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Authors: Emma Barron

Tags: #Romance, #Historical

The Glass Orchid (6 page)

BOOK: The Glass Orchid
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“I serve as factotum for my father’s shipping company.”

“And what does that entail?”

“Anything and everything my father needs. I am learning all the details of the business since my father hopes I will take over the company when he is gone.”

“He hopes? It doesn’t sound as if you are overly eager to fulfill his wish.”

“I will do my duty,” Camden said, and Del noticed how clenched his jaw was after he spoke and how tightly he gripped Sebby’s reins.

Del guessed from his reaction that Camden had a tense and complicated relationship with his father, and she wanted to know more. She could hardly pry into such an intimate arena, however, no matter how brightly her curiosity burned. “Navigating family ties can be difficult.” Del kept her tone sincere yet light, hoping to simultaneously convey her understanding and deflect some of the tension. “I suspect my great-aunt Mrs. Tiddles would be similarly demanding, if she weren’t made up.”

“Indeed. Wait — what?” Camden stopped walking and looked at her, clearly perplexed.

“Mrs. Tiddles, my great-aunt and benefactor with whom I live. I made her up.”

“Why would you invent a fictitious relative?” Camden asked as he began walking again.

“Well, I can’t very well force society to acknowledge reality, now can I? The grand dames of London would rather live as peasants — can you imagine the horror? — than have to admit there is an orphaned whore living and supporting herself among them. Mrs. Tiddles allows everyone the comfortable fiction that I am a respectable woman living off the proceeds of a generous relative. Oh, Mr. Camden, you are blushing again. Have I positively scandalized you?”

“No — well, yes,” Camden said, laughing. “But I could do with a bit of scandal. I’m just a bit taken off guard. You are terribly candid, aren’t you?”

“I don’t see the point in prevarications. I am sorry if I have shocked you.”

“I should be shocked, and yet I find you — refreshing. Most of society, myself included, spend their lives gossiping and scheming, saying only what others want to hear, what will achieve their aims and desires. And here you are, utterly forthright and without pretention. I find you very intriguing.”

Del’s cheeks grew warm, and it seemed it was her turn to blush from embarrassment. She saw with relief they were approaching her townhouse and she would soon be delivered from Camden’s presence. The conversation was veering into entirely too uncomfortable territory, and she was grateful for escape. She removed her house key from her reticule and started up her front steps.

“Thank you, Mr. Camden, for escorting me home. You have again proven yourself a gentleman.”

“Miss Beaumont, I — ” Camden shifted, clearly uncomfortable.

“Yes, Mr. Camden?” Del asked, wondering what, exactly, he meant to say. It wouldn’t be a proper Camden encounter unless he said something surprising to her.

“I was hoping I — that is — I would like to see you again,” he said. “Not for — I mean, not as a — ” Camden cleared his throat as he struggled to come up with the properly delicate phrasing.

Every impulse Del had screamed at her to mutter her apologies and then flee into the house, forever shutting the door on Camden and the complications he represented. She didn’t need this, didn’t need the uncertainty and confusion and awkwardness that swelled within her whenever he was near. Instead of running, though, she found herself saying, “This Friday. Jane is playing Miss Maria Dorrillon in her theater’s production of
Wives as They Were and Maids as They Are
. You may come round at seven to collect me.”

Camden smiled as he bowed to her. “Until Friday then, Miss Beaumont.” He mounted his horse and trotted off, melting into the heavy traffic of the street and disappearing from view.

• • •

Del flicked her wrists, the delicately carved ivory blades of her fan clicking together as she desperately tried to create some small relief from the theater’s stifling, muggy heat. The lobby was a sea of muslin and silk, satin and kerseymere, the women and men inhabiting the materials scarcely distinguishable in the crowd. Camden’s hand was strong and warm on her back, anchoring her to him so they wouldn’t be separated as everyone jostled to get into the gallery before the play began.

She saw a few familiar faces around her. She smiled warmly and tipped her fan to her friends and acquaintances, and she politely pretended not to see or know the several former “suitors” who were there with their wives or new mistresses. It was this adeptness at both gracious acknowledgment and serene detachment — either so easily given depending on what the situation required — that had helped secure her position as a sought-after companion of the wealthy and powerful men of London. One such man caught her eye, and her face froze as she quickly brought her fan up higher to obscure her expression before her celebrated composure left her entirely.

