Someone to Hold

by Mary Balogh

  After Sarah had fallen asleep and been taken indoors, Camille turned one handle of a long skipping rope while a succession of girls and one boy jumped through it. She even joined in the strange chant that was the accompaniment to the jumping. Winifred informed her that she was a good sport.

  When several of the children asked her what they were going to knit now that the purple rope was completed, she suggested a baby blanket made of squares, and, after a visit to Miss Ford’s office, she went off to the wool shop with one boy and two girls to purchase supplies. Winifred, who was inevitably one of them, informed her she included Miss Westcott in her nightly prayers because she was a good and caring person.

  The child was getting on Camille’s nerves with her everlasting righteousness. She was not exactly unpopular with the other children, though she had no particular friend. But Camille had been somewhat horrified to recognize something of herself in the girl, and she wondered why she was as she was. Was she trying to be very good, even perfect, so that someone would love her? And having the opposite effect upon people than she hoped for? The thought somehow hurt Camille’s heart.

  She did a thousand and one other things during the course of the day, including one quiet half hour of reading in her room, during which time she did not turn a single page. She wrote to Abby, remembered that she would be seeing her this evening, and tore the letter up.

  And all through her busy, restless day, her mind was plagued by two things. Yesterday—she tried not to let her thoughts stray beyond that one word. And tonight. She had not seen most of her father’s family since that disastrous day that had changed her life forever. She dreaded seeing them again. Yet all day she resisted the temptation to hurry up to the Royal Crescent to choose something more elegant to wear than anything she had with her in her room—and to beg her grandmother’s personal maid to dress her hair becomingly.

  Her heart was pounding by a little before seven o’clock, when she was ushered into the private dining room at the Royal York Hotel, for which reason she held herself stiffly erect, her chin raised, her features schooled into a mask of gentility. The room was already full of people, most of whom got to their feet and greeted her with hearty enthusiasm. But Camille saw only one of them.

  “Camille.” Her mother was hurrying toward her, both hands outstretched.

  “Mother!” There was a moment when they might have hugged each other, but her mother’s arms were stretched to the front rather than to the sides and they clasped hands instead. Rather than a joyful embrace, there was a strange awkwardness. And Camille heard the word she had used—Mother—as though there were an echo in the room. Not Mama. “You came.”

  “I did,” her mother said, squeezing her hands tightly while her eyes searched Camille’s face. “It seemed like a good idea to see my daughters again and celebrate your grandmama’s birthday at the same time. I arrived this afternoon.”

  “Can you believe it?” Abigail, eyes shining with happiness, hugged Camille. “I was never more surprised in my life.”

  But Camille had no chance to respond except to hug her sister in return. Others were crowding about and telling her how well she looked and how delighted they were to see her, and everyone was hearty and smiling and probably as uncomfortable as Camille.

  Aunt Mildred and Uncle Thomas—Lord and Lady Molenor—had arrived earlier in the day. They were a placid, good-natured couple, except when their boys got into one of their not-infrequent scrapes, and showed no outward sign of fatigue after the long journey from the north of England. They soon appropriated Camille’s mother and sat conversing with her. Aunt Mildred was holding her hand, Camille could see. The former sisters-in-law had once enjoyed a close friendship. Aunt Louise, the Dowager Duchess of Netherby, and Cousin Jessica, her daughter, had been here since the day before yesterday, having left Morland Abbey at the same time as Avery and Anastasia and the latter’s grandparents. Jessica and Abigail were soon sitting happily next to each other, their heads nearly touching as they talked. It looked quite like old times.

  And oh, it was good to see them all again, Camille thought. Despite everything, they were family.

  Cousin Althea had arrived yesterday morning with Alexander, the Earl of Riverdale, her son, and Cousin Elizabeth, Lady Overfield, her daughter. Aunt Louise and Cousin Elizabeth, Anastasia and Avery settled into conversation with one another while Alexander drew out a chair from the table for Camille, though dinner was apparently not to be served for another fifteen or twenty minutes yet.

  “I hope,” he said as he seated himself beside her, “you do not bear any lasting grudge against me, Camille.”

  “Why should I?” she asked him, though the answer was, of course, obvious.

  “I took the title away from Harry,” he said.

  “No,” she assured him, “you did no such thing. My father did that when he wed Mama while he was still married to Anastasia’s mother. Nothing that has happened was your fault, Alexander.”

  “You must know,” he said, “that I never, ever coveted the title and looked forward to the day when young Harry married and produced a dozen sons and removed me far from the awkward position of being the heir. I wish a simple refusal could have solved everything.” His smile was a bit rueful.

  Cousin Alexander was an extremely handsome man, and tall and dark too—the three requirements for the quintessential prince of fairy tales. He was also a thoroughly likable person. Perhaps it was that fact that had stopped Camille from resenting him as she had Anastasia, who was equally blameless. Not that she had ever given her half sister the opportunity to be likable or not.

  “Even if I could have refused the title, though,” he said, “it would not have remained with Harry. I understand he was wounded in the Peninsula but is making a swift recovery?”

  “So he claims,” she said. “We have heard nothing from any official source—which is probably good news in itself.”

  “Camille,” he said earnestly, “I think I can understand how badly you have been hurt, though it may seem presumptuous of me to say so. I daresay I do not know the half of it, but I admire what you are doing, standing on your own feet, earning your own living, even going to do it at the very place where Anna grew up. But . . . may I make a suggestion?”

  “If I were to say no,” she said somewhat stiffly, “I would wonder for the rest of the night what it was you wished to suggest.”

