Page 8 of Ravishing Camille
“Even this Bereston,” she added with a smart little tip of her head. “I wish to join the ranks, that’s all.”
He nodded. Odd. Ironic. He’d come home to renew his ties with family. He considered remaining here, commanding his business empire and helping his father with his. He hadn’t counted on Camille not being a part of that new life.
He had assumed she’d always be here. Why, he couldn’t say. But that was silly, wasn’t it? She’d go off as had his two sisters Lily and Ada. His cousin, Marianne, too, had married a Frenchman. Even his father had created a new existence after he’d fallen in love with Olivia. Like her mother, Camille would want her own life, more than an apartment in town and her own money. Like every other person, she’d want her own house, her own man and children.
But he’d been wrong to think of her as a fixture in his life. Wrong as he was about so much.
Frowning, he settled back to focus on the crisp sea air of Brighton. The rigid right angles of the architecture, the aromas of wheat bread and sugared treats from the hawkers on the wharves. The black hansoms and the stout Cleveland Bays pulling them. The ladies in painfully restricted corsets, their massive piles of hair wound up high beneath huge feathered hats, the men in severely tailored suits. No kaleidoscope of colored robes on the women. No bleeding bare feet. No aromas of onion and ginger. No offal trailing in the gutters from the ubiquitous fresh kill stalls. Not the singing tones of six Chinese dialects.
This was England. This was his country as much as America. He’d been away so long that he’d forgotten the comfort of home and familiarity. He’d forgotten.
But a few things had changed. He should’ve predicted it. Prepared for it.
He inhaled and accepted the inevitable.
This time his visit with his family would be different.
Chapter 3
Hanniford Manor stood in the eyebrow of a hill east of Brighton. A curving drive added grace to the Palladian mansion of creamy stone that overlooked the turbulent waters of the English Channel. What Pierce viewed as they rode toward it along the winding lane was a peaceful abode spread out like an elegant lady over the flowering landscape.
The architecture was more Grecian than ornate Victorian and the gardens sweeping up to the front portico reflected more the wild spirit of English love of flowers than any structured plots he’d glimpsed behind tall walls in Shanghai or Kamakura. His step-mother Liv and his father had built the house together just as they were falling in love a decade ago. It stood as testament to their success, his father—a tycoon of world-wide fame and his step-mother—an acclaimed interior designer.
The garden with its waist-high blossoms of every color of the rainbow set waves of remembrance upon him. Transfixed, he envisioned the tiny house in Baltimore near the docks where he had grown up with his sisters Lily and Ada, his cousin Marianne Roland and his widowed father. That garden outside the kitchen door had bloomed in riotous profusion from spring to autumn. Huge bushes of rhododendrons served as shelter for the rose bushes and tulips that Marianne had tended so diligently. His charming cousin, the daughter of his father’s sister and her husband, was now the renowned artist, Madame la Duchesse de Remy. She was the only member of the family he did not expect to see here today as she made her home in France with her husband, a sculptor of international renown.
Fighting nostalgia, Pierce leaned toward the window to get a better look as the carriage rounded the drive. “I think Liv has been working more in the garden than on her business. The roses are spectacular.”
“Gush over them, will you please?” Killian said with mischief twinkling in his bright gaze. “She complains that they do not fare well this year.”
“But that is not for lack of Mama’s attention!” Camille grimaced. “Dylan decided last week to feed them worms he’d dug up in the copse and the little buggers liked the rose leaves far too much!”
Dylan was Liv’s and his father’s youngest son. “And Liam, I assume, chastised him?” Their older son William, age eight and known as Liam, was a fellow who liked his life as regimented as their father. As Pierce remembered, the boy often chided his younger brother about his antics.
“He did.” Killian offered, accepting his sons’ differing humors. “They’ve been particularly devilish the past week, eager to meet you.”
“Liam,” said Camille with a pointed look, “has questions for you about China.”
“Be prepared!” Killian lifted a finger in the air. “He has them written in a copy book.”
“Ah. I’m ready for him,” Pierce said, gratified.
Killian winced. “He wants you to teach him how to write calligraphy.”
Pierce winced. “Well, now. That is a challenge. I can teach him a bit of Shanghai dialect. But calligraphy takes a master. A Chinese scholar who’s been at it for a decade or more. Not me!”
“Dylan however,” said Camille with a grin, “is a different kettle of fish.”
“He wants to learn about Chinese worms?” Pierce made a silly guess.
She nodded. “And birds. He loves birds. Plants. Peach trees.”
Pierce chuckled.
Camille laughed with him. “Peaches are his favorite fruit.”
He glanced at his father. “I would say we have a budding biologist in the family.”
“And a welcoming party,” Camille added pointing to the crowd assembling under the portico. “Each intending to keep you talking all night long!”
