Candace Camp - Indiscreet

Camilla could not control the irritation that flashed over her features. “I have no idea what’s going on,” she whispered back, baring her teeth in what she hoped would pass for a smile. “I know nothing about this.”

Benedict’s eyes told her that he would like to pursue the point further, but by that time Aunt Lydia was upon them. She took Camilla’s hands in hers, squeezing them significantly. “I know you wanted me to keep the news a secret, but I was simply so elated when I received your letter that I could not resist telling everyone the news. Please say you will forgive me.”

“Yes. Certainly.” Camilla had recovered her poise and her senses well enough to know that she had no choice but to play along with her aunt’s outrageous statements.

“So unexpected,” Aunt Beryl put in, and Camilla could feel Aunt Beryl’s eyes boring into her.

She forced herself to meet her other aunt’s gaze, hoping that she looked adequately calm and in control. “Yes, wasn’t it?”

Lydia went on, “I am sure you must be very tired after your journey.” Squinting at Camilla, she leaned closer to her and whispered, “My dear, is that mud on your neck?”

Camilla put a hand to her neck. “Yes, I am rather tired,” she agreed, seizing on the opportunity to get out of this room and be alone with her aunt. “My—our coachman got lost.”

“How dreadful. You must go up to your room and rest.” Lydia took her arm, starting toward the door, but Aunt Beryl’s voice stopped her.

“Now, now, Lydia,” Aunt Beryl said in a jovial tone. “We won’t allow you to steal Camilla away like that. Will we, girls? We are simply agog to hear all the details of the wedding. It isn’t often that something so…unexpected happens. And you must meet Mr. Oglesby and Mr. Thorne.”

“What? Who?” Lydia asked vaguely, then turned toward the two young men whom Camilla did not recognize. “Oh, yes, of course.” She led Camilla and Benedict toward the mantel, where Cousin Bertram and the two young men stood.

Camilla followed her reluctantly. She had no desire to have to make polite chitchat with strangers. All she wanted was to get her featherbrained aunt alone and find out why she had pushed this outrageous pretense on Camilla.

But Aunt Lydia was rushing on, saying, “Camilla, Mr. Lassiter, this is Edmund Thorne, a, ah, friend of mine from London. He has been so kind as to visit us the past few weeks.”

Mr. Thorne was a stocky young man with a starched cravat so high that he looked as if it might choke him at any moment. His brown hair was arranged in seemingly careless curls that Camilla suspected he had spent hours getting just so.

He bowed deeply over her hand, saying, “Fair Diana—for Aphrodite, you see, can be no other than Her Ladyship.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“But no.” He put out a hand dramatically, as if to stop something. His other hand went to his brow. “Ah, yes, I see it. But of course—the fair Persephone. I feel the muse upon me. Lady Marbridge is Demeter, so filled with joy at seeing her daughter again at last—though, of course, no one could believe that Her Ladyship is old enough to be your mother. More a sister.”

Beside her, Benedict made an odd strangling noise, which he turned into a cough. Cousin Bertram raised his quizzing glass and studied Mr. Thorne.

“Really, Mr. Thorne,” Bertram said dryly. “They would hardly be Demeter and Persephone then, would they?”

“But such a nice thought, Mr. Thorne,” Lydia assured him kindly. Turning to Camilla and Benedict, she added, “Mr. Thorne is a poet, you see.”

“Ah.” Benedict nodded. “No doubt that explains it.”

“Allow me to introduce Mr. Terence Oglesby,” Cousin Bertram began, clearly dismissing the boring subject of Edmund Thorne.

Cousin Bertram was a dandy, and it showed. From the top of his hair, coiffed in a style known as Windswept, down to his tasseled boots, rumored to be polished in a special blend of champagne and bootblack, he was the very picture of the man of high fashion. While he did not indulge in the most excessive of styles, such as enormous boutonnieres in his lapel or coats so padded at the shoulders and so nipped in at the waist that his silhouette resembled that of a wasp more than a man’s, it was obvious that he considered his clothes as his art. It took him almost two hours in the morning to dress, for he often used as many as ten fresh cravats before he had one arranged to his liking, and the fit of his coats was so nice that it took his valet, as well as his butler, to ease him into it. Indeed, it was said about one of his coats that his valet had to slit it partway up the back to get him out and sew him back up in it when he put it on.

His companion was dressed in similar finery. However, Terence Oglesby obviously had no need of fine accoutrements in order to be noticed. He was, quite simply, the handsomest man that Camilla had ever seen. Everything about him was golden—his skin, his hair, even the pale sherry-brown of his eyes—and his broad-shouldered, slim-hipped figure required no enhancement from his clothes. He smiled now at Camilla and bowed over her hand, and Camilla had little doubt that he had entrée into many of the best houses of London.

“Have you been here long?” Camilla inquired politely.

Oglesby merely smiled and turned toward Cousin Bertram, who answered, “Oh, a few weeks now. London’s gotten dreadfully boring, full of hungry mamas pushing their daughters on the Marriage Mart. So Terence and I decided to rusticate for a while.”

Knowing that Bertram lived to be seen, and thrived in the social scene of London, Camilla had grave doubts about the truthfulness of his explanation. The truth more probably was that his notoriously tightfisted father had cut off his allowance after he plunged too deep at cards or got himself far in debt to the moneylenders.

Accurately reading the speculation in Camilla’s eyes, Cousin Bertram sent her a wink, as though to confirm her suspicions.

“Now, stop monopolizing your cousin, Bertie,” Aunt Beryl scolded playfully, her mouth stretching in the grimace that she employed as a smile. “Come over here, Camilla. And bring Mr. Lassiter. We want to hear all the details of the wedding. Don’t we, girls?”

Camilla hesitated, her heart sinking. There was a glint in her aunt’s eyes that told Camilla the woman did not believe that she was married. She could understand why. She knew that she must have looked as if she had been slapped in the face when Lydia called Benedict her husband. What had Lydia been thinking of? Now Aunt Beryl was going to quiz her for all the details of a wedding that she knew nothing about, and Camilla could not imagine how she was going to invent them without tripping herself up.

Much to her surprise and relief, Benedict reached out an imperious hand and took her arm, stopping her. “No, my dear. I am afraid I must exercise a husband’s right and not allow you to indulge in a cozy gossip with your cousins this evening. You are much too tired.”

Camilla turned to him, gaping. He had spoken in the tone of one used to command, and there was on his face a haughty look that brooked no denial. He appeared for all the world as if he were the one born to generations of Earls, rather than she. He turned toward Aunt Beryl with an expression of hauteur and faint condescension that was precisely the attitude that would impress and quell her, no matter how much it might make her bristle with indignation.

“Mrs. Elliot, I look forward to talking with you tomorrow. But right now I must insist that we retire. Poor Camilla has had a very tiring day, I’m afraid—the exigencies of traveling, you know—and I fear that her constitution is far more delicate than she would like us to believe. No doubt she would, if left to her own devices, weary herself in satisfying your curiosity. Fortunately, she now has a husband to take care of her. And I must insist that she retire for the night.”