Did her father ever think about her mother now he was married to Averil? In the second drawer of the small desk were old letters tied in a faded red ribbon. She’d gone through the letters many times, all written by her mother from her home in Sussex to her father before their wedding in 1811. Would he remember the letters? Would he want to see them? Would he cherish the memories they rekindled? She didn’t know. She hadn’t ever told him about them. Why, she didn’t know.
At least Averil would never see them because if she did, Cam knew she’d destroy them, no question at all. And that was why just after her father had married Averil six months before she’d locked the door.
She started to write but couldn’t find the right words to describe Alex Ivanov. And why was that? Well, she had to write something.Shocking blue eyes and a brain.Very well, those were her few words for the day.
Cam rose, dusted her hands on her skirts and looked at the three paintings on the far wall, all covered with white Holland covers. She pulled off the covers and stared at the long-ago paintings of her grandparents, dead these eight years. They were young, elaborately dressed, white wigs elaborately coiffed. Another painting of her uncle Nimrod, her father’s older brother, killed in Poland in one of the interminable battles with Napoleon. Her father resembled him.
She covered the paintings again, and left the room, closed and locked the door behind her.
She was thinking about the letters in her pocket when Averil came out of her bedchamber. She looked at Cam, disapproval radiating off her like a noxious cloud. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you, Camilla. Elvira told me she inquired very nicely of your maid, Cilly, if she’d finished her packing for you since you are leaving today for Bath. Your maid was very rude to her, told her to see to her own affairs. Your maid, Cilly—a ridiculous nickname—is an abomination, her rudeness upset poor Elvira. I shall ask your father to dismiss her.”
Cam looked at the beautiful woman she’d like to throttle and said in a low, mean voice, “Just try it.”
That put Averil back on her heels, but only for a moment. “What have you been doing? Why aren’t you ready to leave?”
Cam felt dislike swell to bursting, but she said only, “Mind to your own affairs.”
“Don’t you dare speak to me in that ill-bred, snippy voice. This house is my affair. Go see to your packing. You’re leaving.”
Cam said nothing more to Averil, turned on her heel and skipped down the great front staircase. She turned to the back of the house to her father’s study.
She couldn’t leave, just couldn’t—she didn’t want to go anywhere, she’d never see Alex Ivanov again. She hadn’t known he existed two days ago and yet here he was firmly embedded in her mind—so filled with life and joy and ideas to change the world. Not to mention his eyes, the wild blue, and his laugh, his smile, his wit, ah, and his brain. She loved his brain. Somehow she had to convince her father to let her stay. She knocked lightly, opened the door. Her father was alone, bending over his desk and studying what looked to be an architect’s plans. For the changes needed to make the plant fit his proposed manufacture of train parts? His venture with Alex Ivanov and Lord Carberry? He looked up, looked alarmed. “Cammie, what’s the matter?”
It had been so long since he’d called her by her childhood name. Cam knew she couldn’t tell him the truth. Her brain scrambled about. What to say to convince him to let her stay? She said, “Papa, please don’t send me to Bath.” She saw refusal in his eyes, wanted to cry and scream, and then inspiration struck.
Cilly had told her years before when she’d been caught in a lie,If you’re going to lie the trick is to look directly into the person’s eyes and try for bedrock sincerity.
It was worth a try. “Papa, Aunt Deveraux whispered to me she can’t wait to tell me how she lost her virginity, and not, she whispered, on her wedding night. She told me I would be old enough on my next visit. She said she’d tell me about all her lovers and how her husband never knew, how she pulled the blinders over his eyes, the stupid old fish-breath. On my last visit she told me Pilcher Gayson is eager to teach me things so I don’t go to our marriage bed an ignorant twit. She said most of the young gentlemen in Bath have reputations and knowledge, Papa, they are eager and willing to show young ladies.”
Whit stared at his daughter, appalled. He couldn’t believe his ears, but oh yes, he could. He well knew his much oldersister, Marguerite, fifteen years his senior and old now, but her wickedness from decades before always fresh in her mind. She was deaf as a post, yelling at the top of her lungs since she couldn’t hear, forcing people to shout in her old-fashioned horn. She lived comfortably in this world and a world fifty years in the past.
He believed every word out of his innocent daughter’s mouth. He remembered his promise to Averil as he’d lain on his back, breathing like a bellows after she’d stroked him, taken him in her mouth and bought his agreement.
What to do? Surely Averil wouldn’t want Cam to be exposed to such appalling young men, to possibly be corrupted. He remembered how his no-nonsense daughter had smashed Teddy Jewel, but surely this was different. Teddy was harmless, withal, and something of a buffoon. There was no real wickedness in him, only a man’s lust he couldn’t seem to control around his daughter, not like these slavering men in Bath. He couldn’t help but wonder if Marguerite had taken many of their grandfathers as lovers. He shuddered.
What could he do? He said, “I will speak to Averil.”
Cam felt no guilt at all as she flung her arms around his neck and manufactured grateful tears.
Her father hugged her close and wondered what his life would be like if he didn’t keep his promise, a promise made under amazing, utterly breathtaking duress.
CHAPTER 20
Sherbrooke townhouse
Portman Square
Alex stood stiff-shouldered at the sparkling bow windows in the drawing room, staring out at the Portman Square garden surrounded by large plane trees planted five years before to enclose the garden, staunch sentinels Alex had always thought, protecting the myriad daffodils, roses and chrysanthemums beginning their colorful journey into summer, not to mention protecting the smaller oaks and chestnuts that gave them enough sunlight to thrive.
He knew he had to face it, accept it. Thanks to Vicar Piercebridge it seemed certain he was indeed one of the long-lost sons of Earl St. Lucy. He was Graham Hepburn, a notable although not ancient name with a rich, sometimes violent ancestry dating back to Elizabeth I, according to Ryder, who’d read the Hepburn history in DeBrett’s. His own father, Vereker Hepburn, was the fourth Earl St. Lucy and he—Graham Hepburn—would be Viscount Whitestone. His younger brother, Simon, if he was still alive, an honorable, his older sister Lady Eugenie. Was Simon alive somewhere, inFrance? Italy? Or was he dead as Alex was supposed to have been?
Questions, endless questions swirled round and round in Alex’s mind. All right, so he and Simon had left on a tour of Europe with their tutor—and who was he and was he dead too?—if this account was true, then why had he been in London and hit on the head and thrown into the Thames, dead if Ryder Sherbrooke, by sheer happenstance, hadn’t by chance been walking by the Thames at that particular spot at that particular time of day to see him being pulled from the water. The fishermen had believed him drowned, but Ryder had blown his breath into him, sat him up and sent his fist against his back over and over until he’d vomited up water, so much water. And if Ryder hadn’t taken care of him, the following fever would have carried him off.
Alex remembered when he’d finally awakened he’d stared up at a face he didn’t know, a strong, handsome face. He’d asked in a slurred, hoarse voice, “Are you God?”
And the handsome man had laughed, hugged him close and he’d felt calm warmth filling him.
Ryder said now to Alex’s still-stiff back, his voice gentle, calm, “I can’t imagine how you’ve dealt all these years with not knowing who you were, all your memories gone as if they never existed, no memories of those who loved you, no memory of all the joys and pleasures of a young boy’s life.
