by Mary Balogh
Joel finished his tea cake and drank the rest of his tea without immediately responding. Good God, she must have been detestable, yet all in the name of what she had been brought up to consider right. But having aimed for perfection in the narrow world into which she had been born, she was finding the plight in which she now found herself bewildering, to say the least. He sat back in his chair and looked at her with renewed interest. Such a woman might be expected to be bitter and brittle. She, on the contrary, had neither crumbled nor raged against the injustice of it all—or, if she had, she was over it now. She had not wrapped herself in self-pity, despite the accusation he had made a couple of days ago. She was not interested in taking advantage of the imminent arrival of her family to try to claw her way back into some semblance of her old life.
Though maybe those words some semblance were the key. Perfection as she had known it was no longer possible for Camille Westcott, and she was not willing to settle for anything less. She must search for something wholly new instead. It was not easy to like the woman, but he felt a grudging sort of respect for her.
He amended his thought immediately, however, for when she was in the schoolroom, flushed and animated and in full military-sergeant mode and surrounded by organized chaos, he almost did like her. Indeed, he was almost attracted to that teacher self of hers. Perhaps because that self suggested some underlying passion. Now, that was a startling thought.
“You have a disconcerting way of looking at me so directly that I feel as though you could see right through into my soul, Mr. Cunningham,” she said. “I suppose it is the artist in you. I would be obliged to you if you would stop.”
He picked up the teapot and refilled both their cups. “Why do you think you were so single-mindedly devoted to duty and perfection?” he asked. “More than your sister, for example.”
She hesitated as she stirred a spoonful of sugar into her tea. “I was my father’s eldest child,” she said. “I was not a son and was therefore not his heir. I suppose my birth was a disappointment to him. But I always thought that if I was the perfect lady he might at least be proud of me. I thought he might love me.”
Good God. She did not seem the sort of woman who had ever in her life craved love. How shortsighted of him.
“And was he?” he asked. “And did he?”
She lifted her gaze to his and held it. In her eyes, easily her loveliest feature, he detected some pain very deeply hidden behind a stern demeanor.
“He only ever loved himself,” she said. “Everyone was aware of that. He was generally despised, even hated by people who were the victims of his selfishness. I longed to love him. I longed to be the one who would find the way to his heart and be his favorite. How foolish I was. I was not even his eldest child, was I? And Harry, his only son, was not his heir. Everything about my life was a lie and remained so until after his death. What I set as my primary goal in life was all a mirage in a vast, empty desert.”
Impulsively, Joel reached a hand across the table to cover the back of hers as it rested on the tablecloth. He knew instantly that he had made a mistake, for he felt an instant connection with the woman who was Camille Westcott, and he really did not want any such thing. And he heard her suck in a sharp breath and felt her hand twitch, though she did not snatch it away. He did not withdraw his own immediately either.
“You must have been expecting that everything would change for the better after you married Viscount Uxbury,” he said. “Did you love him?”
She drew her hand sharply away from his then. “Of course I did not love him,” she said scornfully. “People of my class . . . People of the aristocracy do not marry for love, Mr. Cunningham, or even believe in such a vulgar concept as romantic passion. We . . . They marry for position and prestige and a continuation of bloodlines and security and the joining of fortunes and property. Viscount Uxbury was the perfect match for Lady Camille Westcott, for he was a perfect gentleman just as she was a perfect lady. They matched in birth and fortune.”
She was speaking of herself in the third person and in the past tense, he noticed.
“And he jilted you,” he said, “when suddenly you and the match with you were no longer perfect.”
“Of course,” she said. “But he did not jilt me. He was the consummate gentleman to the end. He gave me a chance to jilt him.”
“And so you did,” he said.
“Yes,” she said. “Of course.”
He wondered if she believed it all—that she had not loved the man she was to marry, that what Uxbury had done was the understandable, correct thing, that even in breaking with her he had been the perfect gentleman. He wondered if she bore no grudge. He wondered how badly she had been hurt.
“I would wager you hate him,” he said.
She stared at him tight lipped for several moments. “I would gladly string him up by his thumbs if I had the opportunity,” she said.
He sat back in his chair and laughed at the unexpectedness of her reply. She frowned and her lips tightened further, if that was possible.
“You must have been quite delighted, then, with what happened to him,” he said, “unless you would have preferred to mete out your own punishment.”
There was another moment of silence, during which her expression did not change. “What happened to him?” she asked, and Joel realized that she did not know. No one had written to tell her. But then, who would have done so? He wondered if he ought to keep his mouth shut, but it was too late now.
“The Duke of Netherby knocked him senseless,” he said.
“Avery?” She frowned. “You must be mistaken.”
“I am not,” he said. “Anna wrote to tell me about it.”
She set her cup down on the saucer with a bit of a clatter, her hand not quite steady. “What was she told?” she asked. “I daresay she got it all wrong.”
“Viscount Uxbury showed up at a ball to which he had not been invited,” Joel said. “It was in Anna’s honor and was being held at Netherby’s home in London. Uxbury insulted Anna when she discovered who he was and refused to dance with him, and then he made some rude remarks about you, and Netherby and the new earl—Alexander, I believe his name is?—had him thrown out. The next day he challenged Netherby.”
