Impulse (13 page)

“I don't think she liked me, though.”

Cam raised his eyebrows. “That's not true. Whatever gave you that idea?”

Angela shrugged. “I don't know. I didn't see her so much when I was older, but once or twice when you and I were riding, we went there. She seemed very stiff and polite, not like she had been when she used to fit clothes on me. I thought maybe she thought I was wild and hoydenish.” She smiled. “I know Grandmama did.”

“No.” Cam shook his head. “She liked you. I am sure
of it. She was simply…worried about me. She knew me too well. She knew the feelings I had for you, just looking at us. She was afraid of what would happen.” He grimaced. “She understood better than I, I guess, the way the world ran. She kept telling me how foolish I was to look above myself. ‘Like to like,' she'd always say. ‘You fly too high, me lad, and you'll only get your feathers singed.' She didn't believe in one class mixing with another. I suppose that was one reason why I didn't come back until after she died. She would not have approved of our marriage.”

“Or, no doubt, of the way you brought it about,” Angela pointed out. “As I remember, she was an honest and honorable woman. Perhaps you did not want your mother to see you using threats and bribery and blackmail to force someone to marry you.”

His eyes widened a little. “You don't believe in pulling any punches, do you?”

“It is the truth, isn't it?”

He looked away, his jaw tightening. “Yes, I suppose it is. I am a harder man now than I was then. I have learned that things come only to those who take them.”

“Yes, if all you care about is the form, and not the substance.”

Cam sighed. “Once I would have wanted it all, your love, as well as your hand in marriage. But I have learned the realities of life, Angela. I will take what I can get. I am not even sure that you have the love to give.”

“I do not,” Angela replied flatly, and stood up, walking away from him to the window.

“Why? What happened?” Cam turned toward her, frowning intently. “Or did you never have it to begin with? Did you ever love me? Did you ever love any man?”

Angela stared out the window, refusing to look at him. “Does it really matter? You have gotten what you wanted. I am your wife now.”

“I want to know,” he insisted stubbornly. “Did you ever love me? Or was it never anything but the excitement of sneaking out of the house? Of escaping from your grandfather? Was it merely lust? The thrill of teasing a man? Did it titillate you to be touched by someone lowborn, to mingle with a forbidden class?”

“No!” Angela turned, her eyes flashing, her body stiff and her hands clenched at her sides. “It was never like that! I never thought of you as lowborn or…or someone less than I! I loved you! I loved you from the time you came here to work and I thought you were the most wonderful boy I had ever seen. How can you doubt me? How can you think me so shallow and evil? I
loved
you!”

Choking back a sob, Angela whirled and ran toward the door.

“Wait! Angela!” Cam jumped out of the bed, but the sudden movement sent pain stabbing through his arm, and he swayed dizzily. Cursing, he grabbed one of the tall posts of the bed and sagged against it.

“Cam!” Angela hurried back to him and slipped her arm around his waist. “What do you think you're doing? Get back in bed.”

He let go of the post and willingly draped his arm around her shoulders. “I'm sorry. I should not have said that.” He leaned his forehead against her head and murmured, “Please stay. I don't want any of those others with me.” He nuzzled her temple. “Ah, Angel, you smell so good. I had forgotten. That first time you were close to me, the breakfast where you didn't want to sit by me, there was that scent—just a hint of roses and…and
you. And it came back to me. Made me ache all over again.”

“Don't talk such nonsense,” Angela replied shakily, propelling him back into his bed. “I am sure thousands of women smell like rose water. 'Tis a common enough thing to sprinkle on one's handkerchief or in one's drawers.”

“But none of them smell as delicious as you.” He slid willingly enough into the bed and leaned back against the pillows. He smiled up at her. “Stay with me. Keep me company. You could read again. I promise we will not talk about anything you don't want to.”

Angela nodded. “All right.” She got out the book they had been reading before the doctor came, and she sat down in her chair and began to read it again.

