Every Whispered Word (16 page)

“Unfortunately, Oscar needs a little more room than that,” Simon explained, sensing Camelia's distress at the thought of locking Oscar up. “But I'm sure you will find that once he has become familiar with his new surroundings, you will hardly know he is there.”

“That doesna seem likely,” muttered Doreen, glaring at Oscar.

Oscar bared his teeth at her in a broad, mocking smile.

“Cheeky wee beggar!”

“At least the bird stays in her cage,” Oliver interjected, trying to find something positive to say. “She's rare bonny, too.”

“Actually, Harriet only uses her cage when she is traveling and sleeping,” clarified Camelia. “She has to fly about and stretch her wings a bit during the day.”

“And I'm sure she will find enough room for that in Lady Camelia's bedchamber,” Simon added, realizing Eunice and Doreen were not particularly warming to the idea of turning the house into a zoo.

“Well, now that that's all settled, shall we show Lady Camelia to her room?” suggested Oliver. “The lass has had a hard night, an' I'm sure she's most anxious to find her bed.”

“O' course ye are, ye poor wee duck,” clucked Eunice, abruptly forgetting her fright. “Come along upstairs, an' me an' Doreen will make ye cosy as a kitten, while Oliver sees to yer friend, Mr. Zareb.”

Mr. Zareb
. With those two simple words, Camelia instantly forgave Eunice for not liking Rupert. Since they had come to London, almost everyone Camelia had encountered had treated Zareb with varying degrees of distrust and condescension. While racist bigotry was also prevalent in South Africa, Camelia's father had always made sure that on his dig all men were treated with fairness and respect, regardless of the color of their skin. Of course Zareb had spent much of his life enduring the contempt of white people in places like Cape Town and Kimberley, but in Africa he was part of a population of millions, which meant he did not constantly arouse unwelcome attention. In England Zareb could not help but stand out, and everyone immediately assumed he was some kind of lowly servant to her. Most English people instantly felt superior to him, purely because of his color. But Eunice had referred to him as Camelia's friend, and had politely accorded him the title of “Mister.” For that, Camelia would do her utmost to keep her animals out of Eunice's sight—at least until Eunice understood that they were mostly harmless.

“I will keep the animals with me tonight, Tisha,” Zareb said, wanting to make things easier for Eunice and Doreen as they settled Camelia into her room. “Do not worry.”

“An' we have a fine bedchamber waitin' for ye as well,” Oliver told Zareb, taking Harriet's cage from him. “If ye follow me I'll take ye to it.”

Zareb gave his new friend a grateful bow. “Thank you, Oliver.”

Simon watched as the strange party made their way up the stairs, with Oscar perched like a little hairy king on the throne of Zareb's head.

Then Simon turned and made his way into his study, feeling oddly disconcerted and badly in need of a drink.

         

Something had changed.

That was a bit of an understatement, Simon reflected ruefully as he stared at the amber liquid in his glass. Since meeting Camelia, his home had burned down, destroying everything he owned and, worse, every invention he had been working on. Then he had somehow been cajoled into letting Oliver, Eunice, and Doreen move in with him, completely eradicating the quiet solitude he absolutely required when he worked. And just when he thought his house and his life couldn't possibly be noisier or more crowded, Oliver decided to invite Camelia and Zareb and their pack of wild animals to join them. Pack was something of an exaggeration, he allowed, but given the propensity for trouble that a monkey, a bird, and a snake presented, not by much.

He took a swallow of brandy and stared at the crumpled sketches scattered across his desk, trying to concentrate on the steam pump he was attempting to develop. The challenge was to get the steam to expand gradually through a progression of chambers. Perhaps if he made the chambers smaller and increased their number . . .

“Forgive me—I didn't think anyone else was awake.”

