Impulse (14 page)

“It's over,” she said, her voice harsh. “It doesn't matter now.” She turned and walked out of the room, closing the door behind her.

A
S
C
AM'S STRENGTH
returned, the doctor allowed him to go into the garden to sit for several hours each day, for he was too restless to keep cooped up in his room. He was getting better, although his arm still gave him some pain. Angela sat with him, reading.

One afternoon, as they were seated in the garden, there was the crunch of carriage wheels on the graveled drive, and a few minutes later, a stick-thin woman in a dark dress, quite plain but obviously elegantly cut and sewn, was led by the butler out of the house and into the garden toward them. She was followed by a short man as round as she was straight-up-and-down. He carried a carpetbag in one hand and several large flat books under the other arm. Angela and Cam watched the odd pair approach with curiosity.

“Mrs. Hester,” the butler announced gravely. “And her assistant. I understand you were expecting them, my lady?”

Angela's brows rose. “I was? Excuse me…my poor memory, you see…” Angela looked inquiringly at the woman. “
I
was expecting them,” Cam said, intervening. “I am sorry, Mrs. Hester. I'm afraid that recent events had tossed the date of your appointment completely out of my head. I neglected to inform my wife.”

“Perfectly understandable, sir,” the woman said
primly. “I have been told that you met with an unfortunate accident.”

“Yes. But all is well now, and your visit could not come at a better time. I am afraid my wife and I are growing quite bored with ourselves.”

Angela, who had turned her penetrating gaze on Cam, now asked in a warning voice, “Neglected to inform me of what?”

“Of Mrs. Hester's visit, of course. I contacted her some days ago, or rather, I had Jason do so. Mrs. Hester is a dressmaker in York, and she agreed to come here to fit you…to save you the trouble, you see, of going into York.”

“Dressmaker?” Angela stared at him in astonishment. “Are you serious? You have brought a dressmaker all the way out here? To make me some new clothes?”

“Yes.”

“But—but I have clothes. I don't need any.”

Cam cocked one disbelieving eyebrow, and his gaze flitted briefly to her somber brown dress, even plainer than that of the dressmaker.

Angela colored a little. “I mean, there is no need—I go out so little. We rarely even receive guests here, Mama and Grandmama and I live so retired.”

“Ah, but surely that will change now that you are married,” Cam replied smoothly.

“But it is hardly worth spending money on.”

“Dressing my wife in the style befitting her position? I would say it is most definitely worth it.”

“If my lady would care to look.” Mrs. Hester made a gesture toward the little man, who sprang forward, holding out one of the large volumes, opened flat, to Angela. It was a fashion book, full of drawings of all
sorts of dresses, from plain traveling dresses to elegant evening gowns.

“They're lovely,” Angela admitted, beginning to thumb through the pages. She could not deny the appeal of the clothes on the pages before her. She had once dressed in rich materials and jewel-like colors. Even during all the years with Dunstan, though her life might have been hell, her clothes had been elegant. She had left them all behind, though, when she fled Dunstan, and later, she had even burned the set of clothes she had worn when she escaped. At Bridbury, she had kept her wardrobe to a bare minimum, and she made sure that all her dresses were of the plainest styles and darkest colors. The last thing she wanted was to draw attention to herself in any way. Yet, she could not help but respond to the beauty of the drawings before her.

“I also brought several samples of materials,” Mrs. Hester went on. “Mr. Pettigrew wrote that you had several dresses in mind.”

“Well, ah, I…”

“Yes,” Cam answered for her. “Several day dresses, and some nicer gowns for evenings, of course.”

“But, Cam, we never entertain.”

“Well, you will have to do some entertaining, my dear. Everyone will be expecting some sort of ball, now that you've gotten married.”

He was right about that, though Angela had managed to ignore the situation until now. She glanced back at the pages with some trepidation.

“Not an entire wardrobe, of course,” Cam went on. “I imagine you will purchase more gowns when we go to London, for I will need to go there on business in a few weeks. But in the meantime, you need some dresses for here.”

