Someone To Hold Part 20

"And if the real parents are unknown?" Camille asked.

"We follow the same careful investigative procedure," Miss Ford said. "Having our children adopted feels a little like giving up our own children, you know. We will do it gladly if it is for the child's benefit, but it is never easy to say goodbye. Understandably, most adoptive parents do not want to come back here for visits."

"Do you remember Sammy and his golden curls?" the nurse asked, and she and Miss Ford were off into reminiscences of babies they had lost to adoption.

Camille returned to her room and wrote to Harry to congratulate him upon his promotion. It was the first time she had written directly to him. It was painful. Harry had been the Earl of Riverdale. She had been forever annoyed with him because he was having the time of his life, surrounded by companions who numbered more sycophants than real friends, merely wearing a black armband in deference to their father's pa.s.sing while Mama, Abby, and she were swathed in funereal black. But he had been a good-hearted boy, cheerful, intelligent, affectionate. She had loved him dearly without fully realizing it. And she loved him now and felt the pain of what had happened to him. His letters were always high spirited, but what was the reality? Would he even be alive to read her letter? Her fear for him was always there, deeply suppressed but very real.

The price of love, she thought, was pain. Was it worth it? Was it better not to love at all?

In the middle of the afternoon she walked up to the Royal Crescent, as she had done yesterday before the picnic, to raid her wardrobe for something more suitable to wear to the evening's ball than any of the few garments that hung in her room at the orphanage. It felt a little like digging into a past life she had left behind longer ago than a few months, but there was something undeniably enticing about it. What woman did not like to dress up and look her best at least once in a while?

She chose a gown of silver lace over blue satin, its waistline high beneath her bosom, its neckline low, the sleeves short and puffed. The hem was deeply scalloped and embroidered with silver thread. She donned long silver gloves and silver slippers and would carry a delicate fan that opened to reveal a brightly colored painting of fat winged cherubs hovering above a romantically handsome, languishing young man who looked as though he had been badly wounded by one of Cupid's darts. It amused Camille-though she had never thought of it before-to imagine that the holder of the fan perhaps held the fate of a young man's love literally in the palm of her hand. Her only jewelry was the pearl necklace her father had given her on her come-out-actually it was his secretary who had delivered it to her-and the matching earrings that had been her mother's gift. Her grandmother's dresser styled her hair high on her head with intricate twists and curls and some waved tendrils to lie along her neck and over her ears.

For a moment, looking at herself in her mirror, she felt a wave of nostalgia for that familiar world she had left behind so abruptly. But it surprised her to realize that she would not go back now even if she could. She did not believe she particularly liked the person she had been then, and she certainly did not like the person to whom she had been betrothed. She turned away and went to Abigail's room, where she found her sister looking like a relic of springtime in a pretty pale yellow gown Camille had not seen before. She was in a fever of excitement and anxiety.

"Will it be like a real ball, do you think?" she asked. "Oh, you do look lovely, Cam. I always wish I had grown as tall as you." Abby had attended a few local a.s.semblies in the country, but no formal b.a.l.l.s. She had never had a coming-out Season.

"It will not be like a London squeeze, I suppose," Camille said, "but I understand the whole of Bath polite society has been invited, and I would imagine it is being touted as the grandest event of the summer. The Westcotts have more than their fair share of t.i.tles among them, after all. It will be well attended."

"Do you think-" Abigail stopped and fussed over donning her shawl and picking up her fan. "Do you think we may have a few partners, Cam? Apart from Uncle Thomas and Alexander, that is?"

"I think," Camille said, "our aunts will take their duties as hostesses seriously, Abby. A hostess does not like to see wallflowers decorating her ballroom. It reflects badly upon her."

"They will find us partners, then?" Abigail wrinkled her nose.

"It is the way things are arranged," Camille told her. "And sometimes gentlemen will ask to be presented. It is not done, you know, for them to rush up and ask for a dance when there has been no introduction."

She hoped she was speaking the truth. She hoped her sister would have dancing partners and that they would not be just older married men who had been coerced into it or had taken pity on her. She did not care for herself. She would be quite content merely to watch the festivities and spend a little more time with her family before they returned home. And, as Abby had just said, Uncle Thomas and Alexander and even Avery would no doubt dance with her. And . . .

Joel?

