His shoulders and arms were firmly muscled. So was his chest. It was lightly dusted with dark hair. He was narrow waisted, slim hipped, long legged. If he was imperfect, as she was, she was unaware of it and it would not have mattered anyway. He was Joel, and it was Joel she looked at, not any romantic ideal of the perfect male physique. She drew a slow breath when she saw the evidence of his desire for her, and for the first time she was afraid, though not with the sort of fear that might have had her leaping off the bed to grab up her clothes and bolt from the room. Rather, it was the sort of fear of the unknown that might just as accurately be described as an aching yearning for what she had never experienced before and was about to experience now.

She had never seen a picture of a Greek or Roman statue, because of course they had been sculpted nude, a shocking thing indeed and to be kept far from a lady's eyes. But he looked as she imagined those statues must look, except that he was a bronzed, living, breathing man while they would be cold white marble with sightless eyes, like those busts in the hall of Mr. c.o.x-Phillips's house. Perhaps he was perfect after all. His eyes, those eyes that could not possibly belong to any statue, were dark and hot upon her.

And then he lay down beside her, gathered her into his arms, and turned her against him. She felt all the shock of his warm, masculine nakedness against her own, but she was not about to shrink away from it now when the long, slow building of desire was at an end, and the urgent heat of pa.s.sion and carnality was about to begin, and their hands began to explore and arouse, and their mouths met, open and hot and demanding. She was not going be a pa.s.sive recipient either. All the longings and pa.s.sions of her suppressed femininity welled up in her and spilled over as she made love with a fierce eagerness to match his own.

But ultimately she was shocked into stillness when his body covered hers, his weight bearing her down, his knees pressing between her thighs and spreading her legs, his hands coming beneath her b.u.t.tocks. She twined her legs about his as he pressed against her entrance and came into her, slowly but firmly and not stopping until she felt stretched, until she feared there could be no deeper for him to come without terrible pain, until the pain happened, sudden and sharp, and there was indeed somewhere deeper for him to come and he came there, hard and thick, and her virginity was gone.

He slid his hands from beneath her and found her own hands and laced his fingers with hers on either side of her head. He raised his head to gaze into her eyes, his own heavy lidded and beautiful, his weight full on her. And he kissed her while her body adjusted to the unfamiliarity and she tightened inner muscles about him to own him and what was happening between them. She would never regret this, she thought quite deliberately. She would not no matter what conscience and common sense told her afterward. She felt as though she were awakening from a lifelong sleep during which she had dreamed but never been an active partic.i.p.ant in her own life.

She thought he was leaving her body and almost cried out with protest and regret. But he withdrew only to return-of course. And it happened again and again and again until it settled into a firm, steady rhythm in which a slight soreness and a pounding sort of pleasure and the sucking sounds of wetness combined into an experience like no other, but one she did not want ever to end. And it did not for what might have been several minutes or only just two or three. But finally the rhythm became faster and deeper, and he released her hands in order to slide his own beneath her once more to hold her firm and still. Pleasure swirled from her core to fill her being, though she willed him not to stop yet, ah, not yet. She did not want the world to resume its plodding course with this behind her, all over, to be lived again only in memory.

He held firm and deep and strained against her so that almost, for a moment, oh, almost . . . But she did not find out what almost happened, for he sighed something wordless against the side of her head, and she felt a gush of heat deep within, and he relaxed down onto her. She wrapped her arms about him and closed her eyes and let herself relax too. Almost was good enough. Oh, very much good enough.

After a few all-too-short minutes he moved off her to lie beside her, one bare arm beneath her head, the other bent at the elbow and resting across his eyes. The late-afternoon air felt pleasantly cool against Camille's damp body. There was a soreness inside, though it was not unpleasant. He smelled faintly of sweat and more markedly and enticingly of something unmistakably male. She could sleep, she thought, if the bedcovers were over them, but she did not want to move to pull them up and perhaps disturb the lovely aftermath of pa.s.sion.

"And I will not even be able to answer with righteous indignation," he said, "when Marvin waggles his eyebrows and makes suggestive remarks about this afternoon, as he surely will."

Camille felt suddenly chilled at the suggestion of sordidness.

"I am so sorry, Camille," he continued. "I ought to have known I was feeling too needy today to risk asking you to come here with me. You must not blame yourself. You have been kindness itself. Promise me you will not blame yourself?"

He removed his arm from his eyes and turned his head to look at her. He was frowning and looking unhappy-and guilty?-far different from the way she had been feeling mere moments ago.

