Sharon Sobel (7 page)

“You agree with me?”

“I agree that gossips will always find something to say. But that has not prevented me from doing what I wish, and being invited to the best parties, and enjoying my subscription to Almack’s. Rumors and innuendo only find traction when they hit their mark and cause it pain.” Claire paused to catch her breath. “And why would you assume Camille would be an object of their pity? Why would a young lady of grace and intelligence, beauty and wit, be dismissed by anyone worth knowing in London?”

Wentworth looked down at his sister, who sat quietly between them at the battlefield of their breakfast table.

“I should think that should be fairly obvious, Lady Claire,” he said. “My sister is . . . not like other ladies.”

“Because she is blind? There, I’ve said it! And Lord Westerly lost his arm at Waterloo. And Mrs. Randall has a dreadful stutter. And Captain Pierce cannot hear a word anyone says. And I am not going to mention the dozens of society’s minions who are so stupid it is torture to engage them in conversation.” Camille raised her hand, perhaps to silence Claire’s outburst, but Claire caught it instead, and held fast. “Your sister has every right to take her rightful place in society, and I am determined to see her there.”

Wentworth grabbed his sister’s other hand. “It is not your right to be determined, Lady Claire, for what passes between us in this household has nothing to do with you. My sister and I have spent our lives together, endured great tragedy and pain, and we are not to be disturbed because a lady so wholly uninvolved in our affairs thinks something is wanting in our manners. We are happy as we are.”

“Please speak for yourself, Lord Wentworth! Ask Lady Camille what she wants.”

“I know what my sister wants and needs, and it is not a widow who does as she pleases and goes where she will. And that includes walking unchaperoned in the woods in the evening.”

“I was perfectly safe before I was accosted by a passing vagrant who did nothing to calm my fears.”

Wentworth flushed to the roots of his dreadful beard and dropped his sister’s hand. “There is no reasoning with you, Lady Claire, and I see no purpose in wasting my time on one whose hearing is as impaired as Captain Pierce and whose understanding is as impaired as any of society’s minions, whomever they may be. Please excuse me.”

He stalked to the door of the room, where he surprised poor Mr. Clark and nearly toppled the tray the butler carried. Once he helped his servant right the tray, he turned back to Camille and Claire.

“And there is nothing wrong with the dresses my sister wears, Lady Claire. They are ordered from the best dressmaker in our town, and are of the finest fabrics.”

Claire refused to allow him the last word, no matter how absurd it was.

“They are ordered from the only dressmaker in your town. And there are finer fabrics to be had than scratchy worsted and rough linen, Lord Wentworth.”

Claire felt a moment of terror, for he looked as angry as her late husband, and she guessed him possessed of even greater strength. But Lord Wentworth did nothing more than drop his hands to his sides, turn on his heel, and leave them in peace, even as their words still reverberated in the room.

Claire dropped into her chair, utterly exhausted.

“That went well,” she said.

Camille laughed, as if nothing had passed of any consequence. “It did go well, my dear Lady Claire. I have never had such a champion.”

“Of course. It is a wonderful thing to have a brother so concerned for one’s welfare, who is willing to sacrifice everything for a sister’s happiness,” Claire admitted.

“I do not refer to my brother, dear friend. I say you are my champion, for no one has ever stood up to my brother in his whole life. It is an unfortunate thing, you understand, for it allows him to believe he is always right.”

“If you do not believe that is so, you must stand up to him yourself.” Claire sighed, knowing the truth of what Wentworth said. It was not her place to come between a brother and sister. “It will be very difficult, but I believe you have the strength of character to act in accord with your own wishes.”

Camille turned to the window seeing something not visible to anyone else. “It is not so easy as that,” she said.

“Change never is easy, but in time your brother will come to see that you enjoy what every other young lady of quality enjoys. And even more, that you are quite capable of holding your own amongst the beau monde.”

“Maxwell does not doubt that. He may argue otherwise and cite a dozen reasons why I will fail utterly in such society, but the one who will have the most difficult time is Maxwell himself.”

