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CHAPTER TWO

THE MAN GAVE Camilla a look that left little doubt that he shared her feelings. She straightened, bolstered by his irritation. It was some comfort, at least, to see that he was as filthy, wet and bedraggled as she.

“What the devil are you doing here?” the man asked roughly. “Am I never to be rid of you?”

“I might say the same about you.”

“I take it that you two have met,” said the gentleman by the fireplace, his voice as smooth and suave as if they were all standing in a London drawing room.

The stranger from the carriage ride grunted and moved into the room. Camilla said icily, “I am afraid that we were not properly introduced.”

“Ah, Benedict.” The gentleman sighed. “I fear you are ever lacking in manners.” He moved forward toward Camilla. “Allow me to correct his oversight. I, dear lady, am Jermyn Sedgewick. And this is, ah, Benedict, uh…”

“How do you do, Mr. Sedgewick? I am pleased to make your acquaintance,” Camilla replied formally, trying to ignore the absurdity of the polite greeting in contrast to her grubby state of dress. She cast a flashing glance toward the other man. “I am sorry I cannot say the same about meeting Mr. Benedict.”

Mr. Sedgewick opened his mouth to speak, then closed it. He cast a grin toward Benedict. “I see you have made your usual charming impression.”

Benedict’s only reply was a noise resembling a growl. He turned away from both of them, striding over to the fire and holding out his hands to it. Mr. Sedgewick ignored him as he spoke to the innkeeper. “Well, Saltings, I think what we need here is a hot rum punch. Why don’t you bring us a bowl of it? I’ll do the mixing.”

“Of course, sir.”

Saltings bowed out of the room reluctantly. Camilla knew that he had been hoping to hear the details of what had happened to her and Benedict.

Sedgewick turned toward Camilla. “Now, Miss…?”

“Forgive me. Here you have been so kind, and I haven’t even told you my name. I am Camilla Ferrand.”

“Miss Ferrand. It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance, even under such deplorable conditions. Please come over here by the fire and warm yourself. I am sure you must be quite chilled.” He guided her toward the fire and into the chair beside it.

Camilla sank into the chair, grateful for its softness and for the warmth of the fire. She leaned forward, soaking up the heat. Benedict looked at Camilla, and his mouth twisted in a grimace. He withdrew to the other end of the fireplace, turning away from her and planting his elbow on the mantel. Sedgewick glanced from him to Camilla and back again, but he made no comment. The silence stretched out awkwardly.

At last there was a knock on the door, and Saltings bustled in, followed by the tap boy, carrying the inn’s best silver punch bowl and a trayful of ingredients. They set their loads down on the sideboard, and Saltings fussed around for a bit before Benedict pointedly opened the door for them and gestured a dismissal.

“Now, then,” Sedgewick said, advancing on the punch bowl. “This will fix you right up, Miss Ferrand. Normally, of course, it is not what I would consider giving a young lady such as yourself, but considering the chill of the night and the ordeal you’ve gone through, I think it will be just the thing to set you up.”

He began to mix the punch expertly, adding rum, sugar and lemons until he decided that the hot drink had just the right taste. He handed one silver cup of the mixture to Camilla, and she took the steaming drink gratefully. She had never had as strong a drink as this, for, as Mr. Sedgewick had pointed out, it was not considered a fit drink for women. However, Camilla considered herself no slave to tradition, and she was rather pleased to have the opportunity to sample a little of the sort of drink men consumed. It had a slightly unpleasant taste underlying the fruity sweetness of the punch, but, all in all, it was not as strong or as bad as she would have thought, and it was blessedly warm. The liquid rolled down her throat, warming it all the way, and burst fierily in her stomach. She finished off the cup and decided that she felt better already.

“That was excellent, Mr. Sedgewick, thank you,” she said, and he graciously refilled all their cups.

“Now, Miss Ferrand, you must tell me how you happened upon Mr., uh, Benedict.”

Camilla cast a stormy look toward that individual. “He abducted me.”

“Oh, God,” Benedict said callously, turning his back to the fire to warm it. “Not that again.”

“I was almost killed,” Camilla added, crossing her arms over her chest and glowering at Benedict.

“Benedict!” Mr. Sedgewick stared at the other man in astonishment. “What in the world happened?”

“She exaggerates. It was nothing.” He waved a hand dismissively. “We were shot at.”

“Shot at?” Sedgewick repeated incredulously. “You call that nothing?”

Benedict shrugged. “No one was hurt. They were some distance away, and I don’t think any of them could hit the side of a barn, anyway.”

“No one was hurt!” Camilla cried, raising her face from her hands. “What about my driver? I think you killed him!”

Benedict rolled his eyes. “I knocked him out,” he explained patiently to Mr. Sedgewick, then added to Camilla, “The reason he stayed out so long is that he’d been nipping at a bottle all evening. He was drunk. ’Tis no wonder you were lost.”

“Lost?” Sedgewick repeated. “My girl, you have had a dreadful day.”

Tears started in Camilla’s eyes as she thought about just how dreadful the day had indeed been, even before Mr. Benedict came along to persecute her. “You’ve no idea, sir.” Her voice roughened, and she stopped, trying to blink back her tears. “I think—I think this is the worst day of my life!”

And suddenly, surprising even herself, she burst into tears.

