Someone to Hold

“It must be my Italian heritage,” he said. “Do you suppose we have any sort of audience behind any of those darkened windows all about us?”

“I neither know nor care,” she told him.

“Very well, then.” And since he was apparently a man and very male even if not a gentleman—and half Italian to boot—he had better do the thing properly. He lowered himself to one knee and held her hand in both of his. He felt silly . . . and then he did not. He gazed up at her. “Camille, will you marry me? Because I love you with all my heart and really, really do not want to live the rest of my life without you? Because I hope you feel that same way about me? I wish I had composed and memorized some polished sort of speech you might have quoted to our grandchildren—if your answer is yes, that is. Though I daresay I would have forgotten every word of it by now. Dash it, Camille, will you?”

She was laughing softly. He loved her laughter. Actually, he loved the Amazon and the military sergeant and the brisk schoolteacher and the Madonna and child and this aristocratic goddess in her sliver-and-blue ball gown and elaborately piled hair. He loved the woman with whom he had made love in his rooms and the woman who had begged to be held when she was feeling upset.

“Well, I will,” she said, freeing her hand and bending over him to cup his face in her hands and kiss him softly on the lips. “But do get up. You will be ruining your splendid new evening clothes.”

“You will?” He scrambled to his feet and caught her by the waist.

“I will,” she said, “but only because I love you and cannot bear the thought of living without you. Not for any other reason.”

“You will.” He gazed at her for a moment and then tipped his face up to the sky. “She will.” He lifted her from the ground and spun twice about with her while she laughed down at him. “She will.”

He did not think he had spoken loudly. Part of his mind was aware that there might be sleepers in the houses all about the Circus, and they might not appreciate being woken by voices from the central garden. But from somewhere—in the darkness it was impossible to know exactly where or even in which direction—came the sound of someone clapping slowly.

They looked at each other, he and Camille, as he set her feet on the ground, their eyes widening with shock and then filling with amusement. He drew her close and held her against him while she wound her arms about his neck, and they laughed softly.

Twenty-three

The wedding of Miss Camille Westcott to Mr. Joel Cunningham was set for a date in early September, six weeks after the birthday ball in the Upper Assembly Rooms. It was to take place at Bath Abbey, a somewhat surprising choice, perhaps, when the bride was an earl’s illegitimate daughter and the groom was the illegitimate son of a lady of no great social significance and an Italian artist whom few people remembered and none could identify by name. But the bride was acknowledged and held in high esteem by the powerful Westcott family and the formidable Duke of Netherby, who was married to one of their number, and by Mrs. Kingsley, widow of one of Bath’s wealthiest and most prominent citizens and the bride’s maternal grandmother. And the groom was the great-nephew of the late Mr. Cox-Phillips, a prominent politician in his time and wealthy citizen of Bath, who had acknowledged the groom in his will by leaving him his two homes and his fortune. Joel’s story, and, by association, Camille’s, had captured the imagination of Bath, at least temporarily, and invitations to their wedding were coveted.

The whole of the Westcott family was to return to Bath for the occasion. So was the Reverend Michael Kingsley, whom many people remembered from his boyhood, and his affianced bride, granddaughter of a baronet, with her sister. Other Kingsley relatives were expected too. Miss Ford, enjoying some fame of her own as matron of the orphanage where the Duchess of Netherby and Mr. Cunningham had both grown up and where Miss Westcott had taught until very recently, had also been invited, as had the whole staff of the orphanage and all the children. Many people recalled that they had seen a number of those children quite frequently through the summer walking out on various excursions in an orderly line as they clung to a rope of startling purple hue. Rumor had it that the bride and groom were in the process of adopting two of the orphans as their own children.

The groom had also invited a number of personal friends as well as the staff of a certain butcher’s shop and all the lecturers and many of the former students of the art school he had attended ten years or so ago. And invitations went out to numerous citizens, including friends of Mrs. Kingsley and people for whom the groom had painted portraits.

One person of real importance would not be in attendance. Lieutenant Harry Westcott was in the Peninsula with his regiment and would not have been able to travel home in time even if he could have been granted leave or had wanted to. A letter arrived for Camille a few days before the wedding, however, in which he expressed his very best wishes for his sister’s happiness and his trust in her choice of mate, though it had surprised him. He also mentioned the fact that he had recently been in a great pitched battle, which had been a touch-and-go thing before the inevitable rout of the enemy. He had sustained an assortment of cuts and bruises during the hostilities, but the regimental sawbones, who was a good sort, had patched him up and assured him that in no time at all he would be as good as new with the addition of a few interesting scars to appeal to the ladies. He sent his love to his mother and Abby and anyone else who might like to have it.

Strangely, Camille thought as she folded the letter, Harry was the only one who seemed a little dubious about her choice—it had surprised him. No one else did. Indeed, everyone seemed happy for her. Perhaps they recognized that she had changed—and perhaps they saw that the changes were for the better. Perhaps they could see that she was in love, just as it was perfectly obvious that Anna was in love with Avery. Perhaps, she thought with a smile and a soft laugh, everyone loved a lover. She raised Harry’s letter to her lips and said a silent prayer for his safety.