A Yuletide Treasure (18 page)

Though he paused, hardly breathing, when she laughed and tried to peek when she made a pencil mark on a page, he was distracted from her reaction to what she read by the unexpected charm of her appearance. Something had changed her in just the two weeks since she’d come.

He remembered thinking when he’d first met her that she was rather ordinary, except for her eyes. Her hair had been scraped back from her forehead, and her clothes had hung upon her. Yet more had changed than just her softer hair and a more refined fit. Perhaps she’d gained a little weight Certainly her cheeks were no longer as pale as wax. Yet none of these satisfied his curiosity. Something else had changed her. Or perhaps the change was within himself. Certainly she now seemed one of the handsomest girls he’d ever seen.

At last, she turned over the last page of manuscript and straightened with a sigh.

Philip, alive to every nuance of her behavior, came to pour her out a fresh cup. “That did not sound like the sigh of a girl enchanted by a tender love scene,” he said. “Please correct me if I am wrong.”

“Oh, no,” she said brightly. “It was very romantic, indeed. The way he leapt over the garden wall to assure her that he still loves her despite everything was very affecting.”

“Camilla,” he said in his deepest tone, “tell the truth. I’m an author; I can stand it.”

She raised her hands as if to disavow responsibility. “Come now, Sir Philip. I’m no critic.”

He laughed. “This from the girl who told me to my face that my characters, wholly imaginary beings created from my own head, wouldn’t possibly behave as I had written. Not to mention the girl who insisted that I rewrite half a chapter to save the family dog from a very pathetic fate.”

“Too pathetic ...,” she murmured, showing the dimple that only appeared when she knew she was being wicked.

“Mia! No critic, indeed.” He handed her a teacup, prepared with half a spoon of sugar and no more than a drop of milk just as she liked it. “Go on,” he urged again after she’d taken a sip. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. I swear it. Only...”

“Yes? You know how I value your judgment.”

This time, she sighed in resignation. “I don’t know quite ... It’s no more than the smallest ghost of a feeling. I hardly know how to express it.”

He waited for her to resolve her doubts, delighting his eyes with the way one lock of hair fell from the upswept coiffure to touch her cheek and the base of her throat. She wore a pearl gray round gown, one of her own, with an open collar rising only in the back so that all of the smooth column of her neck showed. Her skin was as white as a Grecian goddess carved in marble, but her warmth suffused the marble with rose. Philip made a mental note to describe his heroine that way, which did not diminish how he felt about Camilla. He’d already noticed certain traits of hers transferring themselves to his fictional creation.

Then she spoke. “I feel as if, for all Lucien’s pretty speeches, he’s holding back.”

“Holding back?” he prompted when she paused again.

“No, that’s not it,” she said hesitatingly. “It’s as if there’s a certain calculation that influences all his actions and speeches. I feel as if he doesn’t mean what he says in a deeper way, as if he’s only speaking of his love to persuade her not to betray him. Oh, I’m putting this very badly.”

“No, no. I understand what you mean, I think. How can I improve it, do you think?” He smoothed his hair. “It’s not easy to put sincerity on a page with black ink,” he said. “Shall I fill my bottle with purple, do you think?”

“No, Sir Philip,” she said with some relief in her tone. “Your handwriting is difficult enough.”

He picked up the ink-daubed pages and rifled through them. “I shall reread it myself. Perhaps that will show me how to improve it.”

Camilla seemed about to speak but turned away.

“Camilla...,” he began, tossing down the pages and following her. “What else?”

“Nothing. Do you think we’ll be able to go riding again tomorrow? I need the exercise, and I hope to find a few necessities in the village.”

“Camilla?”

She would not turn toward him, still concealing her eyes, those talkative eyes. Philip touched her hand as he’d done before. Yet, suddenly, it wasn’t enough. He wanted his arm about her waist, her body turning toward his, his hand on her cheek to bring her lips under his. But it would be unseemly, improper, and the most natural thing in the world.

Before he could either conquer his need for her or surrender to it, she was returning the pressure of his fingers, though still with face averted. “I’m afraid....”

“Ah, don’t be.”

