A Yuletide Treasure (20 page)

“Camilla,” he said, holding her hand there. “You’re not having second thoughts?”

“No, certainly not. It’s just... Well, it’s a little strange. I know you so well as my dear friend; it will take some little time to know you as my lover.”

“Not too long, I trust? For I intend to be very ardent, you know. But you are right, oh, queen of common sense.”

“What a horrible thing to be!”

“But you are a wonder of sense, Camilla, common and otherwise. I knew it from the first.” He withdrew his arm from around her. “Though I wish I could spend every minute of the day with you, both as your lover and your collaborator, I think it’s wisest if I take Dr. March up on his longstanding invitation to hold bachelor household with him and his father for a few days.”

“Must you?” Camilla said, and he smiled.

“You’ll miss me?”

“It just seems a shame when we were making so much progress on our book.”

“Just our book?”

“Of course. To let you know that my life will be a barren desert until I see you again would lower me too much in your opinion.”

“No, it wouldn’t,” he claimed, eagerly reaching for her.

“My mother has often told me to reveal less of my emotions than I feel so that no one might take advantage of a weak moment. And you know Nanny Mallow has also warned me that a woman must surrender no advantages when she marries, for the law takes away quite enough as it is.”

“I hope they are mistaken,” he said, more seriously. “I hope you won’t ever pretend to me. I’m a greedy fellow and want to know the full depth of your feelings. But I’m not selfish. I have every intention of showing you just what you mean to me.”

Camilla held out her hands to him, letting him see the tears that had come into her eyes. “I’m afraid, Philip.”

“Afraid? Of what? If it’s my constancy...” He folded her in his arms, laying her head on his shoulder, conscious only of the wish to protect her, to keep her safe from all hurts, even those he might, through carelessness or thoughtlessness, inflict.

“I don’t know what I have done to deserve such happiness,” she said softly. “I’m afraid whatever it was will prove to be too little and I will lose you.”

“Never,” he swore, knowing that others had sworn the same countless times only to be forsworn a day or an hour later. He tilted up her chin and kissed her trembling lips.

* * * *

Therefore, Philip was not at the Manor when Mrs. Twainsbury arrived to take her daughter home
.
Camilla had been out for a walk with Tinarose and the two children. Coining down the now-cleared drive, bundled up to the eyes against the frigid afternoon air, Camilla saw a nice-sized chaise being driven off to the stable yard. “That must be Mother,” she said.

“It’s a handsome turnout,” Tinarose said. “A coachman and a footman.”

“They must be my brother-in-law’s men. I didn’t realize he’d started keeping his own carriage.” Camilla began to hurry on, turning her haste into a game so that the little ones would hurry, too. She wished profoundly there had been time to tidy her hair and wash her face before meeting her mother, but their long separation brooked no delay.

“Camilla!” Mrs. Twainsbury said, holding out her arms. She did not embrace her daughter but held her off at arm’s reach. “Let me look at you.”

Though her bright smile never faltered, Camilla could tell by the gradual hardening of the brown eyes that she was not pleased by what she saw. Cold air may be bracing, but it was hard on the complexion, not to mention the stringy and matted hair occasioned by tight knitted hats.

“We
went for a walk, Mama. It was stuffy in the house.”

“Yes, too many fires, I’ll be bound. Large rooms are so difficult to heat. And who is this?”

“Mama, may I present Miss Tinarose LaCorte. This is her home. She has been more than kind to me, a chance-met stranger.”

“Don’t believe her, ma’am. The kindness has been all on her side.” Tinarose stood smiling, hand outstretched. Mrs. Twainsbury gave her two fingers to shake, obviously not pleased by the young woman’s free-and-easy manner.

“I trust your mother is feeling better today,” Mrs. Twainsbury said. “I did so wish to thank her for her goodness to Camilla. I can imagine nothing more devastating to a well-run household than the arrival of the unexpected guest. And to stay for so long is quite unconscionable. My only excuse is the press of family affairs made it quite impossible to collect Camilla before now. I hope she’ll forgive Camilla’s intrusion at such a—ahem—delicate time.”

“If I may venture to speak for my mother, I think she found Camilla to be a great help. I know I did.”

Mrs. Twainsbury returned no answer. She’d caught sight of the two younger girls. “And who are they?”

