Page 9 of Ravishing Camille
My god. He counted four adults and eleven children waving and jockeying for position along the edges of the carriage-way. He hooted. “Who isnothere? Only…Julian.”
“He apologizes,” said Killian about his son-in-law, the Duke of Seton who was married to Pierce’s oldest sister, Lily. “He had an important meeting with the Prime Minister in London. He arrives tomorrow.”
Pierce admired the array of his family aligned before him. “What a tribe!”
“Handsome, aren’t they?” Camille said with sweet affection ringing in her words.
Pierce could not get enough of their strong good looks. His step-mother, Liv, with fiery red hair piled high. His youngest sister, Ada, the one who’d been a sprite, his irritant, ever jovial, round—huge, really—with her fourth pregnancy. Her husband, Victor, a member of Parliament who’d won his seat with Ada’s help. Lily, his oldest sister, her ebony hair glistening in an elaborate coif, taller than Ada, elegant in form but her exuberant self with arms wide, embracing two tall boys and a smaller wiggling one. Beside them, one little girl with a cherub’s face jumped up and down yelling his name. She was the spitting image of her mother, Lily, and Pierce remembered her as a tiny gremlin who had stalked his every move. Elizabeth clapped her hands in joy. Next to her stood Ada’s two step-daughters, Vivienne and Deirdre, sprouting up into adolescence, lithe strawberry blondes with abundant freckles to match. Next to them stood three very small boys, not so far apart in age, each with cinnamon hair and bright clear blue eyes. Resembling Ada, they were oldest to squirming youngest, Ethan, Oliver and Michael.
The most striking feature of the crowd had to be the number of boys. Liv’s and his father’s two. Ada’s three. And Lily’s three, her oldest Garrett, her youngest son Artie, and the boy she and her husband, the duke of Seton, had taken as their own six years ago, Nathaniel, after his father had died and his mother, Seton’s sister, had abandoned him to them.
Nate looked none the worse for it, thank God. Pierce had a sudden memory of his beautiful mother, Elanna. Self-centered, self-indulgent Elanna who had been made to marry a man she abhorred. But she had done her duty to give him an heir, then had left him, trailing in her wake tales of liaisons so scandalous no one would receive her…except Lily and the duke.
He himself had thought her scintillating, tragic, pitiable and…yes, enthralling. Wickedly so. Luckily, he’d seen what destruction she’d caused so very many, including her son, this innocent boy. But Nathaniel had landed safely with this family.
With all of them.
Theboys, stair-steps in age to each other, all with black or brown hair, a few with auburn glints, Ada’s with the lighter hair, fidgeting, eager to run to him, intent as sin and handsome beyond description. Take them from their mothers’ sides in a few minutes and he’d have trouble sorting who belonged to whom.
“How do you survive all that energy?” he asked, awash in admiration.
“We send them off to deal with each other!” Killian gazed upon his progeny with no small pride.
“They’ve learned the art of survival.” Camille considered them with a wry smile.
“Useful in any endeavor,” said his father.
The carriage rolled to a stop.
A groom jumped down from the rear and the carriage bounced as he pulled open the door.
“After you,” Camille said and swept a hand toward the clamoring crowd.
“Go on, son.” His father sat back. “We’ve been waiting for you forever.”
He met the silver of his father’s eyes and noted the tears of joy lining his black lashes. His own threatened. “Yes, sir. Thank you.”
* * *
Camille was alert to the appearance of the family butler at the drawing room doors.
Jenkins, his round eyes deceptively quick, scanned the room chock full of family. The short roly-poly fellow should have retired years ago and her step-father Killian argued with him for it, often. But to no avail.
“I know my work, sir,” said the man who’d become butler at Hanniford Manor when it was days old. “I’ll tell you when I should depart. Not yet, sir. I still know who’s to get what here. When I don’t, or I drool in my soup, I shall warn you, sir. Never doubt.”
Tonight he knew that the first person who should welcome Camille’s special guest should be she. She, alone. And she had instructed him so before they gathered in the salon. “I don’t want the poor man washed overboard by family before he’s had a chance to utter his name, Jenkins.”
“Understood, Miss Camille.” He’d bowed and promised compliance.
So now, as the Hannifords milled among each other and the adults drank their aperitifs and the children their lemonade, the butler hailed her from the far threshold.
“Excuse me, please,” she said to Ada and got to her feet. “I think Lord Turnbowe has arrived.”
The butler waited by the doors. “Your friend, Miss.”
“Thank you, Jenkins. I’ll go alone to welcome him. Mama has her hands full.”
Her mother had caught a glimpse of the butler’s intentions and would have risen. But Camille pointed toward the foyer and smiled at her mother. The woman resumed her chair to finish a story she told to Ada’s three little boys and Lily’s five-year-old, Beth. She was relating tales of her fox hounds and two Spaniels whom she was training to follow her in her daily outings. One liver and white Spaniel puppy had taken to Beth the past few days and would not leave her side. Even now the tiny creature sat near the little girl.
