That sounded very convenient for him.
“I see,” she said suspiciously.
“And we cannot, um…” He looked away.
“I’m not a child,” Camilla said. “You can say it. We cannot consummate the marriage.”
He looked relieved not to have to voice the words. “The non-marriage.”
She pulled her bravado about her again. “I have no wish to do either of those things.”
“Lovely. We’re in agreement.”
There was no point wishing that he would say something appreciative at a time like this. It would do no good to idly hope that he would say someone would be lucky or I’d be sorry not to be able to or any of the polite locutions he could have employed to soften the blow of his not wanting her at all, not even in the slightest.
Camilla was used to harboring ridiculous hopes. She pushed these particular ones away and reminded herself of the truth. He didn’t want anything to do with her; that made him like every other person on the face of the planet.
He took a bite of potato and made a face. “Dear God.”
There was nothing to do but put on her bravest face. “You’ve given yourself away. Now I know you’re just finicky. It’s not possible to ruin a potato.”
“On the contrary. Try it.”
“That’s the beauty of potatoes. They’re good mashed, they’re good in soup, they’re good baked. They’re practically a perfect food in and of themselves.”
Wordlessly, he speared a pallid section and held out his fork. She took it, and tasted a bite of… Dear God.
“What did they do? Did they cook it in vinegar?”
“I think they might have tried to pickle it.”
“Pickled potatoes?” Camilla made herself swallow the food. “At least it’s alliterative.” She frowned at the potato. “Wait. Give that here.”
“Be my guest. If you can stomach it, by all means, do so.”
She unceremoniously dumped the potato in her soup.
“What are you doing?”
“There.” She took a bite of the concoction. “It’s not bad. The vinegar of the potato balances the tastelessness of the soup.”
When he raised an eyebrow, she reached across the table and filled his spoon. He took it from her, sipped, made a face, and shook his head.
“Well, I’ve learned something about you. You’re one of those people who can find the good in anything, aren’t you?”
She’d hoped and hoped and hoped for so long, and it had never done any good. Still, she kept on, hoping, tumbling into love for no reason.
She couldn’t protect her heart; she had bruised it too many times to believe she would ever stop. She was going to do it with him, too. She already knew it.
He didn’t want to marry her. He didn’t want to have sexual relations with her. He didn’t want to do anything but break their tepid connection as swiftly as his uncle could manage it.
And still she felt her hope flare, blossoming from the most tepid of compliments. He liked her, a little. That was something. It was a start.
“Yes,” Camilla said, with a nod of her head. “I am. That’s me.”
Chapter Eight
Camilla’s hope lasted until she reached her room and opened her tired valise.
She had not packed her things herself; she supposed Kitty must have done so.
On top of her worn gowns and threadbare stockings was one of her sole indulgences—a crochet hook and a half-finished scarf. She had learned to crochet years ago, and she enjoyed working with her hands on the rare evenings when she had time to relax.
But yarn was dear and she had no money to spare. This particular ball of yarn—half scarf now—had been crocheted and unraveled, crocheted and unraveled, again and again until the strands had begun to thin and fall to pieces.
Still, she’d kept on crocheting with it. She’d made thin scarves and very short stockings and part of something that could have been a jumper—one ball of yarn was hardly enough for more—for years and years.
She had learned to crochet, hoping that it would bring her close to the old woman who had sat at the fire, muttering and creating stitches. It hadn’t.
Nothing she had tried had ever worked.
No point dwelling on the past. Camilla shook her head and slid under the covers. That didn’t help. The mattress was lumpy and no matter how Camilla shifted, she could not make herself comfortable.
In the light of the kitchen, with Mr. Hunter sitting in front of her, it seemed the right thing to agree. Let's work together. We’ll get an annulment. Then we’ll never have to see each other again.
Even if she believed him—and the premise of his story was, You should trust me, I’ve been lying to you all along—all he’d told her was that he wanted to be free of her.
Free. She shut her eyes and tried to imagine what free would look like for her.
Free made sense for someone who could look her in the eyes and recite his family connections with a clear conscience. It was freedom for him. For her?
She’d be free to go…where, precisely? To whom? She’d be free to start all over with absolutely nothing to her name but two gowns on the verge of falling apart and shoes that were almost past the point of repair.
What if she’d done as he had, and recited her own family history? Looking back never did any good; she’d learned long ago that thinking of her past only hurt her in the present.
And yet—perhaps because nothing was crueler than a mind on the verge of panic—she found her mind slipping back anyway.
“Actually, my father was an earl.” It would have sounded utterly ridiculous—like she was making up a story to match his, just to puff up her own badly battered consequence.
How would she have said it? “Actually, my father was an earl. But he was convicted of treason, and my family was ruined. My uncle offered to take me in—look, we’ve both got powerful uncles! He promised me pretty gowns, and I have no depth of character, so that was enough for me. My elder sister warned me that he didn’t love me, but I didn’t care. Ever since the day I decided that love was less important than pretty gowns, I’ve been doomed not to have it. So yes—marriage. Ha! It is definitely not to be expected for one like me.”
God, she was pathetic even alone in her own mind—yearning for love after all this time. When was she going to learn? She could still hear her sister: If you don’t want love, we don’t want to love you.
Everything that had happened stemmed from that moment, year after loveless year.
She’d traded it away. She didn’t deserve love any longer; she was never going to get it. The fact that she knew it, deep down, made her hope blaze all the more keenly in response. Mr. Hunter would want her, maybe, and she’d convince him to love her with…with…with?
With what?
In the darkness of the night, with the weight of years of experience, she knew the truth.
What did she have to offer, really? Her ability to work for half wages?
She exhaled, pressing the backs of her hands into her eyes. She was such an idiot.
It was stupid, stupid, stupid to feel the way she did. Rector Miles had tried to rid her of her worst tendencies. That chorus of devils on her shoulders kept pushing her to believe the most foolish things—that even now, after almost a decade of nobody loving her, someone would suddenly do so. If only she said the right things, Camilla kept thinking, someone would want her to stay.
Mr. Hunter thought of freedom. God, she wished she could care about something so abstract. What did she have? A few hair ribbons and the money he’d given her. A vast emptiness inside her, the shame of knowing that even though she hadn’t gone into that room with lascivious intent, her heart had still picked up a beat to see him there alone. She’d smiled to see him, and an electric current of want had swept through her.
She couldn’t make sense of what had happened—of the door being locked, of the key in her pocket—except this way: Maybe it was as the rector always said—she had sinned in h
er heart, and that was why this had come upon her.
That was why she’d been married off to a man who didn’t want her. That was why she was alone on her wedding night, with nobody to love her in even the most transient meaning of the word.
She wasn’t sure when she started crying—she was just glad she’d managed not to do it around Mr. Hunter. She hated crying, and she hated that she cried so easily.
He was so strong, so calm, so rational, and she was nothing.
The pillow was made of hard, lumpy rags; her shoulders shook as it soaked up her tears. She hadn’t had time to find a handkerchief in her valise, and the thought of getting out of bed to search for one was too daunting.
She cried until the moon sank low enough to shine through her curtains, cried for the family she’d left for such a stupid reason, cried for the uncle who had sent her off for bad behavior, cried for the friends she thought she’d made at every stop along the way.
She had spent years hoping and hoping and hoping. Three years ago, she’d hoped Larissa would swear lifelong devotion; instead Camilla had been sent on as a bad influence. Two years ago, James had told her she was pretty and sweet, and she’d made herself as pretty and sweet for him as she could, only to have him swear at her and call her names when they were discovered together.
She’d even hoped to impress Rector Miles with the way she’d changed.