After the Wedding (The Worth Saga #2)(85)

But even if Judith wanted nothing to do with Camilla, that too was useful. She could make a fuss until Judith gave in.

Camilla exhaled.

Camilla didn’t need anyone to love her—she’d done without it long enough that she knew she could make do. Hope had given rise to certainty—someday, some way, she would have it.

Camilla needed someone powerful.

She had someone powerful.

She crept out of the room before she even quite knew what she was thinking, down the stairs, and found paper and a pen in an office on the ground floor.

My dear Adrian, she wrote.

I refuse to accept the outcome that we have been given. I refuse to accept that we have no choice.

I am going to get our choice back by the means available to us. You can find me at my sister’s, if you wish; your brother will have the direction.

Your friendship has been the greatest gift that I could have known. I hope that even after we are separated, we are able to continue our acquaintance.

If I had been given the chance to choose your friendship from the start, I would choose you again—and again—and again. I would choose everything about you except the one thing I have been given, which is a you who did not choose me.

Yours, most truly,

Cam

She couldn’t find the blotting paper in the dark—not without upending the desk drawer and risking detection. Instead, she watched the extra ink bead, then dissipate into dark, spidery stains on her letter. She sat at the desk and watched the letter, making excuse after excuse why she should forget this all.

She sat thinking until the clock struck four in the morning.

There would be an early train to London; there was no more time to delay. She knew what she wanted; she just had to go get it before she lost her nerve. Camilla found her cloak on the hook in the wardrobe by the hall. She still had some coins left from the money he had once given her in her pocket.

But now, now that she was pulling the fabric about her, now that she had written the letter, now…

She didn’t want to leave. She wanted to stay here, to pretend that she’d never had the idea. She wanted to choose him in truth. She loved him; she didn’t want to leave.

Her eyes stung.

But no. There were things she wanted more.

Her chin went up. It was time to go, before he awoke. Before she lost her nerve.

She slipped out the front door, closing it gently behind her.

The moment her feet touched the cold cobblestones, she realized her mistake—in her haste, she’d left her shoes behind.

Or maybe, perhaps, she hadn’t truly forgotten.

Maybe she’d wanted to go back. Maybe she’d left them behind as a sign of cowardice, forcing herself to let go of a choice she knew she had to make.

Camilla was not going to be a coward.

Her chin went in the air, and she took another step forward. Thousands went without shoes every day. She could make do.

Another step, and another, and with every step, the cold bit into the soles of her feet.

It didn’t matter. None of it mattered. She’d be in London by morning, and she didn’t need shoes for what she was going to do.





Chapter Twenty-Three





The speed of modern transport meant that it was just past seven in the morning, with the sun already beating down oppressively overhead, when Camilla arrived in London. The price of the ticket had taken most of her reserve funds; what remained was not enough to hire transportation of any stripe to the Mayfair direction given in Theresa’s letter.

Or, for that matter, to purchase a pair of shoes.

She’d walked only to the train station, and then off the train—not so far to go, even without shoes, she had thought. A mere half-mile. She’d walked a hundred times that with shoes that were falling apart. Her feet almost never got cold; how bad could it be?

It turned out that even the least successful shoe was a vast improvement over pavement on bare skin.

After quick consultation with three people—one of whom refused to speak to her, with a pointed sniff at her bare feet, and one of whom propositioned her rather than answer her questions—she finally was told how best to proceed to her sister’s home.

It was several miles more.

Her bare feet didn’t draw quite as much attention in the near vicinity of Paddington. Still, she made the acquaintance of every sharp stone between Paddington Station and Mayfair. None of it hurt as much as the deep, bruising ache in her heart. He hadn’t chosen her.

The further she went, the more her feet hurt, and the more people glanced down and then up, a sneer on their faces. She really didn’t belong here. She wanted nothing more than to stop, to sit down, to give her soles the rest they screamed to have.

But the houses around her grew nice, then comfortable, until finally they were downright imposing. There could be no stopping. She’d be told to leave the minute she looked like she didn’t know where she was going.

It took her hours to traverse the distance. By the time she arrived, she was half-limping. Still, when she finally stood in front of the white stone building where Theresa had directed her—large and imposing, four stories high, flowers in the windows—she stopped and almost wished she could go back.

Her heart was beating fast, so fast. What if Theresa had been wrong? What if it was a lie? Reality had played cruel tricks on her over the years. Her whole body ached with the cruelty of the last one.