruin whatever progress they’ve managed to achieve in society.”
“Someone like you. What are you, then?”
What are you. Not who. He looked at her like a thing, and under his gaze she felt like one.
The rector had made her say it—once—when she arrived here. She knew she was flawed to her core; she didn’t want to have to say it again.
“Nobody,” she whispered. “I’m nobody.”
The rector must have told Bishop Lassiter the truth, for him to subject her to this interrogation. He must have told him how he found her eighteen months ago.
Kissing a footman she had no business kissing.
Miles had impressed on her the consequences of her conduct—rumor is, your younger brother is going to Eton now. Maybe the family name can be rehabilitated. Maybe…
Maybe would be never, if the truth about Camilla ever came out.
“That whole business has nothing to do with you, then?”
“No.” She whispered the word hoarsely. “Nothing.”
“Camilla,” said the rector, “I’m filling out my logbook for yesterday. Do you remember who I discussed?”
The relief she felt at the change of subject was immense, a weight lifting from her shoulders. She liked being helpful; she had an excellent memory, and she’d often assisted him by providing names. “In the morning, before the bishop arrived? Mr. and Mrs. Watson. Miss Jones. Mrs. Landry. After the bishop, I wasn’t about.”
“Very well.”
“Oh.” She paused. “Wait—I do recall one name. Mrs. Martin—you discussed her while I was setting out the tea things.”
He didn’t smile at her. “That’s very helpful. You should endeavor to be helpful, Camilla. That’s the only way you’ll make progress.”
Even that tiny amount of guarded praise had her glowing. In the years since she’d left her sister, she’d had little enough praise. Deservedly so. Camilla had that chorus of devils on her shoulder and no matter how she sometimes felt about the rector, he’d made sure that any rumors of her would not harm her family. She had to remember that.
“That will be all, Camilla.”
She escaped, feeling scraped raw.
Judas, it was said, betrayed Christ for thirty silver pieces. Camilla had sold her family for lemon tarts. It seemed fitting that she had nothing.
In a parable or a Greek myth, she would have been doomed to yearn for love hopelessly, forever. But this wasn’t a parable or a myth, and that legion of devils on her shoulder still gave her more hope than her single angel.
It’s been bad, they whispered, but just hold on. Don’t look back; look forward, and it will all come out right. Any day now. Just hold on to your hope.
The rector had told her not to listen to that hope. It sounded sweet, he told her, but it would lead her astray. Foolishness, said her angel, but its voice was small in comparison.
One day, said those devils. It will all be better one day.
Camilla took a deep breath, shut her eyes, and tried not to believe her devils. As always, she failed.
“Camilla!” The call came from below stairs. Camilla jumped. “Camilla? Where are you?”
She came back to herself again, and locked her bitter loneliness away. She tied it up with hope in the center of her heart. With any luck, it wouldn’t escape again, not for a good long while.
Chapter Five
It had been three days since Adrian arrived in Rector Miles’s household, and he still hadn’t discovered what he needed. A substantial part of the problem? Being a valet was hard work—particularly since Adrian did not know how to be a valet. Now, he had been told there was a red wine emergency.
Adrian didn’t have time for emergencies, he thought, dashing up the servants’ stair.
What he wanted to do was finish the task his uncle had set to him. But Miss Winters had avoided him the entire second day he’d been there, blushing when their eyes met, looking pensive and thoughtful, as if she’d been reprimanded. The cook knew nothing. Miss Shackleton, the other maid, shook her head and said to speak with Miss Winters. It was all dreadfully inconvenient.
The sooner he found evidence, the sooner he could quit, return to his uncle, and be back about his business.
More saliently, if he didn’t find something soon, he was going to end up sacked.
Possibly, he thought, as he arrived at the room where Lassiter was staying, he would get sacked today. He was absolute shite at being a valet, an
d his inexperience would be exposed at any moment.
When he’d interviewed for the position, he’d promised he was a veritable genius at removing stains. It had been a lie; he knew nothing about removing stains. He knew how to make extremely vibrant stains that would bond with the surface of bone china upon application of heat and not come off no matter what one did with the piece afterward. He had a wealth of expertise in dyes and metal oxides and glazes. Knowing about those processes had allowed him to construct realistic-sounding sentences that bore absolutely no relation to reality.
