A Yuletide Treasure

by Cynthia Bailey Pratt

“What other life?”

  The one you lived in America and Italy and Russia and... Paris.”

  “Paris?” he repeated, suddenly wary.

  ‘Yes. Do you remember when Dr. March told that story about finding you wounded in Paris?”

  “Evelyn always tells that story when he’s had a drop too much. It doesn’t mean anything.”

  “Someone hurt you. That means something. How could anyone want to hurt you?”

  “What do you want to know, Camilla?” he asked gently. “All my past secrets? They’re not very interesting, but I’m sure I can invent something. Tell me what tales you’ve been dreaming up. What do you think I am?”

  “I think you are ...,” she said a little more quickly, not stopping to weigh her words as she’d done before. But the caution ingrained in her by her mother still kept her from finishing her thought.

  Philip moved from his corner of the sofa with a speed that took Camilla aback. Her eyes flew open in surprise. He cupped her face in his hands, marveling even then at the smooth purity of her complexion, moving his fingertips slightly to feel the softness of her cheeks. “Be bold, Camilla. Tell this fool what you think of him so he can return the compliment. Because I’m longing to say out loud what I think of you.”

  “I think someone hurt you. Now you don’t believe in love and so can’t write it,” she said, then bit her lower lip, astounded by her own temerity.

  “I’m sorry,” Philip said. “But you’re wrong.” Then he kissed her.

  * * * *

  At first, sheer surprise held her immobile. Then, a heartbeat later, Camilla didn’t want to move, afraid he’d stop if she so much as lifted a hand. He might think she was trying to push him away. Philip’s mouth on hers was warm and soft, his hands strong on her shoulders. She felt a strange flutter under her heart, like a cageful of butterflies had just opened, taking all her worries with them in their flight. Unable to bear the suspense, she reached out to flatten her hands against his flame-pattern waistcoat.

  When Philip broke the kiss, retreating no farther than to rest his forehead against hers, he laughed, a little breathless himself. “Camilla...”

  “Yes, Philip?” she whispered.

  “Just so that there’s no mistake about it later... Are you listening, dear?”

  For a moment, her heart died as she was certain he was going to tell her this was a mistake, that he’d had no intention of kissing her, that he’d only surrendered to an uncontrollable impulse.

  “I’m listening,” she answered warily.

  “Just so that we both understand completely... That was a proposal.”

  “Oh. Was it?”

  “Shall I make it more formally?”

  She couldn’t answer, stunned by the wonder of a moment she’d never even dreamed of except in her most secret heart.

  “Camilla, I adore you. You’re the woman I’ve sought my whole life, in every corner of the world. I never thought you existed, and here you were within fifty miles of my family home the entire time. Please, please say you’ll marry me.”

  He tilted her face so that she must look at him. Though he smiled tenderly, there was such earnest anxiety in his eyes that she couldn’t bear to see it. Catching his hand, she pressed her cheek into his palm.

  This instant, she felt, was the bridge between her past and her future. She’d never given her future much thought. She’d known she would live with her mother either for always or until one of her sometime suitors worked up the courage to propose. She never imagined a man like Philip would want her for his wife.

  “Are you sure?” she asked, determined to be fair even when every instinct demanded that she seize this moment and accept before he could change his mind. “I have so many faults that you don’t know.”

  “Faults? I’ve seen none, and you have been my close study now for more than two weeks.”

  “Oh, you don’t know.”

  He drew her head down to his shoulder and, while holding one of her hands, put his other arm about her. “Tell me,” he said with a laughter in his voice that sounded something close to tears. “Tell me these horrible flaws.”

  “Oh, I’m lazy,” she said. One wouldn’t think a muscular shoulder could be so comfortable. “I’d far rather read a book than do anything else. Often I forget to do my allotted tasks when there’s an interesting book to finish.”

  “Grievous sins all. But how can I chide you for them when I’m guilty of the same myself? What else?”

  “I’m so impatient.”

  “You?”