“Cam, I'm not sure…”

However, he overrode her objections and hesitations, and Angela found herself thumbing through the books and the swatches of material with more and more interest. She felt an almost physical longing at the sight of an emerald-green velvet, and there was a peacock-blue silk that beckoned her, as well. Cam, noting her interest, insisted that she get both of them, and on his own added a rich gold satin, which Angela was sure she would never have occasion to wear. By the time they were through, she had picked out so many things that she felt guilty at accepting them all. Mrs. Hester, however, allowed her no time for worrying about that, but hustled her inside for the fittings, with Kate assisting her.

It was exciting, if a little scary, being fitted for beautiful clothes once again, and when Angela came down to dinner that evening, there was an unaccustomed sparkle to her eye and a faint flush in her cheeks. It was Cam's first time to leave his room for a meal, and his gaze lingered on Angela's face appreciatively. The meal passed pleasantly, the conversation light and amusing. Cam returned to his room almost reluctantly.

Later, when Angela came back to her bedroom and was sitting before the vanity, taking down her hair, Cam came to the open doorway between their rooms and stood, lounging against the doorjamb, watching her. While she had been nursing him, Angela had become used to leaving the connecting door between their rooms open so that she would be able to hear him if he needed anything during the night. Even though he had gotten well enough that he was no longer in need of such nightly watching-over, she had not started closing and locking the door again.

“Cam!” It startled her a little to see him there, and
she dropped the hairpins she was holding. She swung around to face him. “Did you need something?”

He shook his head. “No. I am fine. Feeling better than I have in days.”

Angela smiled a little uncertainly. Why was he here, then? What did he want? Her stomach tightened.

“Go ahead.” He nodded toward the vanity mirror. “Finish what you were doing. Don't let me stop you.”

She turned back and began to take out the remaining pins from her hair, bending her head forward so that she could not see Cam in the mirror. But she could not keep her head down forever, and when she had pulled out all the pins, and her hair fell down in heavy curls, she had to look up, shoving the mass of hair back. Her eyes met Cam's in the mirror. He was looking at her with a glittering intensity. Angela's mouth went dry, and her hand tightened into a fist. Hastily she picked up a brush and began to run it through her hair, tugging at the wayward curls that only seemed to tangle under her forceful brushing. She winced as the brush jerked her scalp.

“Here, wait. Gently,” Cam said, coming forward and taking the brush from her hand. “You are too impatient.”

“I hate the way it curls,” she responded mechanically, tightening all over at his nearness.

“Then leave the task to someone who appreciates it,” he retorted, smiling down at her. He lifted the heavy bulk of her hair and began to slowly, carefully brush through the ends of it. He took his time and was gentle, untangling it from the bottom up. Angela wondered what other woman's hair he had brushed to know how to do it so well.

“You certainly are an expert at this,” she remarked tartly.

Cam's smile turned mischievous, and his eyes met hers in the mirror. “Jealous?”

“Of course not.” But Angela realized with some dismay that she was, at least a little. She had loved him with all her being once, and he had loved her. She did not like to think of him giving that love to any other woman.

“I used to do this for my mother when I was little. She would get so tired, sewing all day and into the night, trying to make enough money for us to live. She would sit there squinting by the light of the oil lamp, and by the time she went to bed, there would be grooves along her forehead, her neck and shoulders would be stiff, and she would have a terrible headache. She used to like me to rub her shoulders and brush out her hair. It took away the headache.”

“That was very kind of you.”

He shrugged. “I knew that she was doing the work to keep us alive. It seemed little enough for me to do.”

The movement of the brush through her hair was rhythmic and soothing, yet Angela could not relax and enjoy the sensation. It was too intimate, too sensual. She remained stiff, casting about in her mind for something to say.

“What was your father like?” she asked after a moment. “I don't remember you ever talking about him.”