Lord Ashe stood not ten feet from her, his tall, broad frame allowing him — along with Camden and a few other men — to rise above the heads of the generally shorter crowd. Del stiffened with surprise and discomfort. She hadn’t seen Ashe in weeks, not since that night when Camden had tried to rescue her from him, and she was unprepared to see him now. Ashe had tried to contact her since then, sending increasingly demanding missives to her house practically ordering her to accompany him to some event or another. He knew, of course, that Del did not respond to demands or orders, and any hint of such only strengthened her resolve to ignore them and the person issuing such insults to her autonomy.

She tried to ignore him now, but he was a handsome, imposing figure whose bearing and demeanor drew the attention of even the most reluctant observers. He stood near one of the lobby’s large, ornately turned columns, wearing a coat of deep blue crushed velvet, a chateau bras tucked smartly under his arm. He took a few steps forward as he walked along with the crowd, and his companion, previously obscured by the column, came into view, causing an inexplicable sense of ire to swell within Del. She recognized the woman clinging to Ashe’s arm as Sarah Wilson, the courtesan most recently taking London by storm. She was young, barely eighteen, and though attractive it was supposedly her wit and vivacious charm rather than any unmatched beauty that drew men in. She had been on the scene for barely a year, but she had already secured her reputation as alluring, magnetic, and feisty, with acumen for the business of seduction far exceeding that of any of the other much more seasoned courtesans currently working the salons and opera houses of London.

Del felt another twinge of emotion, and though she would never admit it to anyone, she knew it to be jealousy tinged with fear. It wasn’t that
she
wanted to be the one murmuring in Ashe’s ear — she had been studiously avoiding that lately — it was that she didn’t want
Ashe
to want someone else on his arm. She hated seeing the evidence of her replaceability, hated being reminded of the tenuousness of her life. She had worked hard to ensure a measure of independence for herself, supporting herself the only way she could, but seeing Ashe now demonstrated how easily her fortunes could change. All it would take was the distraction of the newest ingénue, and like a once shiny object stripped of its luster, Del would be discarded in favor of the new toy and soon forgotten. And what would become of her then?

Her disquieting thoughts were interrupted when Camden leaned down to her, his lips brushing against her cheek. “You are stunning this evening,” he said against her ear.

Del shivered, she couldn’t stop herself. His breath was warm on her neck, his husky voice like a caress, and it sent every one of her nerve endings buzzing. “Do behave yourself, Mr. Camden,” she said with a playful swat of her fan against his arm.

“What? I merely paid you an innocent compliment,” he said teasingly.

“Yes, but the
way
you said it was anything but innocent.” She gave him a devilish smile.

Camden pulled her against him. “I confess my motivations are perhaps not completely pure. Something about you makes me want to be a bit wicked.”

Del’s pulse quickened. She was used to flirting with men — it was her livelihood, after all — but she normally did it in a rote, automatic manner, with no attached feeling or even overly great interest. Flirting with Camden, however, was completely different. This was far from the mechanical exchanges she normally engaged in, exchanges carefully designed to pique the interest and desire of the client. She found herself responding to him quite against her will. When he touched her, her skin heated; when she felt his breath against her ear, she shivered. And when the young, guileless, and normally reserved and ever-proper Camden looked at her with a glint of hunger in his eyes and told her she made him wicked, her heart pounded. It made her quite forget herself — her past, her future, her present surroundings.

She had almost completely forgotten Ashe and his new companion until she caught a glimpse of him from the corner of her eye. He was staring at her now, irritation tinged with anger showing plainly in his dark expression. He must have seen the exchange between her and Camden, must have seen the way he stood so close to her, his arm snaked protectively around her waist. Ashe would have also seen how Camden made her react, how she blushed at his words and leaned in closer to him. Maybe Ashe could sense the crackling electricity flying between them, maybe when Del’s heart jumped and the attraction flared, it produced visible lightning bolts for everyone to see. It certainly felt as though it could.

Del knew Ashe well enough to know why seeing her with Camden made him angry. She had been refusing to see Ashe, avoiding him without explanation, and now here she was, at the theater with another man. Ashe was accustomed to having his demands met, his desires catered to, and it was an unpardonable affront to his position and power for Del to ignore Lord Ashe in favor of the young, untitled, and comparatively unimportant Rhys Camden.