“I suppose he is very shy? It is true that when we met in London, he looked like he wanted nothing more than to hide among the Corinthian columns in Lady Armadale’s ballroom.”

“He is not shy, at least not in the usual way.”

“What is the usual way?” Claire asked, having never before considered the question.

“Someone who is naturally shy cannot bear to look at other people or talk to them or hear what they have to say. Maxwell does not seem to have such problems. But he carries a great burden of guilt with him, and if he senses that I will be abused because of my condition, then his burden becomes even heavier. He might collapse under the weight of it.”

Claire thought about Lord Wentworth’s broad shoulders and the very solid look of his body, and imagined he could bear a great deal. She wondered how it would feel to be lifted into his arms as she mounted a horse or required help over a fallen tree. Or truly, just to be lifted into his arms.

“You are thinking how his guilt has made him shy,” said Camille, for once not guessing what Claire was thinking. “But it is different than that. He is not concerned with protecting himself, but with protecting me.”

“Camille, you are a fine young lady. Everything I said to Lord Wentworth is absolutely true, and you can most certainly hold your own in London society. Is it not time to prove to him that you can protect yourself?”

“I was unable to do so when our beautiful home burned to the ground.”

“You were a child, still in short dresses and pinafores. Your brother was not that many years older.”

“He believes he started the fire and killed our parents.”

“So it is said, and it is a terrible thing,” Claire said. She did not know what else she could add to this, so she picked up her cold toast and dipped it into her tea. For the past few weeks, Camille seemed to be diverted from the horror that defined her life and her brother’s, but now that he returned to Brook Cottage, she wondered if the nightmare would be revisited again and again. And yet, each time a nightmare returned, there was something else to be seen and understood. Camille herself seemed to say as much just now.

“Why do you say ‘believe’? Is it not certain what happened?”

Camille shrugged her slim shoulders. “How can it be? Maxwell did not see the fire begin, for he was asleep as any child should be at midnight. He only wonders if he neglected to see to the cinders in the library fireplace, as he promised to do before he went to bed.”

“Did the fire start in the library?”

“No one knows.”

“Were there other people awake?”

“Most certainly. And several of them died as well.”

“So they cannot bear witness. What do you think happened?”

Camille considered this for several moments, though she surely went over the events of that night through all these years since. “I do not know; I only know I do not blame my brother. If he had not come for me, and dragged me out of my chamber, I would have been dead along with the others.”

“I was too hard on him, Camille. He has endured so much, and I dared to doubt his instincts and decisions,” Claire said, knowing that this small parcel of guilt would now forever be hers.

Camille laughed as joyfully as she did when Claire first entered the room sometime before.

“He will forgive you; I am sure he already has. In fact, I am now even more certain there is nothing to forgive.”

Claire pushed back from her seat. “How on earth can you say such a thing? I was dreadful to him.”

“Not so very dreadful,” Camille said, brushing invisible crumbs off her bodice. “After all, he did not ask you to leave. He cannot abide strangers in this house, and certainly not those who defy his wishes. And yet, here you are, and very likely to stay, so I believe he can abide you.”

As a point of consolation, it was very, very slight.

***

Late in the afternoon, after Claire and Camille spent some time fastening new ribbons and nosegays to several serviceable bonnets they discovered in the back of Camille’s armoire, Mr. Cosgrove came to call on Lord Wentworth, to welcome him home. Camille promptly lost interest in her flowery creation and left Claire to her bows and pins and scissors and wandered out into the hallway with none of her usual sureness of step. Claire watched her as she reached out for the touchstones of chairs and table until she reached the open door, and wondered if she regretted the things she said at the breakfast table.

