“Much obliged, ma’am,” he said with a bow. “You can read the first three chapters now, if you like. That is, if you can decipher my scrawl.”
“May I?” she asked breathlessly. It seemed a very great honor. But when she took up the stack of paper and tried to read, she quickly saw that he’d not exaggerated the quality of his handwriting. “Perhaps in the morning,” she said after a struggle. “When the light is better.”
His laughter gave her hope that she’d not offended him. “Whenever and wherever you please, Miss Twainsbury.”
“But I shall take this up with me,” she said, picking up his book. “Though I shouldn’t read it now; it will probably keep me awake until dawn.”
“It’s not so far off,” he put in, glancing toward the gilt and silver clock, the balls of the regulator spinning around under a couple of cupids. “Did you come down only in search of a book?”
‘Yes, I woke up suddenly.” She didn’t want to tell him that she’d been so hungry, though she did not think he’d take offense by assuming she wasn’t satisfied with the meal she’d eaten under his roof.
“May I wish for you that you fall asleep as suddenly as you awoke. I would walk you to your door but...” He hesitated.
“Please don’t trouble,” Camilla said quickly. “I know the way.” She paused, then asked the question that had been troubling her. “Sir Philip, why... I don’t wish to seem ungrateful. You and Lady LaCorte have been more than kind to a stranger and yet... Pardon me, I don’t quite know how to say what I am wondering.”
“Perhaps you are wondering why my sister-in-law seems to have taken you in dislike, when you have done nothing whatever to harm her.” His voice and face had lost all animation, becoming as cold as a bust sculpted from ice.
“I’m sure I’m imagining things,” Camilla went on, reluctantly, sure it was nothing of the kind. “No doubt she is simply tired or out of sorts. Ladies in such condition are often prey to fancies, I believe.”
“No, you are entirely correct and quite observant. My sister-in-law would prefer young ladies not come to this house. Not even friends of Tinarose are welcome here now.”
“Why not?”
He rubbed his neck again, a habit that seemed to come upon him whenever he was at a loss for words. “I’m afraid it has to do with me.”
“You?” she asked. For the first time, she realized what this meeting must look like to any observer. She, dressed in no more than wrapper and night-clothes, however thick and unrevealing, alone with a young and single gentleman who had long since removed coat and shoes. Many forced marriages had been made of less than this. Camilla moved back a little, holding his book against her breast.
“She’s afraid you want to marry me,” Sir Philip said.
Chapter Eight
“Marry you?” Camilla exclaimed. “We’ve only just met.”
“Without wishing to seem conceited, there are some reasons for her concern.”
Camilla wondered if this could mean he’d considered, even for a moment, the prospect of proposing to her. But that was impossible on such short acquaintance. “You are in the habit of asking strange young women to marry you?”
“No. I can truthfully state that I have never yet asked any woman to give up the joys of spinster-hood for the doubtful pleasure of being my wife. However, since my arrival in Bishop’s Halt, there have been some ... incidents.”
“Incidents,” she echoed. “What kind of incidents?”
“You must understand there are comparatively few single gentlemen in Bishop’s Halt. Myself and Evelyn March are alone in our lack of wife. Naturally, this makes us objects of some interest to the young ladies of the town as well as their mothers.” Though it was difficult to see by candlelight, Camilla could have sworn he was blushing like any maiden.
“You can’t possibly mean that... Have they been throwing themselves at your head?”
“One feels so embarrassed for the poor things.”
She could tell he was definitely blushing now.
‘Twice I’ve been forced into the position of refusing offers for my hand if not my heart. One young lady, soon after my arrival in this house, attempted a ploy so underhanded that it was considered the best course for her mother to convey her out of the county afterward. You see, her mother was standing outside my door, concealed behind a large Chinese vase, whispering encouragement in no uncertain terms.”
Camilla found herself choking quietly on a laugh.
“And what poor Evelyn has suffered from patients exaggerating their woes hardly bears thinking of. One young person actually pretended to have symptoms of the plague in order to force him into quarantine with her. Fortunately, he saw through the ruse in time.”
Camilla could no longer strangle on a laugh; it burst through. Instantly, she pressed her fingers to her lips, stifling the sound, but could not forbear giggling. “How perfectly absurd,” she said, little gasps and titters escaping despite her best efforts.
“It isn’t actually funny,” Sir Philip said, his own voice breaking with the strain of bottling up his laughter.
“No, no, of course not. How desperate those girls and their mothers must be. Mine would never permit me to act in such an ungenteel fashion.”
“Desperate is the word for it. Since the war, there’s such a surplus of eligible women, twelve for every ten men according to the Times. The competition for suitable husbands cannot help but be intensified.”
“You just wish they wouldn’t all focus on you.”
“Exactly. I can have only one wife, according to the common usage of the country.”
“Other nations arrange this sort of thing so much more sensibly,” Camilla said, who had read in snatched private moments a book about the lands where polygamy was rife. Needless to say, she didn’t approve a particle.
“I couldn’t have a harem,” he said. “I’m not so young as once I was.”
“Poor Sir Philip. I had better leave you now and let you get your rest.”
