Dr. March arrived within the hour, limping a little as he came up the stairs. Camilla and Tinarose were watching him from the next flight up and saw him shake hands with Philip. “Thanks to your riding lessons,” he said, “I’m here in one piece, but, damnation, I wish you’d shown me the gallop. I’m shaken to bits.”
“A brandy, then?”
“Thanks, no. Not the sort of thing you want on your breath while delivering a baby. Keep it warm for me, though, for afterward. I’ll need it.”
“You anticipate difficulties?”
“She is nearly forty, you know. But I’m sure between myself and Nanny Mallow, all will be well.”
Philip sighed. “I only wish my brother were here. He had plenty of experience at this damned waiting.”
Dr. March clapped him on the shoulder and went into Lady LaCorte’s bedchamber.
Camilla had to all but pry Tinarose’s fingers off the balustrade supports. “What shall I do if anything happens to Mother?” she asked.
“Don’t worry. All will be well. It’s not as if she’s never had a baby before.” Camilla continued talking soothingly to her friend as she helped her rise. Telling her not to let her sisters see her concern seemed the best way to steady her nerves. By the time she sat down to help them with their dolls, she had herself in hand.
Camilla wanted to slip out in search of Philip, but having promised to see Tinarose through these difficult hours, she didn’t feel she could leave the nursery. However, after half an hour of pacing, of picking up books only to toss them aside, Tinarose took her a little apart from the others. “Go see Uncle Philip, Camilla. I’ll stay here.”
“Are you sure?”
She nodded. “I’m worried but not panicked. Come back as soon as you know anything, will you?”
When she entered the library, Philip gave her the tender smile that he seemed to keep for her alone. His cravat hung loose while his hair showed every sign of having been roughly handled. “How are the girls?”
‘Tinarose is nervous, but the younger girls don’t seem to be worried. They are too excited about having a baby in the house to think of anything else.”
“And how are you?” He drew her to his side in the shadows between the lights of two candles.
“Happy. I think she liked you. She wouldn’t have spoken so kindly about you if she hadn’t.”
With gentle fingers, he tilted her face so the candlelight fell on it. She tried to smile, but her lips trembled. “Camilla, dearest, can you tell me, do you think, why she frightens you so?”
“She ... She doesn’t. Of course she doesn’t. She’s my mother.”
“But ever since she entered this house, you’ve been so different,” he said, his voice so warm with concern and love that she felt her heart turn to melted butter. “You don’t smile; you don’t laugh; you’ve hardly uttered a word beyond common politeness. I can’t imagine why. Nothing has changed between us, unless I’ve hurt you in some way. If that’s the case, pray tell me so. I’ll make it right, Camilla.”
She caught his hand and kissed it, leaving a smear of ink against her lower lip. “Not that. I am still of the same mind and know that I always shall be.”
“Then why... ?” He pressed his lips to her temple. “Why such a change in you?”
“It’s true I am not so prone to talk in my mother’s company, but that is less her doing than yours.”
“Mine?”
“I have been spoiled here at the Manor, I think. From the first, you have laughed at my jokes—a very heady experience. Before, whenever I spoke with jocularity, people would ask me what I meant. You never have.”
She reached up and smoothed his tousled hair. ‘You have never seemed to find anything strange in my outspokenness, and so, I began to indulge my liberty to be more and more conversational.”
Then continue to do so, Camilla. You have every right to express yourself with whatever freedom you wish. Especially,” he said softly, “when expressing your feelings for me.”
He caressed her lower lip with his thumb, wiping away some of the ink. Her eyes drifted closed, and she rose up slightly, seeking his kiss. As with her words, he didn’t seem appalled by any boldness on her part but accepted her affections with a joy that made her feel whole.
“Are you certain you don’t want me to tell her? I can be diplomatic about it.”
Camilla laughed, the softly intimate laughter of a lover. “You’re a brave man, Philip, but that’s too great a task for even a knight in invincible armor to undertake to prove his love. I’ll go now, shall I?”
“No,” he said huskily, drawing her closer yet. “Not just now. I’ve been three days without the taste of you, and I’m not letting go so soon.”
Sometime later, adjusting her hair before a mirror, Camilla noticed her softly swollen lips and the bemused expression in her eyes. Her mother was no fool. As soon as she laid eyes on her, Mrs. Twainsbury would know what Camilla had been doing.
Philip escorted her to her room which Mrs. Twainsbury had suggested they share for this last night under the Manor roof. He smiled down into her eyes. “You blush more becomingly than any woman I’ve ever seen. To say your cheeks are like pink roses may be a cliché, but I’m dashed if it isn’t true.”
