She said readily, “I’m here to meet my father. Well, to be honest, I’m surprising him. He doesn’t expect me since I’m supposed to be on my way to Bath to visit Aunt Deveraux, who is quite deaf and yells and all the neighborhood hears her and doubtless enjoys her endless tales of seduction back in the olden days when she was young. Her cook, Mrs. Tartle, makes the most marvelous loganberry scones, a miracle all agree. As I said, she is quite deaf and you have to shout in her ear, my aunt, not Mrs. Tartle, then back away quickly because she can’t hear herself either so when she talks, she bellows. My ears are ringing within a day, close to deaf by the end of my visits.” She paused, smiled. “Ah, her stories, yes, they really are quite naughty, perhaps I’d have to go as far as to say occasionally prurient, like the time she drank absinthe with Napoleon and he put his hand up her skirt. Everyone in the neighborhood enjoyed that story. Did I tell you she also keeps the windows open, even in the winter, so perhaps her stories reach the Roman Baths. But truthfully, she’s repeatedthe same stories since I was twelve so now I could tell them to her, no detail left out.” She paused, sighed.
Alex eyed her, fascinated. “Really? Napoleon put his hand up her skirt? Where was Josephine? Weren’t there others about?”
“Well, certainly, but Aunt Deveraux said he had no shame and quite the roving eye and not a single brake on his lust, and then she giggles.” Cam frowned. “Although she didn’t say, perhaps Josephine was sitting on his other side and Napoleon had his other hand up her skirts as well.
“To be honest, I quite enjoy her, but you see there’s Pilcher Gayson. I heard Pilcher say to his older brother that he, Sydney, could have London and the House of Lords once their father departed our earthly climes and he became Baron Riggs of Blythe Point, and isn’t that a pretentious name for a property? As for Pilcher, all he wants is to marry me for my impressive dowry, save his father from financial difficulties, which I understand are soon to be very grave, and hunt. I must be honest here, Pilcher is appalling.”
“Appalling? Wanting you to marry him for your money, yes, that’s appalling, but you don’t mean that. Tell me, why exactly?”
“Pilcher chews on his fingernails, smacks his lips while he’s eating halibut, and the worst, the most unforgivable?” She leaned closer. “He waltzes like a lame ostrich. No, wait, I must rethink that. I’m wrong, the very worst is his appalling name—Pilcher—too close to pilchard, you know, that oily fish the Cornish make into stargazy pie. I see you’re not familiar with stargazy pie. The pilchards’ heads line the crust so they’re staring up at you, supposedly at the sky, hence the stargazy name.” She shuddered. “I ask you, would you name your son Pilcher?”
“No, I most certainly would not,” Alex said, trying not to laugh. “You’re right about his name, better Cod or Herring than Pilcher. I’ve never seen nor heard of stargazy pie.”
She grinned at him, pleased to her toes, and found it nearly impossible not to stare at those amazing blue eyes of his. From his father? His mother? Maybe from Zeus? She said, “I’ve never seen one either and I don’t want to. I’m told they originated in Mousehole, a small fishing village in Cornwall.
“Yes, Cod of Herring as a name is an improvement. His older brother, Sydney, has excellent manners, dances well, but alas, he has horrid breath because he eats garlic in his breakfast eggs, brags it keeps him slim.”
She closed her eyes and turned her face up to the sun. She said without moving, “So because of Pilcher, I really don’t want to go back to Bath and that’s why I’m here to talk Papa around to my way of thinking. But Averil—she’s my new stepmama—she wants me out of her house. She holds powerful sway over Papa. It is painful to watch, I mean Papa is old—not without-his-teeth old—but you know what I mean. He’s my father, not a young buck. Averil believes Pilcher is the perfect answer to my problems since I’m rather in a social pickle at the moment because I clouted Teddy Jewel, the toad, for trying to kiss me and put his hand down—well, never mind that. She’s hopeful no one in Bath has heard of my physical attack on poor Teddy The Toad and that’s why I’m to be exiled. I’m an embarrassment, she says in addition to being violent, and just because a gentleman lost his head in a single moment of seeing only the barest hint of my bosom.”
Alex stared at her and yet again admired her perfectly wonderful monologue to him, a perfect stranger. She was telling him things he really shouldn’t be hearing, but then again, maybe she was an exception. He was riveted. She was tall, not at all the fashion since the new queen Victoria wasn’t even five feet tall. But like the little queen, this girl was slender as a sapling. He said, “When your father sees you here, what will he do?”
“If he’s with his cronies he’ll behave as though he expected to see me and smile and be all jovial. And then when we’realone I daresay he’ll try to burn my ears even though he’ll want to laugh because he wouldn’t want to spend time with Aunt Deveraux. She’s his much older sister, at least fifteen years older, and this is amazing—she still has her own teeth. She is always giving him unwanted advice and I know he wants to throttle her, but of course he merely smiles and nods.” She paused, sighed. “Then Papa will try to scold me because he knows he must since I’m a lady now and no longer a saucy little girl because Averil will make him.”
Sadly, the sun went behind a dark cloud that surely hadn’t been in the sky but a moment before and a raindrop hit the top of her parasol. Alex quickly opened his umbrella, held it over both of them.