"Of course I will not blame myself," she said, sitting up and swinging her legs over the far side of the bed. "Or you either. It is something we did by mutual consent. I wanted the experience and now I have had it. There is no question of blame. I must be getting back home."

"Yes, you must," he said. "But thank you."

She felt self-conscious this time, pulling on her clothes while he sat on the side of the bed and began to dress himself. Self-conscious and chilly and suddenly unhappy. If her education as a lady had taught her anything, it was surely that men and women were vastly different from one another, that men had needs that must be satisfied with some frequency but did not in any way involve their emotions.

What had she thought while they were making love-Oh, that was a foolish, inappropriate phrase after all. But what had she thought? That they were embarking upon the great pa.s.sion of the century? That they were in love? She did not even believe in romantic love. And he certainly was not in love with her.

Neither of them spoke again until they were both out in the hall, she tying the ribbons of her bonnet while he watched, and arranging her shawl about her shoulders and turning to the door. He reached past her to open it, but he did not do so immediately.

"I can see that I have upset you," he said. "I really am very sorry, Camille."

And she did something that was totally unplanned and totally without reason. She raised a hand and cracked him across the face with her open ungloved palm. And then she hurried from the room and down the stairs without a backward glance and without any clear idea of why.

Except that by apologizing and saying it ought not to have happened he had cheapened what for her had been perhaps the most beautiful experience of her life.

Oh, what an idiot she was! What a nave idiot.

Fifteen.

Before the morning was half over Joel had tidied and cleaned his rooms, hung the portrait of his mother in what he thought the best spot on the living room wall, completed the painting of Mrs. Wa.s.serman, walked to the market and back to replenish his supply of food, and decided that he was the world's worst sort of blackguard.

It had not been seduction-she had said herself that it was consensual. But it had felt uneasily like seduction after she left, for he had been needy and she had comforted him. Then she had slapped his face and rushed away before he could ask why. It was obvious why, though. She had regretted what she had done as soon as it was over and rational thought returned, and she had blamed him. It was not entirely fair, perhaps, but oh, he felt guilty.

He felt like the blackest hearted of villains.

Worse, he had remembered after she left that he had promised to dine at Edwina's and spend the evening with her. He had gone there and stood in the small hallway inside her front door and ended it all with her, rather suddenly, rather abruptly, and without either sensitivity or tact. There had never been any real commitment between them and never any emotional tie stronger than friendship and a mutual enjoyment of s.e.x, but he had felt horribly guilty anyway. She had had a meal ready for him, and she had been dressed prettily and smiling brightly. And she had behaved well and with dignity after he had delivered his brief, blunt, unrehea.r.s.ed speech and made no attempt to keep him or demand that he explain himself. She had not slammed the door behind him.

Had there ever been a worse villain than he?

To end a perfectly delightful evening-though it had still been early-on his return he had run into Marvin Silver on the stairs and been grinned and leered at as he brushed past. He had felt . . . dirty.

It had not been the best day of his life.

Joel stood and brooded before his mother's portrait, wondering what he was supposed to do with himself for the rest of the day. Of course, there was that dinner engagement at the Royal York this evening. He grimaced at the very thought. He could go to the orphanage to apologize again to Camille, but he did not know quite what he would say, and he did not imagine she would be thrilled to see him. In other words, he could add abject cowardice to his other shortcomings. He could stay at home and sketch her-flushed and fl.u.s.tered and animated as she taught the children the Roger de Coverley; flushed and martial of spirit as she taught him the steps of the waltz; flushed and vividly triumphant a few minutes later after he had spun her recklessly through a turn. But when he tried to bring the images into focus, he could see her only as she had looked on his bed-gloriously, voluptuously naked and feminine with her hair down.

Make some stew?

That old man was dying. He could have no wish to set eyes upon Joel again, and he certainly would not want to be pestered with more questions. If Uxbury was still at the house-and he probably was-he would undoubtedly do all in his power to keep Joel out, and there might well be two other equally hostile family members there by now. Even the butler would be difficult to get past. Going back there, then, would be a pointless waste of time and money.

He went anyway.

He was certainly right about one thing, though. He did not see Mr. c.o.x-Phillips.

As the hired carriage drew up at the front of the house, the door was opening, coincidentally as it turned out, and a gangly young servant stepped outside, an armful of what looked like black crepe in his arms. The butler came after him and stood on the threshold, watching as the young man twined the black strips about the door knocker, presumably to m.u.f.fle the sound of it. When Joel stepped down from the carriage, the butler looked up at him, his eyes bleak and quite noticeably reddened. Joel took two steps toward him and stopped.