“Hush,” she said, for he’d spoken in normal tones. She glanced toward her own door while Philip looked down the hall.
“I’m glad you’re sleeping in the nursery tonight. This floor is apt to be bustling all night.”
Now Camilla looked toward Lady LaCorte’s chamber. “I shall,” she said. “But first...” She laid her hand on her doorknob. “Good night, my love. I shall be first down to breakfast tomorrow to tell you what has occurred.”
“I’m not tired,” he said, laying his hand over hers so that she could not turn the knob yet to leave him. “Come back to the library as soon as you have the word. I’ll be there until Evelyn comes down with the news of what he’s brought into this world.”
“If it’s a boy...”
“Can you bear to marry an ordinary ‘mister’?”
“Whatever you’ll be, it won’t be ordinary.” She received a swift kiss for that. “If I can come down again, I shall.”
“I can’t ask for more than that. ‘Til then.”
Camilla waited until he was out of sight before she entered. Mrs. Twainsbury bustled about in the midst of Camilla’s clothing, borrowed and personal. “Ah, there you are. What news of Lady LaCorte?”
“Nothing yet, Mama.” She picked up a pair of stout leather shoes and put them back in the wardrobe. “Those aren’t mine. Neither is that pink Indian muslin.”
“Are you certain?” Mrs. Twainsbury asked, holding up the thin nightdress. “To be sure, you had nothing in such a color when you left, but laundresses are so careless. They can’t seem to be taught not to mix other colors with white.”
“No, Mama. It’s something Lady LaCorte lent me. She’s been so kind. Everyone has been so kind. Especially Philip.”
“Sir Philip,” her mother corrected. “Remember it’s vulgar to call people by their first names unless they are particularly well known to you and have asked you to do so. Salting a conversation with the personal names of public or exalted figures is nothing more than fraud since it indicates a closer relationship than exists. Just because you have been on terms of some intimacy these last few weeks is no reason to drop the barriers of propriety. I’m sure he doesn’t call you Camilla behind your back.”
“He has asked me to call him Philip, Mama, and I hope he will always wish to call me by my name.” Though her mother was frowning at her, usually enough to set her a-quake, Camilla was still buoyed up from Philip’s evident admiration and love, as well as from his remarkably effective kisses. She felt a sudden ripple of joy from somewhere under her ribs at the memory, as if her heart danced.
“I hope you have not passed the line of what is pleasing,” Mrs. Twainsbury said, folding Camilla’s own nightdress with crisp little jerks. “Gentlemen are not to be trusted with young ladies fresh from the schoolroom.”
“I know I can trust Philip to protect me even from myself,” Camilla said in a defiant whisper, hoping she’d not be called upon to defend that statement with charts and graphs. “As for propriety, Mama, as you know, Philip has removed to Dr. March’s house while the Manor has no mistress capable of her duties. His designs toward me are entirely honorable. In short, he’s asked me to be his wife.”
“I beg your pardon?” Mrs. Twainsbury blinked as if she honestly hadn’t heard a word.
“Philip loves me and wants to marry me. I have accepted him.” Camilla breathed again. There, she’d gotten all of her message out without resorting, as she had feared, to mime to cover her tongue-tiedness.
Mrs. Twainsbury sat down on the bed, a clear infringement of her tribal laws. “I—I can’t fathom it,” she said. “You’re sure it’s marriage he’s offered?”
“He’s too much of a gentleman to have offered anything irregular.” Camilla felt the tension leave her neck and shoulders. Strange to say, it had been harder to dread the telling than to tell it. “I hope we may hear that you approve of this step, Mama.”
“Approve?” Mrs. Twainsbury appeared to be thinking of something else. “I never would have thought it of you of all people, Camilla.”
Worried again, Camilla spoke more quickly. “I realize he should have asked you properly for my hand, but it really has only been a very few days since the subject first arose. He’s such a good man, Mama. If only you could know him better, I’m sure you’d think so, too.”
“Of course, fate played a considerable part in this. You couldn’t have orchestrated Nanny’s accident; ‘twould be wrong, and you were miles away when it occurred. Yet to take such swift advantage of the situation in which you found yourself was really a stroke of genius that I had never expected lay within you. I never took you for such a downy one, Camilla.”
