Someone To Hold Part 14

"He was my great-uncle," he said after a brief hesitation. "My grandmother's brother."

"Joel?" Anastasia leaned closer to him across the table, her eyes wide. "Your great-uncle? Your grandmother?"

"He invited me to call," Joel explained. "I a.s.sumed he wished to discuss some painting commission with me, but when I went earlier this week, he told me it was his now-deceased sister who took me to the orphanage as a baby after my mother died in childbed. So you see, Anna, you are not the only one to have discovered your parentage this year."

"c.o.x-Phillips." Aunt Louise frowned in thought. "He used to be in the government in some capacity, did he not? Netherby-my husband-had an acquaintance with him. I had a.s.sumed him to be long deceased. Not that I have spared a thought for him in years, I must confess. If memory serves me correctly, though, he was some connection of Viscount Uxbury's. I remember hearing it when Uxbury began to show an interest in Camille."

It seemed to Camille that everyone-except Avery-determinedly did not look her way.

Avery, unapologetically resplendent in satin and lace long after they had pa.s.sed out of fashion with most other gentlemen, sat at his elegant ease, a gla.s.s of port in one hand, a jeweled quizzing gla.s.s in the other, his smooth blond hair like a shining halo about his head. His heavy-lidded eyes were fixed upon Camille.

"Yes, he was," Joel said. "Uxbury is there at the house now."

"The less said about him, the better," Aunt Mildred said. "I do not feel at all kindly toward that young man."

"He must be c.o.x-Phillips's heir, then," Avery said. "That could be unwelcome news to you, Camille, though I do not suppose he will spend any great amount of time here as your near neighbor. He does not strike me as the sort to make his permanent home in Bath."

"Perhaps," Camille said, "he will be discouraged by the possibility that you will come to my defense again, Avery, with your bare feet."

His eyes gleamed with appreciation, and his hand closed about the handle of his quizzing gla.s.s. "Ah, you have heard about that slight episode, have you?" he said.

"What is this about bare feet?" Aunt Louise asked sharply.

"You would not wish to know, Louise," Uncle Thomas said firmly. "More to the point, you would not wish Jessica or Abigail to know."

"Know what?" Jessica cried, leaning forward across the table to fix her eager gaze upon her half brother. "What did you do to Viscount Uxbury, Avery? I hope you punched him in the nose without first removing any of your rings. I hope you ran him through the ribs with the point of your sword. I hope you shot him-"

"That is quite enough, Jessica," Aunt Louise said sternly.

"He is a thoroughly nasty man, Aunt Louise," Anastasia said, "and I can only applaud Jessica's bloodthirsty wishes for his fate. He was horrid to me at my first ball and he was horrid about Camille-worse, in fact, because he had been betrothed to her. I am so glad, Camille, that you escaped his clutches in time, though I daresay you were unhappy at the time. Avery avenged you, and I do not care how many ladies know how he did it and are shocked. And if Avery had not avenged you, then Alex would have. They love you."

There was a brief silence about the table as Anastasia looked at Camille and Camille frowned back at her. She blinked, feeling that hotness behind her eyes that sometimes presaged tears. She nodded curtly.

"I am not shocked," her mother said. "I am enchanted."

"But . . . bare feet, Avery?" Abigail said.

"You see," he said softly, raising his gla.s.s to his eye to survey her through it and sounding horribly bored in that annoying way of his, "I had no choice. I had removed my boots. And my stockings."

"Mr. Cunningham," Aunt Mildred said, "accept my congratulations at having discovered your ident.i.ty at last and my commiserations at your loss of your great-uncle so soon after you found him."

And everyone's attention returned to Joel.

"Thank you, ma'am," he said.

Sixteen.

After having felt a great deal of nervous apprehension about walking in upon a family gathering of such ill.u.s.trious persons, most of whom he had not met before, Joel had found his welcome gracious, even warm. He might have almost enjoyed the evening if Camille had not been there, looking a bit like a regal Amazon, to make it impossible for him to put aside his great sense of guilt, at least for a few hours. Fortunately, perhaps, dinner was served soon after his arrival, and he had found himself seated between Lady Overfield and Lady Molenor, with Anna across from him and Camille farther along the table on the same side as he, where he need not be constantly looking at her.

