Page 34 of Ravishing Camille
“Her dowry.” His father had put fifteen thousand dollars a year in each Hanniford girl’s bank account from the day they were ten years old. His father had not known Camille at age ten, but he had opened an account for her after his and Liv’s marriage. What her savings might total now with interest could be five, ten, or fifteen times that. Not as much as a Vanderbilt heiress, but still useful to any husband who sought to use his wife’s wealth to pay debt.
“Exactly.” Liv winced. “She’s not scatterbrained. Not foolish. And I doubt she’d accept him. I know she wants a loving relationship.”
“She won’t get it with him.”
“I agree. But I worry. In the last few months, she’s seemed more determined to find someone. And soon.”
Pierce grabbed hold of his self-control. If he went with Camille to London, he’d go as her chaperone. An older man with his beautiful young charge. A mature man—hell, a roué—who could not control the surge of excitement that stiffened his cock and his desire to…
To what? Save her from another man? A n’er-do-well who wanted her as an ornament on his arm. Or as a nubile wife with a dowry that could prop up his estate.
Pierce shifted in his chair, arguing with his rebelliously aroused body. He leaned forward and toyed with his coffee dup. “And you want me to show her a good time…and offer a foil to old Aldridge?”
“That’s the crux of it, yes. Would you?”
What could he say? ‘No?’ Never! Or ‘Yes.’I’ll show her such a good time that she’ll forget the cad. And then what?
He’d spend his days keeping his distance and showing her what a good time her step-brother could offer.
Bugger it all.How helpful was that?A guest at a banquet where he could not dine!
“What do you say, Pierce? Will you? I’d owe you my gratitude.”
To get rid of Connor, he’d do anything. “Of course, Liv. I’d be delighted to go.”
* * *
Pierce had cultivated the habit when at the Brighton house to stroll the beach. Morning was his best hour to clear his mind. Soon after he’d arrived in Shanghai six years ago, he’d taken the advice of his Number One houseboy to learn Buddhist meditation. He’d studied with a withered old monk at the nearby Amida temple how to sit and let the world leave him. He preferred to seek the serenity near the water on his veranda facing the East China Sea. When in Brighton, he sat crosslegged on the terrace. Afterward he’d go down to the shore to enjoy the air and sea. When the weather was fine, he’d go down at night too. Late.
He’d take the cliff walk down from the veranda at the lee-ward side of the house facing the sea, remove his shoes and socks and leave them on the rocks. The rough sand and smooth rocks of the Brighton beach had never bothered his sensibilities. He’d gone on in any case. His solitude and desire for the peace of salt and sand and sea more compelling than any hardship he’d encounter walking the rugged surface.
Camille knew this. She’d noted how he’d taken up this habit once more now that he was home.
So it was easy to find him.
Easy to surprise him.
She walked toward him, her hair loose and flying away in the cool wind from the water, her own shoes and stockings stacked on the same rocks as his. She wore no corset, no chemise. Purposely, of course. What she’d felt nights ago, her body fluid and giving in his arms, is what she’d hoped to have again. She had wrapped a cherry cashmere shawl over her shoulders and shivered at the soft ripple of French silk that slipped over her skin as she walked toward him in her green and purple ottoman print pyjamas. Since their kiss days ago, she and he had not talked privately. She’d not sought him out. Nor he, her. She hadn’t expected it. Hadn’t wanted it.
Instead, she’d wanted this. Her approach to him. Days afterward. With time for both of them to think. She had no idea what his perspective was on their intimacy. Fearing what he might think, she didn’t want to learn his conclusions. She’d rather—as Americans said—let sleeping dogs lie.
But there came a time to rise and deal. Since her mother had told her this afternoon that she’d asked Pierce to go with her to London day after tomorrow, that time was now. Tonight. And she chose it to be here on the beach.
“What are you doing here?” He faced her, yards away, his bold lean frame a silhouette in the shadows of the bright round yellow moon. He wore dark trousers, a white shirt open at the throat, a heavy half-cut dressing gown, whose collar he’d turned up along his throat. His thick dark hair blew wild in the wind. And if he was surprised or dismayed by her joining him, he seemed in his tone only curious.
“I hoped to catch you.” She liked that phrase.
He opened his arms wide and flapped them to his side. “You’ve found me. But what you’ll catch is your death, you know?”
She shook her head and smiled.Keep this friendly.“I won’t get ill. I’ve got too much to do.”
He turned aside, a hand out to invite her to go with him. “Want to walk or did you have a bone to pick with me?”
She grinned at that. “I’d like to walk, yes. And no arguments from me.”
“No?” He paused to check her expression. What he saw there reassured him because he gave a huff of laughter and walked on. “I expected you to object.”
He thought they spoke of him going away with her. But she’d address the bigger issue. “I’ve always had fun with you. Why would I object?”