Downy? Genius? These were not terms her mother had ever used for her. Her adjectives were “bluestocking” and “Miss Clever” usually prefaced by “Don’t be such a”
“Who told you that the LaCorte fortune had passed to the younger son? And what a fortune! Sir Myron lived on his pay and prize money, but I’ve heard that they might have in the Bank of England as much as a hundred thousand pounds. A hundred thousand... yes.” She looked about her incredulously. “Yet they live with old pictures and old wallpaper in all their rooms. Even this coverlet is only silk on one side.”
“I don’t know anything about that,” Camilla said, wondering if she should fetch a vinaigrette or some hartshorn. Her mother seemed to be wandering a little in her thoughts. “Then you do approve, Mama?”
“Had you this plot in mind when you submitted with such a good grace to my sending you to Nanny’s? If I had but realized that Sir Philip was at home, I could have sent you here months ago. Heavens, you could already be settled as a LaCorte today. Well, there’s no use in repining over lost opportunities so long as you leap upon the next one.”
“Mama,” Camilla said, narrowing her eyes. “Are you saying that you think I—I set my cap for Sir Philip because he’s wealthy?”
“Of course, it would never do to admit such a thing outside of these walls.” She clasped her hands together and raised her eyes ecstatically toward heaven. “I thought I did well to marry your sister off so creditably. When your brother-in-law offered for Linnet, I counted it a personal triumph. Sir John Fuster’s son was the height of my ambition for you, you know. You both being so very blue. But this! My dear child, you may well find yourself presented at Court.”
“I hadn’t given that any thought.”
“No, how should you? You’ve had quite enough to plan here.” She laughed and rose. Embracing her daughter about the shoulders, she kissed her. “Now you must be cautious. Be advised by me.”
“Mama, I assure you that I did not chase Philip. I never thought about money or title in connection with him. He is the man I love, so greatly, so completely. I should love him if he were a pauper.” Her voice quavered under the stress of her feelings, but her mother didn’t seem to understand.
“Very wise of you to say so, my dear. There’s nothing more distasteful than an openly mercenary young girl.”
“But it’s true.”
Mrs. Twainsbury gave her light laugh. “Let us hope you need never be put to the test. Marry him if he were a pauper—as if I should ever permit that. No, my dear. Disguise your intentions under the name of ‘love’ if you feel it will save your conscience. I am proud of you.”
Camilla had often wished to hear her mother proclaim pride for her. Usually she deflected compliments from others on Camilla’s sewing or deportment or music with a “She may improve if she applies herself” or some other dismissive phrase. Yet to be praised for a perceived hypocrisy was horribly distasteful. Camilla wondered if she knew her mother at all. Certainly the headstrong Lolly Feldon who had made a runaway match, as Nanny Mallow had told her, was long since submerged in the calculating Mrs. Twainsbury. Understanding that her mother’s worries were caused by a ne’er-do-well husband and the strains of raising two daughters creditably on next to no money did not reconcile Camilla to her mother’s point of view.
She sat and listened to her mother talk about the glittering future Camilla would have. “But why are you still packing, Mama?”
“We cannot remain here any longer. Had I known Lady LaCorte was about to commence on her labor, I should have left this afternoon. Remaining as a guest in a house where there is to be a newborn infant is beyond the line of pleasing. If you were already married to Sir Philip, that would be a different matter. But as I am a stranger and your engagement is not yet given out, of course we shall depart in the morning.”
“I see. Yes, of course.”
“Speaking of engagements, have you a ring as yet?”
“No, we have not thought of such things.”
“I suppose he won’t be able to acquire any family pieces until after Lady LaCorte is recovered.”
“I suppose not. Mama, may I leave you? I promised Tinarose I’d remain with her.”
“Of course, my child. Come, kiss me.” Mrs. Twainsbury patted Camilla’s cheek. “Don’t look so distressed at a little plain speaking. I am, indeed, most proud of you.”
“Thank you, but you have no cause.”
* * * *
The hours swept past in the silent house. The governess, returning with hot cocoa, reported that a vigil was being held in the servants’ hall. Camilla tramped between nursery and library until the little girls fell asleep. Then she and Tinarose passed the time in the library playing piquet while Philip worked on his book. None of them wanted to go to bed, although Mrs. Twainsbury had retired after her wearying day of travel. No word came from the bedroom on the floor above.
Midnight passed, then one. Though Tinarose resisted going to bed, Camilla made her comfortable on the sofa, laying her large Norwich shawl over the girl. Philip threw another log onto the fire, then beckoned to Camilla. She smoothed Tinarose’s forehead. “Try to sleep a little. I’ll wake you the instant there’s word.”
