Page 16 of Ravishing Camille
“Really! How can you tell?”
He fished out the hairpins, picked that coil of hair from its moorings and re-wound the length to secure it to the other side of her head. “Your maid is good, but she should have taken more time to do…this!” He sank the pin in tight to her scalp. “And this.” He put the other pin in.
She turned her head this way and that. “It feels more stable.”
“It is.”
“But it is pretty?” She flashed her dark chocolate eyes at his, searching for…what?
All humor gone, he stared at her squarely.You’d be ravishing in absolutely nothing.“Go look.”
He folded his arms. Better that than to lift her from her chair by her shoulders and taste her…No. That wouldn’t do.“Go on. The hall mirror will prove my worth.”
She dragged her gaze from his, shot to her feet and grabbed her reticule and her floppy hat. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” he said as he watched her turn.
She walked away, waggling her fingers at him in good-bye, her backside swinging seductively in the white linen.
“What time is your autographing?” he called after her.
“Noon!” She kept walking.
* * *
He knocked lightly on the open door of his father’s office.
Their eyes met, his father’s probing as he waved Pierce inside. “Come in! Do! I’m glad you slept late. We think we’re so healthy and travel doesn’t diminish us, but we soon learn on land we are wrong.”
Pierce walked about the office he knew so well. The floor-to-ceiling mahogany bookshelves on two walls, cabinets on the other. A table for his father’s personal wireless cable and radio. The smell of beeswax, old paper and leather. The three globes in one corner by the far bay windows, the flat mahogany table in the center of the large room, an eight-foot expanse on which his father spread out intricate maps of the world dotted with Hanniford Enterprises offices. Maritime maps with shipping lanes mixed, one upon another filled with intricate detail, scaled in useful proportions. He fingered his father’s newest acquisition, a drawing of the Bund waterfront of Shanghai, a gift from him to his father last Christmas.
He didn’t wish to think too much of business for a few days. He’d come home to enjoy his family and friends first. The problems that plagued him could wait. He lived too much focused on them alone and had lost sleep over it. He was tired of that kind of life. Alone. Obsessed with work.
Wandering to the tall bay window that overlooked the front lawns, he paused to watch Camille accept the hand of a coachman who assisted her up into the family brougham. Her young maid jumped up into the carriage beside her, the two of them chatting gaily in the morning sunlight.
Pierce smiled to himself that he’d fixed her coiffure to no avail. The caleche of the carriage was collapsed. By the time Camille and her servant arrived at her friend’s, her hair would be a shambles. She’d simply have to fix it again.
He grinned and his fingers itched to fix it once more for her.
As the coachman flicked the reins and she disappeared, he turned to his father. “I didn’t stop often this time to visit with many of our friends. I hope you don’t mind that. Forty-three days was long enough for me. I just…wanted to come home.”
“However, you came, we’re delighted to have you at last.”
Pierce considered his father’s perspicacity. Warmed by it, he understood this shrewd man saw much in his children and their behavior because he took time to examine them and truly know them. If Pierce ever married and had children, he would attempt to be as good at securing such insight into his offspring as Killian Hanniford. “I thought I’d take a few days here with you before I go up to London. I told Victor last night I’d come visit him this afternoon, but aside from that, I’m eager to do nothing.”
“Wise. I hope you’ll enjoy a respite from your work. You look like you need it.”
So do you.Pierce inhaled. Discussion of his father’s health had to originate with him.
“Is there anything special you’d like to do while you’re here with us?”
“Yes!” He laughed. “No gentlemen’s clubs. No meetings or dinners.”
“Do trust me, we’ve planned nothing formal.”
“We’ve had such little time together these past six years, Papa. I’m pleased to take the opportunity to learn from the master.”
His father chuckled. “Flattery gets you everywhere.”