"I am so sorry," he said.

The butler said nothing.

"When?" Joel asked.

"An hour ago," the butler told him.

"Did he suffer?" Joel's lips felt stiff.

"He was in the library," the butler told him, "where he insisted upon being brought every day. I was pouring his morning coffee when he told me not to bother if all I could bring him was swill that smelled like dirty dishwater. He scolded Mr. Orville for forgetting to wrap his blanket about his legs. When Mr. Orville informed him that it was already wrapped about him warm and tight, he looked at it, and then he looked surprised, and then he was gone. Just like that." He looked bewildered, and tears welled in his eyes.

"I am so sorry," Joel said again. If he had come yesterday . . . But he had not. He felt a curious sense of loss even though Mr. c.o.x-Phillips had been no more than a stranger who happened to be related to him. He had also told Joel his mother's name and given him a small portrait of her, and both were, Joel realized for the first time, priceless gifts. "I am sorry for your grief. Have you been with him long?"

"Fifty-four years," the butler said. "Mr. Orville is laying him out on his bed."

Joel nodded and turned back to the carriage. He was stopped, however, by another voice, haughty and imperious.

"You again, fellow?" Viscount Uxbury asked. "You have come begging again, I suppose, but you are too late, I am happy to inform you. Take yourself off before I have you thrown off my property."

Joel turned back to look curiously at him and wondered briefly who would do the throwing. The butler? The thin young man who had finished with the strips of black crepe and was ducking back into the house behind the butler? Uxbury himself? And my property? It had taken him less than an hour to claim it for himself, had it? Joel wondered what the other two claimants would have to say about that.

"You left your doxy behind today, did you?" Uxbury said.

"You have just suffered a family bereavement," Joel told him. "Out of respect for the late Mr. c.o.x-Phillips and his faithful servants, I will let that gross insult to a lady pa.s.s by me, Uxbury. But take care never to repeat it or anything like it in my hearing again. I might feel obliged to rearrange the features on your face. You may proceed," he added to the grinning coachman as he turned back to the carriage and climbed inside.

It would surely be false self-indulgence to feel bereaved over the death of a stranger. He felt bereaved anyway.

Camille rearranged her room. She hung the Madonna-and-child sketch over the table and stood looking at it for a few minutes. She toyed with her breakfast and ate it only because she would not waste food in such a place. She played the pianoforte in the playroom and sang with the handful of children who cl.u.s.tered about her, four girls and two boys.

She took Sarah out into the garden and sat on a blanket with her, playing with her, tickling her to make her laugh, rubbing noses with her, talking nonsense to her, and otherwise making an idiot of herself. Winifred joined them and earnestly informed her how important it was for babies to be played with and touched and held even if they would not remember it when they grew older.

After Sarah had fallen asleep and been taken indoors, Camille turned one handle of a long skipping rope while a succession of girls and one boy jumped through it. She even joined in the strange chant that was the accompaniment to the jumping. Winifred informed her that she was a good sport.

When several of the children asked her what they were going to knit now that the purple rope was completed, she suggested a baby blanket made of squares, and, after a visit to Miss Ford's office, she went off to the wool shop with one boy and two girls to purchase supplies. Winifred, who was inevitably one of them, informed her she included Miss Westcott in her nightly prayers because she was a good and caring person.

The child was getting on Camille's nerves with her everlasting righteousness. She was not exactly unpopular with the other children, though she had no particular friend. But Camille had been somewhat horrified to recognize something of herself in the girl, and she wondered why she was as she was. Was she trying to be very good, even perfect, so that someone would love her? And having the opposite effect upon people than she hoped for? The thought somehow hurt Camille's heart.

She did a thousand and one other things during the course of the day, including one quiet half hour of reading in her room, during which time she did not turn a single page. She wrote to Abby, remembered that she would be seeing her this evening, and tore the letter up.

And all through her busy, restless day, her mind was plagued by two things. Yesterday-she tried not to let her thoughts stray beyond that one word. And tonight. She had not seen most of her father's family since that disastrous day that had changed her life forever. She dreaded seeing them again. Yet all day she resisted the temptation to hurry up to the Royal Crescent to choose something more elegant to wear than anything she had with her in her room-and to beg her grandmother's personal maid to dress her hair becomingly.

Her heart was pounding by a little before seven o'clock, when she was ushered into the private dining room at the Royal York Hotel, for which reason she held herself stiffly erect, her chin raised, her features schooled into a mask of gentility. The room was already full of people, most of whom got to their feet and greeted her with hearty enthusiasm. But Camille saw only one of them.