“I think... I fear that this lack is not in Lucien. I think it may be in the author, Sir Philip.”

“Don’t you think you could stop calling me sir?” he said tenderly. “You have been Camilla to me now for days.” He paused in the very instant of raising her hand to his lips. “What do you mean? You’re afraid the lack is in me.”

She nodded and let her fingers slip from his. Somehow that hurt him more than her words.

“Come and sit down,” he said.

“No, I... I’ve said too much as it is. No doubt I am a fool with too much imagination. I should go. The children and I have some things to do together. I promised.”

“No. Camilla, please.” Philip motioned to the sofa. “Please sit down and just talk to me. About anything you like. Have you heard from your mother today? I saw there was a letter from her in the post Merridew collected.” He wondered if Mrs. Twainsbury’s letter had overset her. He wondered if he had, by some unconscious error caused by his exhaustion last night, written something in his chapter that she should not have read. He couldn’t have mistakenly used her name in place of his heroine’s? It was possible, considering how much he’d begun to identify one with the other.

“As a matter of fact, there was. She says that my little niece is of such a lusty disposition that she feels no qualms in cutting her visit short. She’s very grateful to you for permitting me to stay at the Manor for so long.”

“Grateful? It is we who should be grateful to her. It’s difficult to imagine this house without you in it. I know Beulah feels the same way. You know that Tinarose does.”

“I hope you will allow her to visit us. Mother is quite taken with her already, just from what I have written.”

“You write to her about us?”

“Naturally. I have no wish to keep secrets from my mother.” She looked away then, though she’d been giving him furtive glances once the subject changed from his emotional shortcomings. Instantly, Philip was agog to know what secrets she was keeping from Mrs. Twainsbury. He also wanted acutely to know what she’d written about him.

“Can you tell me now, do you think?” He sat back in the deep corner of the sofa, obtaining a full view of her.

She sat curved in upon herself, as if the self-confidence that had been building in her day by day had all flown. Philip realized this was the difference he’d noticed. She neither gazed about her with an air of slightly affronted surprise as she had done at first, nor sat with lips tight and hands folded, too cowed to speak. It hurt him with quite a sharp pang to see her looking less strong than he knew her to be.

“I’ve told you I hardly know what I mean. It’s a feeling, and one should not speak of feelings.”

“Why not? They’re the only things we truly own.”

“But such matters are too intimate. My mother says—”

“Yes,” he said, not wishing to hear another of Mrs. Twainsbury’s aphorisms. The woman seemed to have made a perfect religion out of respectability and conformity, two altars at which he could never bring himself to worship for long. “I hoped we are close enough friends to talk about such things.”

“I believe that we are ... Philip. Very well.” She folded her hands in her lap. “It seems to me that you hide your true self from everyone. I have heard often how kind and sympathetic you are and of your goodness to the people of Bishop’s Halt and your dependents.”

“But in reality I’m a monster of selfishness and depravity?” he asked. “You’ve guessed my secret!”

“Don’t joke. It’s as if you are playing the part of the good uncle and the kindly landlord when in reality you don’t want to be here at all. You want to go back to your other life. I hear it in your voice whenever you speak of your travels.”

“What other life?”

The one you lived in America and Italy and Russia and... Paris.”

“Paris?” he repeated, suddenly wary.

‘Yes. Do you remember when Dr. March told that story about finding you wounded in Paris?”

“Evelyn always tells that story when he’s had a drop too much. It doesn’t mean anything.”

“Someone hurt you. That means something. How could anyone want to hurt you?”

“What do you want to know, Camilla?” he asked gently. “All my past secrets? They’re not very interesting, but I’m sure I can invent something. Tell me what tales you’ve been dreaming up. What do you think I am?”

“I think you are ...,” she said a little more quickly, not stopping to weigh her words as she’d done before. But the caution ingrained in her by her mother still kept her from finishing her thought.

Philip moved from his corner of the sofa with a speed that took Camilla aback. Her eyes flew open in surprise. He cupped her face in his hands, marveling even then at the smooth purity of her complexion, moving his fingertips slightly to feel the softness of her cheeks. “Be bold, Camilla. Tell this fool what you think of him so he can return the compliment. Because I’m longing to say out loud what I think of you.”