“My sisters, ma’am. Nell and Grace. Say how-do-you-do to Mrs. Twainsbury, girls.” Two identical curtseys, two mumbled greetings, and they began to edge out of the room.

“They should be in their nursery,” Mrs. Twainsbury said firmly. “When my girls were young, they were never permitted downstairs between the hours of nine o’clock in the morning and seven at night, except for half an hour at six-thirty.”

“You let them stay up late?” Tinarose asked, trying to work out this schedule on her fingers.

“On the contrary. They went directly to bed after kissing me good night and wouldn’t appear again until breakfast, taken in the kitchen. Children should be given the opportunity to improve themselves before being thrust upon adult society;”

Tinarose smiled graciously. “I shall take them up to their nursery at once. I’m sure you and Camilla have a great deal to say to one another.” As she turned to herd her sisters away, she rolled her eyes heavenward and made such a funny, distorted face that Camilla couldn’t contain a small giggle. Under her mother’s disapproving glare, the giggle fell like a popped balloon.

“Oh, dear, Grace, your shoestring is untied,” Tinarose said exaggeratedly. Positioning the child beside Camilla, Tinarose muttered, “Your mother is a Tartar,” as she knelt to tend the child’s boot. “I’m sending for Uncle Philip at once.”

“Please do,” Camilla muttered, under the cover of a handkerchief wiped over her admittedly shiny face. “Would you mind asking Samson to send up some tea, dear?” Camilla asked aloud as Tinarose bowed herself and the children out of the room.

Mrs. Twainsbury cast a glance around her, taking in the slightly worn appearance of the well-loved furnishings. She wore her gray heather walking costume trimmed in black tape and looked as neat from her undisturbed hair to her brightly shining boots as if she’d just descended from heaven, rather than from a cramped chaise. “To give you the word without roundaboutation, I tell you this house reminds me of those shabby-genteel persons who occupied Rosemount the summer the Fusters went to Bath for Sir John’s health.”

“There’s nothing shabby-genteel about them,” Camilla answered back, feeling protective of the Manor and all those who dwelt within it. “As I wrote you, the family has recently undergone a loss which has made the day-to-day continuance of life very difficult. He was too good a man to lose, both personally and professionally.”

“Your letters were the most uninformative scribbles I’ve ever had the misfortune to receive,” Mrs. Twainsbury said with her light laugh. “This Sir Philip, for instance, sounds a flimsy sort of person to inherit such a large property.”

“On the contrary, he’s a man of considerable intelligence and kindliness.” Camilla wondered what her mother’s reaction would be to a sudden announcement that she’d fallen in love with him and he with her. Though she had no intention of announcing such a thing without him standing by her side to offer support, she felt a warm glow in her heart knowing that he loved her. She decided to gauge her mother’s feelings without revealing the fact of their betrothal. It was obvious her mother hadn’t yet received Philip’s letter asking for her hand.

“What profession did he pursue prior to inheriting this property?” Mrs. Twainsbury asked, picking up a Sevres vase from an attractively arranged table.

“Profession? He is an author, Mama, only fancy.”

“A writer?” She tested the glaze with her fingertip, then set it down again, dusting her hands. “Published?”

“Yes. He has several books on traveling abroad presently in print.”

“I see. He is a widely traveled gentleman, then?”

“He’s been a great many fascinating places. America. The Hebrides. Greece and Italy. He is full of fascinating information about his journeys. Rather than just travel about, he took the opportunity to live amongst the citizenry, learning about their lives firsthand.”

“It sounds thoroughly uncomfortable. I believe such places are exceedingly backward where proper drainage is concerned. However, I shall be most interested to hear what he has to say. He is a man of information, a scholar, then?”

“He understands a great many things, I believe. He explained the entire subject of the Irish Question so that a child might understand it.” Camilla couldn’t recall which college Philip had attended. He himself had said he had not done well there.

Mrs. Twainsbury, a great advocate for education, would undoubtedly take his lack of matriculation as a black mark against his name.

“I see. So he is from home at present?”

“Yes, Mama. He is visiting friends for a little while.”

“I see. Now for more important matters ... In her latest letter to me, Nanny Mallow suggests that Lady LaCorte is in the same interesting condition as your sister was. Is this true?”