"Camille." Her mother was hurrying toward her, both hands outstretched.

"Mother!" There was a moment when they might have hugged each other, but her mother's arms were stretched to the front rather than to the sides and they clasped hands instead. Rather than a joyful embrace, there was a strange awkwardness. And Camille heard the word she had used-Mother-as though there were an echo in the room. Not Mama. "You came."

"I did," her mother said, squeezing her hands tightly while her eyes searched Camille's face. "It seemed like a good idea to see my daughters again and celebrate your grandmama's birthday at the same time. I arrived this afternoon."

"Can you believe it?" Abigail, eyes shining with happiness, hugged Camille. "I was never more surprised in my life."

But Camille had no chance to respond except to hug her sister in return. Others were crowding about and telling her how well she looked and how delighted they were to see her, and everyone was hearty and smiling and probably as uncomfortable as Camille.

Aunt Mildred and Uncle Thomas-Lord and Lady Molenor-had arrived earlier in the day. They were a placid, good-natured couple, except when their boys got into one of their not-infrequent sc.r.a.pes, and showed no outward sign of fatigue after the long journey from the north of England. They soon appropriated Camille's mother and sat conversing with her. Aunt Mildred was holding her hand, Camille could see. The former sisters-in-law had once enjoyed a close friendship. Aunt Louise, the Dowager d.u.c.h.ess of Netherby, and Cousin Jessica, her daughter, had been here since the day before yesterday, having left Morland Abbey at the same time as Avery and Anastasia and the latter's grandparents. Jessica and Abigail were soon sitting happily next to each other, their heads nearly touching as they talked. It looked quite like old times.

And oh, it was good to see them all again, Camille thought. Despite everything, they were family.

Cousin Althea had arrived yesterday morning with Alexander, the Earl of Riverdale, her son, and Cousin Elizabeth, Lady Overfield, her daughter. Aunt Louise and Cousin Elizabeth, Anastasia and Avery settled into conversation with one another while Alexander drew out a chair from the table for Camille, though dinner was apparently not to be served for another fifteen or twenty minutes yet.

"I hope," he said as he seated himself beside her, "you do not bear any lasting grudge against me, Camille."

"Why should I?" she asked him, though the answer was, of course, obvious.

"I took the t.i.tle away from Harry," he said.

"No," she a.s.sured him, "you did no such thing. My father did that when he wed Mama while he was still married to Anastasia's mother. Nothing that has happened was your fault, Alexander."

"You must know," he said, "that I never, ever coveted the t.i.tle and looked forward to the day when young Harry married and produced a dozen sons and removed me far from the awkward position of being the heir. I wish a simple refusal could have solved everything." His smile was a bit rueful.

Cousin Alexander was an extremely handsome man, and tall and dark too-the three requirements for the quintessential prince of fairy tales. He was also a thoroughly likable person. Perhaps it was that fact that had stopped Camille from resenting him as she had Anastasia, who was equally blameless. Not that she had ever given her half sister the opportunity to be likable or not.

"Even if I could have refused the t.i.tle, though," he said, "it would not have remained with Harry. I understand he was wounded in the Peninsula but is making a swift recovery?"

"So he claims," she said. "We have heard nothing from any official source-which is probably good news in itself."

"Camille," he said earnestly, "I think I can understand how badly you have been hurt, though it may seem presumptuous of me to say so. I daresay I do not know the half of it, but I admire what you are doing, standing on your own feet, earning your own living, even going to do it at the very place where Anna grew up. But . . . may I make a suggestion?"

"If I were to say no," she said somewhat stiffly, "I would wonder for the rest of the night what it was you wished to suggest."

He smiled. "You are much loved by your grandmother and aunts," he said, "and by the rest of us too. You always have been. You cannot be cast out of the family now at this late date just because circ.u.mstances have changed. You cannot suddenly become unloved. Your own personal way forward, as well as Harry's and Abigail's, is more difficult than it was, of course. No one can deny that much has changed forever in your lives. But will you not draw some comfort from the fact that you are still loved, that your position as granddaughter and niece and cousin in this family has in no way been diminished, that we are all here to support you in every way we are able? Individually we all wield power and influence. Together we are quite formidable, and I would not envy anyone who attempted to thwart our will. Let yourself be loved, Camille. Let . . . No, I will leave it at that, for really that does say everything. Let yourself be loved."

"I was unaware," she said, "that I had told anyone to stop loving me, Alexander. But enough of me. What difference to your life has being the Earl of Riverdale made? Have you made Brambledean your home?"

