Judith’s face hardened. “Cam, you don’t have to speak to him if you don’t wish to. You heard the solicitor. It was one thing to stay with him when you had no choice. But your chances at an annulment will be best if you keep yourselves as separate as possible from this point onward.”
Eventually, she would have to tell her sister what Adrian meant to her and what she truly wanted from him.
For now, she settled for a shake of her head. “Don’t talk of him that way. You cannot understand how vulnerable I was when we were wed. There is not a better man in the entirety of England.”
Judith just looked at her. “If you want to get an annulment, you shouldn’t say things like that. People will take it amiss.”
Now was not the point where she wanted to explain. “Just this once won’t hurt. We’ve worked together this long; he deserves to have me personally explain what is happening. Please convey to him that I’ll be there as soon as I’m able.”
It was torture to finish the fitting; she was scolded three times for not being able to stand still. She could hardly help it; her heart was beating so. She could scarcely control the hopeful, involuntary clench of her hand. Her entire being wavered between delight that he’d arrived, and anger that he hadn’t told her about his uncle.
He’d made her believe he’d chosen her. He’d told her that she deserved better and then not given it to her.
“Are you sure?” Judith said as the maids bundled Camilla into a day gown at the end of the fitting. “I’ll come sit with you. You shouldn’t be alone with a man. Your reputation—”
“Oh, for God’s sake.” Camilla rolled her eyes. “What reputation? I’ve spent the last nine years of my life having no reputation to speak of. I am about to get a marriage annulled publicly.”
“I’m just trying to help.”
Camilla reached over and patted her sister’s shoulder. “I appreciate it. Really, I do. You can help by telling me if my hair looks presentable.”
“It’s lovely, but Camilla—”
There was nothing for it. She’d been too long without an older sister; she couldn’t let Judith smother her, not already.
“You can help,” Camilla said, “by believing that in the years that have passed, I really have learned what’s best for myself. I’m going to talk to Adrian alone, and you’re going to let me do it.”
Judith looked at her a long moment, then sighed and looked away. “Yes,” she finally said. “I’m sorry. I just have so many years of care I’ve wanted to give you. It’s hard not to give it all at once.”
From the other side of the room, Camilla was aware of Theresa watching her intently. She hadn’t spoken much beyond greetings. She’d actually seemed a little shy, which was odd, given how forward her letter was.
Camilla nodded. “I’ll introduce you after we’ve spoken.” She paused, tapping her lips. “One last thing about Mr. Hunter. I don’t know if Theresa has mentioned it.”
Theresa straightened, her eyes widening.
“What has Theresa to do with Mr. Hunter?”
Camilla looked in her sister’s eyes. “Adrian is of African descent. If you in any way treat him as inferior because of that, I will walk out of this house and never speak to you again. I mean it. I may be annulling my marriage, but I know what it’s like to be looked down upon. Don’t do it.”
Judith blinked. She did not speak for a moment. She looked down at her hands and then over at Camilla. “Well, I suppose it’s best that we’ve all come down this path. I have not lived here all the time you’ve been gone. We used to live near the docks; I knew a great many people then that I’d never have been introduced to otherwise.” She shrugged. “I’ll still fight him if he hurts you.”
Camilla exhaled. “I’m going to see him.”
“This isn’t what I assumed, is it?”
Camilla didn’t answer. Instead, she let the maid guide her to the parlor where her quasi-husband waited. She found him pacing in front of the mantel, hands on his hips. He turned to her.
The last time they’d spoken, they’d been in the same bed. They hadn’t had so much as a sheet between them. They’d been bare and naked and… And, oh, God, how had she forgotten?
He’d healed her and hurt her, all in the same moment. She could feel that hurt inside her like bruises in her chest, aching every time she drew breath.
Maybe he was remembering the same thing, because he didn’t approach her. He just stopped next to the mantel, watching her with an unreadable expression on his face.
“Hullo, Cam,” he finally said. “How are you?”