But he did need to talk to her, to apologize again, to try to clear the air between them if at all possible. They still had to share a schoolroom occasionally, after all, and he had to paint her portrait. Besides, yesterday might have had consequences, and he would not close his mind to the possibility, just as he had not-to his shame-even yesterday. He knew a great deal about illegitimate, unwanted children, and neither of those adjectives would ever apply to any child of his.

His chance came when the former Countess of Riverdale, Camille's mother, decided that it was time she and her younger daughter returned home and Netherby raised a hand-actually it was one languid forefinger-to summon a servant and instruct him to have the ducal carriage brought around.

"It will deliver Camille to Northumberland Place first, if that meets with your approval, Aunt Viola," he said, "before taking you and Abigail up to the Royal Crescent."

"It really is not far for me to walk," Camille said.

"Nevertheless," Netherby said with a sort of haughty weariness, clearly expecting that the one word was enough to settle the matter. It never ceased to amaze Joel that Anna had married him. He was all splendor and affectation. However, Joel knew there was a great deal more to the Duke of Netherby than met the eye. There were those Far Eastern martial arts he had perfected, for example, which apparently made him into a lethal human weapon. And there was the fact that he loved Anna, though that was not something that had particularly endeared him to Joel at first.

"I will be pa.s.sing Northumberland Place on my way home," Joel said. "I will happily give you my escort to your door, Camille, unless you prefer to ride."

Anna beamed across the table at him, and Lady Overfield turned her head toward him and smiled too for no apparent reason.

"I will walk home with Joel, Avery," Camille said stiffly.

Joel stood exchanging pleasantries with Lord Molenor while she took her leave of her relatives and promised her mother that she would walk up to the Royal Crescent tomorrow afternoon.

"I shall probably see you there, Camille," Anna said. "I know that Aunt Louise and Aunt Mildred want to call upon Aunt Viola. There is something I wish to tell you."

Camille gave a brief, chilly nod, Joel saw.

The outside air had cooled with the descent of darkness, but it was still almost warm. The stars were bright. There was not a breath of wind. The silence of the street seemed loud after the clamor of voices in the dining room.

"You were not expecting to see your mother?" Joel asked, clasping his hands behind his back as they walked.

"I was not," she said. "I did not believe she would come at all. She gave no hint of it in the letter she wrote me this week. She feels herself to be an outsider."

"Yet she must have been a close member of the Westcott family for more than twenty years," he said. "She still is in the minds of the others. That was clear to see. So are you and your sister."

"Alexander said a strange thing to me before dinner," she told him, "and before you arrived. It was in the nature of a suggestion-that I allow myself to be loved. I have never thought before about the difference between loving and being loved, though I learned early in my schooling the distinction between the active and pa.s.sive voices of verbs. I think I have always behaved in the active voice. It is easier to do something oneself than wait for someone else to do it. One might wait forever, and even if one did not, the thing might not be done as well as one could do it oneself. I have always liked to be in control. It is easier to love than wait to be loved-or to trust that love even if it is offered."

"You love your Westcott relatives, then?" he said.

"Yes, of course," she said, shrugging. "Though I tend to avoid using the word love, for it is used to cover a mult.i.tude of different emotions and att.i.tudes, is it not? They are my family. The fact that I will no longer allow myself to be dependent upon them does not alter that."

"Was the Earl of Riverdale suggesting that you do not allow them to love you in return even though they wish to do so?" he asked.

"I do not know what that means," she said.

He remembered her telling him that throughout her girlhood she had craved her father's love, that she had tried to shape herself into the sort of perfect lady he would love. She had been far more damaged by that man than she realized. The fact that he had knowingly made her illegitimate was the least of his sins against her.

"It was clear to me tonight," he said, "perhaps because I am indeed an outsider and could judge dispa.s.sionately, that your family members have been hurt by what has happened to you and your mother and sister and brother. The pain they feel is perhaps the deeper for the fact that they feel largely helpless to lessen your burden. They want to cherish you and make your lives easier again, less painful, but there are limits to what they can do. They can and do love you, however. Your sister seems willing to accept that. You and your mother hold yourselves more aloof, and it hurts both yourselves and them."

She did not immediately reply, and he listened to their footsteps on the silent, deserted street.

"Not that it is any of my business," he said belatedly.

"I must do this alone," she said. "I need to do it alone."

