Someone to Hold

by Mary Balogh

  He had no idea how he was going to paint her portrait. If he painted her as he saw her, there would be no hint at all of the creative teacher who somehow appealed to children of varying ages and made them excited about learning. And no one looking at such a painting would guess that she was capable of a certain caustic sense of humor—I would not have been at all shocked to discover that I had lost a pupil or three on the way.

  He wondered if it was going to be possible to get to know her well enough to paint a credible portrait. Would she allow him to get close enough? And did he really want to? Part of him resented the fact that though different from Anna in manner and methods, she was just as surely capturing the hearts of the children that he still thought of as Anna’s. He resented the fact that when he glanced across the room, it was Anna’s sister he saw and Anna’s sister he heard. She lacked Anna’s beauty and charm. And yet . . .

  Most of all, perhaps, he resented the fact that he might just come to like Miss Camille Westcott. It seemed disloyal to Anna.

  A number of the children, including six from his group, took their knitting with them when school was dismissed for the day. They were eager to complete the rope so that they could use it. They were voluntarily assigning themselves homework. Was the sun about to fall from the sky?

  When Joel had tidied his side of the room and turned to take his leave of Miss Westcott, he saw that she was seated at one of the small desks, frowning in concentration over a length of knitting in her hands.

  “A weak link in your rope?” he asked.

  “Oh, it appears perfect,” she said without looking up. “By some miracle there is the correct number of stitches on the needle. However, one was dropped about eight rows back, and one was acquired from an innocent loop two rows ago. I leave you to do the arithmetic.”

  “They cancel each other out,” he said, grinning and strolling closer. The short length of knitted fabric looked considerably less than perfect. Some of the stitches had been very loosely knitted and resembled coarse lace, while others had been pulled tight and were all bunched together. The result was that the strip looked a bit like an arthritic snake. “You will turn a blind eye?”

  “Certainly not,” she said curtly as she afforded him one withering glance. “I shall make the corrections. Cedric Barnes is only five and he has done his best. However, he must have something to come back to that looks at least half decent or he might lose heart.”

  Joel raised his eyebrows as he watched her weave the dropped stitch up through the rows. He turned again to leave, but hesitated.

  “You are not eager to go home?” he asked. “On a Friday afternoon?”

  “I am home,” she told him as she knitted along the row in order to drop the loop that ought not to be a stitch. She did not explain.

  “Meaning?” he asked.

  “I have moved in here,” she told him. “It was too far to walk back and forth each day. I have taken the room that used to be Anastasia’s.”

  He stared at the top of her head, transfixed with dislike and something that felt very like fury. What the devil was she up to? Was nothing sacred? Was she trying to step right into Anna’s shoes and . . . obliterate her? And why did she persist in calling Anna Anastasia, even if it was her correct name?

  “That room is rather small, is it not?” he said.

  “It has a bed and a table and chair and enough storage space for those belongings I have brought here,” she said. “It has a washstand and bowl and jug and hooks on the wall and a mirror on the back of the door. It was big enough for Anastasia. I daresay it will be big enough for me.”

  He folded his arms across his chest. “Why?” he asked, and wondered if he sounded as hostile as he felt.

  “I have told you why.” She had dropped the loop back to its original place and was pulling the knitting into shape about it. When he said nothing, she rolled up the ball of wool and pressed it firmly onto the ends of the needles before pinning the little name tag she had prepared to the knitting and taking it over to the cupboard, where she set it on a shelf with the others that had been left behind. “I do not have to explain myself to you.”

  “No,” he agreed, “you do not.” And it was a bit ridiculous of him to feel offended. Anna was long gone. She lived in a ducal mansion and was unlikely to need the room here ever again. He turned to leave.

  “Anastasia found her family at the age of twenty-five,” she said, fussing with the already tidy shelves of the cupboard, “and had to learn to adjust to relatives who were essentially strangers to her. I remember that when she first learned the truth about herself her instinct was to turn her back on the new reality and return here. I hoped with all my heart that she would do just that so that we could forget about her and carry on with our lives as we always had. That would not have been possible, of course, even if she had come back here. It would not have been possible for us or for her. The contents of a Pandora’s box can never be stuffed back in once they have been released. I have to make the opposite adjustment. I have to learn not to belong to people who have always been my family. I have to learn to be an orphan. Not literally, perhaps, but to all intents and purposes.”

  “You are not an orphan in any sense of the word,” he said harshly, irritated with her anew and wishing he had left when he had first intended to. “You have relatives on both sides and have always known them. You have a mother still living and a full sister and brother. You have a half sister who would love you if you would allow it. Yet you insist upon cutting yourself off from all of them as though they do not want you and moving to an orphanage as though you belong here.”

  “I know I do not belong,” she said, “except in the sense that I teach here. I do not expect you to understand, Mr. Cunningham. You do not have the experience to understand what has happened to me, just as I do not have the experience to understand what has happened to you in the course of your life.”

  “That is where human empathy comes in,” he said. “If we did not have it and cultivate it, Miss Westcott, we would not understand or sympathize with anyone, for we are all unique in our experience.”