She had tried very hard all day not to think about yesterday. What exactly had he been saying? He probably did not even know himself, though-he had compared his mind to a hornets' nest. But-I would like to have children of my own. I would like to give them what I never knew, a father and a mother. And he had spoken of adopting children. He had mentioned Sarah. And then, after seeming to be building to something, he had thanked her for coming and for listening and led the way down the hill.

Oh, she was going to go home to Hinsford with Mama and Abby. She was simply going to give up the struggle and be abject. No, she was not. She was going to remain at the school. She was going to stay firm and . . . Perhaps she would set up her own establishment somewhere and live independently. She could do it with the money she was taking from Anna. She could live very well on it, in fact. She was sure even a quarter of her father's fortune was a very handsome sum. Yes, perhaps she would do just that or. . . .

Oh, Joel.

Abigail was ready to go downstairs, and soon they were in the carriage with their mother and grandmother on the way to the Upper a.s.sembly Rooms even though the distance was a very short one. Mama held Abby's hand tightly, Camille noticed. She herself opened and closed her fan on her lap and wondered if there would be any waltzes.

Joel had become something of a local celebrity. He was already known by some people, of course, as a portrait painter, and those people were able to point him out to everyone else as the penniless orphan who had turned out to be the long-lost great-nephew-some even said grandson-of the very wealthy Mr. c.o.x-Phillips, who had lived in one of the mansions up in the hills. The elderly gentleman had discovered the truth in the very nick of time, or so the story ran, and left every last penny of his millions to the young man, whom he had been able to clasp to his bosom for the first and last time almost with his dying breath.

Joel's celebrity had been enhanced rather than diminished when the story began to circulate and then ignite fashionable drawing rooms that he had punched Viscount Uxbury in the face during a tea at the Upper Rooms, knocking all his teeth down his throat in the process, for insulting a lady.

It was with a great deal of trepidation, then, that Joel approached those same Upper Rooms on Sat.u.r.day evening, uncomfortable in new evening clothes and shoes and wondering if it was imperative for a man to dance at such an event when he had only ever danced at the orphanage. And wondering too if there would be enough dark corners in which to hide. And wondering if it was too late to turn around and go back home. But he was mortally tired of his own cowardice. One thing was certain. He could not return to his old, comfortable life. Very well, then. He would move on with the new.

Besides, Camille might well take herself off to Hinsford Manor tomorrow with her mother and sister, and he was not going to allow it to happen without a fight-or without at least talking to her first.

He walked purposefully up to the door of the rooms, gave his name to the bruiser of a uniformed man who half filled the doorway-at least one person in Bath, it seemed, did not know him by sight-and stepped inside.

Every citizen of Bath except the bruiser at the door must have been invited, he thought over the next few minutes. The tearoom was crammed, the ballroom was full, and if he was not drawing attention wherever he went, then his imagination was far more vivid than he had realized. An orchestra on a raised platform was tuning its instruments, though the dancing had not begun. The place hummed with conversation and laughter, and if someone would just open a trapdoor in the floor Joel would gladly disappear through it without even checking for steps first.

And then Lady Molenor claimed him, all sparkling jewels and nodding hair plumes and gracious manners, and she was closely followed by the Dowager d.u.c.h.ess of Netherby, formidable in a royal blue gown and matching turban with a jewel the size of a robin's egg pinned to the front of it. They bore him off between them to greet the Dowager Countess of Riverdale, who was seated in the ballroom on a chair that resembled a throne, happily receiving the homage and birthday greetings of all and sundry while Lady Matilda Westcott, her daughter, plied a fan in the vicinity of her face, all solicitous concern for her mother's comfort. Anna, looking very lovely indeed in deep rose pink, came to hug him, and Lady Jessica Archer and Miss Abigail Westcott fluttered their fans at him and smiled brightly before walking off arm-in-arm to display their prettiness before the gathered mult.i.tudes. And . . . Camille was there, standing for the moment a little off to one side of her grandmother, alone.

"I do not believe," he said, stepping closer to her, "I have ever seen a more beautiful woman."

She stared at him for a moment and he realized how very extravagant and silly his words must have sounded. But then she smiled slowly, an expression that began with dancing eyes. "Or I a more handsome man," she said. "Joel, you have been shopping. Was it very painful?"

"Excruciatingly so," he said, grinning at her. "But I walked all the way up here and my shoes have still not blistered all my toes. Or my heels. Nor has my cravat rubbed my neck raw."

