Someone to Hold

“I do not believe,” he said, stepping closer to her, “I have ever seen a more beautiful woman.”

She stared at him for a moment and he realized how very extravagant and silly his words must have sounded. But then she smiled slowly, an expression that began with dancing eyes. “Or I a more handsome man,” she said. “Joel, you have been shopping. Was it very painful?”

“Excruciatingly so,” he said, grinning at her. “But I walked all the way up here and my shoes have still not blistered all my toes. Or my heels. Nor has my cravat rubbed my neck raw.”

“You do look very splendid,” she said.

“Camille,” he said, sobering, “are you really going to go home with your mother and sister?”

She did not answer immediately. “No,” she said then. “It would be an admission of defeat, and I refuse to be defeated.”

“Good girl,” he said, as though he were speaking to one of the pupils at the school.

“But, Joel,” she said, unfurling her fan and immediately adding a flourish of gorgeous color to the delicate blues and silver of her garments. “I have accepted Anna’s offer of one-quarter of my father’s fortune. I am not sure yet what I will do with it, if anything.”

“Ah,” he said, and he did not know if he was glad or sorry. “What made you change your mind?”

“I am trying to make my heart follow the lead my head has set,” she said. “I am trying to love her, Joel. I am trying to think of her as my sister, not just as my half sister. Sharing her fortune is crucial to her happiness.”

He had no chance to answer. There was an increase of movement all about them, and he realized that the orchestra had fallen silent and couples were gathering on the dance floor.

“My set, I believe, Camille,” the Earl of Riverdale said, nodding genially at Joel and extending a hand toward his cousin.

“Yes, Alexander. Thank you,” she said.

And Joel was left alone again until Lady Overfield stepped up beside him. “I remember Anna telling me about the dances that were held at the orphanage when her old teacher was still there,” she said. “She knew the steps of everything except the waltz. I suppose you do too, Mr. Cunningham. At the risk of sounding unpardonably forward, would you care to try this one with me? The floor is very crowded. I daresay we will be lost among the masses and absolutely no one will even see us.”

And if Camille was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, Joel thought—and he might, of course, be partial—then surely Lady Overfield was the kindest.

“I shall do my very best not to shame you, ma’am,” he said, smiling ruefully at her as he offered his arm.

* * *

“I was delighted to learn yesterday,” Alexander said after leading Camille onto the floor, “that Cousin Viola is returning to Hinsford to live and that Abigail is going with her. Will you go too, Camille?”

“No,” she said, “except for the occasional visit. But I do not disapprove. I am glad for them too.”

“Your future lies here?” he asked her, looking beyond her shoulder to where Joel was leading Elizabeth out.

“For now, yes,” she said. “I actually enjoy teaching, though it is the most chaotic, alarming activity I have ever been involved in and I sometimes wonder what on earth I am doing.”

He looked back at her and smiled. “Apparently Miss Ford has offered you the job for at least the next twenty years,” he said. “I believe that is a high recommendation.”

“And what about you, Alexander?” she asked him. “However will you restore the fortunes of Brambledean Court? Or, like Papa, will you not even try?”

“Oh, I shall try,” he told her. “It is my duty, after all. I shall have to marry a rich wife.”

The dancing was about to begin, and it was an intricate country dance during which there would be little opportunity for private conversation. He was still smiling. His eyes were even twinkling, as though he had made a joke. Camille hoped it was a joke. Alexander had always been an honorable, kindly man. Although she had never believed in romantic love herself, she had always expected that when he married it would be for love with a lady who matched him in temperament and amiability—and looks. It chilled her that he might put his duty to the people at Brambledean her father had so shamefully neglected before his own happiness. The old Camille would have understood and applauded. The new Camille wanted to cry out in protest.

But the music began.

Abby, she saw, was dancing with Avery. And it had all been very carefully calculated, she realized as the evening progressed. A duke and an earl danced the opening set with the two illegitimate daughters of the earl’s predecessor and thus displayed to the company that they were perfectly respectable, that a slight to them might well result in a snub from both noblemen and their families. Neither Camille nor Abigail lacked for partners all evening, and while Camille danced with both Avery and Uncle Thomas, Abigail danced every set except the first with men who were not part of the family, most of them young and unmarried. Abby might well remember this evening as the happiest of her life.

This, of course, was Bath, not London, and Abby could not always expect the sort of family support that was behind her tonight. But even so . . . Well, perhaps there was some hope after all. Perhaps what had happened was not the unalloyed disaster it had seemed at the time and until very recently.

Joel disappeared from the ballroom after dancing the opening set quite creditably with Elizabeth. Camille thought he must have left until she went into the tearoom later on Uncle Thomas’s arm and saw that he was sitting with Miss Ford and a group of ladies who appeared to be hanging upon his every word. His eyes met hers across the room. She sat with her back to him and joined in the conversation at her own table. Ten minutes or so passed before she felt a hand upon her shoulder.