“Stay but one more moment,” he said, touching her lightly on the elbow. ‘You mustn’t think that my sister-in-law doesn’t like you. She does not know you.”
“I may prove to be a fortune hunter yet, Sir Philip.”
“Not you,” he said with such a warm, admiring look that Camilla found herself the one with reddened cheeks. “You never could have brought yourself all the way to my door in this snow if you cared only for yourself and for personal fortune. If I can draw upon your compassion for my sister-in-law and myself, I should consider myself highly fortunate.”
“I am, of course, willing to do whatever lies in my poor power in order to make some recompense for your hospitality.” Besides, she enjoyed talking to him openly like this. It was so unusually liberating to speak her mind without weighing every word on a scale of respectability.
“Then, do your best to befriend Beulah. She needs someone to listen to her and move her thoughts into a more cheerful frame. Between the burdens of her condition and the loss of my brother, she broods upon her woes. It was bad enough earlier in the year, but the death of poor Princess Charlotte has darkened her outlook further yet.”
“I can see how that might happen.” The tragic loss of the Heiress of England in childbed but three weeks before had been the leading topic at every gathering, and every detail of the funeral had been written over and discussed until they were as familiar as the details of one’s own family life.
“If only Myron were here,” Sir Philip said under his breath.
“But why?” she asked. “Surely as the wife of a naval officer, Lady LaCorte must be accustomed to ... unless he was present for the births of his other children?”
“Only Tinarose. As is the case for most children of military men, they have scarcely seen him but for a few weeks at a time. This last visit was the longest he’d been home since he’d been beached waiting for his first real command—and that must be all of twenty years ago. Beulah was used to having command of the Manor and of her c
hildren.”
“Yet still it must be hard for Lady LaCorte, knowing that this time he’ll not come back.”
“She thought him dead a hundred times before this. But it was the losing of all hope that seemed to depress her spirits the most. As if an invisible prop has been taken away. And then to have me inheriting on top of it all.”
“You seem unobjectionable,” Camilla said.
“Thank you.” He bowed gravely. “But anyone would be objectionable under the circumstances. A husband lost at sea, a child on the way, three daughters to raise, and a none-too-well-loved brother-in-law now in the position of master in her husband’s home. Who knows but that I might run mad and turn them all out into the snow.”
“You never would,” Camilla said, certain of it.
“Thank you for the vote of confidence,” he answered with a grave nod of the head like any senior statesman. “My brother left a will quite ten years old, encouraging me to watch over my brother’s family but in no way legally obligating me to do so. My sister-in-law lives with the constant anxiety of being so precariously settled. She knows she may always make her home here at the Manor, which she has decorated so lovingly, but knows also that if I marry, it may be to someone who will not honor his wishes. I hope I have more courage of character than to be swayed against Beulah, but more men have been fools than were ever wise.”
“I shall certainly inform Lady LaCorte, should the matter arise, that I have no intention whatsoever of marrying you, Sir Philip.” She couldn’t help but wonder if all this was simply a clever man’s way of warding off unwelcome female attentions.
“She won’t believe you, but you may try. Of course, the whole issue may resolve itself, should the child she presently carries prove to be a boy. Then ‘farewell, Sir Philip; welcome Mr. Philip LaCorte, author, traveler, and bon vivant.’ “
‘Yes, that’s right. She might have a son.”
“I pray for it every night,” he said, the ring of sincerity in every word. “Confidentially, I was never cut out to bear a title. Perhaps one day, if I earn it myself by the writing of some fine book or other. But to bear it because Great-Grandpapa flattered the right king, no thank you. I leave that to Myron, curse him.”
“Curse him?” Camilla echoed, shocked. Even her mother, with all her cause for complaint about her late husband’s gift for squandering whatever fortune came his way, never spoke ill of him after his death. Death was the Great Refurbisher. It removed all spots and stains, all slips and errors, turning the decedent into a shining glory that bore little resemblance to the fallible mortal of yesterday.
“Yes,” he said, his voice hardening. “What business did he have taking up another command? He should have sold out and come home to stay.”
“His duty—” She began, but he cut her off.
“Duty? He did that, and more, during the war like every decent man. But when war is over, a man must think of his family. If I had a wife, a wife I loved as dearly as my brother loved his, no power on earth but the defense of my country would take me away from her.
“Most men would feel that way,” Camilla said, moved by the depth of sensibility he showed. “At least, I hope they would,”
“Myron didn’t. It wasn’t duty that made him go back. It was the sea, the love of the sea. Even when he was a boy, that’s the only thing he ever thought about. We’re a hundred and fifty miles from the nearest ocean, yet it beat in his blood and filled his brain until he was crazy with it.” He chuckled ruefully. “Do you know—he ran away when he was nine. There’d been some discussion of his future career, I think. Father wanted him to be political. Myron made it all the way to Dover before Father caught him.”
“What happened?” Camilla asked, seeing the young boy with determination in his eyes crossing the countless miles between himself and his destination. How many rides did he cajole out of passing farmers? How many nights must he have slept “rough,” and how many countless miles would he have walked? She couldn’t think of anything that she wanted so much that she’d suffer such hardship. Nothing, that was, except the one thing she’d wished for above all others. Perhaps that had been young Myron’s goad. A love he could express in no other way except through suffering to achieve it.