The next few days passed in much the same way, as Cam recuperated from his wound and Angela tended to him. She was relieved now and then by Mr. Pettigrew or Kate, but Cam preferred that she be the one who stayed with him. As his fever subsided, there was little need for someone to watch over him, but Cam, used to being active, was not the best of patients, and the doctor was adamant that he rest in bed, allowing his wound to heal. Therefore, it was necessary, especially after he began to feel better, to keep him entertained and off his feet. Angela was the best at this particular task.

Cam did not mind sitting idle and watching her as she read aloud or talking to her as she sewed. Angela found it amazingly easy to talk to him, as long as they were careful to skirt the topics of her marriage to Dunstan or their own marriage.

He told her about New York and Philadelphia, about the mountains of Pennsylvania and the huge, ugly slag heaps that marked where coal was mined. She asked him
what his house in New York was like, and he shrugged. “Like many others, I suppose. Jason assures me that it is a good investment. I bought it a year ago. Before that, I was living in a room at my club.” He smiled a little ruefully. “However, it is practically bare inside. I haven't had the time—or interest—to furnish it. I shall leave that up to you.”

“To me?” Angela glanced up at him, surprised. “You want me to furnish your house in New York?”

“Well, it is
our
house, is it not?” he reminded her gently.

“Oh. Well, yes, I suppose so. It is just that I never thought about my going there. To New York, I mean.”

“I do still have some business there. I sold much of it, but there were obligations I could not get rid of easily. I shall have to return now and then. Wouldn't you like to visit it? You seemed interested.”

“Well, yes, I would. I just did not think.” She paused. “It must be awfully expensive to keep houses scattered about the world.”

He smiled faintly. “Only the one.”

“Is it large?”

“Monstrous. One has, after all, to keep up with the Vanderbilts.”

“Who are they?”

He chuckled. “Oh, I can't wait for you to meet New York Society. One question like that, in that oh-so- aristocratic voice, and you shall dampen everyone's pretensions nicely.”

“I wouldn't want them to dislike me.”

“They won't. Believe me. They will fawn all over you. There's nothing more impressive to Americans than a title. Most of those Society matrons would give half
their diamonds to be able to state that their family has held earls since the days of the Conqueror.”

“Not quite that far. More like Henry VIII.”

“Ah, yes, only barons before, no doubt.”

“Of course.” Angela gave him a dimpling smile, then added, “You must have made an astounding fortune, to be so blithely buying houses and handing them over to be completely furnished, not to mention snapping up tin mines or pieces of land. How did you do it?”

“Make money?”

She nodded.

“Partly luck, I suppose. A lot of work. I got a job at a cartage company, loading the wagons at first, and then, later, driving, when they saw I could handle the horses. I saved my money, and picked up extra work in the evenings at a tavern, hauling out rowdy drunks. That paid for my room and board, and I saved the rest of it. Then I heard about this job driving explosives through the mountains in Pennsylvania.”

Angela's eyebrows went up and she stared at him. “Whatever for?”

“They used them in the oil fields in western Pennsylvania. The mixture was volatile, so the job was risky. But it paid far better than what I was doing, even with the extra at the tavern.”

“So you risked getting blown up for the money?”

“I wanted money badly. And, at the time, I didn't have much concern over whether I lived another day.”

An old, almost forgotten pain pressed at her heart. Angela did not like to remember those days, when she had first been married and every day had been something to drag herself through, when the pain of missing Cam had overwhelmed all else, even the frightening realization of what sort of man she had married.

“Is that how you made your fortune?” she asked, in an attempt to pull her thoughts and the conversation back into a lighter mood.

“It is how I began it. I drove every load I could get. I lived simply. All I needed was food and a cot to sleep on. When I got enough money saved, I bought a small drayage company myself. The man who owned it was losing money, and I could see how to run it so it wouldn't. We specialized in things that were dangerous or that needed to get there quickly. I could always beat the others' times. I knew good horseflesh. Pretty soon I was hiring other drivers and buying more wagons, and all of a sudden, I realized I had the most successful cartage company in the state. Next I expanded into New York and New Jersey, and finally all up and down the Eastern Seaboard. Along the way, I had the opportunity to buy into a railroad, and I did. I didn't know anything about locomotives, but I could tell that the man who was offering it to me did. However, he didn't have the money. Pretty soon I realized that the easiest way to make money wasn't by the sweat of my brow, but by using money to work for me. I invested in other companies, ones that I could see could be successful, but that didn't have the capital. I took chances on a couple of inventors, and it paid off. Money begets money, I have found.”

