Page 38 of Ravishing Camille
“We could go riding in Hyde Park.”
He’d barked in reply. “You know I hate to ride.”
“Me, too,” she said, teasing him with a wiggle of her elegant brows.
That fourth morning, they’d asked the grooms to bring round the town coach. Pierce was off once again to an appointment with his manager in the City, while she would return a second time to visit with her publisher, not far away. Her meeting with Liv’s supplier their first day had gone as well as could be expected, given delivery problems she could not solve.
“Do you mind if we go early and stop at my flat first?” she asked him. ”I’d like to take the first draft of my recent manuscript. I forgot it when I went to see him the other day, and I need it now to refresh my thinking.”
They’d had their coachman circle aroundtoEardley Crescent andhe, curious about where and how she lived when she was submerged in her work, he asked if he might go up with her.
“It’s not grand,” she’d quickly warned as they stood before the door. “But it’s mine, you see. Just mine.”
“And that’s why it’s grand in its own way,” he said. “Come on. Turn the key. Show me!”
When he followed her in, he was surprised. Contrary to the current Victorian style to drip lace and cram bulky gewgaws into every inch, her two-room apartment was orderly, nearly simplistic in its appointments. One grand emerald velvet settee facing a small brick fireplace and two matching red tweed wool upholstered chairs dominated her compact living area. Against one wall stood her desk, an old unwieldy scuffed oak. Scrap notebooks, well thumbed, piled up in a teetering tower atop the otherwise clean expanse. A typewriter faced the wall, in exile, it appeared. A small circular wooden table and two chairs neared a window that overlooked the winding street. She had a tiny stove, wood fed. Beyond was, he assumed, her bedroom.
“I do hope you are not disappointed in me,” she declared. “I’m cozy here. Just up the street is Earl’s Court where Mama and I lived before she met your father. This feels like…home. And it is what I can afford from my sales. At three shillings per copy for a first edition, I sell enough to pay the rent. But after the first three months, most publishers make a ‘railway’ edition for travelers. And that gets me one shilling per copy.”
“Camille, I am damned proud of you. Never doubt it. And I see why you want better royalty terms. I agree with your fight for them.”
“Thank you.” A lock of golden hair fell over her cheek.
He did not think, but acted. Stepping toward her, he pushed the fine silk threads behind her ear. “I can see you here. Working. Spartan, I’d say you are. No crocheted doilies. No wild potted ferns.”
She pointed at him. “Right you are. One of my friends has a stuffed bear standing, claws out, in her drawing room. Her husband shot the beast on a trip to Montana.” She shuddered theatrically. “He insists they display it.”
“I’d hate it too.” He chuckled as he followed her out and down the stairs two floors and into their carriage. “Last winter a tiger invaded a village along the Woosung River near the City and killed two elders and five children.”
“No! How is that possible?”
He shrugged. “Many villages have no walls, natural or other, to shield them from predators or floods or landslides.”
Her shock stilled her. “But you’ve brought engineers to the city! Even trained others!”
“I can only do so much. Progress is slow because the majority of officials do not see dams or plumbing as a necessity.”
“That must be frustrating for you.”
“For us all,” he said as he handed her up into the town coach. He was damned tired of attending to the details of so many projects world-wide.
“Do you have plumbing in your house in Shanghai?” she asked after they were settled across from each other.
“Plumbing and electricity. Advances, but the rest of the house is built much as the Chinese do.” He missed the serenity of his abode, but not how lonely he’d begun to feel inside it. “I have three stories. No cellar. The house is made of brick and wood. With five large rooms on the ground floor, four above and three above that. I have running water, hot and cold, three proper baths upstairs and a kitchen off the first floor back wing.Feng-shuirules,wind and water laws of the universe, demand the kitchen and the front door be appropriately situated for prosperity. My cook insisted. She is superstitious. So many from the villages are. But I don’t care. I like her cooking and her. I like my houseman and valet, too.”
“And your decor? Is it Chinese?”
“A mix. But I have very few pieces of furniture. I like the aesthetics of space and air. I’ve studied Buddhism with a friend who is a wise man. He taught me how to sittso-ch'anwhich is to say, I meditate to understand the flow of the universe.” He smiled at the interest in her eyes. Since he had seen who she was in her private abode, he thought it only fair he show her himself. “Shall I demonstrate?”
“Yes, please. When?”
“Tomorrow morning before breakfast.”
She made a face.
“I know, but it’s best that way. Your mind is open. Your body is clear. But you’ve got to be able to move easily for this. So you’ve got to wear those pyjamas you wore to the beach the night we walked together.”
His mention of that night they nearly kissed a second time made her blink, but she did not blush or mention it.