"I know," he said, and he unclasped his hands and reached out without conscious thought to take one of hers. "But perhaps you can find some sort of middle ground. Perhaps you are already doing it, in fact. You went to spend the evening with them tonight. Tomorrow you are going to see some of them again at your grandmother's house. Then afterward you will return to your room at the orphanage, and on Monday you will teach again. Independence and an acceptance of love offered need not be mutually exclusive."

She did not s.n.a.t.c.h her hand away as he half expected she would. Her fingers curled about his instead.

"But what on earth am I doing, talking about myself?" she said suddenly. "What about you, Joel? You went back up to that house again today? I am so sorry you were too late. You must have felt wretched. Strange as it may sound, I rather liked Mr. c.o.x-Phillips. I think you did too even though you had good reason not to. You must be feeling some grief. I saw in your face as soon as you arrived this evening that something had happened."

Just as Anna had. He squeezed her hand. "With my head I cannot grieve," he said. "But the head does not always rule the heart, does it? His stiff, impa.s.sive butler was shedding tears, Camille, and a younger servant was wrapping the door knocker in black crepe. Someone had died-someone related to me when all my life I have a.s.sumed I would never discover anyone of my own. Crusty as he was, he gave me what I believe will always remain the most precious gift I have ever received. He gave me the portrait of my mother. And he was a . . . person. Yes, I feel bereaved and bereft and foolish."

"Oh, not foolish," she said, turning her head to look at him. "He sent for you before it was too late. He even admitted you a second time though you had rejected his plan for a new will the first time. He answered your questions even though he was very ill. And yes, he remembered your mother's portrait and gave it to you."

But they were close to the orphanage, and he must speak about what was surely uppermost in both their minds. He stopped walking and took her other hand in his. "Camille," he asked her, "why did you slap my face? What happened was not seduction . . . was it?"

She drew a sharp breath and s.n.a.t.c.hed her hands away. "No, it was not," she said, enunciating each word clearly. "But when you apologized, you made it seem that you thought it was. It cheapened what had happened. And it made me feel that I must have seemed frigid or been totally inadequate if you could have so misunderstood. I was upset. More than that, I was angry."

Good G.o.d, he had misunderstood, but not for either of the reasons she had suggested.

"I thought you generous and giving and kind," he said. "You once asked me to hold you, but I asked much more of you. I feared I had taken advantage of you and you might regret and resent that I had demanded so much. Camille, you might be with child. I might have done that to you. I might have forced you into a marriage you would not dream of entering into of your own free will."

She had clasped her hands at her waist and was staring at him. He could not see in the darkness whether she had turned pale, but he would wager she had.

"You did not even think of that, did you?" he asked her. "That you might be with child."

"Of course-" she began, but she did not finish what she had started to say.

"No," he said. "I did not think you had."

"Of course I did," she protested. "Oh, of course I did. How could I not?"

She turned to walk onward, and he fell into step beside her. What had their lovemaking meant to her? She had slapped him because his apologies had cheapened what had happened. Cheapened what? She surely could not have had any deeper feelings for him than sympathy and the desire to comfort. Could she?

And what had their lovemaking meant to him? Had he merely reached blindly for someone to hold him-in the ultimate embrace? Blindly? Would any woman have done, then? And if the answer was no, as it a.s.suredly was, then what did that mean? What did it say about his feelings for her?

"You will let me know immediately if you discover there are consequences?" he said, his voice low. "We have both suffered illegitimacy though in different ways. We both know how it can devastate a life. We will neither of us condemn a child of ours to that, Camille. Promise me?"

They were outside the door of the orphanage, and she turned to him, her face expressionless, her manner devoid of any of the roles she adopted to fit various circ.u.mstances. The silence stretched for several moments.

"I promise," she said. "I am tired, Joel, and you must be too. Thank you for walking home with me."

He nodded, but before he could turn away she raised both hands and cupped his face and kissed him softly on the lips.

"You have nothing about which to feel guilty, Joel," she said, her voice suddenly fierce. "Nothing. You are a decent man and I am more sorry than I can say that Mr. c.o.x-Phillips died before you could know him better. But at least you did know him, and through him you know more about your parents and grandparents and yourself. You are less alone than you have always felt even if none of them are still alive. Take comfort. There is comfort. I think I began to learn that for myself this evening. There is comfort."

And she turned without another word, opened the door with her key, and stepped inside before closing the door quietly behind her.