“Not with the Stanhopes, I'm afraid.” Angela summoned up a small smile.

“Well, one has to do something besides spend it on clothes and gambling and such.”

“We must seem very frivolous to you.”

“I would think it would be hard not to be, when you have had everything you wanted from birth.”

“Hardly.”

“What have you not had that you wanted?” He smiled faintly. “I shall endeavor to get it for you.”

“Not things that can be bought.”

“Such as?”

“Happiness.”
You.
She clamped her lips shut on the word and got quickly to her feet, trying to put a light face on what she had said. “Isn't that what everyone wants? What they say cannot be bought? Happiness. Health. That sort of thing.”

She wandered across the room, chattering aimlessly to fill up the space, to stop him from inquiring too deeply into what she had meant. Cam watched her, saying nothing, as she trailed her hand along his dresser, idly touching the few things upon the bare space: a silver-backed man's brush and comb, a small, flat jewelry box that contained his cuff links and tiepins, his pocket watch, with its accompanying chain and fobs. Her hand hesitated and returned to the watch.

Angela ran a finger over a small filigreed gold ring that hung from the watch chain. It occurred to Cam what she had seen, and he stiffened.

“My ring?” Angela picked it up in her hand, looking at it more closely. It had to be the same. It was a child's ring, given to her by her godmother, so small that when she was sixteen she had worn it on her little finger. She had given it to Cam as a token of her affection that spring when they were in love.

She turned and looked at him in astonishment. “You still have my ring? I would have thought you sold it long ago, when you went to America.”

“No. I—I never sold it. It was worth more than money to me.” Angela thought he actually blushed, and he went on hastily, “It was my good-luck charm. I carried it with me always, including those trips with the explosives. I
couldn't get rid of it after that. It would have been like challenging fate.”

“Oh.” Angela fingered the delicate little ring. After thirteen years, he still carried it. He had kept it close to him in danger, and even in poverty he had not taken the money he could have gotten for it. It made Angela feel odd and warm inside to think of his having kept it close to him for so long.

All she had seen of Cam recently was his anger and bitterness. She had thought of little but the heavy-handed way he had tried to force her to marry him. But now she was reminded of the way he had been when she fell in love with him: the warmth and tenderness that had been in his eyes every time he looked at her, the loving caress of his hands, the passion of his lips. He had loved her, had loved her enough that, despite his hurt at what she had done, he kept the love token she had given him. For the first time, Angela thought of the hurt she had inflicted upon him. Though her only reason had been to save him, her actions had broken his heart and betrayed his faith in her.

“I am sorry,” she blurted out, a little surprised that she had spoken the words out loud.

She turned to look at him and found him looking as startled at her words as she felt. “For what?”

“For what happened. For the pain you went through. I never wanted you to be hurt.”

“Then why did you do it?” he asked quietly.

Angela shook her head in a gesture of negation, pressing her lips together to keep them from trembling. She could not tell him now; she had tried to long ago, and he had refused to listen to her. She could not tell the man he had become, could not break down before this hard stranger and beg him to understand, plead with him to
forgive her. It was too late. Thirteen years stretched like a desert between them. They could not go back and change what had happened. It would be worse for Cam to know. He might not believe her, which would cut like a knife, or, if he did believe her, he might soften to her, might try to recapture the love they had had. And that could never happen. She did not want him to forgive her, did not want him to speak of love or rekindle his interest in sharing her bed. They could never have a true marriage, and it would be much harder to maintain this sham if Cam knew that she had not stopped loving him, that she had married for love of
him,
not for love of money.