Part 11 (1/2)
”Cousin Bertram acts like a fool, but he's actually quite smart. If he does know you, I am sure that he will come up with it. You never worked for him, did you?”
Benedict shook his head.
”Or stole anything from him?”
”Why do you persist in this belief that I am a thief?” Benedict asked, exasperated.
”I don't know. Perhaps it is because you stole my carriage.”
”I did not steal it. I merely drove it.”
”Without my permission.”
He shrugged off this minor point. ”I could have met him when I was younger. I don't remember him. I have been out of the country the last few years, so-”
Camilla drew in a breath, her eyes rounding. ”You mean you had to leave the country?”
He frowned. ”Your opinion of me is gratifying. No, I did not have to leave the country. I was in the army. As I told your grandfather. So whatever this 'affecting' history is that you have given me, you had better work that into it.”
”Oh, dear, this is getting complicated. Well, if it comes up, I shall just tell Lydia that you joined the military after you thought I no longer loved you. Why do you look at me like that?” Camilla stepped away from him uneasily.
”Like what?”
”As if you might put your hands around my throat and squeeze.”
”Don't be absurd. I just wondered what possessed you to say such a thing.”
”Well, I had to come up with some explanation for why we married so quickly and why Aunt Lydia had never even heard of you.”
He sighed, opening the door for her, and they stepped outside. ”All right. Tell me what sort of a sorry past you have given me. I am sure I no doubt played the fool in it.”
”No-although you were duped, of course.”
”Of course.”
”So was I.” They started along the graveled path leading into the formal flower garden. ”I told Aunt Lydia that we met in Bath many years ago, when I went there with the Barringtons. Those are some cousins of my father's, and Aunt Lydia never sees them, for they are dead bores. So I knew that they were perfect, for Lydia will never check out the story, and I was seventeen at the time I went there with them, which is a perfect age to fall madly, hopelessly, in love, don't you think?”
”Ideal,” he replied dryly.
”I thought so. Anyway, we met there, and we fell in love. But you could not ask for my hand, you see, because you had to stay with your mother, who had consumption.”
”Good Gad.”
”I was too young, anyway. So we said we would wait. But in our hearts we felt as if we were engaged. Only then your uncle-”
”Ah, the wicked uncle.”
”Yes. He did not want you to marry me, so he intercepted our letters and concealed them from us. We each came to believe that the other one no longer loved us, since we never got any letters, and of course I was heartbroken. I refused to marry, because no other man ever measured up.”
Benedict chuckled. ”How could they?”
Camilla made a face at his quip. ”Only, unknown to me, you, too, did not marry, still carrying the flame of pa.s.sion for me in your heart.”
”I was such a nodc.o.c.k that this whole time I never thought to come to London and check with you? Ask you why you stopped writing and whether you no longer loved me?”
”Of course not. You could not have, obviously, for that would have ruined my whole story.”
”So I am not only lovesick, but a fool?”
”No! You were very n.o.ble. You knew that your fortune was not grand and you had no t.i.tle, so you felt you were not truly worthy of me, although, of course, none of that mattered to me.”
”Ah, better and better. Foolish, tied to my mother's ap.r.o.n strings, and now penniless and baseborn, as well.”
”No, not baseborn. I never said that. Nor penniless, either. Aunt Lydia would not really approve of my marrying you if our stations were that disparate. She is romantic, but not completely impractical.”
”I am relieved. Tell me, if we were at such a standstill, no longer communicating and never seeing each other, how did we ever get married?”
”Oh, that is because I moved to Bath last year. You see, when I turned twenty-four, I knew that I was quite old enough that, being unmarried, I would be considered a spinster. And, having my inheritance, I could live on my own, with a companion, of course. So I hired a companion, an in-law of my father's sister.”
”Not one of the boring Barringtons.”
”Oh, no. They, unfortunately, are blood relatives. Drucilla is much nicer and only related to me through my aunt's husband. We took up residence in a sweet little house in Bath.”
”This part of the tale, I a.s.sume, is true?”
”Yes.”
”I am surprised your grandfather allowed you to do such a thing.”
”He did not like it, I a.s.sure you. But I am a grown woman, and it was all perfectly respectable. And since I Was living in London with Aunt Lydia at the time, he really could not stop me. He wrote me letters, of course, threatening to come up and bodily move me back here, but Aunt Lydia and I were able to soothe him enough in our letters that he did not do so. Of course, he continued to write and tell me I was a terrible influence on Anthony, who was now wanting to come up and live with me, to provide safety for me. As if it would have been respectable for my cousin and me to be living there together with no older relatives! Otherwise, I would have begged Grandpapa to let him, for he is so terribly bored here. I worry about him.”
”I worry about you. I do not think I have ever met such a female in my life.”
”Probably not,” Camilla agreed judiciously.
”I don't think you would know the truth if you met it driving to Newcastle. You have told so many falsehoods since I've met you that I have no idea how you even keep them all straight.”
”It is getting difficult,” Camilla admitted. ”But you were the one who wanted me to develop another lie to tell Aunt Lydia about our marriage. I had intended to tell her the truth.”
”Then there's the way you went off and lived by yourself, as if you were a widow or something! Twenty-five is not an established spinster, my dear girl, and even if it were, you should hardly be living on your own, with only a hired companion. One would think you have no relatives, instead of quite a few loving ones.”
”But loving relatives can be the worst. They can make you feel simply smothered, you know.”
”No. I am afraid I don't I, you see, have only the wicked uncle.”
A little gurgle of laughter escaped her lips. ”Do you really have an uncle?”