After the Wedding (The Worth Saga #2)(46)

Oh, no, no, no. She wasn’t feeling better. Her hands felt clammy; her whole body prickled with the awareness of his proximity.

“Maybe I can do it,” she said slowly. “Maybe. I can go back, if you want me too.”

He looked off over her shoulder, as if seeing something she could not, and then nodded once. “No.” He sighed. “My uncle asked me to pose as valet. I didn’t want to, but… Never mind my reasons. He shouldn’t have asked me, not after I said no the first time. And look what happened. I’m not going to be him. You said no; that should be enough. We just need a different plan, that’s all.”

He should be yelling at her, calling her a stupid girl. Anything but kindness. Camilla was horribly susceptible to kindness, and every inch of her soul was responding to him in silent entreaty.

“This affects the rest of our lives,” he pronounced. “We don’t need to fix it in five minutes.” He sighed, then shrugged. “Or even, I suppose, in five days.”

She exhaled.

He was almost talking to himself now. “No matter how swiftly we proceed, there are still elements of this business that will necessarily take time. We’ll need to obtain an affidavit from Mrs. Martin as evidence. Besides, I have some things I must attend to; I have already put them off for far too long. I need to go back to Harvil. We’re not resolving this tomorrow or even the next day, no matter what you do; it was foolish to think we could.”

Oh. No. A thread of panic reasserted itself. “You’re leaving.”

“Well, you do get a vote.” He smiled faintly. “I’d like to go to Harvil—I have business there. You may come along, if you wish; now that I think of it, this will be good for our case. We can introduce you to everyone there as someone who is not my wife. The more witnesses who say that we have not held ourselves out as married, the better it will be for us. And it will give us a chance to think of some possible avenues for proceeding that don’t leave you devastated.”

She didn’t say anything for a moment; she could hardly speak.

“We can always arrange for you to go somewhere else,” he said when the silence lingered. “This is difficult enough for both of us. I understand if you don’t want to spend more time in my vicinity.”

It was an all-too familiar feeling. Camilla, fool that she was, recognized the emotion that flared in her chest far too well. She’d always wanted to get love, and so she gave it too easily. At the proverbial drop of a hat.

She could almost laugh at herself. For God’s sake, Camilla. He hadn’t even needed to drop his.

He didn’t love her. He didn’t intend to love her; he didn’t want to love her.

It didn’t matter.

She inhaled, long and shuddering. “Yes,” she said. “I mean, no. No, your family property is perfectly acceptable. We’re not married, but we are tied to each other in a way, and what if I recalled something that might help us? We should be close enough to consult.”

He smiled.

“I’d have to send telegrams if we were apart.” She was joking, and it almost hurt to joke when her heart felt so fragile. “And somewhere along the way there’d be a Mrs. Beasley, and she might remember the whole thing. How embarrassing for us both.”

“I know you don’t want to look back,” he said more quietly. “I arrived at the tail end of your stay with Rector Miles. What I saw was dreadful. I can’t blame you for not wanting to look back.”

She shook her head.

“Sometimes you look back and it’s a wedding at gunpoint. Sometimes it’s lemon tarts. You’re a generous person, Camilla. You give a great deal. Give yourself time, and look back a little when it’s possible and maybe you’ll see that you’ve gotten more than you thought.”

He was just saying it out of self-preservation. He wanted her to get the account books; he was telling her to wait a few weeks until she felt better. She knew this was true.

And still, that praise made her heart thump. Generous. He thought her generous.

His smile flashed out, bright and merry, and Camilla gave up on herself. Hopeless; she was utterly hopeless.

She had fallen in love before, and it always hurt. This would be no different.

She’d come through worse. She’d survived the loss of her father, her brothers, her sisters…

Her sisters. She had mentioned her family twice, but hadn’t told him who her sisters were. She’d changed her name so she wouldn’t embarrass them.

Judith was a marchioness. Her youngest sister was fifteen now, and would likely be coming out soon.

Lady Theresa Worth had stayed with her family. She was getting all the gowns, all the love, that Camilla had not had. And Camilla loved the sister she hadn’t seen—the sister she could not let herself look back on—enough that she would leave her to those gowns and never disturb that.

If Camilla could survive not knowing the woman her sister had grown into, she could survive anything. She could even survive Adrian Hunter.

Camilla took a deep breath and did what she did best. She smiled and looked forward.





Chapter Thirteen





Lady Theresa Worth was not the sort of young lady who left anything to chance. The Dowager Marchioness of Ashford had told her that an acceptable gift for her sister’s birthday would be a commemorative embroidered cushion.