She did not snatch her hand away as he half expected she would. Her fingers curled about his instead.
“But what on earth am I doing, talking about myself?” she said suddenly. “What about you, Joel? You went back up to that house again today? I am so sorry you were too late. You must have felt wretched. Strange as it may sound, I rather liked Mr. Cox-Phillips. I think you did too even though you had good reason not to. You must be feeling some grief. I saw in your face as soon as you arrived this evening that something had happened.”
Just as Anna had. He squeezed her hand. “With my head I cannot grieve,” he said. “But the head does not always rule the heart, does it? His stiff, impassive butler was shedding tears, Camille, and a younger servant was wrapping the door knocker in black crepe. Someone had died—someone related to me when all my life I have assumed I would never discover anyone of my own. Crusty as he was, he gave me what I believe will always remain the most precious gift I have ever received. He gave me the portrait of my mother. And he was a . . . person. Yes, I feel bereaved and bereft and foolish.”
“Oh, not foolish,” she said, turning her head to look at him. “He sent for you before it was too late. He even admitted you a second time though you had rejected his plan for a new will the first time. He answered your questions even though he was very ill. And yes, he remembered your mother’s portrait and gave it to you.”
But they were close to the orphanage, and he must speak about what was surely uppermost in both their minds. He stopped walking and took her other hand in his. “Camille,” he asked her, “why did you slap my face? What happened was not seduction . . . was it?”
She drew a sharp breath and snatched her hands away. “No, it was not,” she said, enunciating each word clearly. “But when you apologized, you made it seem that you thought it was. It cheapened what had happened. And it made me feel that I must have seemed frigid or been totally inadequate if you could have so misunderstood. I was upset. More than that, I was angry.”
Good God, he had misunderstood, but not for either of the reasons she had suggested.
“I thought you generous and giving and kind,” he said. “You once asked me to hold you, but I asked much more of you. I feared I had taken advantage of you and you might regret and resent that I had demanded so much. Camille, you might be with child. I might have done that to you. I might have forced you into a marriage you would not dream of entering into of your own free will.”
She had clasped her hands at her waist and was staring at him. He could not see in the darkness whether she had turned pale, but he would wager she had.
“You did not even think of that, did you?” he asked her. “That you might be with child.”
“Of course—” she began, but she did not finish what she had started to say.
“No,” he said. “I did not think you had.”
“Of course I did,” she protested. “Oh, of course I did. How could I not?”
She turned to walk onward, and he fell into step beside her. What had their lovemaking meant to her? She had slapped him because his apologies had cheapened what had happened. Cheapened what? She surely could not have had any deeper feelings for him than sympathy and the desire to comfort. Could she?
And what had their lovemaking meant to him? Had he merely reached blindly for someone to hold him—in the ultimate embrace? Blindly? Would any woman have done, then? And if the answer was no, as it assuredly was, then what did that mean? What did it say about his feelings for her?
“You will let me know immediately if you discover there are consequences?” he said, his voice low. “We have both suffered illegitimacy though in different ways. We both know how it can devastate a life. We will neither of us condemn a child of ours to that, Camille. Promise me?”
They were outside the door of the orphanage, and she turned to him, her face expressionless, her manner devoid of any of the roles she adopted to fit various circumstances. The silence stretched for several moments.
“I promise,” she said. “I am tired, Joel, and you must be too. Thank you for walking home with me.”
He nodded, but before he could turn away she raised both hands and cupped his face and kissed him softly on the lips.
“You have nothing about which to feel guilty, Joel,” she said, her voice suddenly fierce. “Nothing. You are a decent man and I am more sorry than I can say that Mr. Cox-Phillips died before you could know him better. But at least you did know him, and through him you know more about your parents and grandparents and yourself. You are less alone than you have always felt even if none of them are still alive. Take comfort. There is comfort. I think I began to learn that for myself this evening. There is comfort.”
And she turned without another word, opened the door with her key, and stepped inside before closing the door quietly behind her.
Joel was left standing on the pavement with—the devil!—tears burning his eyes.
There is comfort.
* * *
Camille awoke early the following morning and was immediately surprised that she had slept at all. The last thing she remembered from last night was putting her head down on the pillow. All the events of the last couple of days that might have teemed through her mind and kept her tossing and turning all night must have actually exhausted her to the point of rendering her almost comatose instead.
She got up filled with energy, washed and dressed, and went to an early church service. When she returned she spent a while in the schoolroom preparing a reading lesson that could be adapted to each age group tomorrow morning. And then she had breakfast in the dining room. There she learned that Sarah had had a restless night as two teeth pushed up on her lower gums and made them red and swollen. Her housemother was pacing one of the visitor parlors with her when Camille found them. The child was thrashing about in her arms, wailing and refusing to be consoled. She turned her head when Camille appeared, and held out her arms.