  “It’s true. I want all the good things to happen right away. I never can bear to wait for anything. Why, I was actually happy to be sent away before Christmas because I find it so difficult to wait for Christmas morning, even though I always know what my presents will be.”

  “What are they?”

  “A book, some toilet water, a bunch of fruit to freshen my best hat, and a...” Her voice trailed off.

  “What was that?”

  “An undergarment,” she said primly.

  His laugh shook her, too, but she didn’t mind. “I promise faithfully never to give you any of those things for Christmas. We shall have it written in our vows that none but frivolous gifts shall be allowed on Christmas and our birthdays. Apples of perpetual youth, crowns of wild olive, kissing-comfits; these shall we have. And speaking of kisses...”

  The second time was sweeter than the first and the third sweeter still.

  “I must write to your mother at once. You’ve told her about me?”

  “Not very much,” Camilla confessed. “I hardly knew what to say. I’ve told her that you have written several books.”

  “Good. What else?”

  “That’s all.” She saw that he looked puzzled and slightly hurt. “I didn’t want to tell her too much. She might not even have let me stay this long if she knew about you. I may have led her to believe certain things.”

  “What things, Camilla?”

  “That you and Lady LaCorte were husband and wife.”

  He shook his head as if to clear it. “I beg your pardon?”

  “Mother would never let me stay in a house where there is a single gentleman. The impropriety of it would shock her terribly.” Camilla suddenly realized that cuddling with a man while completely alone with him in the middle of the afternoon would be just as much an affront to her mother’s sensibilities. She tried to put a little space between her side and Philip’s, but he didn’t seem to want to let her go. A good sign, she thought, relaxing against his side. Perhaps he was not completely repelled by her dishonesty.

  “Did you like it here so much?”

  “I liked you,” Camilla said, unable to look at him. “I liked you very much, from the start.”

  He gave a little crow of triumph. “I never would have guessed it, ‘Miss Twainsbury.’ So prim, so mimini-pimini, so proper.”

  “I’m surprised you gave me a second glance, sir, after coming to such a conclusion. I’ll thank you to sit a little farther off.”

  “A gentleman never lets his first impression stand when subsequent meetings prove it to be false. I knew you weren’t quite so old-maidish when you threw that snowball at me. And I’m quite comfortable where I am.” He stole a quick kiss. To show she had no hard feelings where such thefts were concerned, she gave him another, rather slower.

  “Oh, dear,” she said somewhat drowsily a few minutes later. “I shall have to tell Lady LaCorte that we are betrothed.”

  “I’ll do it.”

  “She won’t approve, I’m afraid. I know her opinion of me will drop again to what it was when I first arrived. A ‘low, scheming creature,’ as she put it, out to trap you into matrimony.”

  “I shall soon explain that, my love. I’m trapping you, make no mistake.”

  “I’m sure she’ll think you are far too good for me.”

  “Well, at least she doesn’t think I’m a married man. How I’ll explain that misunderstanding to your mother, I can’t think.”
>
  “You write fiction; I’m sure you’ll manage. But your sister-in-law doesn’t like me.”

  “I believe you are mistaken.”

  “What, again?”

  “You were wrong about my being unable to express my feelings,” he said, expressing them again.

  “True, though I’m still curious about Paris.” She was only teasing, but he suddenly frowned. Not, she thought, at her, but at some memory. “Is it so difficult to talk about?”

  He looked at her and smiled. “What lurid tale have you imagined, Camilla? Maybe you should write it down so we can use it in our next book.”

  “ ‘Our next book’?”

  “You don’t think I’m going to put my name alone on the title page, after you’ve done so much?”

  There was only one way to thank him for his kindness. This time, however, when he came up for air, he put her gently away from him and moved back into the corner of the sofa.

  “You sit in that corner, and I’ll sit in mine,” he said, holding his hands up before him like barriers. He looked at her warily. She put on her best meek expression. “You’re not fooling me, you know.”

  “Who kissed whom?” she asked.

