Someone to Hold

He took a hasty step forward, wrapped his arms tightly about her, and drew her hard against him. She turned her head to rest her cheek on his shoulder and leaned on him—in every way it was possible to lean. And it seemed to her that he was all solid strength and dependability and the perfect height—taller than she but not towering over her. He was warm and he smelled good, not of an expensive cologne, but of basic cleanliness and masculinity. He rested his head against hers and held her as she needed to be held. He did not try to kiss her again, and she did not feel any of the desire she had felt in the kitchen a short while ago. Instead she felt comforted from the topmost hair on her head to her toenails. And gradually she felt a nameless yearning, something with which she had no previous experience, though not the physical one she had felt earlier.

“Why did Anastasia not fall in love with you?” she asked into his shoulder.

He took his time about answering. “Foolish of her, was it not?” he said.

“Yes,” she said, and thought about the man Anastasia had married. She could not imagine asking Avery to hold her. And she certainly could not imagine his doing so like this. For one thing, he was small and slight of build and would not feel so comforting. For another, there was no discernible warmth in him. Some things really were a mystery. Why had Anastasia fallen in love with him rather than with Joel? It had nothing to do with the fact that Avery was wealthy, for so had Anastasia been when she married him. Avery was a duke, of course, whereas Joel was a portrait painter who wore shabby coats and felt affluent because he could afford to rent the whole of the top floor of a house in Bath. But it was not that either. Camille was convinced of it. Much as she would like to think ill of Anastasia, she could not deny that it was very clear her half sister loved Avery with all her being.

She drew reluctantly free of his arms. “I am sorry,” she said. “No, I mean, thank you. I was experiencing a moment of weakness. It will not happen again.”

“I thought perhaps it was only orphans who sometimes long to be held,” he said. “It had not occurred to me that people who grew up with both parents might sometimes feel a similar craving.”

“That baby I was holding earlier—Sarah,” she said. “Before I picked her up, she was crying with the hopeless conviction that no one was ever going to hold her again. She hurt my heart.”

“But you held her,” he said.

“What was I to do?” she asked rhetorically. “What was I to do, Joel?”

He did not answer her because of course there was no answer. “Our tea will be getting cold,” he said.

“I think I had better go home,” she said. “You were quite right earlier. This was a mistake, and I apologize for forcing you into accompanying me on my walk and then leaving you with little option but to bring me here.”

“The rain is heavier than it was when we arrived,” he said. But he did not try to dissuade her from leaving. “I have an umbrella, a large man-sized one. We can huddle under it together.”

“I would rather go alone,” she said.

He nodded and went to fetch her pelisse and bonnet, which were still a bit damp. She was half splashing along the street a few minutes later, the umbrella he had insisted she bring with her keeping her dry, though she could hear the rain drumming upon it. She had been kissed and she had been hugged this afternoon, both new experiences. She had also begged to be held and had surrendered to the comfort another human being had offered, even if only for a minute or so. Now she felt a bit like crying—yet again.

She would not do it, of course. She had cried last night, and that had been more than enough to last her for another fifteen years or so at least. But she must not put herself again in the position of needing to be held by Mr. Joel Cunningham, who believed that the disaster she had met with earlier this year was the best thing that could have happened to her. She certainly would give him no further opportunity to kiss her—or herself further opportunity to invite his kiss. For she would certainly not put all the blame, or even most of it, upon his shoulders.

She wished she did not have to encounter him again next week in the schoolroom, where she would have to behave as though nothing had happened between them. Not that much had. Oh, somehow, sometime she was going to get through all this, this . . . whatever it was and come out on the other side. But what would that other side look like?

She tilted the umbrella to shield her face from the driving rain and hurried onward.

Nine

Joel kept himself busy on Sunday and Monday. He finished one of his portraits on Sunday and went up to the Royal Crescent on Monday to begin sketching and talking to Abigail Westcott. Her portrait was going to be a pleasure to work on and a bit of a challenge too, for almost as soon as she started to talk he could sense a vulnerability behind her prettiness and sweetness and a carefully guarded sadness. It would take him some time and skill to know her thoroughly.

But while he kept himself occupied, his mind was in turmoil. Why in thunder had he kissed Camille? She had asked him how one achieved happiness, and like a gauche boy with only one thing on his mind, he had acted as though there could be only one possible answer. The thing was, he had taken himself as much by surprise as he had her. And then, as though that were not bad enough, he had proceeded to hurt her horribly with that ill-advised remark about the great disaster of her life having been the best thing that could possibly have happened to her.

He had not even enjoyed his evening with Edwina on Sunday. Indeed, he had returned home early without even having gone to bed with her.