Page 43 of Ravishing Camille
“Do they write gothic romances too?”
“Yes. Rosalie’s are very dark. Think ofDr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.” She feigned a shiver. “And Sheila writes a mystery in her plots. Mine are simple romances.”
“Why writing?”
“Why not? If I could, I’d run for Parliament, but since I am of the weaker sex—” She paused to put the back of one hand dramatically to her brow. “—I must be more prudent. Writing stories, earning an income that way is respectable. If now and then, a few think it a bit risqué.”
“But you don’t write anything scandalous.”
“That is all in the eye of the beholder, isn’t it?”
As if she’d said something ridiculous, he frowned.
“What’s the matter?”
“So much of what we do rests on what society thinks.” A gust of wind had him clutching his navy bowler to his head. He turned away for a moment, killed whatever thought had made him wince, then came back to smile at her. “We think we are immune, but we never are.”
That truth stabbed her. She was not immune to social mores or the knowledge that she must not damage her family—theirfamily—in her quest to discern if he could love her. “I have heard you regard criticisms of how you run your companies as reason to reform them. You welcome suggestions.”
“I do. One must be thoughtful of others.”
“I agree. I understand you pay your employees well as opposed to others, like that American steel manufacturer, Carnegie.”
“He’ll come round,” Pierce said, patting her hand. “He knows that Papa and I pay our workers a living wage. Most of the public approve of that. Carnegie will follow.”
He led her toward the window of Skinner and Company. The window display drew her with a thousand lights arcing in the sunlight. She grinned at the beauty of the diamonds and rubies, but pointed toward one multi-strand necklace of pearls. “Those are gorgeous.”
“They are. They’re taken from the sea by divers. In the south of Japan, they are exquisite finds. But otherwise, I can’t say I admire most of what we see here. I know how such jewels are mined and believe me, it’s the miners who pay dastardly prices for their excavation. Their lives are miserable. Ten or twelve hours a day in the pits of the earth, breathing bad air, working in the dark.”
“I’d read some of that.”
“For you, pearls,” he said, contemplating her complexion. “Pearls to match your skin.”
The sun was brilliant. The crowds around them, buzzing like bees to flowers. But he had eyes only for her, and she could not move. Not breathe, either. “You shall have them. The longest strand I can have them string.”
She could not kiss him here. But oh, my, the temptation to do so flashed through her like a flood.
He reached out to brush an errant curl from her cheek and gave her a forced smile. “Let’s go home. I’ve purchased four tickets for us for the theater tonight. Earlier, I called over to the Langham and the concierge delivered my invitation to Lee Macfarlane. He’ll join us forThe Mikadoand dinner afterward.”
Wonderful. She needed as much company as possible. “We need a fourth?”
“I hoped your friend Lady Brianna might be in town?”
“She is! They’d make a good pair.”
“Exactly my thought.”
Like us? Do you think we are a good pair?
* * *
Lee Macfarlane stepped inside the gilded vestibule of the Savoy Theater. With one wide-eyed assessment of the packed lobby, he found Pierce and wove through the throng toward him, Brianna and Camille.
That afternoon, Camille had sent a written invitation over to Brianna’s home in Berkley Square. Brianna had written back in her bold script, “Of course! A new man!”
Camille’s friend counted as many former suitors as she. In the six years since Brianna’s formal debut at court, she had turned down three proposals of marriage. Her father, the persnickety Anglo-Irish Earl of Bourke, had resigned himself to her “foibles”. Her mother had been furious. Her brother—the heir who wished to have his only sister off his hands before he inherited the earldom—had been sullen. Arguing against her only given reason each time, her brother claimed one need not wed a person who “intrigued” one. Brianna had asserted she’d not marry without a swell of daily curiosity…as well as sexual attraction. Her brother had married a little mouse for her money, so there was his rub.
Camille took one glance at Lee Macfarlane and from the corner of her eye saw Brianna tuck her chin into her throat as she examined the man from head to toe.