“I think someone hurt you. Now you don’t believe in love and so can’t write it,” she said, then bit her lower lip, astounded by her own temerity.

“I’m sorry,” Philip said. “But you’re wrong.” Then he kissed her.

* * * *

At first, sheer surprise held her immobile. Then, a heartbeat later, Camilla didn’t want to move, afraid he’d stop if she so much as lifted a hand. He might think she was trying to push him away. Philip’s mouth on hers was warm and soft, his hands strong on her shoulders. She felt a strange flutter under her heart, like a cageful of butterflies had just opened, taking all her worries with them in their flight. Unable to bear the suspense, she reached out to flatten her hands against his flame-pattern waistcoat.

When Philip broke the kiss, retreating no farther than to rest his forehead against hers, he laughed, a little breathless himself. “Camilla...”

“Yes, Philip?” she whispered.

“Just so that there’s no mistake about it later... Are you listening, dear?”

For a moment, her heart died as she was certain he was going to tell her this was a mistake, that he’d had no intention of kissing her, that he’d only surrendered to an uncontrollable impulse.

“I’m listening,” she answered warily.

“Just so that we both understand completely... That was a proposal.”

“Oh. Was it?”

“Shall I make it more formally?”

She couldn’t answer, stunned by the wonder of a moment she’d never even dreamed of except in her most secret heart.

“Camilla, I adore you. You’re the woman I’ve sought my whole life, in every corner of the world. I never thought you existed, and here you were within fifty miles of my family home the entire time. Please, please say you’ll marry me.”

He tilted her face so that she must look at him. Though he smiled tenderly, there was such earnest anxiety in his eyes that she couldn’t bear to see it. Catching his hand, she pressed her cheek into his palm.

This instant, she felt, was the bridge between her past and her future. She’d never given her future much thought. She’d known she would live with her mother either for always or until one of her sometime suitors worked up the courage to propose. She never imagined a man like Philip would want her for his wife.

“Are you sure?” she asked, determined to be fair even when every instinct demanded that she seize this moment and accept before he could change his mind. “I have so many faults that you don’t know.”

“Faults? I’ve seen none, and you have been my close study now for more than two weeks.”

“Oh, you don’t know.”

He drew her head down to his shoulder and, while holding one of her hands, put his other arm about her. “Tell me,” he said with a laughter in his voice that sounded something close to tears. “Tell me these horrible flaws.”

“Oh, I’m lazy,” she said. One wouldn’t think a muscular shoulder could be so comfortable. “I’d far rather read a book than do anything else. Often I forget to do my allotted tasks when there’s an interesting book to finish.”

“Grievous sins all. But how can I chide you for them when I’m guilty of the same myself? What else?”

“I’m so impatient.”

“You?”

“It’s true. I want all the good things to happen right away. I never can bear to wait for anything. Why, I was actually happy to be sent away before Christmas because I find it so difficult to wait for Christmas morning, even though I always know what my presents will be.”

“What are they?”

“A book, some toilet water, a bunch of fruit to freshen my best hat, and a...” Her voice trailed off.

“What was that?”

“An undergarment,” she said primly.

His laugh shook her, too, but she didn’t mind. “I promise faithfully never to give you any of those things for Christmas. We shall have it written in our vows that none but frivolous gifts shall be allowed on Christmas and our birthdays. Apples of perpetual youth, crowns of wild olive, kissing-comfits; these shall we have. And speaking of kisses...”

The second time was sweeter than the first and the third sweeter still.

“I must write to your mother at once. You’ve told her about me?”

“Not very much,” Camilla confessed. “I hardly knew what to say. I’ve told her that you have written several books.”

“Good. What else?”

“That’s all.” She saw that he looked puzzled and slightly hurt. “I didn’t want to tell her too much. She might not even have let me stay this long if she knew about you. I may have led her to believe certain things.”

“What things, Camilla?”

“That you and Lady LaCorte were husband and wife.”

He shook his head as if to clear it. “I beg your pardon?”