"You do look very splendid," she said.

"Camille," he said, sobering, "are you really going to go home with your mother and sister?"

She did not answer immediately. "No," she said then. "It would be an admission of defeat, and I refuse to be defeated."

"Good girl," he said, as though he were speaking to one of the pupils at the school.

"But, Joel," she said, unfurling her fan and immediately adding a flourish of gorgeous color to the delicate blues and silver of her garments. "I have accepted Anna's offer of one-quarter of my father's fortune. I am not sure yet what I will do with it, if anything."

"Ah," he said, and he did not know if he was glad or sorry. "What made you change your mind?"

"I am trying to make my heart follow the lead my head has set," she said. "I am trying to love her, Joel. I am trying to think of her as my sister, not just as my half sister. Sharing her fortune is crucial to her happiness."

He had no chance to answer. There was an increase of movement all about them, and he realized that the orchestra had fallen silent and couples were gathering on the dance floor.

"My set, I believe, Camille," the Earl of Riverdale said, nodding genially at Joel and extending a hand toward his cousin.

"Yes, Alexander. Thank you," she said.

And Joel was left alone again until Lady Overfield stepped up beside him. "I remember Anna telling me about the dances that were held at the orphanage when her old teacher was still there," she said. "She knew the steps of everything except the waltz. I suppose you do too, Mr. Cunningham. At the risk of sounding unpardonably forward, would you care to try this one with me? The floor is very crowded. I daresay we will be lost among the ma.s.ses and absolutely no one will even see us."

And if Camille was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, Joel thought-and he might, of course, be partial-then surely Lady Overfield was the kindest.

"I shall do my very best not to shame you, ma'am," he said, smiling ruefully at her as he offered his arm.

"I was delighted to learn yesterday," Alexander said after leading Camille onto the floor, "that Cousin Viola is returning to Hinsford to live and that Abigail is going with her. Will you go too, Camille?"

"No," she said, "except for the occasional visit. But I do not disapprove. I am glad for them too."

"Your future lies here?" he asked her, looking beyond her shoulder to where Joel was leading Elizabeth out.

"For now, yes," she said. "I actually enjoy teaching, though it is the most chaotic, alarming activity I have ever been involved in and I sometimes wonder what on earth I am doing."

He looked back at her and smiled. "Apparently Miss Ford has offered you the job for at least the next twenty years," he said. "I believe that is a high recommendation."

"And what about you, Alexander?" she asked him. "However will you restore the fortunes of Brambledean Court? Or, like Papa, will you not even try?"

"Oh, I shall try," he told her. "It is my duty, after all. I shall have to marry a rich wife."

The dancing was about to begin, and it was an intricate country dance during which there would be little opportunity for private conversation. He was still smiling. His eyes were even twinkling, as though he had made a joke. Camille hoped it was a joke. Alexander had always been an honorable, kindly man. Although she had never believed in romantic love herself, she had always expected that when he married it would be for love with a lady who matched him in temperament and amiability-and looks. It chilled her that he might put his duty to the people at Brambledean her father had so shamefully neglected before his own happiness. The old Camille would have understood and applauded. The new Camille wanted to cry out in protest.

But the music began.

Abby, she saw, was dancing with Avery. And it had all been very carefully calculated, she realized as the evening progressed. A duke and an earl danced the opening set with the two illegitimate daughters of the earl's predecessor and thus displayed to the company that they were perfectly respectable, that a slight to them might well result in a snub from both n.o.blemen and their families. Neither Camille nor Abigail lacked for partners all evening, and while Camille danced with both Avery and Uncle Thomas, Abigail danced every set except the first with men who were not part of the family, most of them young and unmarried. Abby might well remember this evening as the happiest of her life.

This, of course, was Bath, not London, and Abby could not always expect the sort of family support that was behind her tonight. But even so . . . Well, perhaps there was some hope after all. Perhaps what had happened was not the unalloyed disaster it had seemed at the time and until very recently.

Joel disappeared from the ballroom after dancing the opening set quite creditably with Elizabeth. Camille thought he must have left until she went into the tearoom later on Uncle Thomas's arm and saw that he was sitting with Miss Ford and a group of ladies who appeared to be hanging upon his every word. His eyes met hers across the room. She sat with her back to him and joined in the conversation at her own table. Ten minutes or so pa.s.sed before she felt a hand upon her shoulder.