Cam's face tightened, and he unintentionally jerked the brush a little, tugging at her scalp. “I never knew him.”

“What happened to him?”

“I don't know.”

Angela stared at him. “You don't know?”

He shook his head, gazing steadfastly at her hair as he brushed it, not at her face. “No. I know nothing about him.”

“But how can that be? Didn't your mother ever tell you anything? Didn't you ever ask about him? Weren't you curious?”

He let out a brief, harsh chuckle. “Yes, I was curious. I asked her about him many times when I was young. She would never answer my questions. She would say it was better for me not to know. As I got older, I could see how much it pained her to talk about him, and so, finally, I gave up asking about him. I don't know who he was or where he lived or, well, anything.” He paused, then added in a flat voice, “That's one reason why I think I'm illegitimate.”

“What?” Angela turned to him, startled, causing the brush to jerk at her hair once again.

Cam handed her back the brush. “Here. Perhaps you had better finish it. I don't seem to be doing too well tonight.” He turned and walked over to the bed.

“Cam…” Angela set the brush aside and swung around, following him with her eyes. “What do you mean?”

“I think I'm a bastard.” He glanced back at her, a faint smile twitching at the corners of his mouth. “Although many people have told me so, they were speaking more figuratively. I mean it literally.”

“But why? I mean, you said only that you didn't know anything about your father.”

He nodded. “I think my mother's very reticence about him proves it. If there had not been something shameful attached to my birth, she would have told me about my father and their life.”

“But it could mean other things, as well,” Angela protested, feeling the need somehow to defend him against his own accusations.

“Such as?”

“Well, such as, your mother could have been very much in love with him, and…and he died, and it was too painful for her to talk about him and his death. Or maybe she thought that it was something you were too young to know.”

Cam shrugged. “I suppose it's possible. But there are other suspicious things, such as the fact that we have no relatives.”

“No relatives? How can you have no relatives? That isn't possible.”

“I mean, I never knew any of them. There is no one in the village to whom we are related. No grandparents, no aunts and uncles or cousins. We moved here from somewhere else when I was too young to remember. And my mother would never tell me where we came from. When I asked her about her family, she would say only that they were all dead, that she and I had only each other. She never got mail from anyone—or sent it, either. She almost never said anything about her girl- hood, and she would not say where she was from. She never even told me her parents' names. It was as if we were utterly disconnected from the rest of the world. I think she must have been unwed and pregnant, and her family threw her out.”

Angela stood up and moved toward him. “Well, perhaps they did all die. Perhaps your entire family, including your father, were…were killed in a fire, say, and you and your mother were the only ones who survived. And the memories were so awful that she moved someplace entirely different, and she didn't want to talk about it.
Or maybe her family did not approve of her husband. Maybe they eloped or something, and then he died, but she wouldn't go back to them, because they had been so mean about her marriage.”

Cam chuckled. “You don't give up, do you? Why are you so eager to prove me wrong? Does my being born on the wrong side of the sheets bother you that much? You have already told me we are both socially unacceptable. How can this make it any worse?”

“It's not that. I guess, well, it doesn't matter, really, unless it makes you unhappy.” She stopped beside him, looking up into his face. “You sound bitter.”

“Perhaps I am. It is the only area where my mother and I disagreed. She always had this enormous secret, this knowledge that she would not tell me. I knew nothing about myself. I resented that. When I got old enough to reason it out, I realized that I must be illegitimate and that that was why she would tell me nothing. I can understand why she kept it from me. How do you tell your son that he is a bastard? But, still, I was angry that I didn't know myself. I was angry, too, I guess, that she had allowed it to happen.”

“If she had not, you would never have existed,” Angela pointed out reasonably.

He made a face. “I suppose that's true. But, still, I wish I knew…. I went through all Mum's things after she died, hoping that there would be some evidence, some clue that would tell me who I am and how I came into this world, but there was nothing.”

“Why didn't you ask her when she moved to America to be with you? When you were both adults? Wouldn't she have told you then?”