  “We’ll debate that later.” Then, as she started for him, he allowed her only one small kiss. “I’m serious, now, Camilla. You stay over there. I’ve taken quite enough advantage of this situation. Anything more would be wrong of me. You are younger than I and an unprotected girl in this house.”

  “Yes, Philip,” she said, already plotting to weaken his morality later. “What about Paris?”

  “Heavens, you’re a stubborn woman. Very well.” He closed his eyes as if to summon his memory like a genie from a bottle. Camilla scooted ever so slightly closer to him. When some slight, betraying noise gave her away, she instantly froze, looking up with such innocence that Philip would have suspected her anyway.

  “I was a spy,” he said so simply that Camilla was sure she misunderstood him.

  “I beg your pardon? Did you say ‘a spy’?”

  “Yes.”

  She knew he watched for her reaction. “For which side?”

  He laughed as if every word she spoke delighted him. “For ours, of course. I’d been working in France even before the Eagle fell. Then I went to Paris to report to the Duke of Wellington. Rumors were flying everywhere that Napoleon wasn’t finished, that he’d rise again. Tracking those rumors down took all our time. As for the famous stabbing, that was thanks to a woman I never should have turned my back on.”

  “A woman? Was she pretty?”

  “Thank God,” he said. “I was starting to think you were more than human, Camilla. You restore my faith in the essential qualities of womanhood. No, she wasn’t pretty. She was roughly fifty, had been through a revolution, an empire, and a restoration, invariably picking the wrong side to pin her faith upon. Though I escaped with important information about who was channeling money to Elba, she did manage to stick me like a pig. Bleeding buckets of gore, I made my way to Eve’s doorstep, when he proceeded to trip over me. He’s been dining out on that story ever since.”

  “He shouldn’t. It could be dangerous for you.” She grasped his hand nervously.

  “I assure you there are no emperors or their minions hiding in the snowdrifts, awaiting their revenge. I did my duty in the best way I could and left with a huge sigh of relief at the end of the war.” He took a deep breath and let it out. “It feels good to tell you,” he mused. “The only other one I’ve told is Myron so that he wouldn’t think his brother an utter wastrel.”

  “He wouldn’t have thought that.”

  “Why not? I have never claimed to be anything very outside the ordinary. I am content now to just write my books and watch my flowers grow. What say you, flower? How much do you care to grow?”

  Somehow, without either of them willing it particularly, they gave up their places, cold and so far apart, to cuddle closer together. Philip smoothed back the one errant lock of hair, marveling again that she’d given him a right to such intimacies. I’ll write your mother at once,” he declared. “Will she accept me, you think?”

  “Yes, once she meets you. But write also, by all means. I am underage, Philip. I must have her consent.”

  “I feel confident she’ll give that. Without wishing to seem conceited, I’m quite the catch.”

  “I don’t know,” Camilla said, rising to her feet. He was quite right; they’d been alone together long enough to set tongues wagging. On the threshold, she turned back, a teasing twinkle in her eyes. “Mother always thought I should have at least a viscount.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Dreading the moment when Lady LaCorte would discover her perfidy, Camilla couldn’t help but be relieved when her ladyship did not come down to dinner. Nanny Mallow, up but still favoring her injured leg, called to Camilla as she started downstairs.

  “My, but you do look pretty,” she said. “Such a color in your cheeks, as a young girl ought to have.”

  “Fine feathers,” Camilla said, smoothing the long sleeve of her only dinner dress, a rich tobacco brown poplin.

  “Is that all?” Nanny asked with one of her funny wise looks.

  “No, Nanny.”

  “Sir Philip?”

  “Yes, Nanny,” Camilla said, feeling a kind of shy triumph.

  Nanny gave a little crow of pleasure. “There now! If that’s not just what I’ve been saying all along. When two people are meant to be matched, they’re meant, that’s all.” She embraced the girl, patting her back. “And won’t your mother be pleased when she comes? Such a fine young man, with everything handsome about him.”

  “I hope Mother will like him.”