"I believe the next set is to be a waltz," Joel said, addressing her after nodding a greeting to the other occupants of the table. "Will you dance it with me, Camille?"

"Yes." She got to her feet and set her napkin down on the table. "Thank you."

"Or perhaps," he said as they walked in the direction of the ballroom, "you would feel safer if we merely promenaded about the perimeter of the room. I notice that is a favorite activity of a number of people."

"Have you turned craven, Mr. Cunningham?" she asked, unfurling her fan and wafting it before her face.

"Not at all, Miss Westcott," he said. "I have turned chivalrous. I do not want to make a spectacle of you on the dance floor. Not to mention endangering your toes."

"Are you saying, by any chance," she asked him, "that you do not trust my teaching skills, Mr. Cunningham?"

"I believe it is more my learning skills I doubt," he said. "But I am willing to give it a go if you are."

"Give it a go?" She frowned at him. "What sort of language is that, Mr. Cunningham?"

"The gutter?" he suggested.

And they dissolved into laughter, which was not at all a genteel thing to do, and Camille slid an arm through his.

"As Lady Overfield remarked earlier," he said, "the floor will doubtless be so crowded that no one will even notice us or any imperfections in our dancing prowess."

That proved less true than either of them could have wished. The waltz, it seemed, was not yet as fashionable in Bath as it was in London, and most of the guests preferred to watch or else remain in the tearoom. A number of couples took to the floor, but there was plenty of room for them all to dance freely without fear of collisions-and plenty of room for them all to be observed.

"This," Joel said as the music began, "was not the most brilliant idea I have ever had."

"Yes," she said, looking very directly into his face, "it was."

His hand was warm against the back of her waist, his shoulder firm beneath her own hand. His other hand, clasping her own, felt large and rea.s.suring, and he smelled good of something indefinable-shaving soap, perhaps, new linen and coat fabric, perhaps. And of Joel. She was sure she could have been led here blindfolded and known exactly who held her in waltz position. His body heat enveloped her and she remembered last Sunday with an ache of longing. She so loved his lovemaking.

His gaze was intense, and she wondered if he was having similar thoughts. Oh, Joel, she asked him silently, what did you mean yesterday?

They waltzed with wooden legs again when the music began-one two three, one two three, three to one side, three back again-and Camille watched a flush begin to creep up his neck from beneath his cravat and something like panic gather in his eyes. She smiled at him and laughed softly.

And suddenly they were waltzing again as they had begun to do in the schoolroom, but without the inhibitions of s.p.a.ce and the limits of her breath as she both sang and danced. This time a full orchestra and the ballroom at the Upper Rooms swept them onward, and they danced and twirled in a world that was theirs and theirs alone, their eyes on each other, smiles on their lips.

It was strange being both aware of one's surroundings and all alone within them at the same time. She knew that Anna was dancing with Avery, Alexander and Elizabeth and Abby and Jessica with unknown partners-even though Abby and Jessica had not even made their official come-outs yet and would not be allowed even then to waltz in London until they had been given the nod of approval by one of the hostesses of Almack's Club. She was aware of other dancers and the swirl of color from gowns and the flash of jewels in the candlelight. She was aware of the older members of her family and other people standing about watching. She was aware of the smell of candles and perfumes, of the sounds of dancing feet and swishing silks and satins beneath the beat of the music. She was even aware that she and Joel were attracting more than their fair share of attention, perhaps because of who she was, more probably because of whom Joel had just become. And yet all of these impressions merely formed a distant background to the world of music and movement and, yes, of romance, in which they danced.

The most wonderful, wonderful feeling in the world, she thought without trying to a.n.a.lyze the thought or distrust it or be made fearful by it-the most wonderful feeling in the world was being in love.

When the music ended, the two worlds came together, and Camille removed her hand from Joel's shoulder, slipped her other hand free of his, and smiled regretfully at him.

"I believe, Mr. Cunningham," she said, "I must be the world's best teacher."

"Only, Miss Westcott," he said, "because you have the world's best pupil."

They grinned inelegantly at each other.

"There is nowhere here to be even remotely private, is there?" he said. "Come for a stroll outside with me, Camille?"

In the late evening, when it was dark out there? Without a chaperon? Without- "I'll fetch my shawl," she said.

