Someone to Hold

by Mary Balogh

  The baby in her arms gave a hiccup of a sob and Camille looked down as one little hand waved in the air and came to rest against her bosom and clutch the fabric of her dress, even though the child did not wake. And then she did. She twitched, opened her eyes, gazed solemnly up at Camille, and . . . smiled a broad, bright, toothless smile. It felt like one of life’s random and unearned gifts, Camille thought, smiling back, smitten with unexpected happiness. It was a totally unfamiliar feeling. She had never cultivated happiness—or unhappiness for that matter.

  They were interrupted by Hannah, who had come to take the baby to change her nappy before feeding her. “The children have been sent to wash their hands before luncheon,” she told Camille. “You will be wanting to go and eat too, Miss Westcott. I think Sarah has taken to you. She will soon settle here. They all do.”

  Mr. Cunningham was standing close by when Camille got to her feet. He had seen her at last and appeared to be waiting to go into the dining room with her. “Madonna and Child, do you think?” he asked her, holding up his sketchbook, its topmost page facing toward her, so that she could see what he had been drawing. “Or is that too popish a title for your liking?”

  It was a charcoal sketch of a woman seated on a low chair, a baby, swaddled in a blanket, asleep in her arms. The drawing was rough, but it suggested a strong emotional connection between the child and the woman, who was gazing down at it, something like adoration on her face. The child was unmistakably Sarah, and the woman, Camille realized with a jolt, was herself, though not as she had ever seen herself in any mirror.

  “But you did not even see me when you came in,” she protested. “And you were sitting almost with your back to me while you sketched.”

  “Oh, I saw you, Miss Westcott,” he said. “And like any self-respecting teacher, I have eyes in the back of my head.”

  She did not have a chance against him, Camille thought, not quite understanding what she meant. Within just a few minutes and with only paper and charcoal, he had reproduced exactly how she had been feeling as she held that child. Almost honored. Almost tearful. Almost maternal. Almost adoring. She looked at him, a little disturbed. And she wished, suddenly cross, that he was not handsome. Not that he was handsome exactly, only good-looking. What she really wished was that he was not attractive. Because he was, and she did not like it one bit. She was not accustomed to characterizing men according to their physical appeal. Though it was not all physical with him, was it?

  “Shall we go for luncheon?” he asked, indicating the door. They were the last two left in the room.

  “May I have the sketch?” she asked him.

  “Madonna and Child?” he said.

  “May I?”

  He detached it from the book and held it out to her, holding her eyes as she took it from him.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  “It is not a crime, you know,” he said, “to love a child.”

  * * *

  Joel had left Edwina’s house earlier than usual last night despite her sleepy protests. He was working on a painting, he had told her, and was burning up on the inside with the need to get back to it before his vision dimmed. He had not even been lying, though he had felt a bit as though he were, for the arrangement with Mrs. Kingsley had been that he would start with her younger granddaughter next week and leave the elder until later, perhaps even the autumn.

  He had been up until dawn, working by candlelight, capturing her laughter-full face and then her averted, tear-streaked profile—two sides of the same coin. But, unlike a coin, she had more than two sides. How many more he did not yet know.

  He had snatched a few hours of sleep but had got up earlier than he intended, restless and impatient with the two portraits he must finish before getting too deeply involved in the new project. He ate his breakfast standing up and, gazing at one of the portraits on his easel, trying to feel the excitement of a character almost captured in paint with only a few slight tweaks remaining to be done. Then he sat down and wrote to inform Mr. Cox-Phillips that he would call on him on Tuesday. He did not really want to go at all. He wanted to finish the outstanding projects and then concentrate upon the two portraits that had captured his interest far more than he had expected. But it would not do to turn down the possibility of another commission out of hand. Who knew when they would dry up altogether and leave him without further income?

  He had intended to settle to the painting after sealing the letter, but his mind was churning with myriad thoughts and he owed the subject of the portrait better than that. Perhaps later. Perhaps he was just tired. He had had maybe an hour of sleep at Edwina’s, maybe two here after dawn. Finally he stopped pretending to himself, though he still did not admit his motive. He went to the orphanage, picking up some fresh eggs at the market on the way. There was nothing so very remarkable about his visit, after all. He often went there unannounced, to chat with the staff that had been there for much of his life and to play with the children. They were his family.

  And if he went at least partly to see how Camille Westcott was coping with her first full day there, then it was hardly surprising, for she was a work colleague, and she was Anna’s sister. And he was to paint her portrait even if her sister’s was to come first.

  The garden was deserted, of course, since the drizzle was still coming down and making July feel more like April. He made his way to the playroom—and saw her immediately, even though it was almost overflowing with busy children and their adult supervisors and she was sitting quietly in a corner. Would she never cease to amaze him? She was holding a sleeping baby. If he was not mistaken, it was the one who had been discovered on the front step early one morning a week or so ago with one thousand pounds in banknotes tucked beneath the blanket in which the child was wrapped—a staggeringly immense fortune in money with a scrap of paper on which were written the words Sarah Smith. Look after her.