Ashe pulled away from Miss Wilson and took a step forward, looking as if he was determined to fight his way through the crowd and confront Del and Camden. Ashe was aggressive and impetuous; he would think nothing of creating a scene or even engaging in a physical altercation in the middle of the theater. Del moved toward the gallery doors in earnest, no longer content to drift along with the crush of people heading toward their seats. She was eager to put more distance between them and Ashe, though the crowd made forward progress difficult.

“In a hurry, are we?” Camden asked.

“I don’t want to miss the beginning,” Del said. Camden clearly hadn’t noticed Ashe glowering at them from across the room, and Del wanted to keep it that way. “Jane would never forgive me.”

Nodding, Camden stepped forward, grasped Del’s hand, and led them into the gallery. He didn’t jostle or push anyone, he merely drew himself up to his full height and claimed space around them, seeming to effortlessly clear a path to their seats. Del glanced behind her and was relieved that Ashe was no longer visible. The crowd had swallowed them, and there would be no confrontation this evening.

Camden found their row and led Del to their places, carefully stepping around the patrons already in their seats. Suddenly, he stopped short, and his hand clenched around hers. His abruptness caused Del to bump into his broad back, and she was about to ask him what was wrong when he nodded stiffly to a gray-haired gentleman seated before them.

“Mr. Hutchence,” Camden said in curt acknowledgment.

“Mr. Camden,” Hutchence said, returning the nod. His eyes flicked over to Del, and they widened in surprise. Del was passingly familiar with the man; she had seen him at various salons and similar outings. She was quite sure he recognized her and knew her for what she was, and she thought she detected an air of censure at Camden’s choice of theater companion.

They were saved from further conversation when the gas lamps dimmed, and they moved quickly in order to be seated before the play began.

“Are you very well acquainted with Mr. Hutchence?” Del asked as they took their seats, hoping to discover the source of the tension-filled greeting between the two men.

“He’s a business associate of my father’s,” Camden said.

Del wanted to ask him more, but the footlights brightened, the curtain opened, and all conversation stopped as Jane entered the stage. Del tried to concentrate on the play, but her thoughts kept intruding. She was unbalanced, like a ship listing in the open sea after a squall, rudderless and without purpose. Being with Camden, she felt emotions and desires she thought she had long since abandoned. She wanted to know him, and not just in the perfunctory, utilitarian way she normally gathered information on men to facilitate and maximize her business dealing with them. Normally, she confined herself to such details as a man’s favorite food and colors, his daily habits, whether he preferred brandy or port, how he took his tea, and other equally mundane tidbits.

With Camden, she wanted to know so much more, from the mundane to the weighty. What was his childhood like? Was he a quiet, amendable boy or was he naughty? What caused his contentious relationship with his father? Was it always thus, or did the relationship recently deteriorate? Were his dealings with his mother equally fraught? Camden didn’t seem eager to join his father’s shipping business; what dreams did he hold for himself instead? What were his political leanings, and did he think the Cato Street conspirators were purposely entrapped? Why did he reign himself in so tightly when Del had caught glimpses of him in unguarded moments and knew a fiery spirit burned inside him? She wanted to know it all. She wanted to know why he looked at her with such an agonizing mix of tenderness, desire, and bewilderment. Why he had offered her so much and asked nothing in return. Most importantly, she wanted to know why he stirred such ungoverned emotions and engendered such baffling reactions in her.

Camden was dangerous, she realized. He made her want to let her guard down, to let him into her heart and her life, even knowing how vulnerable that made her. She caught herself having dreams of normal life — of marriage and houses in the country and perhaps a child or two — even though tonight had demonstrated how out of reach that life was. She could never escape her past, never fully divest herself of the Ashes and the Blakelys of her world who thought they had a claim to her, who thought she owed them her companionship until they themselves called a halt to it. And Camden, he could never escape the expectations of his position in life. She had seen the frosty exchange between him and Mr. Hutchence, saw the opprobrium in Hutchence’s glance and the way Camden stiffened in reaction to it, and she knew that there was no possible future for them.

BOOK: The Glass Orchid
6.22Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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