Page 45 of Ravishing Camille
Camille understood desire when she saw it because she had lived it for much of her life. All for Pierce. Since she’d been terribly young and knew no other men. Since she’d come under the spell of one man whose lure she could not escape, though God knew, she had tried. She bristled with the remembrance of how she’d admired Pierce when he was young, a man in his twenties, alive with the intentions to grow his own empire. To be his own man, a replica of his father and yet, unique unto himself in his style and interests.
She’d first met him in Brighton and waltzed with him on the Promenade, letting her fancy take her away with girlish ambitions to have him to herself. The years, her own schooling and friends, had taught her that adoration was not love. Fascination was often a fragile construct, meant to shatter in the face of reality. Desire, a fool’s opiate, was heady but dangerous. Passion, a physical drive, was sated by quick attention to the cause. But love? The care for another that required respect for their reputation and their hopes. That demanded more than any blithe surrender to heady euphoria.
Did she love him?
She had always wanted Pierce for more than the blush of passion. Always. No other man had compared to his humor, his zeal, his family devotion. She wanted him for now, for tomorrow and all their tomorrows. But for the first time, she asked herself, could she match him in those sterling qualities? And could she honor and keep him as he so well deserved?
It was one thing to ask herself these things. She had a few answers.
She glanced over at Pierce. In profile to her, he was her ideal. The wealth of stark black hair. The clean brow, the perfect straight nose. His lips. Full. His jaw. Firm. His throat. The sum of him, healthy, strong and more handsome than any man she’d ever encountered.
Sensing her, he met her regard and his brilliant eyes caressed her. Her mouth, her nose, her hair, her heaving breasts in the low-cut shantung. He smiled and a melting sensation swept down to her loins. He took her hand and squeezed it, directing his gaze to her fingers as he toyed with them. Through her gloves, she burned to touch him skin to skin.
She took her hand away. Her lips parted in apology, but no words came forth. Her nipples ached. She arched her back and shifted.
“Camille,” he whispered as he lifted her hand and kissed the back. “Try to enjoy this.”
She had to laugh. The play or his kisses? “It’s very difficult.”
“I agree.” He inhaled and tore his attention to the stage. “We must.”
She nodded and attempted it, didn’t she? For the sake of propriety and their family.
She could not endure this kind of temptation for long. If she did not find words to ask him of his feelings for her, she would burst with need and do something rash, unforgivable.
Tonight, she would begin the discussion with him. She must. Did he see her as a woman, full grown, with a regard for him that bespoke of more than their shared past? Could he love her as a woman? As a wife?
She must learn. Then stay or leave.
She rubbed her arms.
“Are you comfortable?” Pierce leaned toward her, his gaze ablaze with concern. “If you’re chilled…?”
“No. Not at all.” She lifted her fan on the crocheted draw at her wrist. It was something to fiddle with instead of squirming at the enticing fragrance of Pierce, so near and provoking. But distraction came hard and she said, “I wondered that you choseThe Mikado. I fear Mister Macfarlane may be offended.”
“When I telephoned, I told him I’d purchased tickets for this. But I also said if he preferred to see Sarah Bernhardt, I’d change them. He’s heard of the ‘Divine Sarah’. And of Gilbert and Sullivan, too. But he told me he wanted to see the parody of Japanese society. He knows what he faces here, Camille. We have prejudice in Shanghai, too, you see. And it’s worse there against those who straddle two cultures.”
Money cures few ills, her mother always said. “Yet he seems to rise above it and does well in business.”
Pierce’s face was a study in pride in his friend. “Very well. He knows many discount his abilities. He’s learned to show them he is their equal. His father has taught him the western way. His mother, the Chinese. In truth, I have watched him to learn finer methods.”
She let her admiration show.
He must have understood because he said, “A man can always learn new things.”
She nodded as the bright gold tapestry curtain rose. “A woman too.”
Chapter 13
Her comment set him aback. How did she have to change?
He liked her as she was.
But the light in her eyes told him the ideas she considered were about him. And he feared she might consider leaving him and London. Despite the fact that she was twenty-four, she was so young. She had considered many to marry but wisely had chosen no one. Yet. She had no idea what the future might bring with a man she barely knew.
She knew him. Good, reliablehim. He had the right of it to control his urges and touch her only as her friend. Her good friend.
He crossed his arms and focused on the musicale. How he hated it. The bastardization of the art ofkabukiwas one insult to the ancient culture of Japan. But the other was to the Japanese efforts at modernization. Those earnest people had aggressively begun to change their feudal country economically and politically and it had cost them a great price of upheaval. The emperor, a boy of intellect certainly, was now the head of a parliamentary state. The shogun—once the premier executive for centuries—had been removed from power, sent to obscurity to the countryside for his failures to hold back the Western powers and the influences to his country. His samurai who had kept the peace and the order for centuries had lost their purpose and professions, feudal warlords though they had been. And while many might think that good, the men and their families had to find new ways to support themselves. Fine minds among them who reached out to Westerners, eager to help them form a parliament and revitalize, grasped the new concepts of funding businesses that would modernize the country. The Mitsubishi family started a mail order business and steamship operations. The Mitsui clan who had collected taxes, organized one of the major banks. The Suzuki produced steel and supplied the navy. Others opened grocery stores and construction families made cement and paved roads.