  Joel played with several of the children, but all the time he was aware of the woman and baby in the corner. He had brought a sketch pad with him, as he usually did, though he did not often make use of it. He was always more of a participant than an observer here. But this time was different, and finally he could resist no longer. He sat down to sketch. He did not even have to look at them while he worked. He marveled that he had seen yet another aspect of Camille Westcott he would never have suspected. Her whole posture of relaxed stillness and her apartness in the corner of the room spoke of maternal love.

  Of course she was unaware of it. She frowned when she saw the sketch after Hannah had taken the baby from her. He had seen the moment when she recognized herself and stiffened with displeasure and perhaps denial. Her lips had thinned when he told her there was no crime in loving a child. Yet she had asked him for the sketch, which he had wanted to add to the portfolio of her he had started early this morning. He gave it to her reluctantly and wondered if she would burn it or hang it in her room or hide it at the bottom of a drawer.

  They sat at the staff table in the dining room with the nurse and Miss Ford, but they lingered there after the other two had left.

  “Have you ever discovered anything of your parentage, Mr. Cunningham?” she asked him.

  “No,” he said.

  “Do you ever wish you could?” she asked.

  He considered the question—not that he had not done so a hundred or a thousand times before, but he had ambivalent feelings about it. “Perhaps I would regret it if I ever did ever find out,” he said. “Perhaps they were not pleasant people. Perhaps they came from unpleasant families. It is only human, however, to yearn for answers.”

  “Do you suppose Anastasia has regretted finding out?” she asked him.

  “I believe she did for a while,” he said. “But she would not have met and married the Duke of Netherby if she had remained Anna Snow, orphan teacher of orphan children in provincial Bath. And that would have been something of a tragedy, for she is happy with h
im. She has also discovered maternal grandparents who did not after all abandon her. And she has a paternal grandmother and aunts and cousins who have opened their hearts to her and drawn her into a larger family. On the whole, I do not believe she has many regrets.”

  “On the whole?” She was gazing into her teacup, which was suspended between the saucer and her mouth.

  “Her new life has brought some unhappiness too,” he said. “She has been quite firmly rejected by the very family members she most yearns to love. And what makes it worse for her is that she knows she has brought a catastrophic sort of misery to those people but has not been allowed to make any sort of amends.”

  “Are you trying to make me feel guilty, Mr. Cunningham?” she asked him.

  “You asked the question,” he reminded her. “Ought I to have given the answer with sugar added to disguise some of the bitterness? Do you feel guilty?”

  “I am tired of this conversation, Mr. Cunningham,” she said.

  “And I am tired of being Mr. Cunningham,” he said. “My name is Joel.”

  “I have been brought up to address everyone outside my inner family circle with the proper courtesy,” she told him.

  “You would probably have called your husband Uxbury all his life if you had married him,” he said.

  “Probably,” she agreed. “What I was brought up to does not amount to the snap of my fingers now, though, does it? I am Camille.” She set her cup down on the saucer, still half full. “I see that the rain has stopped. I need to get out of here. Would you care for a walk?”

  With her? She irritated him more than half the time, intrigued him for much of the rest of it. He did not believe he liked her. He certainly did not want to spend Saturday afternoon prowling the streets of Bath with her. He had better things to do, not least the completion of a portrait so that he could get on with hers and her sister’s.

  “Very well,” he found himself saying nevertheless as he got to his feet.

  Eight

  It was chilly and blustery, but at least it was not raining. Camille set the direction and strode off toward the river, Mr. Cunningham—Joel—at her side. He was not talking, and she felt no inclination to carry on a conversation. She could not explain to herself why she had wanted him with her, but she was pleased with herself about one thing. She had never before suggested to a man that he take a walk with her. She had never called any man outside her family by his first name either. Not that she had called Mr. Cunningham by his yet.

  “Joel,” she said, and was surprised to realize she had spoken out loud.

  “Camille,” he answered.

  And no man outside her family had ever called her by her first name—not even Viscount Uxbury after they were betrothed. But instead of feeling uncomfortable, she felt—freed. She was no longer bound by the old rules. She could set her own. She had wanted company, and she had got it by her own efforts.

  They crossed the Pulteney Bridge and walked onward to the wide, stately stretch of Great Pulteney Street. She had no destination in mind, only the need to walk, to breathe in fresh air, to—

  “I believe we are being rained upon again,” he said, interrupting her thoughts when they were less than halfway along the street.

  And, bother, he was right. It was a very light drizzle, but the clouds did not look promising, Camille had to admit. Anyway, one could get just as wet in drizzle as in a steady rain if one remained out in it long enough.

  She looked up and down both sides of the street, but it was residential. There was nowhere to shelter, and really only Sydney Gardens ahead of them, not a good place to head for in the rain. “I suppose we had better turn back,” she said.

  But she did not want to go home yet. She ought to have known better than to change her place of abode on a Friday with a weekend looming ahead. The trouble was that she had no experience with being impulsive and spontaneous—or with making her own decisions. She was about to suggest Sally Lunn’s again for a cup of tea, though it was farther away than the orphanage, but she remembered that she had no money. Double bother! The drizzle was steady now.