The sounds of music and voices and laughter dimmed as soon as they stepped outdoors. There was the mere sliver of a new moon overhead. But the sky was cloudless and there was more than enough starlight to see by. The air had lost the heat of the day but was on the warm side of cool. There was no discernible wind.

"It is lovely out here," she said, lifting her face to the sky.

"It is," he agreed as they strolled the short distance along Bennett Street to the Circus. They crossed the road to the great circular garden at the center of it and strolled inside the rails. All around them rose the three ma.s.sive curved segments of the circle of houses with their elegant, cla.s.sical design. There were very few lights behind any of the windows. It was late.

"I painted all day," he told her. "I painted furiously and without a break and achieved that total focus I always aim for when I am creating. I painted your sister-from the sketches I made, from memory, and from that part of myself I can never describe in words. The portrait is not by any means finished, but I am terribly pleased with it. There is something so . . . delicate about her being that I have very much feared I would never quite capture it either in thought or in vision or on canvas. But I think I have caught her beauty, her joy in living, her vulnerability, her sadness, her unquenchable hope. Oh, I could pile word upon word and still not express what it is about her I sense. I have never painted anything so quickly. But it is not slipshod or shallow or . . ." His voice trailed away.

"I shall look forward to seeing it when it is finished," she said, her voice prim. They were strolling about the inner perimeter of the garden.

He sighed. "What I was trying to do," he said, "was focus my mind upon one thing so that all the thoughts that have been teeming through it and tormenting me for days would be silenced. I was more successful than I expected. But the thing is, Camille, that somewhere behind my concentration upon the one thing, my thoughts were being tamed and sorted so that when I finally stepped back from the canvas, I knew one thing with perfect clarity . . . well, two things, actually."

She turned her head to look at him. She was using both hands to hold together the edges of her shawl, but he took one of her hands in his and laced their fingers. She grasped both edges of the shawl with the other hand. She did not say anything. But what did he expect her to say? She would think he had brought her out here to tell her about his day of painting.

"One thing I knew, the lesser thing," he said, "was that I am indeed going to keep that house and use my money to do something with it that will share the bounty and the beauty, something that will lift people's spirits and feed their souls. Particularly children, though not exclusively. I do not know either the what or the how yet, but I will. And I will live there to give it the warmth of home as well as everything else. I will have animals there and . . . people."

Good G.o.d, he was a coward. He had not known that about himself until recently. He drew her arm beneath his own, their hands still clasped. He stopped walking and they faced outward, looking toward the steep descent of Gay Street.

"The other thing I knew with perfect clarity," he said, "was that I love you, that I want you in my life whatever that turns out to be, that I want to marry you and have children with you and make a family with you in that house-with children of our own bodies and adopted children and dogs and cats and . . . well, snakes and mice too, perhaps, if we have sons or intrepid daughters. I am not sure I can ask it of you. You have lived a very different life. You have grown up the daughter of an earl in an aristocratic household. You are a lady through and through. When I saw you tonight I thought you the most beautiful woman I had ever seen-I did not exaggerate that. I also thought you the grandest, the most remote, the most unattainable. It felt presumptuous to love you."

"Joel," she said, cutting his eloquence short. "You can be sure."

He looked at her blankly in the near darkness. He could be sure? He heard the echo of his own words-I am not sure I can ask it of you.

"Can I?" he asked.

"You will need a lady to run that house of yours while your head is among the clouds," she said. "One thing I can do with my eyes blindfolded and my hands tied behind my back is run a household. I may find it hair-raising to have shrieking children and barking dogs and squeaking mice and absentminded artists underfoot, but if I can walk into an orphanage and start teaching a schoolroom full of children of all ages and ability levels; if I can get them to knit a purple rope as a collective project and march them all about Bath clinging to it; if I can teach a certain absentminded artist to waltz, I can do anything."

"But . . ." He was squeezing her fingers and her hand very tightly, he realized before relaxing his grip. "Would you want to, Camille?"

She sighed, a sound of exaggerated long-suffering. "The thing is, Joel," she said, "that I really am a lady by upbringing and cannot shrug off the training of a lifetime in a few brief months. I did it once, shockingly, almost a week ago when I asked you to take me home with you. I do not believe I could do it again. I could not possibly ask you to marry me. A lady does not, you know. That is a gentleman's task."