But the houses around her grew nice, then comfortable, until finally they were downright imposing. There could be no stopping. She’d be told to leave the minute she looked like she didn’t know where she was going.
It took her hours to traverse the distance. By the time she arrived, she was half-limping. Still, when she finally stood in front of the white stone building where Theresa had directed her—large and imposing, four stories high, flowers in the windows—she stopped and almost wished she could go back.
Her heart was beating fast, so fast. What if Theresa had been wrong? What if it was a lie? Reality had played cruel tricks on her over the years. Her whole body ached with the cruelty of the last one.
It was almost impossible to believe that this was not yet another cruel trick.
What if they didn’t want her?
Her hand crept to her pocket; she checked the direction on the letter one last time, just to be sure.
Hope was a choice. It had always been a choice, from the first moment she decided to hold on to it. It had been hope that pushed her from bed this last night, and hope that put one bare foot in front of the other all the way here. Camilla inhaled, made fists of her hands, and chose—foolishly, despite all possible evidence—to trust in it one more time.
Her chin went up; she climbed the stone stairs to the entrance. The door did not open for her. Of course; she wasn’t expected. On the other side, she could imagine a footman glaring at her barefoot form.
She rapped the knocker and waited.
No response came. She rapped again.
Finally, the door opened an inch. The man who blocked that narrow gap glared down at her. “The servant’s entrance is round the back. If you have business, apply there.”
Camilla straightened her spine. “I’m not a servant.”
“Then shoo altogether.”
She wouldn’t start this way. She wouldn’t act as if she were begging for scraps.
Deep down inside her, she remembered the child she had once been—the one who might have been entitled to enter here. That girl had been disabused of most of her finer notions, but Camilla would do her best to remember.
“You have to let me in.” She refused to speak quietly or demurely. She refused to let any hint of a quaver show. “I don’t need to go ‘round the back. I wish to have a word with Lady Judith. I must.”
The man grimaced and attempted to shut the door. Camilla stuck her foot—her bare foot—in the way, and winced as the wood struck her abused flesh.
“Move,” the man hissed, “or be moved. And you will refer to the lady of the house as Lady Ashford. Don’t speak of her in such familiar tones.”
“I shall speak of her any way I wish,” Camilla said, “because—”
There was a great clamor in the hall behind the butler. He turned, and Camilla took advantage of his temporary inattention to shove her way into the entry. She looked up.
Judith stood at the end of the hall. Judith.
God. It had been almost a decade since Camilla had seen her sister. Last time she’d seen her, Judith had been selling all her frocks. She’d been dressed in ugly wincey, and she’d looked pale and wan with grief.
This was an older Judith. She was rosy-cheeked and plump once more, dressed in a fine blue day gown and silk slippers. There were pearls at her ears.
Camilla didn’t look down at herself. She knew how dingy her gown was. She hadn’t had a traveling cloak to keep dust off her, and her clothing was stained with soot and smoke from the journey. She was all too aware that she had no shoes, that her feet were black with dirt and…well, she didn’t really want to know what else.
The butler turned back to her.
She looked like a servant. Honestly, that was unfair to servants. At the moment, she looked far worse than one.
Judith’s hands went to her mouth. Her eyes shone. “Camilla?” Her voice was low.
A man came to stand behind her sister. Camilla knew him, too—he’d visited their family often as a child. Christian.
Another woman joined them—tall and blonde and willowy, dressed in a pink gown with frothy lace at the edges. She was—inexplicably—holding a fork in one hand.
“Camilla?” that woman asked.
Camilla didn’t know if she was welcome or not. She didn’t know how to ask. But then Judith ran to her—slipping, barely catching herself on an ornate side-table in an attempt to stay upright. She didn’t hesitate, not for one instant. She wrapped her arms around Camilla, soot and all.
She was warm and clean and—
“Oh, God, Camilla. Where have you been?”
Yet another woman appeared—this one, an elderly lady dressed in a dark purple gown. And another man—no, not a man, despite the height, not with that new fuzz on his cheeks. He was a boy.
That was Benedict, Camilla realized, the chubby five-year-old child she’d loved so well. He had grown taller than her.
That made that blonde, willowy lady who was watching her… Theresa?
Camilla could hear her heart hammering in her chest.
“Never mind,” Judith was saying, taking her arm. “Listen to me. Come in. We have food and towels.”
Camilla felt as if she’d faced down a wall, as if she’d pulled her fist back to punch it to pieces until she broke her hand—and as if the stone barrier that had reached impossibly far above her head had crumpled like paper. She was going to break down, right here. Right now.
She couldn’t lose her nerve. “Judith,” she said. “I need your help.”
Judith was still clinging to her, and Camilla found she could not let go. All for the best; her sister hadn’t noticed that Camilla’s soot had transferred to her gown.
Camilla reserved a silent prayer of apology for whichever servant would have to remove it. She knew from bitter, personal experience precisely how long it would take.
“Anything,” Judith said.
Camilla had to marshal her thoughts. There were years of explanation to give, and so much to hear in return. Right now, though, all of that distance boiled down to the last hours of her life.
“I’m married,” Camilla said.
Her sister stared at her. “What?”
The elderly woman tilted her head. “To whom?”
Christian frowned, glancing at her bare feet. His question came out a little more of a growl, almost a warning. “When?”
Judith shook her head, brushing all that aside. “Do you love him?”
Adrian would be awakening just now. She could imagine him blinking in the sunshine. Reaching for her across the mattress. Not finding her.
Her breath seemed hot inside her, burning her lungs.
Adrian would look around the room. He’d wonder if she had gone to get something to eat. He’d find her note in the study…
She hoped he found the note soon. She hoped he understood. She didn’t know if he would read it with relief or sorrow. She wouldn’t know if he would understand the difference between fleeing him and fleeing the situation.
“It hardly matters,” she said. “You see, I want—no, I need—an annulment. And you’re the only one who can help me.”
After all these years, her sister should have hesitated. She should have frowned, perhaps, or asked for more information. After all these years…
“Of course,” Judith said. And she held her close.
* * *
A whirlwind descended before Camilla could understand what was happening.
Judith sent for a solicitor, and then—before she did anything else—she sent Camilla off for a bath in her private room. Because apparently that was the sort of thing her sister had now—an entire private bath.
The water was deliciously warm; the Marquess of Ashford (“Christian,” he had said, “we knew each other when we were children, and you’re not about to start calling me by my title now.”) had plumbing and taps in the house, and there was as much hot water as Camilla could ever want.
The soap smelled of roses; a jar of bath oil
released the scent of vanilla. Camilla changed the water twice, until it was almost clear when she rinsed.
A towel had been placed on a marble-topped table next to a dizzying array of glass jars. They were all labeled—skin cream that smelled of cherries, hand cream that smelled of oranges, foot cream that smelled of peppermint, eye cream that smelled of lavender.
Who knew there could be so much cream in the world?
She dipped her finger in each one. Aside from the scents and faint hints of color, she could not detect a difference between any of the creams. They all felt equally creamy.
Her feet hurt; tiny little cuts had broken the surface. She had bled and bruised. It was nothing that wouldn’t heal in short order.
In an act of defiance, Camilla applied the hand cream to the soles of her feet. It was probably a dreadful faux pas; they would know her for the imposter she was the instant she set her orange-smelling feet outside of the bathroom.