Someone to Hold

What was the word his mind was searching for? Gorgeous? She was hardly that.

Stunning.

That was it. She looked stunning, and he was feeling a bit stunned. She made prettiness seem bland.

Her laughter quickly died, however. “You must have gathered enough information about me to paint a dozen pictures,” she said, sounding suddenly cross. “I wish you would paint that infernal portrait and be done with it.”

“So that you can be rid of me?” he said. “Alas, you would not be that even if I were ready to paint you tonight. We would still be sharing the schoolroom two afternoons each week. But I am not ready. The more I learn of you, the more I realize I do not know you at all. And, by your own admission, you do not know yourself either.”

She got abruptly to her feet, all chilly formality again. “The Sally Lunn was delicious,” she said, “and the tea was hot and strong, as I like it. Thank you for bringing me here, Mr. Cunningham. It was good of you. But it is time to return . . . home. I have some unpacking to do and a letter to read.”

All of which might fill half an hour if she dawdled. Unless, that was, the bags she had spoken of were actually a couple of hefty trunks. It was altogether possible, he supposed.

She swept from the tearoom ahead of him, seemingly unaware again of the eyes that followed her and of the people who leaned out of her way as she passed them. She stood on the pavement waiting for him while he paid the bill.

“We are going the same way,” he said when she would have taken her leave of him and set out alone. “I have to cross the Pulteney Bridge to get home.”

She nodded curtly and set off at a brisk pace. But after a minute, she spoke. “All our talk has been of me,” she said as he fell into step beside her, “as, no doubt, you intended. But what of you, Mr. Cunningham? Do you resent my moving into the room that was Anastasia’s?”

The question took him by surprise, though he had resented it. “Why should I?” he asked her. “She no longer needs it.”

“I believe you love her,” she said. “I think that unlike me, you do believe in romantic love. Am I right?”

“That I believe in love?” he said. “Yes, I do. That I love Anna? Wrong tense, Miss Westcott. She is a married lady and I respect the bonds of marriage. And perhaps it was never romantic love I felt for her anyway. She assured me the only time I asked her to marry me, a few years ago, that the love we felt for each other was like that of siblings. Neither of us had a family of our own, but we grew up here together and were virtually inseparable. I daresay she was right. And I am very glad now she did not marry me. I would have been tangled up with what happened to her recently, and I would have hated that.”

“Yet you could have lived a life of luxury as her husband,” she said.

“Living in luxury is not everything,” he said.

“How do you know that,” she asked him, “unless you have tried it?”

“Do you miss it?” he asked her.

She considered her answer as they crossed the abbey yard and made their way parallel to the river toward Northumberland Place. “Yes,” she said. “I would be lying if I said I did not. Oh, I know what you are probably about to say. I could continue to live in luxury with my grandmother. And I know I could be independently wealthy if I agreed to allow Anastasia to share one-quarter of her fortune with me. I do not expect you to understand why I cannot accept either. I am not sure I understand it myself.”

But strangely, he was beginning to. “I think it is because you agree with me, Miss Westcott,” he said, “that living in luxury is not everything. And I think it is because the men in your life have been singularly cruel to you.”

“Men?” she asked.

“Your father,” he said. “Your betrothed.”

“It is fortunate, then, in the case of my former betrothed,” she said, turning her face away, “that I do not believe in love. I might have had my heart broken if I did.”

She kept her face averted for the rest of the way, as though she found everything on the other side of her fascinating to behold. And Joel realized something else about Miss Camille Westcott. She had had her heart broken—by a man she had thought perfect, when in reality he was a cad of the first order, just as her father had been. It was only amazing she was still on her feet and not raving somewhere in an insane asylum.

They took their leave of each other when they came to the end of Northumberland Place, though she still did not look fully at him before turning to walk with firm steps toward the orphanage. Joel watched her go, half expecting she would lift a hand to wipe a tear from her cheek. She did not do so. Perhaps she felt his eyes on her back.

By God, he thought, she was a fascinating person. She was going to take some knowing, some understanding. For the first time in a long while he began to doubt his artistic abilities. How would he ever get her right? And what would he do if he never could? Paint her anyway?

. . . if you do get to know me, please let me know what you discover. I have no idea who I am.

He smiled to himself at the remembered words as she turned in at the orphanage doors and he went on his way. He had invited Edgar Stephens to share a meal with him tonight, and he was to do the cooking. And he had promised to call upon Edwina later. Yet all he really wanted to do, he realized, was shut himself up in his studio, grab paper and charcoal, and start sketching before some of his fleeting impressions of Miss Camille Westcott were no longer retrievable from that part of his memory that produced some of his best work.