Someone to Hold

But he had not denied it, she noticed.

“She married Avery, yes.” She watched him closely. “Does her choice of husband rankle? He is so very . . . elegant. Almost effete. And oh so indolent.” And somehow a bit dangerous, though she had never quite understood that impression she had always had of him. “And very rich. Have you met him?”

“Yes,” he said. “I dined with them at the Royal York Hotel when they came through Bath shortly after their marriage. I believe Anna is happy. I believe the Duke of Netherby is too. Did you come here specifically to teach rather than to another school because of Anna? Out of curiosity perhaps to discover something about the sister you did not know you had until recently?”

“Half sister,” she said. “I could tell you to mind your own business. Instead I will say that if I were curious about her, I would speak with her.”

He got abruptly to his feet, crossed the room to remove the paintings from the easels and stand them against the wall, and began to fold and put away the easels while Camille watched him.

“But you have not done so, have you?” he said after a minute or two of more silence.

How did he know that? Did they communicate, he and Anastasia? Or had she told him when she was in Bath with Avery? “She is a duchess,” she said, “and I am nobody. It would not be appropriate for me to speak with her.” Her words sounded ridiculous as soon as she had spoken them, but they could not be recalled.

He set one folded easel against another and turned his head to look at her over his shoulder. “Self-pity is not an attractive trait, Miss Westcott,” he said.

“Self-pity?” She lifted her chin and glared back at him. “I thought it was a case of facing reality, Mr. Cunningham.”

“Then you thought wrong,” he said. “It is self-pity, pure and simple. Anna would have opened her arms—would still do so—to welcome you as a sister, and never mind the half relationship. She would share her fortune with you and your brother and sister with the greatest gladness. But you would not condescend to have any dealings with someone who grew up in an orphanage, would you? And you would not be condescended to either. You would rather starve. Yet you seem to feel this need to step into her shoes to discover whether they will fit or pinch your toes.”

She glared at him in shock and dislike, nostrils flared. “You presume to know a great deal about me, Mr. Cunningham,” she said, “and about my dealings with Anastasia— or lack of dealings. She has obviously been remarkably loose-lipped.” It was mortifying, to say the least, that he knew so much.

“I am her family,” he said. He grabbed another easel and folded it none too gently. “Family members confide in one another, especially when they are hurt or rejected by those to whom they have reached out in friendship. But I apologize for poking my nose in where it does not belong. You have every right to be annoyed. I will finish putting things away here. You must be wishing to be on your way home.”

She was sorry he had apologized. The hurt remained and she did not want to forgive. Self-pity is not an attractive trait.

“What makes you think, Mr. Cunningham,” she said to his back, “that I want to be attractive to you?”

He paused, the easel still in his hands, and turned his head again. At first he looked blank, and then he grinned slowly and something uncomfortable happened to her knees.

“I am quite sure it is the very last thing you wish to be,” he said.

Or can be, his words seemed to imply. But he was perfectly correct. She did not want to be attractive to any man. The very idea! Least of all did she want to attract the art teacher with his slovenly appearance and wicked, insolent grin and his dark, bold eyes, which seemed to see through to the back of her skull and the depths of her soul. He somehow represented chaos, and her life had always been characterized by order.

And where had that got her, pray?

She turned, drew on her bonnet and gloves, took up her reticule, and cast one last despairing look at the mess she was leaving behind in the form of a pretend shop. He did not rush to open the door for her—but why should he? When she had opened it herself and was passing through it, however, his voice detained her.

“For what it is worth,” he said, “I believe it was maybe a fortunate day for the children when you decided to come here, Miss Westcott. You are a gifted teacher. Your ideas for today and tomorrow are little short of brilliant. They teach a number of skills at a number of levels, yet the children believe they are having nothing but fun.”

Camille did not look back. She did not thank him either—she was not even sure for a moment that he was not making fun of her. She closed the door quietly behind her and set off on the long, steep trek up to her grandmother’s house. She felt a bit like weeping. But there were so many possible causes of such a strange feeling—she never wept, just as she never fainted—that she merely shrugged the whole thing off, pressed her lips together, and lengthened her stride.

She just hoped the predominant cause of the tears she was holding back was not self-pity. How dared he accuse her of that—just when she had stepped out of her misery to do something?

Had he loved Anastasia? Did he still?

It was absolutely none of her business. Or of any interest to her.

The very idea.

And so she thought of little else all the way home.

Four

When Camille arrived home, hot and breathless and with a stitch in her side, her grandmother was in the drawing room sipping her tea while Abigail was on her feet, already pouring a cup for her sister and fairly bursting with news.