Page 58 of Ravishing Camille
“Forgive me, but no. I’ll retire. See you in the morning.”
* * *
The French ormolu clock atop her sitting room mantel struck one and Camille still walked the floor.
A jumble of excitement and trepidation at her affair with Pierce, she could not sleep. Joy for Brianna mixed with the distress about her friend’s decision to conduct an open affair with a man she barely knew also troubled her. Lee was a man from another culture. Another type of family. Another occupation and with very different expectations. Of himself. Of a mistress.
Would Brianna survive such a challenge? Her friend was strong, but this was no problem she’d ever faced. Willingly or not.
Camille sank to her chaise longue and pondered the empty fireplace. She had accepted her own set of challenges today. While at first, she’d been surprised at Pierce’s statements. Excited and gratified. Now she was terrified. And the fright of it had her pulling on her green silk dressing gown and padding across her floor to the hall and his door. And knocking once, twice.
And turning the knob.
She stopped on the threshold. The hot August night air wafted in his open casements, the rustle of the trees a soft accompaniment to the song in her heart for this handsome creature she’d yearned for most of her life.
He sat in dark trousers, his chest bare in his own silken robe, the one he’d had her wear last night, the one he’d wrapped her in. In the moonlight—faint rays through his far bedroom window—he lounged in one overstuffed chair. He looked at once at ease and yet tormented, with one leg up on a hassock, his legs splayed. From one hand, he dangled an empty snifter.
She shut the door behind her.
His large silver eyes skimmed her body with a swift caress and returned to meet her own gaze. “Darling, you should not be here.”
“Don’t run me out. I cannot sleep and I hoped you’d hold me. Just hold me.”
Chapter 15
Light-hearted for the first time in weeks, Pierce jogged down the stairs to the breakfast room. He was proud of himself for keeping his hands to himself for hours in bed last night. Being celibate was not a condition he could master for the long term. But he’d been good about simply embracing her last night.
Camille had kept her word, too. Before dawn, she’d stirred and with a soft inhalation of breath she’d laid a hand to his heart and left him.
When she met him in the upstairs sitting room after seven, attired in the white linen shirt and pants he’d given her for meditation, she was well into the role of pretending to be his friend. Their meditation had seemed refreshing for her. Far from it, for him.
“Good morning, Brisbane.” He strode to the sidebar to lift the cover of a silver salver, but a glance at the table told him Camille’s place was clear. Had she eaten already? “Cook has outdone herself again. My thanks to her.”
“She’ll happily receive them, sir.”
“Has Miss Bereston come and gone?”
“She has. She took her maid and has gone for a walk in the park. She left a note for you. And there is more, sir.”
Alarm ran through him. Now that she had agreed to a rendezvous—ah, be frank, old man—anaffair, he banked on it. The fear of losing her had lodged itself like a little ghoul somewhere in the wealth of delight that her agreement had brought him. Silly of him to think she’d back out, but why would a vibrant young woman want him? Why not want a younger man who was not part of her extended family?
He stared at the butler. If Camille had decided not to go to Paris or meet him afterward, certainly, she’d say nothing of that to staff. He was quite foolish over this new enchantment with her, wasn’t he?
“What is it?” he asked the man.
Brisbane had detected his anxiety and threw him a pleasant look. “We received a telegram this morning. The courier brought it from the office. It’s from Brighton, sir. There.” He indicated the yellow envelope beside his place setting.
“Thank you.”
He opened it immediately. “Ah. Mister and Mrs. Hanniford arrive on the two-clock train tomorrow afternoon. The two boys come with them. The Duke and Duchess of Seton and their three children are on the same train. They all remain until after Mrs. Hanniford’s showcase in the City. The day afterward, we all leave for Paris.”
“Very good, sir.”
Pierce took up the other note, a simple sheet of vellum folded in half. He read Camille’s large elegant handwriting with a mixture of relief and disappointment. Her words were brief, impersonal and she signed at the end with only a capital ‘C’. “Miss Bereston says she is off to dine with a friend this evening, and tomorrow morning, she leaves for Paris at nine o’clock.”
“Very good, sir. Will you be dining in this evening, sir?”
He thought on that for a minute. It was best that Camille left. There was only so much temptation a man—or woman—could stand.