  He smiled. “You are much loved by your grandmother and aunts,” he said, “and by the rest of us too. You always have been. You cannot be cast out of the family now at this late date just because circumstances have changed. You cannot suddenly become unloved. Your own personal way forward, as well as Harry’s and Abigail’s, is more difficult than it was, of course. No one can deny that much has changed forever in your lives. But will you not draw some comfort from the fact that you are still loved, that your position as granddaughter and niece and cousin in this family has in no way been diminished, that we are all here to support you in every way we are able? Individually we all wield power and influence. Together we are quite formidable, and I would not envy anyone who attempted to thwart our will. Let yourself be loved, Camille. Let . . . No, I will leave it at that, for really that does say everything. Let yourself be loved.”

  “I was unaware,” she said, “that I had told anyone to stop loving me, Alexander. But enough of me. What difference to your life has being the Earl of Riverdale made? Have you made Brambledean your home?”

  Although it was the earl’s principal seat, Brambledean Court had never been a favorite of Camille’s father. Neither he nor they had spent much time there, and he had not spent a great deal of money on its upkeep either. Both house and park had fallen into somewhat of a dilapidated state and all but the barest minimum of servants had been let go. There was a steward, but he had never been diligent in his duties. Camille had heard that the farms were not prospering as they ought and that there was discontent a
mong the tenant farmers and actual hardship and suffering among the laborers. Alexander had inherited it with the title, while Papa’s fortune, which might have helped him run it, had gone to Anastasia with everything else that was not entailed.

  “Not yet,” he said, “though I have spent some time there. Somehow I am going to have to find a way to—”

  But he was prevented from saying more by the arrival of Joel and the attention Anastasia drew to him when she exclaimed with delight, jumped to her feet, and hurried toward him to take his arm and introduce him to those who had not already met him. He was looking distinctly uncomfortable, Camille thought, at having been forced to walk into a roomful of aristocratic strangers only to have everyone’s attention focused upon him. He was dressed suitably for an evening occasion, though he looked only slightly less shabby than he normally did.

  Unconsciously Camille flexed her right hand beneath the table. She could still feel the sting of the slap she had dealt him yesterday. She had probably hurt her hand at least as much as she had his face. She had hit him because he had apologized again, because he had assumed that there was something to apologize for. And thus he had ruined her memories of what had happened, had made it seem like a sordid mistake, for which he had assumed the entire blame. He had hurt her far more deeply than her slap could have hurt him, though she had despised herself ever since for allowing herself to be hurt. He was neither as handsome as Alexander nor as magnificent as Avery nor as amiable as Uncle Thomas. How could she possibly have allowed him to hurt her?

  She gazed at him, hot cheeked and tight lipped, and paradoxically a bit cold in the head as though she were in danger of fainting. Nonsense, she thought, pulling herself together. Absolute nonsense!

  Anastasia presented him to Alexander.

  “Riverdale,” he said, and inclined his head in acknowledgment of the introduction before turning his eyes upon Camille. They were grave and very dark. He looked as if perhaps he had not slept well last night. Good. She was glad. “Camille.”

  “Joel.” But there was something else. She could sense it as soon as their eyes met. There was more than embarrassment and remorse in his eyes. What is the matter? She almost asked the question aloud.

  Dinner was served soon after his arrival, and the conversation while they ate was lively and general. Aunt Mildred spoke of the exploits of her boys through the summer; Jessica talked about her debut Season next year and Avery remarked with a sigh that he supposed she expected that he and Anastasia would arrange a grand ball for her at Archer House; Mama told a few stories about her life with Uncle Michael at the vicarage in Dorsetshire; Aunt Louise commented upon what perfect dears the Reverend and Mrs. Snow, Anastasia’s maternal grandparents, were and how she had enjoyed their company at Morland Abbey during the past couple of months; Camille recounted a few anecdotes from the schoolroom; Abigail described the sittings she had had with Joel while he sketched her and prepared to paint her portrait; and Joel, in answer to Elizabeth’s questions, described the process by which he produced portraits of his subjects.

  It was only after the covers had been removed from the table and coffee and port served that they all sat back, more at their ease, and divided into smaller conversational groups. After a few minutes, during which Uncle Thomas had been expressing his hope to Camille and Cousin Althea that he and Aunt Mildred could remain at home for at least a year after they returned there in two weeks’ time, Camille heard Anastasia ask the question that had been bothering her all evening.

  “What is it, Joel?” she asked. “Something is troubling you.”

  “Do I look as if something is?” he asked in return.

  “Yes, indeed,” she said. “I know you well, remember.”

  Camille felt annoyed with herself for feeling stabbed to the heart—and for shamelessly listening while Uncle Thomas continued to talk to Cousin Althea.

  “I must admit to having been a bit shaken this morning,” Joel said. “I went to call on a very sick old man of my acquaintance, only to discover that he had died an hour before I got there. Ever since I have been berating myself for not going yesterday.”

  “Oh, Joel!” Camille’s words, from several places down the table, were startled out of her. “Mr. Cox-Phillips has died?”

  “Yes,” he said, glancing bleakly her way. “An hour before I got there. His butler was upset. He had tears in his eyes. I beg your pardon,” he added, looking about at everyone else, obviously uncomfortable with having become the focus of attention again. “This is not a topic for such an occasion.”

  “But how very distressing that must have been for you,” Elizabeth said. “Was he a particular friend of yours, Mr. Cunningham?”

  “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 assumed 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.”

  “Cox-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 assumed 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 passed out of fashion with most other gentlemen, sat at his elegant ease, a glass of port in one hand, a jeweled quizzing glass 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 Cox-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 glass. “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 glass 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 identity 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 illustrious 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.