Page 14 of Ravishing Camille
Pierce strode into the first floor breakfast room just as the hall clock struck eight-thirty. The room could hold ten easily but today no one else was dining. Not that he had expected anyone to still be lazing about. Most in the family were usually up with the chickens.
“Good morning, Jenkins.” The butler held his post by the far door to the kitchen. “Am I destroying your impression of me as first up and out the door?”
“Never, sir. You’ve had a long journey and a full evening last night. Coffee or tea?” Jenkins had come to know each Hanniford’s favored morning drink, but the man was always careful to ask anyone who had traveled abroad recently if his or her preference had changed.
“Coffee, Jenkins. We have a good assortment of beans in the Settlement,” he told the man as he took the chair offered by the footman. “But I do prefer whatever it is Cook orders.”
Jenkins took the compliment with a nod. “Shall I serve you?”
“No need.” He’d noticed quite a few hot salvers on the side-board. “I will do it. What morning papers do we receive, Jenkins?”
“Your father took theTimesup to his office with him. He told me to tell you he apologizes but he had an issue that he wished to study. And he asks for you to see him after you’ve finished, if you would.”
“I will.” He caught sight of a stack of newspapers on the side buffet. “I’ll be quite satisfied with what’s in that pile.”
“We do have theLondon Daily News.And theHomeward Mail of India and Chinaof yesterday.”
“Enough to amuse me, I’m certain.”
“Does one get a constant source of honest news in Shanghai?” The butler indicated theHomeward Mailthat reported the doings in the treaty ports and countryside to the British. But the man had another interest in that he was known to read anything in print, books in the house library included. “Regularly, I mean?”
“One gets…”—he flourished a hand—“summaries at first. More than a month old. I think theHomeward Mailgets the news here as quickly as any. But it focuses on India. China and Japan come second.”
“A shame, sir. How do you decide on matters without the latest maritime reports or pricing of goods?”
Pierce shrugged. “It can be a guessing game. But the assurance one does the right thing comes from the fact that we all make the same assumptions together.”
“Decision by consensus, sir?”
“Better than no decisions at all, eh?”
“Well! Hello! You’re up!”
Pierce directed his attention to the vision in the doorway. Attired in a walking suit of starched white linen with a pink blouse, Camille was the picture of summer. She carried in her hand a huge deep rose straw hat with paper mache camellias in a spectrum of pink to red. Her hair, that abundant wealth of auburn and gold, she’d caught up in an elaborate array of waves and curls. Little gold earrings twinkled at her ears. And to top it off, she wore a broad smile.
“I am, yes. Good morning!” He indicated the chair next to him. “Are you my company?”
“I’ve already eaten, thank you. I’m off to town.”
“This early?”
She nodded and one of her golden curls came loose. “Devil take it! Yes, this early.” She put her little straw reticule to the seat of one chair and began to work on her coiffure. With both arms in the air, she spanned her silk blouse across her generous breasts. He would have to be a dead man not to notice their fullness.
He swallowed hard. She was, always had been, so graced with good looks.
She jabbed a pin to her hair, but her efforts were for naught. The thing kept escaping her. “Ohh!!! I’m…yes, I’m to meet a friend for coffee and then she comes with me to my autographing party.”
Disappointment zipped through him that she wouldn’t dine with him. The outline of her breasts engendered a very different emotion. Strong, it was, and a challenge to the linen of his trousers. He cleared his throat. “An autographing? Where?”
“In the Lanes. Winslow’s Book Shop.”
“Near the bakery?”
She removed the hair pin that would not stick right. “Yes.”
“Sit down.”
“No, I can’t. I’m late and I must get my maid to fix my hair.”