“To a duel?” She stared at him, clearly transfixed.
“Since he was the challenged, Netherby had the choice of weapons,” Joel said. “He chose no weapons at all.”
“Fists?” she said. “But it would have been a slaughter whatever weapon he chose.”
“Netherby apparently did not specify fists,” he said, “though that was what everyone concerned must have assumed he meant. The duel was fought early one morning in Hyde Park before a sizable crowd of gentlemen. Netherby put Uxbury down and out within a very short time and utterly humiliated him.”
She looked suddenly scornful. “Well, now I know you are speaking nonsense,” she said. “Who filled Anastasia’s head with this drivel? Is she really so gullible? It was more likely the other way around. You have met Avery. He is small of stature and slight of build and indolent of manner. He thinks of nothing but his gorgeous appearance and his snuffboxes and his quizzing glasses. I am only surprised he was not literally slaughtered—if, that is, the fight really did take place, which I seriously doubt. Viscount Uxbury is tall and solidly built and is reputed to be adept at all the manly sports, including fencing and boxing.”
“Her cousin—Elizabeth, I believe—told Anna about the duel before it happened,” Joel said. “Anna witnessed it for herself.”
“Well, now I know that you are gullible too,” she said, dismissing him with a withering glance. “Ladies never even know of these disgraceful and illegal meetings between gentlemen, Mr. Cunningham. It is quite inconceivable that any would actually attend one.”
“Anna was not a lady until recently, though, you will recall,” he said, “and will probably never be a
very proper one. She went there at the appointed time and climbed a tree to watch. Her cousin went too. Your former fiancé was given a thorough drubbing, Miss Westcott. He was clad apparently in shirt and breeches and boots and had a supercilious smirk on his face and an offer of mercy on his lips if Netherby was prepared to grovel before him and apologize. Netherby declined the kind offer. He was clad only in breeches. Anna ought to have fallen out of her tree with shock, but she is made of stern stuff.”
“You must think I was born yesterday, Mr. Cunningham,” she said, “if you expect me to believe any of this.”
“I wish I had been there to see it for myself,” he said. “Apparently Uxbury struck a pose for the admiration of the spectators and pranced about on his booted feet and threw a number of lethal punches—or punches that would have been lethal if any of them had connected with their target.”
Miss Westcott frowned again. “Was Avery badly hurt?”
“He knocked Uxbury to the ground with the sole of one bare foot to the side of his head,” he said.
Her lips curled with scorn.
“And then, lest Uxbury and the spectators conclude that it was a chance blow and could not ever be repeated, he did it again with his other foot to the other side of the head after the viscount was back on his feet,” Joel said. “When Uxbury chose to taunt him and say insulting things again about Anna and about you, Netherby launched himself into the air, planted both feet beneath Uxbury’s chin, and knocked him down to stay. His body is apparently a dangerous weapon, Miss Westcott. He told Anna afterward that as a schoolboy he was trained in some Far Eastern martial arts by an elderly Chinese master.”
She continued to stare at him, speechless, but Joel could see that she was beginning to believe him. He finished his tea, which was unfortunately almost cold.
“And Anastasia and Elizabeth and a large gathering of gentlemen witnessed Lord Uxbury’s humiliation?” she asked.
“And the earl too,” he told her. “He was Netherby’s second.”
“Alexander,” she murmured. She sat back in her chair. “And it was done to avenge me as well as Anastasia?”
“Primarily you, I believe,” Joel said, though he was not at all sure that was strictly true. Netherby had, after all, married Anna that same day. “According to Anna, everyone gathered there, almost to a man, was delighted that Netherby had even been prepared to fight what all expected to be a losing battle for your honor. Everyone was more than delighted that he avenged what Uxbury had done to you. He was never a perfect gentleman, Miss Westcott. He would always have been unworthy of you. You had a narrow and fortunate escape from him.”
Tears sprang to her eyes, Joel was alarmed to see, and both hands came up to cover her mouth. He was suddenly aware of their surroundings again, of the murmur of voices behind him. He hoped she was not about to weep in full view of all the people crammed into the tearoom. His alarm increased when her shoulders shook. But it was not sobs that escaped her as she lowered her hands, but laughter—great peals of it.
“Oh,” she said on a gasp, “I wish I had been there too. Oh, lucky Anastasia and Elizabeth. He was knocked out by two bare feet to his chin?”
“Out cold,” he said.
“Were Anastasia and Elizabeth caught?” she asked.
“No,” he said, “but Anna confessed.”
“To Avery?” Her laughter subsided and she grimaced. “That was unwise. He would not have liked it.”
“He married her an hour after,” he said.
She looked at him, her eyes brimming with laughter again. Joel sat gazing at her, wondering how much attention she was drawing from the other occupants of the room. But, however much it was, she seemed unaware of it. He gazed back at her, more than a bit shaken, for she looked like a different woman when she laughed. She looked young and vivid and . . .