“Is that a polite ‘how are you,’ or a legitimate inquiry into my feelings?” She felt as if she were made of ice. “It’s lovely that you remembered that I have them. A bit tardy, but lovely.”
“Ah,” he said in an annoyingly steady tone of voice. “You’re a little angry. It’s simply smashing that you can express your feelings aloud, clearly, in words face-to-face. I find that communication works best when we use words to say precisely what we mean, instead of leaving in the middle of the night with nothing to say where you’d gone except a note that might not be found for hours.”
“I also believe in communication.” She took a step toward him. “For instance, here are some words you might have said yesterday: ‘My uncle won’t grant us an annulment, so let’s have sexual intercourse out of desperation.’”
“It wasn’t like that. You know it wasn’t like that.”
“You’re right.” Her hands went to her hips. “I’m sure you could have chosen other words in the moment. I would have accepted any words from you, in fact, except using no words at all.”
“This is not all my fault. You didn’t seem to be in a terrible hurry to stop and talk in the moment.”
“No,” Camilla said. “I admit as much. I was stupid with hope. I thought you had actually chosen to love me of your own free will. Don’t worry; I blame myself for not asking as much as I blame you for not telling.”
She could see the moment he understood how she must have felt.
His mouth slowly opened. The annoyance dropped from his stance. He took a step toward her. “Oh, Cam.”
She hated that they were friends. She hated that she loved him. She hated that he could say those two words, just like that, and all she wanted was to sit next to him and weep on his shoulder.
He reached a hand out tentatively in her direction, but when she didn’t lean toward him in response, he let it drop. “I’m so sorry. At the time I was thinking that if I didn’t tell you, it wouldn’t hurt you. You’ve been through so much. It was just one more thing for me to bear.”
She shook her head. “I never want to be that one more thing for you to endure. Do you understand me?”
“Yes.”
She hated most of all that the feelings she had been trying to ignore—the anger, the hope, the heartbreak, the joy turned to ash—bubbled over in that moment, stinging her eyes. She’d been holding the pieces of herself together through the night, through her journey, through a bath and her sister and a solicitor.
Her life had changed irrevocably, and there wasn’t a person in it who she knew well enough to share her vulnerability. No one but Adrian.
She hated that she cried so easily. She hated that her eyes stung now. “I’m sorry I left the way I did, with only a note. I just thought that if I waited for you to wake up, I would never be able to leave you.”
He took another step toward her, then another, and then she was in his arms, her head pressed against his chest, his arms around her.
His hand stroked her hair. He leaned down and whispered in her ear.
“Cam. I’m sorry.”
She hated that he absorbed her tears. That he was the wall she could lean against, that he didn’t think her weak or stupid. She hated that he understood every bitter tear that she shed.
“What were you thinking?” she sobbed.
“Not very much,” he admitted. “I was hurt. I felt betrayed by my uncle. I…?
? His voice trailed off. “You know I’ve…wanted you for a while now. I wasn’t thinking of you as one more burden. After the conversation with my uncle, I thought of you as something close to salvation, and I didn’t want to delay any longer.”
She couldn’t keep the affection out of her voice. “We are rather lucky that out of all the millions of people in England, chance forced the two of us together.”
He continued to pet her hair. “You’re the best wife I’ve ever married at gunpoint.”
“Shut up,” Camilla said through her tears. “We cannot hold ourselves out as married. You know that.”
“So…your sister thinks she can still do something about that annulment? After last night?”
Camilla nodded. “I haven’t told her about last night. And you did say that the doctors can’t really tell if I’m a virgin.”
He just pulled her closer. “Do you want this? Do you really want this?”
He should have asked her that last night. Camilla wrinkled her nose. “You have undoubtedly put my hair in disarray. It was curled before.”
“It looks pretty to me.”
“I need to blow my nose.”
He handed her a handkerchief.
“Still pretty,” he told her, after she’d made an embarrassing noise. “So, I assume that if your sister is willing to help you, that she cares about you, then.”
Camilla nodded again.