“Quite true,” Camilla said, apostrophizing herself as a fool not to have realized that Nanny would have seen no reason to cut off her lengthy correspondence with one of her former charges. But how much had she revealed? How had she managed to learn anything relevant, confined to her room for more than half the length of Camilla’s visit? The servants, she supposed, must pass the long hours gossiping, and as Nanny Mallow wasn’t gentry, there were no social barriers to stop them gossiping with her.

“Well, she’s in good hands with Nanny Mallow,” Mrs. Twainsbury said. “She may be elderly, but she is clean and well intentioned if rather sentimental.”

“There’s also a very competent doctor in the area,” Camilla said. “That’s where Sir Philip is now. He felt that remaining here might work some harm to my reputation, once Lady LaCorte discovered herself no longer able to descend for dinner.”

“Quite right. He shows a nice feeling for propriety.”

Though he’d always been a gentleman, somehow Camilla could not reconcile propriety and Philip. There was always too much happiness and a sense of possibility in his outlook to make decorum one of his household gods. She realized now that her mother, whatever she’d been in her youth, had lost both happiness and hope somewhere along the way.

She did not mention the other reason Philip had for leaving his home because it was too precious to be exposed to derision or disbelief. She knew he’d not left his home simply to stop people gossiping but because staying exposed them both to temptations too strong to be resisted. Remembering the desire in his eyes, feeling that longing echoing in her own heart, Camilla knew he was right to go. But she could hardly expect her mother to share in her joy over such a thing.

“I expect Sir Philip will return to greet me as is correct,” Mrs. Twainsbury said.

“I believe that he will.”

“Then kindly escort me to your chamber so that I may freshen myself, and you, Camilla, must tidy your appearance. We shall rest one night here so that you may have an opportunity to say your farewells and to rest the horses. Then we shall return home, departing not a moment later than nine o’clock.”

“Yes, Mama.” Camilla consoled herself for the abruptness of this departure by reminding herself that by tomorrow, her mother would be so exalted by the announcement of her daughter’s betrothal that all thought of leaving would be banished from her memory.

* * * *

When Philip arrived at the Manor, brought hotfoot by Tinarose’s message to “waste no time,” he felt as he had when once taken bear hunting in America. His guide hadn’t known for certain whether there was a bear in the cave before him or not, but it had behooved them both to be cautious.

Samson met him at the door, ready to take his greatcoat and hat. “Miss Twainsbury and her mother are in the drawing room, Sir Philip.”

“Everything all right?” Philip said in a rapid undertone as he stopped before the mirror.

“No, sir. Mavis brought in the tea. I beg your pardon, sir, for not attending to the matter myself. It did not occur to me that Mavis’s manner would be a problem as Miss Twainsbury is such a pleasantly spoken young woman.”

Philip smiled at the butler, a friend from his childhood. It meant a great deal to him that he should approve his master’s choice of wife. “Yes, she is, isn’t she? Well, it doesn’t matter, Samson. Mrs. Twainsbury might as well know the worst of us at once. She stands on ceremony, I take it.”

“As upon a rock, sir.”

It took him only one glance to realize there was a bear in the cave after all. Mrs. Twainsbury greeted him pleasantly enough, but Camilla looked just as she had when he’d first met her in the coach. Her lips were pressed tightly together as if to keep back words by main force. Her hands, too, were strained together while her feet were tucked back under her chair almost to the point of having vanished. She wore the most unappealing of the dresses she’d brought with her instead of one of Beulah’s borrowed gowns.

When he approached her to kiss her cheek, she gave the slightest shake of her head while her entire body retreated like a snail into its shell. He stopped abruptly. “Mama, may I present Sir Philip LaCorte.”

If he’d been building an image in his mind of an ogress, with a hard red face and a bosom that would do for an armed bulwark, he had to revise it, Mrs. Twainsbury held herself very much erect, yet even with her hair piled high, she could not have topped five feet by more than an inch or two. She was slender, with the narrow hands and feet of an aristocrat. Her fine drawn face bore few wrinkles except for the deep lines that ran from her nose to the corners of her mouth and the more delicate tracks of years about her eyes. Her evening dress, elegantly plain, could not have been more appropriate for dinner in the country.