“I’m not going. Don’t be ridiculous. You can’t run after a man this way. Where is your pride? Listen to me, Camilla.”
“Well, Mama, the way I look at it is this: You can stay here and think of lots of things to say to me. Or you can come with me on my elopement and say them to me face-to-face. Who knows? Perhaps you can talk me out of it.”
Several hours later, arriving at the Red Knight Inn, Mrs. Twainsbury was barren of words. Camilla had turned them all away, gently but firmly. “We walk from here,” she said. “Leave the baggage. Merridew will collect it later.”
“Walk?” Mrs. Twainsbury said as if she’d never heard the term before.
“It’s traditional. Come along.” Camilla turned back as she went from the courtyard, remembering how Philip had stood and watched her go that first day. With the winter evening fast closing in, she almost felt she could see him.
The two women hadn’t gone very far, however, when a coach and four came by. A few hundred yards past them, the coach pulled up and stood on the roadway, the horses steaming in the cold air. The door flew open. “May I offer you ladies a ride? It’s too cold for walking.”
Mrs. Twainsbury clutched Camilla’s arm. “Don’t talk to strange men,” she whispered.
“No, of course not, Mama.” She patted Mrs. Twainsbury’s hand. “Thank you, sir. Do you know Savyard Manor? It’s not far from here.”
“I know it very well, indeed. By a curious coincidence, I’m heading there myself.”
“Don’t believe him,” Mrs. Twainsbury said. “It’s a ruse to get us in his power.”
But something about that voice had sounded familiar. Deeper and much louder than Philip’s, it had a ring to it not unlike his own. Perhaps it was no more than a common accent. Camilla came on, her mother leaden-footed behind her.
A face nearly black with sunburn looked out from the carriage, topped with hair the color of new iron. He wore ordinary gentleman’s clothing but characterized by extreme neatness, even though one sleeve was pinned to the shoulder. A smart valet climbed out and helped the ladies into the coach.
“Who are you, sir?” Mrs. Twainsbury quavered.
“I think I know,” Camilla said.
“Do you?” The dark eyes were very much like Philip’s but even more crinkled when he beamed at her. “Then you have the advantage of me, Miss... ?”
“Miss Twainsbury,” she said with a laugh. “Miss Camilla Twainsbury but not, I hope, for long. I hope to change it for LaCorte quite soon.”
The dark eyes narrowed. “Other girls have hoped for that, but I only knew of one that achieved it. Yet, why do I have a strong suspicion that another LaCorte male is doomed to lose his freedom?”
“He might marry, sir, but he’ll lose nothing by it.”
Drawn by horses, powerful even when weary, Camilla arrived at the Manor long before she’d hoped. Samson opened the door. “Is Mister Philip at home?” she asked, breathless now that she’d be seeing him in moments.
“Why, Miss Twainsbury,” Samson said, looking past her at the coach. “Mr. Philip is ...” Then the butler completely forgot training and decorum. Pushing past her, he went running down the stairs as he’d probably not run in years.
“Oh, sir! Oh, sir.”
Camilla entered the house, looking everywhere at once. Nothing had changed, and she was glad of it. There was still a faint scent of flowers in the air and well-loved furniture. She hurried to the library and opened the door.
The fire was cold ashes, the candles fresh and new, wicks as white as an unwritten page. The ink in the pot on the desk was untouched and the pen uncut. Looking at the manuscript pages on the desk, Camilla saw that Philip had written hardly a word since she’d left, though he’d crossed a good many out with savage slashes of his pen.
Worried now, Camilla tore up the staircase, heading for the nursery. Tinarose must know where her uncle could be. On the landing, making the turn to go up, Camilla collided with Philip, just emerging from his sister-in-law’s chamber.
“Camilla?” he said, his hands tight on her shoulders.
“Oh, you are here,” she said.
“Yes. And so are you.” He spoke slowly, unemotionally like a man in the grip of exhaustion. Perhaps she would have worried that he wasn’t glad to see her, but his hands betrayed his true feelings. They held her so tightly that she bore the marks of them a day later.
“What is it? What’s wrong? I knew when you didn’t come that something must be amiss.”
“Is it Christmas Eve already? I suppose I have lost track of the days. My nephew is ill.”
“Oh, no. What is it?”
A ghost of a chuckle escaped his lips. “Croup. Just croup, Nanny Mallow says, but Beulah won’t let go of the child. She says she knows he’s going to die, and nothing anyone can say seems to change her mind. Even Evelyn can’t get her to give him the baby. If they can take the boy, they can treat him, but she won’t give him to them.”
“Wait here,” Camilla said, freeing herself. “Wait here.”
Philip smiled as he closed his eyes, leaning tiredly against the wall. After two days without sleep, even the wall felt comfortable.