  She turned her head toward him, her eyebrows raised, while the fingertips of one hand drummed on a shelf. “You are quite right, of course,” she said. “Something catastrophic has happened to my life as I knew it, Mr. Cunningham. In the months since then I have wallowed in misery and denial and, yes, self-pity. You were quite right about that. I will not do it any longer. And I will not cling to relatives who would be kind but would possibly do me more harm than good, unintentional though it would be. I must discover for myself who I am and where I belong, and in order to do that I must put some distance between myself and them, for they would coddle me if I would allow it. Some distance, not a total one. I shall visit my grandmother and Abigail. I shall see my Westcott relatives when they come here, supposedly to celebrate a birthday. Did I tell you they are all coming, not just Anastasia and Avery? For Grandmama Westcott’s seventieth birthday? But . . . I must and will learn to stand alone. I can do that better if I live here. Please do not let me keep you. You must be eager to go home.”

  He stood and stared at her for a few moments, irritated, disliking her. Not understanding her. Not wanting to understand. Dash it all. Why could her maternal grandmother not have lived in the wilds of Scotland? He had not needed any of this. He had needed to get over Anna with all the dignity he could muster and in his own good time.

  “You had better come and have tea with me,” he said abruptly, surprising himself. “Have you ever been to Sally Lunn’s? You have not lived until you have tasted one of the delicacies named after her. They are famous.”

  Her lips thinned. “I have not yet been paid, Mr. Cunningham,” she said.

  Good God, was she penniless? He knew she had been cut off entirely by her father’s will and that she had refused to share any of Anna’s fortune. But . . . literally penniless?

  �
��I have invited you to come and have tea with me, Miss Westcott,” he said. “That means I will be paying the bill. Go and fetch your bonnet.”

  “If this is your way of gathering information about me so that you can paint a convincing portrait of me, Mr. Cunningham,” she said before leaving the room ahead of him, “I would warn you that I will not make it easy for you. But if you do get to know me, please let me know what you discover. I have no idea who I am.”

  He stared after her for a few moments, half annoyed, half puzzled, and quite sure this was the last thing he wanted to be doing on a Friday afternoon. But despite himself, he found himself grinning before following her out of the room.

  I have no idea who I am.

  There was that dry sense of humor again—directed against herself.

  Six

  Sally Lunn’s tearoom, in the oldest house in Bath, was on the North Parade Passage, quite close to the abbey and the Pump Room. It was a tall, narrow building with a bow window jutting onto the street. Inside, it was tiny. The tables were crowded together, cheek by jowl, and all of them seemed to be occupied, as was very often the case. Joel did not come often—until fairly recently he had not been able to afford the extravagance—but he was recognized by a waitress, who smiled warmly at him and indicated a vacant table in the far corner.

  Miss Westcott drew attention as they weaved their way between tables in order to reach it. The same thing had happened during their walk here, and he found it as uncomfortable now as he had then. Other patrons leaned out of her way to make more space for her to pass and watched her after she had gone by. It was not so much her appearance, Joel concluded, as the air of noble arrogance and entitlement with which she bore herself. It was inbred, he supposed, and quite unconscious, yet it did not manifest itself in the schoolroom. Outside, however, she expected people to move out of her way and to clear a path for her, but she acknowledged and thanked no one. Joel was intensely irritated as he murmured thanks for both of them and followed her to the table. He wished fervently he had not issued such an impulsive invitation.

  She sat with her back to the wall, and he took the chair facing her across the small table. He ordered a pot of tea and two Sally Lunns from the suddenly flushed and flustered waitress. She actually bobbed a sort of curtsy as she left their table. Miss Westcott seemed unaware of her existence.

  “I hope you are hungry,” he said. “Though my guess is that you missed luncheon in order to purchase purple wool and needles to knit a rope in more than twenty segments.”

  “I am pleased that I amuse you, Mr. Cunningham,” she said. “The shopkeeper had been stuck with the wool when the customer who ordered it took exception to the brightness of the color and bought gray instead. She offered it to me cheaply and I accepted, since I was using orphanage money.”

  Anna’s money. It would be cruel to tell her that, though, just because he would like to take her down a peg or two.

  “I expect the finished product will amuse half of Bath,” he said. “And the children will tell the story behind it to anyone who stops to look or comment, and everyone will be charmed.”

  She stared at him, nostrils slightly flared, and he could see that she was not amused. “How does one get them to speak only when spoken to?” she asked abruptly. “And not to volunteer information until it has been solicited?”

  “It is perfectly easy to do,” he told her. “You have to make them feel small and worthless and oppressed. It helps if your name is Nunce and if you never do anything with them that is of the smallest interest to them.”

  She continued to stare, tight lipped. What an enigma she was. He had expected her to be at least as bad as Miss Nunce. Anyone looking at her now would expect it too. She was not pretty, he thought. But there was something about her firm jaw and chin, her straight nose, and her blue eyes fringed with dark lashes that made her more handsome than any of them and suggested both intelligence and firmness of character.

  “You are an abject failure,” he told her, grinning. “The children are not mute in your presence. And they are learning and enjoying themselves. They like you, a sure death knell to any chance of imposing rigid discipline.”

