My Dearest Enemy (16 page)

He'd never heard a false tone from her before and it irritated him to hear the supercilious accents now.

" 'Restored?' " Avery muttered. "You make it sound as if you found the lad packed in mothballs in the attic."

The two pretty girls snickered behind their gloved fingertips. Lily's back stiffened.

"Allow me to introduce Avery Thorne." Without a glance his way, she wiggled her fingers in his general direction. "He's visiting. Mr. Thorne, our neighbor, Mr. Martin Camfield."

The two men nodded at each other.

Camfield? The man who wants to expand his farm, Avery thought, by acquiring mine.

Avery studied him more closely. His jacket was tailor-made, his eyes light colored, his hair thick, and his mustachio too extravagant. He'd never noticed how facial hair made a man look fatuous, though from the way certain ladies were oggling him, his opinion was in the minority.

Camfield smiled; at least Avery assumed he was smiling since his teeth appeared briefly beneath that brush. "Miss Bede," he said, "you are looking in extremely fine health."

Health
? Lily looked stunning, not healthy. A dimple appeared in her cheek. He'd not known she had a dimple. Damn it.

"Thank you, sir."

The man simply stood smiling. Lily smiled back. During all this inane grimacing Avery noted Bernard's expression. Really, it was unfeeling of Lily not to notice how difficult a time the lad was having being forced to watch her make cow's eyes at this Camfield fellow.

"Who are those girls?" Avery asked, coming to Bernard's aid since Lily obviously was too smitten to note the lad's discomfort.

"Hmm?" Camfield echoed dumbly. "Girls?"

"Yes. The girls that followed you in. I assume you didn't simply find them on the front doorstep?" Avery said.

"Oh!" With an abashed air, Camfield gestured toward the two younger women. "Pray forgive me. Miss Bede, may I introduce my sisters, Molly and Mary?" he said pleasantly.

The young women exchanged cool pleasantries with Lily before Camfield ushered them off to be introduced to the rest, finally finding their way back to Avery. As soon as he'd made the necessary introductions, Camfield abandoned his sisters to Avery and headed once more for Lily.

"Oh, Mr. Thorne," one of them said, "we must own, we are so delighted to meet you."

"Hmm." Avery's gaze drifted toward the corner where Camfield was monopolizing Lily's attention. Poor Bernard stood nearby looking as glum as a puppy who'd been shouldered from the teat.

"Do say you'll come to our little ball next Monday," the other said.

"Yes, do!"

Lily leaned closer to Camfield, as though listening. Really, there was no reason for the man to speak so softly Lily needed to strain to hear him.

"Please?" the blondest of the girlish pair implored.

"Please, what?"

"The party!" Her sister shook a little pink-nailed finger at him. "Naughty fellow. Say you'll come."

Camfield had moved even closer to Lily now. Bloody impertinence.

"If you come we'll be quite the envy of our little society." This one's yellow ringlets bobbed with enthusiasm.

"Whatever for?"

They giggled in unison. "Fie on you, sir," one of the pair said.

Confound it, he thought, pretty they might be but he wished they'd make some sense. "Pray enlighten me, Miss, er… Miss?"

"Well, sir, you are quite the last word in exclusivity, aren't you?"

"Miss Camfield," he said in exasperation, "whatever are you nattering about?"

More giggles. He cast about for some way to extradite himself. Lily wouldn't help. She was too busy simpering over the hairy-faced, would-be owner of Mill House.

"You haven't accepted
any
invitations!" one said.

"Not even the one from Lord Jessup!" the other added.

"Oh. Those. I don't answer invitations. Miss Bede does. If she's been remiss, I suggest you take it up with her. In fact, that's not a bad idea. Come along, I'll—" He stopped. The two little blond bits of indiscretion were staring at each other in dismay. "What is it?"

"Well"—the younger Miss Camfield tried on a smile—"it's just that, well, you see, I'm not sure Miss Bede would
have
the opportunity to be remiss."

"Say again?"

The other one winced. "The invitations may not, specifically that is, have included her."

His expression hardened immediately into forbidding smoothness. The two sheltered young women stepped back, driven by some instinct that though buried under generations of privilege and pampering was still alert enough to recognize danger.

He forced himself to smile. "I see. That wouldn't be the case with
your
invitation though, would it?"

"Oh, well," the blondest said breathlessly, "we were discussing that very matter on our drive over, I mean
by
, our drive
by
. You must understand that Miss Bede's circumstances, aside from the misfortune of her bir—"

"I wouldn't continue," Avery advised.