Joel was left standing on the pavement with-the devil!-tears burning his eyes.

There is comfort.

Camille awoke early the following morning and was immediately surprised that she had slept at all. The last thing she remembered from last night was putting her head down on the pillow. All the events of the last couple of days that might have teemed through her mind and kept her tossing and turning all night must have actually exhausted her to the point of rendering her almost comatose instead.

She got up filled with energy, washed and dressed, and went to an early church service. When she returned she spent a while in the schoolroom preparing a reading lesson that could be adapted to each age group tomorrow morning. And then she had breakfast in the dining room. There she learned that Sarah had had a restless night as two teeth pushed up on her lower gums and made them red and swollen. Her housemother was pacing one of the visitor parlors with her when Camille found them. The child was thrashing about in her arms, wailing and refusing to be consoled. She turned her head when Camille appeared, and held out her arms.

Camille had no idea how to comfort a baby who was feverish and cross and in pain and probably desperately tired too. But she must do something. She took the blanket in which the child had become entangled, shook it out and spread it on the sofa, and took Sarah from Hannah's arms to lay her on it before wrapping it tightly about her.

"She won't keep it on her," Hannah warned. "She will tire you out in no time, Miss Westcott."

"Perhaps," Camille agreed. "But you look exhausted. Go and have some breakfast and relax for a while."

Hannah hurried away as though fearful Camille would change her mind. Camille picked up the baby, smiling into her eyes as she did so, and proceeded to rock her with vigorous swings of her arms. Sarah stopped crying, though her face was still drawn into a frown.

"Shhh." Camille lifted her a little higher in her arms and smiled at her again. "Hush now, sweetheart." She searched her mind for a lullaby, could not think of a single one-perhaps she had never known any-and hummed instead the waltz tune to which she and Joel had danced a couple of days ago, an hour or two before they made love.

Sarah gazed fixedly at her until her eyelids began to droop and finally closed altogether and remained closed. Camille rocked her for a while longer before lowering herself gingerly onto a chair. She held the soft, warm, sleeping bundle to her bosom and swallowed against what felt very like a lump in her throat.

Let yourself be loved.

Sarah, who was growing more responsive to the other people at the orphanage, was nevertheless a quiet baby who did not smile or gurgle a great deal, even when she was not cutting teeth, and did not demand attention. Yet whenever Camille appeared in the playroom, her face lit up with recognition, and she either smiled broadly or held out her arms, or both.

Sarah loved her. It was not just that Camille had grown fond of the child to such a degree that she looked forward each day to seeing her, to holding her and talking to her. No, it was not just a one-way sort of affection. Sarah loved her.

Joel had mentioned something last night that she had quickly pushed from her mind, just as she had when it occurred to her after they had been to bed together. She had even promised last night that she would tell him without delay if she discovered that there was a need for them to marry. She did not believe it would be necessary. What were the odds that during one lovemaking she had conceived? They were slim to none. Well, perhaps not none. But they were slim nevertheless. But what if . . .

What if within a year-within nine months-she had a child of her own to hold like this? Her own and Joel's. No, she could not possibly wish for it, could she? She was not the maternal sort.

Yet now she longed, she yearned . . .

But would a child of her own replace Sarah in her heart? Could one love replace another? Or did love expand to encompa.s.s another person, and another, and on and on without end? She had never thought about love. She had always dismissed it as part of the uncertain chaos that threatened from just beyond the boundaries of her ordered, disciplined, very correct existence. There was love of mother and siblings and other family members, of course. There was love of father. But those loves, or that love-was love ever plural? Or was it only and ever singular? Those loves had been all tied up with duty in her mind and had never been allowed the freedom to touch her heart.

Would her life have been different if Papa had loved her? Papa had never allowed himself to be loved, and his life had been hugely impoverished as a result. How much was she her father's daughter?

Let yourself be loved, Alexander had said.

There was a tap on the door and it opened to reveal Abigail and their mother. Camille's eyes widened as they stepped inside the room.

"Camille?" her mother said softly. "We were told you were in here with a feverish baby."

Abigail had come hurrying across the room to peer down at the baby, a soft smile of delight on her face. "Oh, Cam," she said, "she is adorable. Just look at those plump cheeks."

"She is teething," Camille explained, "and kept her housemother up most of the night. I have just rocked her to sleep."