  “She won’t be able to help herself, mark m’words. She’s too sensible a woman to whistle such a catch down the wind.”

  “I don’t know. She’s proud and might not like my marrying into such a wealthy family. I haven’t any dowry or expectations, and my connections are riot—”

  “Pooh!” Nanny said emphatically. “If Sir Philip don’t care for that, why should anyone? It’s yourself he’s marrying, and so he’ll tell you himself.”

  Camilla felt comforted by the very act of telling someone her fears. Nanny Mallow was such a sensible, down-to-earth sort. She’d soon sift Camilla’s fears into chimeras and brass tacks. The first she could dismiss for a while; the second she must deal with as soon as she could.

  “I know one thing, Nanny. Lady LaCorte won’t like this news.”

  “That she won’t.”

  “She doesn’t think very highly of me now. I can just imagine how she’ll feel when she discovers this. She thought I came to entrap Sir Philip into marriage. I believe she had begun to change her mind, but this engagement will just confirm her prior opinion. I couldn’t bear it if Philip broke with her because he wants to marry me.”

  “Don’t borrow trouble,” Nanny counseled. “Besides which, she’s keeping to her room tonight. I took a good look at her, and I’m thinking she’s coming near her time.”

  “Goodness! We should send for Dr. March.”

  “Not yet,” she said, calming Camilla. “It’s not time just yet, or I don’t know my business. And if I’m wrong about it, I know more about bringing children into this world than he ever will. Her la’ship herself said she was glad I’m under her roof for this very reason. She might not have sent for me ‘special, but since I’m here, she’ll make use of me.”

  “I’m glad you’re here, Nanny. Imagine if she needed help in the middle of the night and only I were here.”

  “Then you’d send the footman hotfoot for me even before you’d sent for Dr. March. But I am here and already begun. I told her straight out to leave off those nasty stays she’s been wearing, and she did.”

  “Oh, I thought she looked ... bigger.”

  “I don’t hold with wearing stays when you’re expecting. I’m an old hen, and I think the old ways are the best ways. It’s not as if she were some fashionable highly finished
piece of nature on the strut in London. As a mother, she should be thinking about her baby, not the size of her waist.” Nanny Mallow developed this theme for some little time before catching a glimpse of the clock in her room. “Hurry down, child. Whatever will Sir Philip think of you, making him wait for his supper?”

  What Philip thought of her was shown by the gleam in his eyes and the way he conveyed her hand up for a gentle kiss when she entered the room.

  On the other side of the drawing room, Tinarose took great interest in these new signs of affection. With her mother’s continuing indisposition, Tinarose had become accustomed to spending the evenings with her uncle and Camilla as a matter of propriety. Philip had seen immediately that it was in Camilla’s best interest not to be alone with him every evening between dinner and retiring. Camilla had rather thought that it didn’t do Philip’s reputation any good to be alone with her, though tonight she would have liked best to have the chance to reiterate their sentiments of the afternoon.

  Constant acquaintance with older people had rubbed off some of the shy gaucherie that Tinarose had previously shown. Camilla, used to making the best of little, had shown her two or three easy ways to dress her hair that had improved her too-square face, as well as making her pretty neck look swan-like and showing her more than slightly attractive ears. Despite knowing that Tinarose’s affection for Dr. March was quite impossible, Camilla couldn’t wait to see what he thought of these few alterations. Regrettably, the few times he’d come by, Camilla and Tinarose had been busy with their Christmas preparations for the little girls, and no one had told them he was there until after he had gone.

  They sat down together on the sofa, while Philip poured them each a glass of sherry. “What is going on?” Tinarose whispered. “Are you ... all right?”

  “Yes, of course,” Camilla said with a laughing glance at Philip.

  He gave them their glasses and raised his high. “To Camilla,” he said. “Who has graciously agreed to take on the arduous task of marrying me.”

  Tinarose squealed with delight, dropping her wine with the effect of having thrown it. She jumped up to embrace Philip. “I’m so glad,” she cried.