She gulped, looking around for their brother, uncomfortable yet unwilling, even after he'd frightened her, to forfeit the coup he represented. At least they'd stopped giggling.

"I should very much like to attend your ball." Their faces lit up. He didn't give a damn if they saw him as a feather in their social caps. He'd only cared that they paid his price. "Of course, I could not attend without my cousins."

"Of course not," one of them immediately agreed.

"Or Miss Bede."

Not a second's hesitation this time. "Oh, yes. Of course. We wouldn't have it any other way."

"Good," he said, "because neither would I."

What have you done to your cheek?" Lily lifted Bernard's chin with her fingertips, peering at the nasty red abrasion.

Standing in the hall in the light of the front door window, Lily watched Bernard's tallow-colored skin turn pink.

"Nothing," he said. "I mean, we were climbing the cedar tree last night and I lost my grip for a second and scraped my face against the bark."

"We?" She released her hold.

"Cousin Avery and I."

"And why were you and Mr. Thorne in the cedar tree?"

His blush became more pronounced. "He was showing me how he used to get out of the house after the rest of the household was asleep."

"Hm. Sneak out, you mean."

Bernard's abashment suddenly dissolved and the grin he gave her was one hundred percent roguish boy. "Yes," he said with a cheeky self-assurance she'd have thought impossible, "I guess we did."

For Bernard's one moment of unfettered roguish-ness Lily silently thanked Avery Thorne.

Avery treated Bernard not as an equal, but yet not like some empty vessel waiting to be filled with manly wisdom. Yesterday, several times, Lily had seen Avery listening intently to Bernard as well as talking to him. The boy was expanding under the attention.

She'd always thought men were little use in child-rearing. Though her father had been loving, he'd not spent much time alone with her, discussing his interests or discovering hers. It was always her mother she'd turned to for comfort and conversation and guidance. But seeing Bernard with Avery she could begin to imagine the benefit a father might represent.

Had her siblings' father cared for them? So much so that he couldn't bear to be parted from them?

It was the first time she'd ever wondered such a thing. It felt horrible, blasphemous. Her unknown half-brother and sister's father had taken them away from her mother to torture her. How well he'd succeeded only Lily knew.

"Miss Bede?" Bernard sounded concerned. "Is anything wrong? You look quite unhappy. If my climbing about the cedar tree upsets you so, I won't do it again."

"No!" Lily exclaimed. "No. Clamber about as much as you like, just be careful and may I suggest you, er, omit telling your mother about your new hobby? Unless of course she asks. Specifically."

Bernard's mouth stretched into that delightful grin again and he nodded. "Are you doing anything today?"

"Today?" she asked, her eyes falling on the large stack of mail lying on the front hall table. "Yes. Mr. Thorne and I are going to see Drummond."

"Oh."

Lily picked up the stack of envelopes. Bernard, apparently with no pressing engagements, looked over her shoulder. She heard him inhale deeply. "You smell wonderful."

Little alarms went off in her head. "Thank you, Bernard." She sidestepped, careful to make the movement casual.

He followed her, sniffing deeply again. "What type of perfume is it?"

"Soap." She took another step away, her head determinedly bent over the letters.

"Anything interesting?" he asked over her shoulder.

"No. Just more invitations for your cousin. Mr. Avery Thorne, Mr. Thorne, Mr. Avery Thorne, Avery Thorne, Miss Bede—"

She stopped, staring at the thick vellum envelope addressed to her. Calmly, as if getting invitations was an everyday occurrence, she slipped the letter opener under the flap and sliced it open, casually withdrawing the embossed card.

"It's from the Camfields."

"Camfields?" Bernard's voice sounded all drifty and muzzy and far too close behind. If she turned they'd be cheek to jowl.

"The people who were here yesterday."

"Oh! The mustachioed fellow and the two pretty girls."

Bernard thought the young Miss Camfields pretty? Lily thought gleefully, envisioning a likely place for him to transfer his adolescent fantasies. It would be worth encouraging this. "Yes. They're having a party at the end of the month."

"Will you go?" Bernard asked.

Go? And be confronted with her social undesirability? "I doubt it."

"Then neither shall I," Bernard declared staunchly.

"Oh, come, Bernard. You're their social equal. Your family has owned Mill House for years. It's only right that you should go." She realized the admission in those words as she said them. Mill House by all rights belonged to the Thornes. All rights but one, she amended desperately, a legal one that had given her the opportunity to take it. "Besides, you'll have fun. All those pretty girls. Delicious food. They'll have dancing and charades and wonderful music—"

"Not if you're not there," he said stubbornly.