“Thank you,” she said, and folded her parasol. “I don’t wish to destroy this lovely Christmas present I gave to my sister but she tossed it in the dust bin. Actually, Eliza would like to smack me most of the time, or ignore me. I’ve never understood why. My maid and companion, Cilly, thinks Eliza didn’t want me to be born since she was the princess of the house, but I was born and I’m here and Papa loves me.” She turned, called out, “Henry, take shelter and have no worries. This gentleman will stay on the righteous path.” The footman, no older than Alex, gave her a pained look and dashed toward a building portico.
“Righteous path? You mean, unlike Napoleon, I won’t put my hand under your skirt?”
CHAPTER 4
She cocked a perfectly arched brow at him, gave him a shameless grin. How odd to be sitting beside a strange girl holding an umbrella over the both of them and Alex didn’t know her name nor she his. He had little experience with well-spoken, obviously aristocratic girls like this one, but—his mind skipped to the lovely Jayne, introduced to him by his uncle Ryder so she could teach him what was what and make him believe in heaven. When in London, he always visited Jayne, brought her presents and prodigious enthusiasm, knew enough now to give her a little slice of heaven as well. He blinked. “I apologize. My name is—he paused, grinned to himself, and said, “Alexi Alejandro Ivanov.”
Her lovely arched eyebrow climbed up again, just above her glasses’ frame. “Alexi? Are you Greek? Russian?”
Alex’s voice was smooth as a creek stone as he smoothly recited his history he and Ryder had created for him before he’d gone to Oxford.Money, title and mysterious beginnings, are what is needed, Ryder had said, and rubbed his hands together. Alex said, “I am originally from Kiev. However, you can call me Alex, most do.”
“Your middle name is Alejandro? Are you also Spanish? Amongrel of sorts? Are you a heathen? Come now, is such a name really from the Ukraine?”
“Oh yes.”
“Hmm, Ivanov sounds quite quixotic, not at all what one would expect, not one of our common herd of names. Ivanov, your name melts on the tongue like ice cream. I prefer Alexi as well, but since we are in England, sharing an umbrella under an English sky, I shall call you Alex. I’m Camilla, but most call me Cam, except my sister who never calls me anything unless she’s forced to because she says I’m skinny, nothing but a bother, and homely, and my worst sin? I wear glasses in public, even at balls, and that is surely an affront to our father’s name.” She sighed. “My stepmama calls me Camilla and I know she agrees with my sister.” She shoved her glasses back up her nose and tried to look indifferent, and failed.
Alex said slowly, studying her face, “I can say with perfect honesty you are not ugly. As for your glasses, they make you look distinctive, make your eyes look quite mysterious. I like them. Should you like me to smack your sister?”
She laughed. “My sister is strong, not as strong as I am, but still, she’d likely smack you back. Well, no she wouldn’t, she would think you far too handsome, very possibly right proper husband material, depending of course on your financial situation and your bloodline. I’ve seen paintings of monarchs and their families. So many are married to this or that royal cousin and mix their bloodlines and produce ugly and quite revolting offspring. Have you noticed this?”
“I cannot disagree with your assessment. One thinks of pharaohs in ancient Egypt marrying their sisters. It makes the common man of the time seem quite intelligent.”
She gave him an approving look. “That was rather elegantly stated. Even though no one cares, you still made yourself sound like a deep sort with unplumbed depths. I shall try to remember what you said, however, and try to cleverlyinsert it into a conversation. Imagine, marrying your sister.” Cam sighed. “Alas, if you were my sister Eliza’s brother I doubt not she would be sorrowful at the connection given you look like a god. Even now, engaged, I know she would look at you and sigh, but believe me, she would never leave poor Winstead Towbridge, her fiancé. Don’t get me wrong, Winstead is really quite fine-looking and nice. It is a pity.”
“I do not look like a god, that is absurd. Why is it a pity?”
“Because Winstead—she calls him Winnie—can you imagine how demeaning that is? Well, he’s a very nice man and my sister isn’t. My father wanted to present me to the queen, but Averil, my stepmother, argued I would embarrass him and my poor sister, not to mention Winstead and his very well-received family. She tells my father over and over I would fit in better if I went to live with Aunt Deveraux in Bath, forever, or on a small island in the South Seas, if she could manage it.”
Amazing. She’d spit that all out in a single breath. He said, “Your stepmother’s name is Averil? An odd name. Perhaps she’s a heathen? Just as I am? Did she raise you? Were you an unpleasant child?”
“Oh, she didn’t raise either me or my sister or my brother, Bryant, who thankfully is ten years my senior and lives in Boston of all places, and runs a shipping business. So Papa had scarce met her when they wed and she moved into the London house with her maid, Elvira, who is as nasty as her mistress. Averil is twenty-six and considers herself the most lovely and desirable woman in London, maybe in all of Southern England, Northern France as well. I think she made up the name to be special. Maybe her real name is Maude or Jezebel.” She sighed, pushed up her glasses. “My father thinks she’s perfect. I don’t know what my brother thinks, he came for the wedding but returned to Boston as fast as he could.”