What was the word his mind was searching for? Gorgeous? She was hardly that.
Stunning.
That was it. She looked stunning, and he was feeling a bit stunned. She made prettiness seem bland.
Her laughter quickly died, however. “You must have gathered enough information about me to paint a dozen pictures,” she said, sounding suddenly cross. “I wish you would paint that infernal portrait and be done with it.”
“So that you can be rid of me?” he said. “Alas, you would not be that even if I were ready to paint you tonight. We would still be sharing the schoolroom two afternoons each week. But I am not ready. The more I learn of you, the more I realize I do not know you at all. And, by your own admission, you do not know yourself either.”
She got abruptly to her feet, all chilly formality again. “The Sally Lunn was delicious,” she said, “and the tea was hot and strong, as I like it. Thank you for bringing me here, Mr. Cunningham. It was good of you. But it is time to return . . . home. I have some unpacking to do and a letter to read.”
All of which might fill half an hour if she dawdled. Unless, that was, the bags she had spoken of were actually a couple of hefty trunks. It was altogether possible, he supposed.
She swept from the tearoom ahead of him, seemingly unaware again of the eyes that followed her and of the people who leaned out of her way as she passed them. She stood on the pavement waiting for him while he paid the bill.
“We are going the same way,” he said when she would have taken her leave of him and set out alone. “I have to cross the Pulteney Bridge to get home.”
She nodded curtly and set off at a brisk pace. But after a minute, she spoke. “All our talk has been of me,” she said as he fell into step beside her, “as, no doubt, you intended. But what of you, Mr. Cunningham? Do you resent my moving into the room that was Anastasia’s?”
The question took him by surprise, though he had resented it. “Why should I?” he asked her. “She no longer needs it.”
“I believe you love her,” she said. “I think that unlike me, you do believe in romantic love. Am I right?”
“That I believe in love?” he said. “Yes, I do. That I love Anna? Wrong tense, Miss Westcott. She is a married lady and I respect the bonds of marriage. And perhaps it was never romantic love I felt for her anyway. She assured me the only time I asked her to marry me, a few years ago, that the love we felt for each other was like that of siblings. Neither of us had a family of our own, but we grew up here together and were virtually inseparable. I daresay she was right. And I am very glad now she did not marry me. I would have been tangled up with what happened to her recently, and I would have hated that.”
“Yet you could have lived a life of luxury as her husband,” she said.
“Living in luxury is not everything,” he said.
“How do you know that,” she asked him, “unless you have tried it?”
“Do you miss it?” he asked her.
She considered her answer as they crossed the abbey yard and made their way parallel to the river toward Northumberland Place. “Yes,” she said. “I would be lying if I said I did not. Oh, I know what you are probably about to say. I could continue to live in luxury with my grandmother. And I know I could be independently wealthy if I agreed to allow Anastasia to share one-quarter of her fortune with me. I do not expect you to understand why I cannot accept either. I am not sure I understand it myself.”
But strangely, he was beginning to. “I think it is because you agree with me, Miss Westcott,” he said, “that living in luxury is not everything. And I think it is because the men in your life have been singularly cruel to you.”
“Men?” she asked.
“Your father,” he said. “Your betrothed.”
“It is fortunate, then, in the case of my former betrothed,” she said, turning her face away, “that I do not believe in love. I might have had my heart broken if I did.”
She kept her face averted for the rest of the way, as though she found everything on the other side of her fascinati
ng to behold. And Joel realized something else about Miss Camille Westcott. She had had her heart broken—by a man she had thought perfect, when in reality he was a cad of the first order, just as her father had been. It was only amazing she was still on her feet and not raving somewhere in an insane asylum.
They took their leave of each other when they came to the end of Northumberland Place, though she still did not look fully at him before turning to walk with firm steps toward the orphanage. Joel watched her go, half expecting she would lift a hand to wipe a tear from her cheek. She did not do so. Perhaps she felt his eyes on her back.
By God, he thought, she was a fascinating person. She was going to take some knowing, some understanding. For the first time in a long while he began to doubt his artistic abilities. How would he ever get her right? And what would he do if he never could? Paint her anyway?
. . . if you do get to know me, please let me know what you discover. I have no idea who I am.
He smiled to himself at the remembered words as she turned in at the orphanage doors and he went on his way. He had invited Edgar Stephens to share a meal with him tonight, and he was to do the cooking. And he had promised to call upon Edwina later. Yet all he really wanted to do, he realized, was shut himself up in his studio, grab paper and charcoal, and start sketching before some of his fleeting impressions of Miss Camille Westcott were no longer retrievable from that part of his memory that produced some of his best work.
Seven
If Camille ever heard anyone claiming to have cried herself to sleep, she would call that person a liar. How could one possibly fall asleep when one’s chest was sore from sobbing and one’s pillow was uncomfortably damp, not to mention hot, when one’s nose was blocked, and when one was so far sunk in the depths of misery that the notion of self-pity did not even begin to encompass it? And when one knew what a perfect fright one was going to look in the morning with swollen eyelids and lips, red nose, and blotchy complexion?