He looked up to see Camelia standing in the doorway to his study. She was dressed in a nightgown of ivory silk, which was trimmed at the neckline with a froth of finely stitched lace. She had carelessly draped the quilt from her bed over her shoulder but this makeshift cape only seemed to accentuate the delicacy of her form. Her sun-streaked hair was falling loosely about her shoulders and down her back, a shimmer of gold in the apricot spill of the lamplight. Simon stared at her, fascinated. His gaze moved slowly from the elegant curve of her cheek to the graceful line of her neck, across the sweet pulsing hollow at the base of her throat, then lower, to the lush swells of her breasts. He found himself remembering the feel of her as she lay against him earlier that night, all womanly heat and softness, her slender legs tangled within his, her body shifting and pressing as she stared down at him with those magnificent sage-colored eyes.

Desire surged through him, hard and hot and completely overwhelming.

“Is everything all right?” he demanded, clumsily knocking over his glass as he rose abruptly from his desk.

Get hold of yourself,
he commanded silently, fumbling about for a handkerchief as brandy spilled across his sketches. Finding none, he picked up the sketches and shook them, effectively splattering brandy all across the surface of his desk.

For God's sake—what's the matter with you?

“Is your room to your liking?” he added awkwardly, still holding the dripping wet papers.

Camelia regarded him uncertainly, wondering at his apparent discomfiture. “Yes—my room is fine, thank you.”

She noted that he was still dressed in his rumpled linen shirt and dark trousers, but he had removed his jacket and neck cloth and opened his collar, revealing just a hint of his muscled chest. His red-gold hair was tousled, and a shadow of dark growth grizzled his jaw, making him look even more disheveled than usual. In that moment he again reminded Camelia of a Scottish warrior, with his towering form and his enormous shoulders, and the piercing depths of his extraordinarily blue eyes. That was ridiculous, of course, she realized. Simon Kent was a quiet, bookish scientist who spent his life squirreled inside a laboratory, struggling to perfect new ways to wash clothes and mop floors and transform steam into power. He was scarcely the kind of man who would race fearlessly into battle wielding a heavy broadsword.

Instead he would toss a few children's firecrackers at the enemy and hope that the color and noise would scare them off.

“Are you hungry?” His desk now a complete disaster, he began to awkwardly lay his sopping wet sketches out on the floor to dry. “If you like we could go down to the kitchen and find something to eat.”

“No, thank you. Eunice and Doreen very kindly made up a tray for me and brought it to my room earlier. They said they would take one to Zareb as well, which was most considerate of them. Zareb is not accustomed to being treated with such courtesy outside of our home—especially not here in London.”

“Eunice, Oliver, and Doreen have always treated everyone pretty much the same—for better or for worse. They are unimpressed with the trappings of titles and wealth, or even the color of a person's skin. All that matters to them is what lies beneath.”

“Zareb is exactly the same,” Camelia said, sitting in the chair facing Simon's desk. “I think he is pleased to have finally met some people here who share his view of the world. I'm afraid he was beginning to think that all British people were arrogant and stupid.”

Simon smiled. “We're Scottish, actually. But I would hate to condemn the entire British people on the basis of Zareb's encounters. Perhaps he just hasn't met the right people.”

“Perhaps.” Camelia tucked her feet up underneath her legs. She had not been able to fall asleep as she lay on the soft bed that Doreen and Eunice had prepared for her. Despite her determination to be strong, the sight of father's home with all his precious possessions destroyed had affected her deeply. Worst of all was the use of his dagger to stab that vile note to her pillow. She did not believe in curses, she reminded herself firmly.

Even so, the fact that Zareb had been so adamant that they leave the house had disturbed her.

“How did you come to know Oliver, Eunice, and Doreen?” she asked, drawing the blanket closer around her shoulders.

“My mother took them into her home after they were released from prison,” Simon explained. “But they were never servants to her. My mother was struggling to look after some children she had rescued from the prison and was badly in need of help. Eunice, Oliver, and Doreen became part of the family. They have remained so ever since.”

“How many children did Lady Redmond take in?”

“There are six of us, in total.” Simon's expression was contained as he sat behind his desk once more. “I expect, given how thoroughly you researched my background, that you have already heard that is how I came to be part of the Kent family.”