“He’d already persuaded some poor old captain to take him on as cabin boy. The only way Father could bring him home was to swear on a Bible that Myron could go to sea when he was older.”
‘You must have admired him,” Camilla said softly, hearing the love behind every word.
“He was my older brother. He went where no one else dared go, and I followed. He never understood the things that drove me, any more than I ever understood his obsessions. To me, the sea is just something to travel over as swiftly and as safely as human ingenuity can allow.”
“I don’t blame you for that. My sister hates it, too.”
“You know what it is to have family, Miss Twainsbury. When you come to it, who is closer than a brother? I’ve shared many an adventure with other men, some of whom I grew to know so well that we could move in complete silence, judging our actions by no more than a pointed finger or a quickened breath. But Myron and I shared common blood, and that’s something that does not alter, even when all other bonds are shattered.”
He fell silent, looking into the black corners of the room as if he were looking for someone. Camilla felt as if she hardly dared to breathe, fearing to disrupt the communication between the living man and the one gone far out of reach. At last his gaze came back to her.
“I have a sister, sir,” she said. “Women are more fortunate than men in this. We share so much that is common to us all. I sometimes think a woman could fly to the moon, and so long as there were females there, we would understand each other perfectly well. No doubt they gossip the same on the moon as on earth and share stories that no man may ever hear.”
His expression lightened. “You make women sound as if they all belong to some secret order, that of Eleusinian Mysteries perhaps.”
“I don’t know what that is.”
“Oh, secret Greek rites in honor of some virgin goddess. No man was supposed to look upon them.”
“Well, we must keep something for ourselves alone,” Camilla said with a laugh that perhaps held more mystery in it than she’d intended. She hoped he wouldn’t think she was attempting to flirt with him. It was past time to call this interesting tête-à-tête to an end.
She yawned.
“You’re tired and no wonder. Leaving you standing here in a draught while I rattle on. You should have reproved me sooner.”
“Oh, no,” she said with genuine warmth. “It’s been most interesting. You’ve answered my questions, and I’m grateful.”
“It’s I should be grateful to you.” He changed the subject, feeling, perhaps, their intimacy had grown too quickly. “Tell me,” he said, like any genial host, “have you everything you want in your room?”
‘Yes. Mavis and your niece have made my room as cozy as my own at home. I don’t mind saying that at first I was a trifle hesitant to get into bed this evening. I thought for a certainty that I would find a hairbrush in my bed or that it had been made up apple-pie fashion.”
“Why? Has anyone ... if my nieces have been less than welcoming ...”
She only smiled, wishing she’d not brought the subject up.
“Not my nieces, then. The servants? Have they been impertinent?”
“Oh, no, not at all. Now that you’ve explained things,” Camilla said quickly.
“So, they were less than kind. I don’t count Mavis; she’d serve tea to the devil himself if he looked as though he could stand a cup.”
“They weren’t unkind,” Camilla said hurriedly. “On the contrary, Mrs. Lamsard, for one, could not have been kinder. Of course they would choose to protect their mistress. Anyone would have done the same.”
“I shall have a word with them come the morning.”
Camilla laid her hand delicately on his folded arm. “Pray don’t. If I we
re going to remain here, perhaps I should use you for my champion. But as Nanny Mallow and I will return to her cottage as soon as the weather clears ...”
“Nonsense,” he said from deep in his chest. “You and she will stay here, as our guest. Nanny will have every comfort, far better than that old cottage with the wind prying loose the shingles.”
“I’m sure she would not wish to impose upon you.”
“There’s no imposition in the case. It’s settled.”
Seeing that nothing she could say at this juncture could alter his mind-set, Camilla thanked him and said good night. Before she could depart, however, he caught her by the hand. Giving it a firm, respectful shake, he stopped and stood looking down at her fingers, lying unresistingly in his. “We must surely be destined for friendship,” he said. “In the course of an evening, we have discussed history, literature, love, and war and found, if not uniformity of opinion, at least respectful challenge. Thank you, Miss Twainsbury. I cannot remember when I was last so happy to meet someone.”
‘Thank you, Sir Philip,” she said. He released her, and she started for the door. On the threshold, she turned back a moment, wishing to speak. But the words she wanted to say must surely seem too bold from a maiden to a gentleman. Her mother would certainly think so. Until Camilla could be quite sure that her own ideas of the world could stand against her mother’s, she thought she’d better allow her mother’s teachings to win the day.
“Good night, then, Sir Philip.”
* * * *
Despite her interrupted night, Camilla woke early. Stretching out in bed, she found that she’d awakened with a particularly contented smile on her face. At first, she thought it was because no one had roused her from bed at daybreak to sweep a grate or start a fire. She had no posset to brew, no breakfast to make, no list of duties to perform. True, when she removed to Nanny Mallow’s house, she would cheerfully do all she could, more than she was asked, to help the older woman, especially with her injuries. In a great house like this, however, any attempt to assist would be met with very proper refusal and might alienate the very people she wanted to assist.
A Yuletide Treasure Page 10