Camilla had come. How like her not to be swayed by dark circumstances into believing the worst of him, even though he felt sure her mother had poured poison enough into her ears. He promised himself never to take advantage of her faith in him. Idly, waiting for her, he wondered how soon they could marry. A quiet family service would be best. He could almost see the church, glowing with the lights of many candles, as Camilla came down the flower-bedecked aisle. She had rather heavy footsteps for such a light creature. It sounded as if she was wearing thick boots under her wedding gown.
“Philip, old man,” someone said, and Philip knew he was dreaming, for that voice had been stilled by waves half a world away.
“Myron?” he said.
“Yes, old man. It’s me. Wake up, do.”
“Myron!” Philip jerked awake, clutching at the man before him, staring with astounded eyes. “My God, they said... What in heaven’s name happened to you? Where’s your arm?”
“Buried on an island. It was the arm or me, but that’s a long tale for a winter’s evening. This young lady says my Beulah is ill. Where is she?”
Philip opened the bedroom door and stood in the opening, his arm tight around Camilla. Sir Myron went down on one knee before the armchair that held his wife. Lady LaCorte looked just as usual, except that her abundant hair lay loose around her shoulders. Yet every few seconds long shudders passed through her body, shaking her and setting her teeth to chattering. Against her bosom, clutched tight, she held her child. “He’s going to die, Doctor,” she said, not looking at this stranger who had entered. “I’ve lost my husband, and now I’m going to lose my son. I just know it.”
“You haven’t lost anything, Beulah. I’m here.” Captain LaCorte lifted her chin with his fingers. For a moment, she stared; then she looked away, closing her eyes. She pressed her trembling fingertips to the center of her forehead. “I really am mad,” she said. “I’ve heard the voices whisper it when they thought I couldn’t hear, but it’s true.”
“No, it isn’t. I always told you I’d come back to you, no matter what stood in my way. Am I a liar, Beulah?”
She laughed. “You always were.”
“Let me see my son.”
Her arm fell away a little from her body, and Captain LaCorte took his child in his arm. “A fine boy,” he said, nodding to Nanny Mallow, who was already there to take the child. As she hurried away, Camilla was relieved beyond speech to hear the baby cough.
Philip’s arm about her shoulder drew her back out of the room. “They’ll be all right now. Where do you suppose he came from? Former king of a cannibal isle, if I know Myron. Or maybe he was taken to safety by the lost islanders of Atlantis. Wouldn’t surprise me a bit.”
“Ahem,” Camilla said. Going up on tiptoe, she surprised him with a kiss. He didn’t hesitate long before taking comman
d of it. “That’s what I wanted to know,” she said with a sigh. “Go and dress yourself in your finest attire,” she added. “It’s Christmas Eve, and we have much to be thankful for.”
Several hours later, gaiety infused every inch of the common rooms. The greenery that the stable lads had hoarded was brought in with suitable revelry and hung in boughs over windows and doors. The kissing balls the maids had been working on were hung in spots most likely to bring their prey to doom while Samson lit candles with a wild lack of worry over their cost. Mrs. Twainsbury found herself in the kitchen, drinking an amazingly mellow cup of chocolate while watching Mrs. Lamsard create a feast out of seemingly nothing.
As for Camilla and Philip, he followed her from room to room as she bustled about the small tasks of Christmas. Every time she passed beneath mistletoe, he kissed her, echoed by screams of delight from Nell and Grace, who followed him, urging him to “do it again, Uncle Philip,” and racing away every time he threatened to kiss one of them. Camilla found herself working less and loitering more under the cunningly wrought balls of holly and ivy, ribbons and baubles, the branch of mistletoe hanging beneath.
“Aren’t you supposed to take a berry each time?” she asked.
“If I do that, soon there are no more berries and no more kisses,” he said.
“Oh. I see. That is something to worry about.”
“Not for you,” he said, kissing her again. “Never for you.”
When the waits came to sing in the darkness beyond the lamps by the front door, everyone in the house who could came to listen. As the voices, man and woman’s, boy and girl’s, rang out and faded into the distance of the stars, Camilla leaned her head on Philip’s shoulder and let the peace of the season fill her heart and soul. Wherever time would take them, whatever fate brought them, she didn’t need to fear that she’d ever lose her home. Love was her home, and she carried it with her.
Copyright © 2003 by Cynthia Pratt
Originally published by Zebra (ISBN 0821774883)
Electronically published in 2014 by Belgrave House/Regency Reads
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
No portion of this book may be reprinted in whole or in part,
by printing, faxing, E-mail, copying electronically or by any
other means without permission of the publisher. For more
information, contact Belgrave House, 190 Belgrave Avenue, San
Francisco, CA 94117-4228
http://www.RegencyReads.com
Electronic sales: [email protected]
This is a work of fiction. All names in this publication are
fictitious and any resemblance to any person living or dead is
coincidental.
A Yuletide Treasure Page 19