Luckily, there was one person who knew less about stain removal than Adrian, and it was Bishop Lassiter. The man had listened to Adrian make up some rubbish about vinegar and sunlight and… Adrian couldn’t even remember what he had said. It had worked, though, which was a miracle. His lies rarely worked.
But it wouldn’t last. He’d just been told that the bishop had spilled red wine down his front at lunch, and was waiting for him in his room.
Adrian opened the door.
A quick glance—nobody in the chair, nobody standing at the window, bed stripped of sheets….
Strange. Lassiter would be up shortly, no doubt.
Adrian crossed to the wardrobe, opened it, and started sorting through the clothing, looking for an appropriate change.
The shirt the bishop had worn two days ago should have done, except it had been stained with mustard. Adrian had tried to launder it, but…who knew mustard was so discoloring? Not Adrian. That yellow blotch would betray him.
Damn. That left—
His train of thought was interrupted by a noise on the other side of the room. He turned to see Miss Winters straightening, feather duster in hand.
Of course. He should have realized someone else was here, with the linen piled in a white heap in the corner.
Miss Winters had been avoiding him ever since that first night. She took a step back from him now, even though she stood on the other side of the room. They’d had almost thirty-six hours of monosyllabic exchanges, thirty-six hours of her almost looking at him before catching herself in the act and blushing.
“My apologies for the interruption,” Adrian said, “but I’ve been told the bishop will be up momentarily. He spilled something on himself at lunch.”
“No.” Miss Winters frowned. “He didn’t.”
“But—”
“I cleared away the dishes an hour ago with him in the room. He didn’t spill anything.”
Adrian frowned. “But—I was told most specifically…” He trailed off. Maybe it hadn’t been at lunch? But… Red wine at lunch. What a specific thing to say, if it hadn’t happened.
From the back of his mind, intuition pushed a thought forward: Something was off. He’d also been told the bishop was already waiting in the room, and he wasn’t.
Ridiculous. It was just a miscommunication.
“That’s odd.” He turned. “I’ll go see what this is about, then, and leave you—”
He reached for the door handle, pressing down. It resisted movement. He tried once again, yanking harder, but to no avail.
That thought came back: Something was off.
He frowned. No. There had to be an explanation.
He turned back to Miss Winters. “The door is locked.”
Her eyes widened; she shook her head. “Why ever did you lock the door?”
“I didn’t lock the door.”
“Well.” She took another step away from him; her back hit the wall. “Open it. Open it immediately. It’s one thing for two servants to speak in a room with the door wide open. It’s another for us to be locked in a bedroom together. It doesn’t look good.” She shook her head. “It doesn’t look good at all. What are you waiting for? Open the door.”
“I can’t,” Adrian said. “I don’t have a key.”
She shook her head. “Open it, open the door.”
He gave the door handle another frustrated wrench. “I can’t. I don’t know how to pick locks. Do you?”
“No, how on earth would I know that? You’re the valet!”
Ha. “What does that have to do with it!?”
“Valets are supposed to have a wide and varied skill set!”
“Not that wide!” The door wasn’t moving. “Not that varied!”
“Well,” she gestured. “Climb out a window, then. Do you know how this is going to look?”
He gave her an incredulous stare. “We’re on the third floor.”
“They already call me Half-Price Camilla.” She wrung her hands. Her breath was growing shallow. “If they catch me with a handsome man locked in a bedroom, do you know what they’ll call me?”
“Quarter-Price Camilla?”
He’d been trying to lighten the mood. Apparently, that was not the way to do it. Her cheeks flushed crimson.
“No!” She sounded close to tears. “They won’t call me anything at all, because I’ll be sacked. I have nobody. No references. No family. No money.”
Something’s off, Adrian’s instinct whispered again. But there was nothing to do except…
“Let’s be calm,” he suggested, “as the situation demands.”
Her nostrils flared. “I am precisely as calm as the situation demands.”
“You’re not calm at all.”