  “If that is true,” she said, “that they like me, I mean, I have no idea why.”

  It was a surprise to him too. Perhaps children were able to see beyond the severity of outer appearance to . . . what?

  “How do Mrs. Kingsley and your sister feel about your moving into the orphanage?” he asked to change the subject.

  “I did not tell them,” she said. “I packed my bags early this morning and wrote them a letter, and I left early to ask Miss Ford about the empty room. When she agreed to let me rent it, I asked Roger if someone could be sent to fetch my things and deliver the letter. Abby sent a reply with the man who brought my bags, but I have not yet had a chance to read it. I do not need to, however, to guess that she is upset. First our father died. Then our brother left to fight in the Peninsula. Then our mother went away to live with our uncle in Dorsetshire. Now I have moved out.”

  “She does not feel your compulsion to break away from all that is familiar in order to stand alone, then?” he asked.

  “No,” she said. “But I respect her right to reshape her life as she sees fit. All I ask is that my right to do the same be respected. Perhaps it is selfish of me to abandon and upset her and turn my back upon our grandmother’s hospitality. It undoubtedly is, in fact. But sometimes we have no choice but to be selfish if we are to . . . survive. That is too extravagant a word, though I cannot think of a better.”

  “You feel threatened by the fact that your father’s family has decided to come to Bath to celebrate a birthday?” he asked her.

  “Not exactly threatened,” she said, frowning as she gave his question some consideration. “Just . . . interfered with. As though I am incapable of working all this out on my own. As though I am just a . . .”

  “Helpless woman?” he suggested.

  “A pampered woman,” she said. “As I am. Or as I always have been. It is strange how I never realized it until recently. I always thought of myself as strong and forceful.”

  “Perhaps you have always been right about yourself,” he said. “It must have taken great strength to do what you have done this week when you really did not have to.”

  “Strength?” she said. “Or just stupidity? But Abby is beside herself with excitement that everyone is coming here. For her sake I must be glad too that they are determined to gather us back into the fold.”

  “Is that why they are coming?” he asked.

  But their tea arrived at that moment and prevented her from answering. The teapot was large, the Sally Lunns enormous. Joel hefted the teapot and poured their tea, while Miss Westcott regarded her tea cake in some astonishment. It had been cut in half and toasted, and there were generous portions of butter and jam to spread on it.

  “Oh, goodness me,” she said. “I have just remembered that I missed breakfast as well as luncheon. This is one of the famous Sally Lunns?”

  “And I expect you to eat every mouthful.” He grinned at her.

  She looked at him with some severity after taking a bite, chewing, and swallowing. “Do not think, Mr. Cunningham,” she said, “that I do not know what you are up to and why you have brought me here and plied me with tea and . . . and this. And oh goodness, it is delicious. You think to get me talking about myself and my life so that you can paint me in such a way as to expose me to the world as I do not choose to be exposed.”

  “I do not paint nudes,” he could not resist telling her, and her mouth, which had been open to take another bite, snapped shut. “Perhaps you merely looked weary and a bit lost, Miss Westcott, and I took pity on you and brought you here to revive you. Perhaps, having found myself sitting across the table from you, I make conversation because even a man who is not a gentleman does not invite a lady to tea and then gobble down his food
without saying a word to her. He might leave her with the impression that the food was of more importance than she.”

  She looked hard at him before disposing of another mouthful. “The point is,” she said, “that aristocratic families do not acknowledge their illegitimate offshoots, Mr. Cunningham. The aristocracy is all about the succession and property and position and fortune. Legitimacy is everything. If my father’s family had known from the outset that he was not married to my mother and that we were therefore illegitimate, they would have ignored her and pretended we did not exist. It is what my mother did for more than twenty years with Anastasia, though she knew of her existence, and it is what the others would have done too if they had known. It is certainly what I would have done. When she was admitted to the salon at Avery’s house, where we were all gathered a few months ago at the request of my brother’s solicitor, everyone was outraged, and justifiably so. She was very clearly not one of us. I was more infuriated than anyone else.”

  “Why was that?” he asked while she spread butter and jam on the other half of her Sally Lunn. He hoped she would not suddenly realize again that she was doing what she had assured him she would not do—talking about herself, that was. But it was not just his portrait of her that made him want to hear more. He was fascinated to listen to the story of that day from her point of view. He had heard it from Anna’s at the time in the long letter she had written him only hours afterward.

  “I was the perfect lady,” she told him. “By design. I was very conscious of who my father was and what was due to me as his daughter. From early childhood on I made every effort to do and be everything he would expect of Lady Camille Westcott. I was an obedient child and paid every attention to my nurse and my governess. I spoke and thought and behaved as a lady ought. I intended to grow up to be perfect. I intended to leave no room in my life for accident or catastrophe. I think I truly believed that I would never be exposed to trouble of any sort if I kept to the strict code of behavior set down for ladies of my class. There was never a rebellious bone in my body or a wayward thought in my mind. My world was narrow but utterly secure. It was a world that did not allow for a cheaply dressed woman of the lower classes being admitted into my presence and my family’s and actually being invited to sit down in our midst. I was outraged when it happened.”