Page 22 of Ravishing Camille
The chill had followed me inside.
He led me up the curving ivory marble stairs, past pastorals so gay I marveled at how sweetly they belied the grim aura of the rest of the gloomy manse. Down a long corridor we walked until he led me into a library of stunning proportions. Thirty-feet-high, shelves of books and portfolios of every size and shape and age sat upon the rich mahogany. And from the shadows emerged a man of dark, appealing proportions. He stared straight at me.
My bones dissolved at the scorching silver fires of his gaze. I stood, enraptured, speechless. He approached, took my hand and raised it to his warm lips—and kissed my flesh.
He lifted his dark head and drew himself up to his full and impressive height. “Welcome to your new home,” he said. “We shall be married tomorrow.”
“No, sir,” I replied. For I had fresh resolve to leave the ugly place tomorrow morning.’”
Pierce agreed with her.
The hero was rather a dolt. He had decided to marry a young woman but had no intentions of first ingratiating himself with the obvious charms of the chit. The man was an idiot, but what did Pierce know of trends in fiction for ladies or even indeed what some wanted in a man. He himself had indefinite ideas of how a woman could add to the quality of his life.
He stilled at that train of thought. For what he wanted in a woman had been May Macfarlane. She’d been a surprise, a female full of action and opinion. And she was gone.
She had been out of reach of him from the very start of their relationship. Short as it was, business at the root, friendship in the bud, admiration in the flowering…
And then it died when she had.
He blinked, stood taller and heard the little bell ting-a-ling over the door. He paid no attention to the newcomer’s footsteps, until he turned out of curiosity to view the patron who had such a hard footfall.
The fellow who stood there was the one from his altercation in the Lanes with the prostitute. He’d tidied himself up, his cravat properly tied, his navy linen afternoon coat buttoned,his pale wheat-colored hair combed. But he was that particular distasteful man.
And to Pierce’s disgust, he grinned at Camille with an exuberance that implied they were much more than friends.
Chapter 6
Pierce pulled open the door to the bookshop, cursing beneath his breath. Nostrils flaring, he strode east toward the Steine and Victor’s office.
The man was a bounder.
“I’m so pleased you came!” Camille had strolled up to the creature who’d argued with the prostitute in the Lanes. “Allow me to introduce you, Pierce. This is Mister Aldridge Connor. My step-brother, Mister Pierce Hanniford.”
The man had done the acceptable and nodded obligingly. He gave no indication of shame so evidently, he’d been unaware Pierce witnessed the altercation minutes ago. “Mister Hanniford. Very fine to meet you, indeed. One hears so much about your successes. Newly arrived from Hong Kong.”
“Shanghai, actually. I hope all you hear is kind.”
“Rippingly so! I understand you’re to meet with the British Engineering Society.”
“Among others.”
A faint twitch of his pale brow told Pierce the man caught a whiff of his disapproval. “I understand you have a holding in the ironworks that fits out the Paris Eiffel Tower.”
“I wanted to negotiate that. Butit was not possible.” No one provided the wrought iron for the tower except Monsieur Eiffel.
“Wish I had heard of it. I would have bought in.”
Connor was grandstanding here because no one but Eiffel could have bought in. Eiffel demanded it. “Are you an investor in public projects like the Tower?”
“Occasionally, yes.” Connor spun toward Camille. “Forgive me, my dear, I must leave you. I was in the neighborhood and had to come say hello. I will see you next Thursday evening.”
“You will. Eight o’clock.”
“What,” he asked Camille when the man exited their company, “are you doing with that fellow next Thursday?”
“He’s coming to dinner,” she’d said on a cheery note and turned to meet a few more readers.
She’d left him with his mouth hanging open.