  “I live on this side of the bridge,” he said.

  “You had better hurry home, then,” she said, “and I will do the same. It is not very far.”

  At that moment the drizzle turned to rain. She would get soaked, Camille thought in dismay—and this would teach her to venture out without an umbrella. She was just not accustomed to going places on foot. He caught her by the hand before she could move and turned them back in the direction from which they had come.

  “Hurry,” he said, and they half trotted, half galloped back along Great Pulteney Street. He was still holding her hand when he turned onto another street before they reached the bridge, and they dashed along that too, heads down, and . . . laughing helplessly.

  They were both breathless when he stopped outside one of the houses and let go of her hand long enough to fumble in his pocket for a bunch of keys, with one of which he unlocked the door. He flung it open, grabbed her hand again, and hauled her inside in such a way that they collided in the doorway, shoulder to shoulder. He released her again in order to shut the door with a bang, plunging them into the semidarkness of an entry hall. They were still laughing—until they were not. It was not a particularly small hallway, but it seemed very secluded and very quiet in contrast to the outdoors, and being here felt very improper. Of course, she ought to have kept going straight when he turned the corner.

  “It was closer than the orphanage,” he said, shrugging.

  “This is where you live?” she asked—as though he would have the key to someone else’s house.

  “On the top floor,” he said, indicating the rather steep staircase ahead of them.

  He had not invited her up there in so many words, but they could not stand forever in the hall when it had not looked as if the rain would stop anytime soon. Camille climbed the stairs, and he came after her. It looked and sounded as though the house was deserted. How could silence be so loud? And so accusing?

  “Does anyone else live here?” she asked.

  “Two friends of mine,” he said. “Both single men, one on the ground floor and one on the first. I am closest to heaven, or so I console myself when I forget something and have to climb all the way back up to get it.”

  Two men. Three altogether, counting him. This, Camille thought, was very improper indeed. Lady Camille Westcott would have had a fit of the vapors . . . except that she had never been the vaporish sort. And she would not have been out walking alone with him anyway to be caught in the rain, and even if she had been, she would not have allowed her hand to be grabbed and her person to be hauled at an inelegant dash along the street to be made into a public and vulgar spectacle for anyone who happened to witness it. The experience would certainly not have rendered her helpless with laughter.

  But Lady Camille Westcott did not exist any longer. And, oh, the shared laughter had felt good.

  She had to wait at the top of the stairs while he moved past her and unlocked another door. There was a narrower entry hall beyond it, no doubt just a simple corridor when the building had been all one house. Three doors opened off it, one on either side and one straight ahead. The one to her right was shut. The door straight ahead was open to show a spacious living room—she could see a sofa and chair in there and a big window that was letting in light despite the clouds and rain. The door to her left was also open, and Camille could see that it was a bedchamber. A largish bed, roughly made up, dominated the space and made her aware suddenly that his rooms were as deserted and as quiet as the rest of the house. She doubted he kept a manservant or housekeeper.

  “This is all yours?” she asked him.

  “I rent the whole floor, yes,” he said. “I had just the bedchamber for twelve years, but last week the family who occupied the rest of the floor moved out and I was able to rent it all. I still have not r
ecovered from the novelty of having all this space to myself. It makes me feel very affluent.”

  “The bedchamber,” she said, “is a bit bigger than my room at the orphanage.” Though not by very much. And it had been his home for twelve years. Before that he had, presumably, shared a dormitory with four or five other boys at the orphanage. Her thoughts touched upon the size of Hinsford Manor, where she had grown up, and veered away again. But really, how vastly different their experiences of life had been.

  “It was my sleeping area, my living room, and my studio,” he said. “It was where I stored my paintings and supplies. There was barely room for me.”

  They stood side by side just beyond the doorway, gazing in. He must have felt the awkwardness of it just as she did. They both turned away rather hastily.

  “And now you paint in that room?” she asked, nodding to the room ahead. “There is plenty of light.”

  “No.” He indicated the closed door. “My studio is in there. It is the most prized of my new rooms. My private domain. Let me take your bonnet and pelisse and hang them up to dry. I’ll light the fire in the kitchen range and put the kettle on for tea. Come and sit at the table while you wait.”

  He hung her things on hooks in the hallway and she followed him into the living room and through another door into the kitchen and dining area. He tossed his damp coat onto an arm of the sofa in passing and pulled on a jacket that had been thrown over the back of it. The jacket was even shabbier and more shapeless than his coat and gave him a comfortable, domesticated look that somehow emphasized his virility and made her even more aware that she was alone with a man in his home in an empty house two stories above the street.

  He busied himself getting a fire started and filling the kettle from a pitcher of water in the corner while Camille sat at the dining table and watched him. He spooned some tea from a caddy into a large teapot and took two mismatched cups and saucers from one cupboard and a bottle of milk and a sugar bowl from another. He found a couple of spoons in a drawer.