And she? Gently, she pulled his arm off her. She turned to face the wall.
She hadn’t said it to him. The fact that his uncle’s betrayal hurt her, too, was not something he needed to grapple with at the moment.
But it had wounded her deeply.
He didn’t deserve to be saddled with her, and she didn’t deserve to be a saddle. She deserved to know that the man she spent the rest of her life with wanted her. Valued her. Believed in her. She deserved a choice, and a family, and joy, and a slow falling in love…
If she did nothing, he wouldn’t have that. Neither would she.
She slipped out from under the covers. Her feet found the cold planks beneath.
She’d always paced when she thought, and she did it now, hopping around the parts of the floor that squeaked under her passage so as not to wake him.
One turn of the room, and her mind was boiling.
She didn’t deserve this. She didn’t deserve to spend the rest of her life wondering if he was regretting her at the moment. When they argued—and she was sure they’d find cause to disagree, as all people did—she deserved to know that he would strive to listen because he wanted her above all others. Not because he needed to.
She did not deserve to wonder if he was envisioning someone else or if he mourned the woman he had not had the chance to choose.
She didn’t deserve a lifetime of not knowing.
A second turn about the room. She watched his slumbering form, a dark lump under the blankets. One arm was poised over the empty shell of covers she’d left on the bed, as if he were still trying to comfort her, even in his sleep.
Camilla gave her head a shake. She was being dreadfully unfair. Adrian wouldn’t do that to her. He’d never let her know that he had doubts. He wasn’t the sort to hold her worries over her head.
But she would wonder. As much as she would tell herself not to, she would.
She made a third circuit. There were worse things than a marriage where she wondered, were there not? He wouldn’t beat her. They had a firm friendship and a physical rapport. She loved him, and she had no doubt he would deserve that love every day of her life.
She had almost completed her fourth circle of the room, had almost convinced herself that she would grow used to this new reality. Her feet had warmed with her exertion. She loved him; was that not enough?
What did it matter, when there was nothing to be done about it? It would be enough. It had to be.
But deep inside her, Camilla had always had a dream. She had spent so long wanting someone to love her. She’d wanted to be chosen, to be wanted. She’d made bargains walking back from the store in the snow—“please, if she will just love me, I’ll never complain about anything again.”
She was no longer the woman who made desperate bargains for distant dreams.
She didn’t deserve to be loved as second place. She deserved to be loved without reservation or condition.
She deserved more. He deserved more. And just because the thing she wanted was impossible…
That didn’t mean she needed to give up hope.
She stopped walking. She stared straight ahead, thinking. They would have to get an annulment. They’d consummated the marriage, true, but she’d never been a virgin in the first place, and she’d read the reports. Others had lied about the matter; why couldn’t she?
She wanted a choice.
She imagined the world where she had that choice. In order to get there, she would have to obtain an annulment. An annulment in this circumstance meant power, and power meant…
She had not thought of the letter from Theresa, not since Adrian returned.
Judith missed her.
Judith wanted her.
Judith was married to a marquess and living in Mayfair. Maybe, once she heard the whole story, she’d reject Camilla as unfit.
But even if Judith wanted nothing to do with Camilla, that too was useful. She could make a fuss until Judith gave in.
Camilla exhaled.
Camilla didn’t need anyone to love her—she’d done without it long enough that she knew she could make do. Hope had given rise to certainty—someday, some way, she would have it.
Camilla needed someone powerful.
She had someone powerful.
She crept out of the room before she even quite knew what she was thinking, down the stairs, and found paper and a pen in an office on the ground floor.
My dear Adrian, she wrote.
I refuse to accept the outcome that we have been given. I refuse to accept that we have no choice.
I am going to get our choice back by the means available to us. You can find me at my sister’s, if you wish; your brother will have the direction.
Your friendship has been the greatest gift that I could have known. I hope that even after we are separated, we are able to continue our acquaintance.
If I had been given the chance to choose your friendship from the start, I would choose you again—and again—and again. I would choose everything about you except the one thing I have been given, which is a you who did not choose me.
Yours, most truly,
Cam
She couldn’t find the blotting paper in the dark—not without upending the desk drawer and risking detection. Instead, she watched the extra ink bead, then dissipate into dark, spidery stains on her letter. She sat at the desk and watched the letter, making excuse after excuse why she should forget this all.
She sat thinking until the clock struck four in the morning.
There would be an early train to London; there was no more time to delay. She knew what she wanted; she just had to go get it before she lost her nerve. Camilla found her cloak on the hook in the wardrobe by the hall. She still had some coins left from the money he had once given her in her pocket.
But now, now that she was pulling the fabric about her, now that she had written the letter, now…
She didn’t want to leave. She wanted to stay here, to pretend that she’d never had the idea. She wanted to choose him in truth. She loved him; she didn’t want to leave.
Her eyes stung.
But no. There were things she wanted more.
Her chin went up. It was time to go, before he awoke. Before she lost her nerve.
She slipped out the front door, closing it gently behind her.
The moment her feet touched the c
old cobblestones, she realized her mistake—in her haste, she’d left her shoes behind.
Or maybe, perhaps, she hadn’t truly forgotten.
Maybe she’d wanted to go back. Maybe she’d left them behind as a sign of cowardice, forcing herself to let go of a choice she knew she had to make.
Camilla was not going to be a coward.
Her chin went in the air, and she took another step forward. Thousands went without shoes every day. She could make do.
Another step, and another, and with every step, the cold bit into the soles of her feet.
It didn’t matter. None of it mattered. She’d be in London by morning, and she didn’t need shoes for what she was going to do.
Chapter Twenty-Three
The speed of modern transport meant that it was just past seven in the morning, with the sun already beating down oppressively overhead, when Camilla arrived in London. The price of the ticket had taken most of her reserve funds; what remained was not enough to hire transportation of any stripe to the Mayfair direction given in Theresa’s letter.
Or, for that matter, to purchase a pair of shoes.
She’d walked only to the train station, and then off the train—not so far to go, even without shoes, she had thought. A mere half-mile. She’d walked a hundred times that with shoes that were falling apart. Her feet almost never got cold; how bad could it be?
It turned out that even the least successful shoe was a vast improvement over pavement on bare skin.
After quick consultation with three people—one of whom refused to speak to her, with a pointed sniff at her bare feet, and one of whom propositioned her rather than answer her questions—she finally was told how best to proceed to her sister’s home.
It was several miles more.
Her bare feet didn’t draw quite as much attention in the near vicinity of Paddington. Still, she made the acquaintance of every sharp stone between Paddington Station and Mayfair. None of it hurt as much as the deep, bruising ache in her heart. He hadn’t chosen her.
The further she went, the more her feet hurt, and the more people glanced down and then up, a sneer on their faces. She really didn’t belong here. She wanted nothing more than to stop, to sit down, to give her soles the rest they screamed to have.