“My interest in your background was focused purely on your achievements as a scientist and an inventor,” Camelia returned. “I believe I had heard somewhere that you were raised as the ward of Lord and Lady Redmond, but I didn't really pay any attention to it. All that mattered to me was the fact that you were a brilliant scientist who I believed would be able to help me with the challenge of clearing water from my dig.”

He stared at her a long moment. She returned his gaze with an easy, unaffected calm.

She was telling the truth, he realized, marveling at that simple, surprising fact.

For as long as he could remember, he had been ashamed of his past. Not in an overwhelming way, as it had been for his brother Jack. Jack had been forced to survive on the streets of Inveraray until he was nearly fifteen. All those years of violence and depravation had formed a wall around Jack, which only his wife Amelia's gentle love had finally managed to break through. But until Genevieve found Simon hunched on the floor of a prison cell at the age of nine, he had also been forced to survive on his own. He had no recollection of his real father, and his memories of his mother were vague. For years he had conjured up a childishly innocent image of her, a pretty woman with sable hair and wide, gray eyes, who would hold him close at night and gently stroke his cheek.

After Genevieve took him home and he was finally able to fall asleep knowing that he was safe until morning, his memories took a darker turn. The woman who invaded his dreams at night was filthy and foul-mouthed, with breath that stank of gin and grimy fists that beat him until he lay cowering on the floor. He would awaken suddenly, his heart racing and his mouth dry, shivering uncontrollably.

And then he would slip off his new, soft bed and curl up on the floor, pleading with God to dry his urine-soaked sheets by morning, so that Genevieve would not find out his terrible secret and make him leave.

“Is everything all right?” Camelia regarded him with concern, wondering at the shadows that had suddenly darkened his gaze.

“Yes,” he assured her briskly. “Everything is fine.”

He began to blot up the spilled brandy on his desk with his sleeve, avoiding her gaze. He could feel her staring at him, and wondered how much he had inadvertently revealed. He did not want Camelia to know about that filthy, cowering, thieving lad. For some reason he did not completely understand, he wanted her to think that he was better than he really was. He wanted her to see him as a man who was strong, and confident, and capable of solving problems. A brilliant scientist, as she had so extravagantly described him. Well, perhaps not brilliant, he amended, but at least reasonably educated and bright. A man who was capable of helping her when she needed him, be it scaring off the two thugs who tried to harm her, or offering her shelter when her own home was no longer safe. A man who was fully in control of both his emotions and his life. This was not so peculiar, he assured himself. After all, she was depending on him to help her. Although he had always been quick to help when it came to his own family, he could not remember a time when a woman had turned to him for assistance.

Then again, he hadn't known many women.

“May I have a glass of brandy?” she asked suddenly.

“Of course,” he said, startled from his thoughts. “Forgive me for not offering you one earlier. I have sherry, too, if you prefer.”

“Actually, I don't much like sherry. I find it too sweet. I suppose you find that rather unusual, a woman who would rather take brandy than sherry.”

“I believe that, put against the fact that you travel with a monkey in your carriage and a snake in your trunk, having a sip of brandy rather pales by comparison,” Simon reflected archly, handing her a glass.

Camelia took a sip of her drink and sighed. “I expect people in London find me rather eccentric.”

“Do you care what they think?”

She shrugged her shoulders. “Not really.”

“Good. Then you won't let anyone's opinion of you get in the way of what you want to do with your life. Not many women have that kind of courage.”

“Elliott thinks it's foolishness. He thinks I'm naive and that I don't really understand the world around me, which is why he is so desperate to protect me.”

“Is that what he was trying to do when I came upon you in the garden?” Simon's tone was wry. “Protect you?”

“In a way.” Camelia stared into the depths of her glass, embarrassed by the fact that Simon had seen her in such a ridiculous situation. “Elliott wants to marry me,” she added awkwardly.

So that was Wickham's goal. Simon supposed he should have been relieved that the dullard's intentions were honorable, at least. But somehow the idea of Wickham marrying Camelia struck him as utterly wrong. Wickham would try to cage her, and Camelia was far too magnificent a creature to be locked up by that vacuous, arrogant fool.