Although it was the earl's princ.i.p.al seat, Brambledean Court had never been a favorite of Camille's father. Neither he nor they had spent much time there, and he had not spent a great deal of money on its upkeep either. Both house and park had fallen into somewhat of a dilapidated state and all but the barest minimum of servants had been let go. There was a steward, but he had never been diligent in his duties. Camille had heard that the farms were not prospering as they ought and that there was discontent among the tenant farmers and actual hardship and suffering among the laborers. Alexander had inherited it with the t.i.tle, while Papa's fortune, which might have helped him run it, had gone to Anastasia with everything else that was not entailed.

"Not yet," he said, "though I have spent some time there. Somehow I am going to have to find a way to-"

But he was prevented from saying more by the arrival of Joel and the attention Anastasia drew to him when she exclaimed with delight, jumped to her feet, and hurried toward him to take his arm and introduce him to those who had not already met him. He was looking distinctly uncomfortable, Camille thought, at having been forced to walk into a roomful of aristocratic strangers only to have everyone's attention focused upon him. He was dressed suitably for an evening occasion, though he looked only slightly less shabby than he normally did.

Unconsciously Camille flexed her right hand beneath the table. She could still feel the sting of the slap she had dealt him yesterday. She had probably hurt her hand at least as much as she had his face. She had hit him because he had apologized again, because he had a.s.sumed that there was something to apologize for. And thus he had ruined her memories of what had happened, had made it seem like a sordid mistake, for which he had a.s.sumed the entire blame. He had hurt her far more deeply than her slap could have hurt him, though she had despised herself ever since for allowing herself to be hurt. He was neither as handsome as Alexander nor as magnificent as Avery nor as amiable as Uncle Thomas. How could she possibly have allowed him to hurt her?

She gazed at him, hot cheeked and tight lipped, and paradoxically a bit cold in the head as though she were in danger of fainting. Nonsense, she thought, pulling herself together. Absolute nonsense!

Anastasia presented him to Alexander.

"Riverdale," he said, and inclined his head in acknowledgment of the introduction before turning his eyes upon Camille. They were grave and very dark. He looked as if perhaps he had not slept well last night. Good. She was glad. "Camille."

"Joel." But there was something else. She could sense it as soon as their eyes met. There was more than embarra.s.sment and remorse in his eyes. What is the matter? She almost asked the question aloud.

Dinner was served soon after his arrival, and the conversation while they ate was lively and general. Aunt Mildred spoke of the exploits of her boys through the summer; Jessica talked about her debut Season next year and Avery remarked with a sigh that he supposed she expected that he and Anastasia would arrange a grand ball for her at Archer House; Mama told a few stories about her life with Uncle Michael at the vicarage in Dorsetshire; Aunt Louise commented upon what perfect dears the Reverend and Mrs. Snow, Anastasia's maternal grandparents, were and how she had enjoyed their company at Morland Abbey during the past couple of months; Camille recounted a few anecdotes from the schoolroom; Abigail described the sittings she had had with Joel while he sketched her and prepared to paint her portrait; and Joel, in answer to Elizabeth's questions, described the process by which he produced portraits of his subjects.

It was only after the covers had been removed from the table and coffee and port served that they all sat back, more at their ease, and divided into smaller conversational groups. After a few minutes, during which Uncle Thomas had been expressing his hope to Camille and Cousin Althea that he and Aunt Mildred could remain at home for at least a year after they returned there in two weeks' time, Camille heard Anastasia ask the question that had been bothering her all evening.

"What is it, Joel?" she asked. "Something is troubling you."

"Do I look as if something is?" he asked in return.

"Yes, indeed," she said. "I know you well, remember."

Camille felt annoyed with herself for feeling stabbed to the heart-and for shamelessly listening while Uncle Thomas continued to talk to Cousin Althea.

"I must admit to having been a bit shaken this morning," Joel said. "I went to call on a very sick old man of my acquaintance, only to discover that he had died an hour before I got there. Ever since I have been berating myself for not going yesterday."

"Oh, Joel!" Camille's words, from several places down the table, were startled out of her. "Mr. c.o.x-Phillips has died?"

"Yes," he said, glancing bleakly her way. "An hour before I got there. His butler was upset. He had tears in his eyes. I beg your pardon," he added, looking about at everyone else, obviously uncomfortable with having become the focus of attention again. "This is not a topic for such an occasion."

"But how very distressing that must have been for you," Elizabeth said. "Was he a particular friend of yours, Mr. Cunningham?"