“You’re very good to me, ‘Aunt’ Camilla,” Tinarose said with a hint of her mischievous smile.
“Call me that again and we shall pull caps.” Camilla squeezed her hand and left her to reflection and sleep.
“Did you tell your mother?” Philip asked in an eager whisper.
“Yes. She reacted most oddly but seemed pleased.”
“Oddly?”
“Yes. I shan’t tell you how; it would flatter your vanity too much.” She knew him well enough to know that he’d find her mother’s conclusions amusing, but she didn’t want to expose how little her mother knew her.
“But she consents?” he asked, putting his arm about her and encouraging her to put her head on his shoulder.
“I think so. She certainly seemed to like the idea of my marrying you. I wish, though, that she didn’t wish to leave in the morning. I would like you two to become better acquainted.”
“You’re still leaving in the morning?”
“She feels, and rightly, that Lady LaCorte will have enough on her plate without adding guests, one of whom is perfectly unknown to her. If we were already married ...” His arm tightened involuntarily, and she caught her breath at the look in his eyes.
“A pity one can’t simply wake up the local parson and be married at once, for, I swear, I’d marry you tonight if I could.”
She could only lean against him, enjoying the strength of his arms and his nearness. After a moment, she looked up into his eyes. “How goes the book?”
Between the lateness of the hour, the low light, and his difficult handwriting, Camilla found it necessary to rest her eyes. Letting her head fall back against the wing of the chair by the fire, she closed her eyes for only a second. When she opened them, the fire had dwindled to almost nothing. Disoriented, she struggled up, her hand to her head. “Philip?”
The knock that had awakened her was repeated. Over on the sofa, Tinarose raised herself on her elbow, blinking. “Is it morning?”
“Come in,” Camilla called.
Dr. March poked his head in. Water droplets sparkled like silver sequins in his bright hair. His shirt was open, waistcoat and cravat discarded during the night, the sleeves rolled back on his strong forearms. “Is Miss LaCorte here? Her mother is calling for her.”
“Mama?” Tinarose swung her feet to the floor, the shawl falling away unheeded. “Is she... all right?”
“Of course,” he said, unconsciously holding out his hand to her. She took it, her eyes focusing on his face, every thought concentrated on the patient upstairs. “She’s perfectly well. Fourth children don’t take very long as a rule.”
“But it’s been hours!”
“Only six. It’s three o’clock in the morning.”
“I must go at once,” Tinarose said. Though she turned to go, she pressed his hand between hers for one grateful instant. “Thank you, Dr. March. Thank you.”
When she rushed away, he wheeled as if to follow her, his hand still outstretched as though to draw her back again. Then, he let it fall, but his gaze stayed with her until Camilla spoke.
“You look worn to a shadow, sir. A glass of something?”
“Philip promised me a glass of brandy. Where is he?”
“Here.” His voice came from the hall. He came in, bearing three cups on a tray. ‘I heard my sister-in-law’s maid come down some few minutes ago and thought the girls would like something to wake them up, but I see I’m too late.”
“Not for me. What’s that?”
“Cocoa but there’s brandy in the library.”
“Cocoa sounds good, though I don’t recommend it as a rule. Too rich for the average constitution.” When he tasted Mrs. Lamsard’s cocoa, however, he seemed to forget his objections. He licked at the chocolate mustache left on his upper lip and stared with disbelief into the depths of the cup. “Food of the Gods,” he muttered.
“Doctor,” Camilla began, curious because no one else seemed to be. “Tell me about the baby.”
“The baby?” he repeated, still bemused by what he was drinking. “Oh, perfectly healthy. Not too large and very lusty. No doubt you’ll hear crying in the night. Lungs like a bellows.”
“Thank God,” Philip said.
‘Ties, indeed,” Camilla said. “Lady LaCorte must be so happy to be safely delivered.”
“Nanny Mallow was a great help when her ladyship seemed to lose heart about halfway through the proceedings.”
A rap at the door made them all look up. “Mama,” Camilla said. “I’m sorry you were awakened.”
“It’s unimportant. I understand I am to congratulate you, Sir Philip, on the addition to your family.”
Thank you, Mrs. Twainsbury. But I’m not Sir Philip any longer. I’ve been replaced, thankfully, by young Sir Myron Thomas LaCorte, born this day, fourteen December, year of our Lord 1817. Long life to him.”
“Amen,” Camilla and the doctor said and clinked their cups together. Mrs. Twainsbury said nothing.