Perhaps it was time for her to leave, Claire mused. What seemed like a pleasurable prospect only weeks before, a challenge that would thoroughly engage her interests and talents, was now a family drama in which she played no part. Even if she succeeded in presenting Lady Camille to London society, what lasting benefit would result? Camille might or might not make a match in her first season, and if she did not, she was destined to return to Brook Cottage and wear comfortable clothing and read edifying tomes. Claire would return to her life, such as it was. And Wentworth would be quite satisfied that his judgment was correct, as he seemed to think it always.

Claire picked up the hat Camille worked on so diligently. One ribbon was blue, one was green, and the nosegay was quite off-center. And yet the result was utterly charming and quite unusual. So it was with the girl herself; would she not find a man who could comfortably overlook her limitations because of her natural charm and curious ways of looking at things?

But of course she was not looking at anything. Her fingers explored what she could not see and the most generous of her acquaintances gave her leave to a certain intimacy. Claire thought about the scene she interrupted this morning, when Camille’s hands were upon her brother’s face, and he allowed both her pleasure and her path of discovery.

It was pleasurable for him as well. If the simple intimacy of touch could provide such satisfaction between family members, what joys could be had between husband and wife? Claire mourned for what she had never known, for she never dared to put her fingers on her own husband’s face. Glastonbury would have brushed them off, annoyed and impatient.

Laughter in the hallway intruded upon her solitude, so Claire thought it an excellent time to escape the room, the cottage, and her own unbidden thoughts. Large, French-styled doors opened onto a broad veranda and a prospect of such natural beauty that Claire’s deepest regret was that her young friend would never see it. She struggled for a moment with the latch, and moved quickly outdoors just as the laughter grew louder.

The sun was low in the sky yet strong enough to make Claire realize she ought to have taken one of the bonnets to shade her face. But she knew where she would find the comfort of shade and quiet, if she did not meet a stranger on the way.

Keeping close to the long drive, she set off through the wild meadow on her way to the woods. She paused to pick flowers that were new and exotic to her, though she guessed that here they were as common as dust. She was certain some of them grew on the slope above the Serpentine, but she never really examined them before. They really were elegant little things, like Camille herself.

Wentworth was undoubtedly right. His sister was a lovely blossom here at Brookside Cottage, entirely free to grow in beauty and grace, without the artifice of society’s manners. She could live out her life surrounded by those who loved her and understood her needs.

As Claire entered the shade of the woods, something small and furry scattered out of her path. Birds cried out at her intrusion into their sanctuary, and, here and there, acorns dropped onto the leafy ground. The brook, not yet visible, beckoned with its irresistible music, and Claire followed it like a woman in a trance.

Here was a spot she had not passed before, and Claire wondered if there was a reason Camille avoided it. It seemed designed for an idyllic interlude, but it was hard to tell if nature had been improved upon or if the setting was the result of natural happenstance. A large tree trunk was poised over the running water, with indentations that might have been carved for two tired wanderers. The trunk was supported by a boulder midstream, allowing it to be elevated just high enough so that if a lady removed her stockings and slippers, she might cool her feet in the running water. It was a fine place for friends to sit and talk, or for lovers to . . . to do whatever it was that lovers liked to do. Claire was not entirely sure of it.

It was also a fine place to sit by one’s self and contemplate one’s problems, such as whether one ought to come between a young lady and her brother, or transplant a meadow flower to Hyde Park, or wonder if it would be quite splendid to dance with Maxwell Brooks. Claire slipped off her shoes and, after making certain she had no audience, lifted her dress so she might roll down her stockings. Her bare feet were soothed by the springy moss of the embankment, and she held onto a low branch as she made her way across the trunk to the seat that was further out over the water. Within moments, she sat, enthroned in her own glorious kingdom.

The cool water running between her toes was populated by small schools of fish that paused to nibble before moving downstream. Claire laughed out loud and turned her face into the breeze as she pulled off a few strategically placed hairpins. There was no one to see her or hear her and she need not answer to anyone’s ideas of propriety.

Perhaps she and Adelaide Brooks had gotten it all wrong and she was to learn something from Camille instead of the other way around. And so she closed her eyes and started to see the world through new sensations of sound and sense.