“That is what the situation demands!” She turned from him. “Very well—if you won’t do it, I will. I’m going out the window.”
She wrenched at the handle; it resisted.
“It’s stuck.” She looked over at him. “Help me, help me.”
He couldn’t let her go out the window. She was breathing shallowly, for one, and in skirts, for another. To make matters worse, there were no helpful climbing vines on the outer wall, no convenient trees.
She was going to break her neck. Damn it.
“All right,” he said calmingly. “I’ll help. But we should talk about a real strategy, don’t you think?” He came up beside her. She was in the throes of panic. He wasn’t entirely sure why—surely, if they were found together they could just tell the truth, and be believed?
“Stop talking,” she said, “start helping.”
She wouldn’t let go of the little crank that opened the window, so he wrapped his hands around hers. “Breathe,” he said. “On three. One—two—”
On two and a half, the door opened.
The other maid—Miss Kitty Shackleton, if Adrian recalled correctly—stood in front, a key ring in her hand. Behind her stood Albert, the footman, Rector Miles, and Bishop Lassiter.
A cold chill ran down Adrian’s spine. Something was very much off, his instinct told him again, and this time he listened. Why were they all standing there? Why had so many people come up just to unlock a room?
“There they are,” said the maid. “Holding hands.”
Miss Winters jumped two feet away from him. “The door was locked! We were trying to open a window to escape.”
“Really.” The rector strode into the room. “Were you.” It didn’t sound like a question, not the way he said it.
Miss Winters answered anyway. “Nothing happened. We’ve only been here five minutes.”
“You’ve been up here since you finished with the lunch things.” Kitty folded her arms. “An hour ago.”
“I’ve only been in here for five minutes,” Adrian said.
“But, Hunter.” It was Albert who spoke now. Albert who, a scant ten minutes ago, had claimed a red wine emergency. “Hunter, you told me you were coming up here to air out the bishop’s wardrobe…an hour ago.”
A sick feeling bloomed in Adrian’s gut. Wrong, this was wrong. So wrong. He should have listened to his instincts the moment they whispered that something was off.
“It’s not true,” Camilla whispered. “It’s just…not.”
Miss Shackleton stepped into the room, crossing over to stand by Miss Winters.
“This looks bad, Camilla.” The rector spoke in a low, soothing voice. “We all know your past. We know you have terrible impu
lses, that you often give into them.”
Miss Winters turned crimson in ugly blotches.
“Is there some innocent explanation for why you’ve spent an hour behind a locked door with a man?”
“It wasn’t an hour. And neither of us have a key.” Miss Winters sounded on the verge of tears. “We couldn’t have locked the door.”
“You asked me for the spare key this morning,” said Miss Shackleton.
“I didn’t, I didn’t!”
Miss Shackleton reached over, thrust her hand into Miss Winters’s pocket, and pulled out a single key on a ring. “What is this, then?”
It was like watching a farce play out—and not the funny kind, either. Adrian could imagine how all this might seem, but…
He knew for a fact that she could not have locked the door. She had been here when he arrived—clear across the room from the entrance, feather duster in hand.
She had been standing four feet from the lock when he’d first tried it. Adrian wasn’t sure who in this room was lying or why they were doing it, but he knew who wasn’t. What the hell was happening?
“Camilla,” the rector said in a sorrowful voice. “I trusted you when you said you would cease your immoral behavior. You’ve disappointed me.”
Miss Winters started crying. Adrian just felt even more baffled. What was happening? Why?
“She’s been flirting with Mr. Hunter since she first arrived,” Miss Shackleton said, shaking her head.
“I haven’t,” Camilla sobbed. “I’ve been trying so hard to be good.”
“The truth, Camilla.” The rector’s voice was calm.
“I flirted a little,” she admitted. “The first day. But I did what you always told me to do. I noticed my behavior and I corrected it. Really, I did.”
“The real truth, Camilla.”
She swallowed. Her eyes, shimmering with tears, shivered shut. “I flirted a lot the first day.”
For God’s sake. It hadn’t been that much.
But the rector shook his head. “Lying, deceit, licentiousness…”
She let out another sob, and something in Adrian’s chest snapped.
After the Wedding Page 5