She couldn’t remember the last time she had indulged in soda water. Not since she was a child, surely. The bubbles went up her nose, tasting of something almost tart. It made a perfect complement to the savory beef and gravy in the pasty. She devoured the whole thing in minutes—before they were even out of the tiny hamlet.
“Mr. Hunter,” she said. “I am beginning to suspect that you are very kind.”
“Oh, I don’t know about very. Maybe a little.”
“Very,” Camilla said assuredly. “You forget—I have moved about a great deal, and have experience with a vast multitude of people. You are very kind.”
“Or you have been uncommonly unlucky. I’ve been blessed with family circumstances that allow me to be kind. That’s no great accomplishment.”
“On the contrary,” Camilla said. “Most people I know who are so blessed are usually convinced that they deserve what they have—and that those who don’t have it, don’t deserve it. You will have to take my word for it—you are very kind. Thank you, Mr. Hunter.”
“What, for being a reasonable human being?” He looked taken aback. “There’s no thanks owed for that. That should be the bare minimum expectation.”
Camilla wiggled her fingers, now free of crumbs, back into her new gloves. “I am entirely certain that you are at least three marks above the minimum.”
He glanced at her sidelong and smiled. “No more than two.”
In the days since their abrupt marriage, Camilla had been doing her best to avoid thinking of what had caused the trouble in the first place—she and her flirtations. Mr. Hunter and his handsome countenance, his easy disposition, made every conversation feel like sunlight.
But she’d liked him at first glance, and liked him more after they’d spoken. Now he’d fed her. He’d bought her gowns. His smile…God, it did things to her insides. She felt her stomach give a little betraying flip and her heart kicked in her chest. He had become even more handsome than when they first met.
“Three marks above minimum,” she said, “at least. For heaven’s sake, Mr. Hunter, let a girl give a compliment every now and then.”
There it was—she could almost feel the pink rising in her complexion. She was doing it again. She was flirting, and oh, she shouldn’t, she shouldn’t…
“I’m terribly sorry,” he said, “but my friends all call me Adrian, not Mr. Hunter. You’ve exceeded the compliment level for bare acquaintances. I must send your compliment back with my sincerest regrets.”
She pulled away, feeling a little stung. “I’m sorry.” She had been flirting. A little. She shouldn’t have done it. Their situation was fraught enough as it was; she was just making it worse. “I didn’t mean to impose. I’ll stop—”
He looked at her for a long moment before shaking his head. “Silly. I wasn’t telling you to stop complimenting me. I was telling you to stop calling me Mr. Hunter. That’s my father. You can call me Adrian.”
“Oh.” She was so used to being called forward. She blinked at him. “Are we friends, then?”
“I don’t know; do you want to be?”
He was going to leave her. The entire point of this exercise was for them not to be bound to each other. The flare of hope that lit inside her should not be there, Camilla knew. He’d asked if she wanted to be friends, not if she wanted to stay with him forever and have his babies.
She felt like a pile of dry leaves in autumn—the slightest hint of fire, and she’d combust immediately. She knew she should hold herself back.
She had never successfully held herself back from anything.
“Yes,” she said. The world seemed to explode with color about them. “Yes, I should like that very much.”
“Good.”
She glanced at him next to her and flushed again.
“You should call me Camilla,” she said. “Or Camille. Or just Cam.” She felt as if she were glowing with delight. “Call me anything you like. I don’t mind.”
* * *
The small back room where Mrs. Beasley had allowed Camilla to stay wasn’t much, but there were clothes-hooks and a little chest of drawers, and now she had things to put on them.
And! And! Mr. Hunter—no, Adrian—had called her a friend. He’d said she was clever and brave and—well—technically they were only working together because he wanted to never see her again, but there was no point in dwelling on the unpleasant.
She smiled, brought the new linen shift up to her face, and inhaled.
Ah. The scent of new clothing. It was the best. She smelled starch and something crisp and fresh. She did a little spin of joy in the room, grinning with delight.
“Ah—Miss Winters?”
Camilla stopped mid-twirl, turning to Mrs. Beasley. Oh, no. She imagined herself saying, I wasn’t actually dancing. By myself. That would be odd, ha ha ha.
She managed to keep herself to a bare: “Why hello, Mrs. Beasley. Can I be of service?”
“Mr. Hunter is here to speak with you.”
“Of course.” Camilla nodded. “We have to speak to the groundskeeper tomorrow morning, and we must talk about the schedule.”
“Yes, of course.” Mrs. Beasley shifted in place, her jaw working, before she squared it and faced Camilla head on. “But before I send you out, may I ask a question? Are you well?”
“Do I look ill?” Oh no. And she was going to see him soon, too. If she appeared sickly or wan—
“No, dear. You look physically healthy. I meant in other ways. This has been a difficult time for you, and unscrupulous people might choose to impose on you and make the time more difficult, not less. I just wanted to ask. To be certain.”
“Oh.” Camilla felt touched by her concern. “Please don’t worry. I am better than I have a right to be.”
“There’s no such thing. You have a right to be extremely well, you know.” Mrs. Beasley gave her a half-hearted smile. “Just be aware that you can tell me anything, yes? It’s not difficult work, running a telegraph office, but it is troubling. I hear portions of everyone’s story and never the full thing. I pretend not to know half of what I hear.” She took one of Camilla’s hands and gave it a squeeze.
“I’m well,” Camilla said. “The situation is hard, but…I’m well. Thank you for caring.”
Mrs. Beasley shook her head. “The hardest part of my work is staying silent. Most of the time, it’s all just fodder for my amusement. But sometimes I hear and I must sit in silence and pretend I don’t notice. My biggest regrets come from that—the not asking. You will let me know if there’s anything I can do?”
“I will.”
“Good.” Mrs. Beasley gave her fingers another squeeze. “Then go have your
chat.”
* * *
Adrian had been waiting for ten minutes in the front room before Camilla appeared. Mrs. Beasley very obviously did not close the door to give them privacy. Adrian sighed. Well, so be it.
“I had been thinking eleven in the morning for when you talk to the groundskeeper,” Adrian said. “The church is a few miles away, so I should come by at ten thirty or so, to drive you out.”
Camilla sat in a chair across from him. She’d changed into one of her new gowns, pink stripes with yellow cuffs. The colors suited her—bright and cheery in the diffuse light from the gas lamp.
“Better be early,” Camilla said. “Mr. Graves gets hungry for his lunch around then. We want him in his best mood.”
“Nine thirty?”
“More like eight thirty.”
“Gah.” Adrian felt his nose wrinkle in disgust. “So early. I detest waking early.”
Camilla just laughed. “How did you ever pretend to be a valet? Really, Adrian.”
She said his name almost shyly, and then glanced at him through dark lashes, as if wondering if the familiarity that he’d specifically asked for was too much.
“Badly,” Adrian said. “So badly. I was a terrible valet.”
She leaned forward, smiling. “What do you do when you’re not pretending to be a valet?”
“Oh.” He shrugged. “This and that. My family has some business interests here, and I’m the one who spends the most time in England. So I see to them. I’m a little better at that than I am at being a valet.”
She let out a little gurgling laugh. “I suspect you are. You have an air of competence about you; you had to earn it somehow.”
If he had thought she was putting him on or flattering him on purpose, he would have pulled back. But she said it so matter-of-factly, and with such a smile, that it made him feel a little dishonest.
He thought about telling her about the china designs. But he really had almost nothing to do with them—he had excellent artists who did amazing things with almost no direction on his part—and she’d laugh at the story. But…he liked the way she looked at him. He shouldn’t have, but he did.