Page 48 of Ravishing Camille
A few bystanders recounted Connor’s assault.
Pierce was relieved to see him but eager to leave. “This man accosted my lady. See to him. I’ll give you a statement. Gladly. But in the morning. I’m Pierce Hanniford of Number One-ten Piccadilly. But I will take her home now. Call on me as you need.”
* * *
Camille stood against him, her hands clutching the edges of his cape, her face pressed to his throat.
“Sweetheart, Lee has a carriage. Can you walk?”
She stared into his eyes, her own shrouded in shock. “Yes, yes.”
Her cheek was red where Connor had hit her and her gown was a ruin. Her beads were gone, a red line around her throat where Connor had pulled off her jewelry. Pierce would kill the man if he came near her again.
“Shall we come with you?” Lee stood at the open cab door and helped Pierce hand Camille inside.
“No, we’ll be home in a few minutes. Please, the two of you, claim our dinner reservations.”
“I couldn’t possibly dine,” Brianna murmured.
Lee held her around the waist, close to his side. “Neither of us can. We’ll go to my hotel and I’ll order something simple. Call the concierge in the morning, will you? I need to know how you are.”
Pierce agreed, swirled off his cape and climbed inside the dark confines of the carriage.
At this time of night when the theaters let out, coaches of all sizes circled the roads around Covent Garden and the Strand. Lee fortunately had managed to hail a large and well- appointed one.
Camille sat amid the thick black leather squabs, hunched over, her hands clasped tightly together as if she were praying—or mourning. Her bodice hung forward, the lines of her frilly corset visible, and her breasts swelling over the top.
He sat down beside her, pulled off his evening scarf and threw it to the opposite seat. Then he removed his own cape and tucked it up around her shoulders and throat. He lifted his legs to slide along the seat, sank backward and spread her body along his, head to toe. Like a wounded animal, she came to him. Her head, he firmly placed against his shoulder. Her face, she nestled into the hollow of his throat. Her arms went round him, squeezing him close. Her hair against his chin, her nose against his neck, her fingers digging into his sides, her legs tangled in his, she sank against him. He ran his hand down the crown of her hair. It fell in waves over her shoulder, her pins and evening toque long since gone in the melee.
“Pierce,” she whispered. “Oh, Pierce.” She shuddered and sobs wracked her long lithe body.
“Don’t think of it. Just be at peace, here with me. No one will hurt you now, sweetheart. No one.”
“He was hateful.” She gulped, tears on her cheeks.
Pierce dug a handkerchief from his waistcoat inner pocket and dabbed them away. “More than.”
“How could he do that?”
He winced and stroked her hair. “Don’t think of it. He is a cad.”
She took the handkerchief. “He made me a laughing stock.”
For that alone, I could kill him. Were we in Shanghai, my houseman would suggest a gang whose only job was to avenge such insults to women and children.
She clutched him closer. “Oh, Pierce. He thinks that you and I are lovers.”
He exhaled. “He was drunk, Camille. That was obvious. Others saw it all. They won’t take what he said as truth.”
But he saw the truth. Tonight he saw it.
“They’ll talk anyway. They’ll say horrible things.” She wiped her cheeks and pulled back to gaze into his eyes. “I’ve lived a different life. But I’m not…not what he said.”
Not my lover.
“I’m not.”
He lifted her chin and turned her head this way and that. She’d have a bruise, the mark of that man’s insult. Please god, might it be mild and temporary. “No, my darling. You’re not.”