Sedgewick stared at Camilla, his face showing all a gentleman’s horror at being confronted with a sobbing female. “Dear lady,” he began feebly, “pray, don’t… I’m sure it cannot be that bad.”

“Oh, it is!” Camilla cried, covering her face with her hands. “You just don’t know. It is too, too awful!” Tears poured down her face.

“Well, it’s not a tragedy,” Benedict pointed out brutally. “I am sure you have been lost before, and will be again. We were never in any real danger. I told you.”

“Oh!” Camilla would have liked to shout at him that she was not absurd enough to collapse into sobs because her carriage had gotten lost, but she could not stem the tide of her tears enough to answer. At any other time, she would have been ready to sink through the floor with humiliation at giving way like this in front of two strangers—especially when one of them was as obnoxious and rude as Mr. Benedict. However, tonight, she was too weary and distressed to care.

“Shouldn’t have given her that rum punch,” Benedict told Sedgewick. “She’s bosky.”

Sedgewick cast him an impatient glance. “Don’t be absurd.”

Benedict shrugged. “I’m not. She’s in her cups.”

“I am not in my cups!” Camilla flashed, raising her head and glaring at him, her irritation at his rudeness cutting through her emotional outburst. She wiped angrily at the tears wetting her cheeks. “I am merely tired and…and overset. Everything is just…just ruined!”

Benedict cocked a supercilious eyebrow. “A party canceled? A beau marrying another?”

Camilla jumped to her feet, her fists clenched by her sides, letting out an inarticulate cry of rage. “How dare you! How dare you trivialize my…my… Oh, I hate you! My grandfather is dying!”

She burst into tears again and threw herself back into the chair. Sedgewick cast the other man an admonishing look, and even Benedict had the grace to look abashed.

“I am sorry,” he said stiffly. “I had no idea….”

“Dear girl,” Sedgewick began, going over to her and reaching down to take one of her hands and pat it. “I am so sorry. If there is anything I can do…”

“There is nothing anyone can do,” Camilla said when her spurt of tears had subsided. She brushed the tears from her cheeks, once again disturbing the smears of mud, and drew a ragged breath. “He is old, and his body is failing him. He had a fit of apoplexy several months ago, and ever since then he hasn’t been able to leave his room. His doctor—” She swallowed hard. “His doctor said he hadn’t long to live, but he has kept hanging on.” She offered a watery smile. “He was always the stubbornest of men.”

“I am sure he’s had a long, full life,” Sedgewick said comfortingly.

Camilla nodded. “He has. And I—I’ve almost resigned myself to his death. It’s just— Oh, I’ve made the most awful mess of everything.” She gulped back her tears and raised large, beseeching eyes to Sedgewick. “Truly, I didn’t mean to. I did it all for the best, but now…well, now I have to tell him the truth. All of them. And I am so afraid it will kill him.”

The man frowned. “I am sure it cannot be that serious.”

“It is. I—I lied to him, you see.”

At her words, Benedict let out a noise of disgust and said with withering sarcasm, “Naturally.”

Camilla whirled toward him indignantly. “I did it for the best!”

“That is what they always say,” he retorted. “Deceiving you and then pretending that it’s for your own good.”

“Hush, Benedict. Don’t mind him, Miss Ferrand. Our Benedict has a warped view of the human condition.”

Benedict grimaced but did not reply, and Camilla turned back to Mr. Sedgewick, ignoring the other man. “I did do it for the best,” she reiterated. “I was trying to give him some comfort, to make his last days better. But I never thought that he would tell Aunt Beryl!”

“Well, of course not,” Sedgewick agreed, confused but sympathetic.

“But I haven’t been to see Grandpapa, not since that first collapse, and all because I cannot bear to face Aunt Beryl. She will ask all sorts of penetrating questions, you see, and would want to know where he is. It would be impossible. And now Lydia is there, and of course she can’t carry the burden of the lies. It’s not that she can’t lie to Aunt Beryl, for Lydia is capable of the most perfect whoppers, all the while looking completely innocent.” Her tone indicated a wistful envy of the said Lydia’s ability. “The trouble is that she gets carried away by them and winds up saying so many things that she gets all tangled up. So I had to come. And I have to tell them the truth.”

“You are not making the slightest bit of sense,” Benedict pointed out rudely.

“Benedict…”

“No, he’s right. I’m all muddled.” Camilla put a hand to her head and sighed. She gazed at Sedgewick for a moment, then gave a little nod, as if coming to some sort of decision. “You can be trusted, can you not? I mean, you would never tell another soul, would you?”

“Of course not!” The man looked offended that she could question his integrity even that much. “But you must not tell me if it makes you uneasy.”

“No, I feel as if I must tell someone or burst. I have been thinking about it all day, driving down here. All day—truth is, I’ve thought of little else for weeks. I don’t know what to do, how to extricate myself from this tangle I’ve created.”

“You have my word of honor,” Sedgewick assured her solemnly, “that anything you say will not go beyond this room. Feel free to tell us.”

Camilla cast an uneasy glance toward Benedict, who grimaced and muttered, “Trust me, Miss Ferrand, I shall not be telling your girlish secrets all over London.”

Hastily Sedgewick put in, “I will vouch for Benedict. He will not say anything. Now, tell me, what is this problem you are wrestling with so?”

Camilla hesitated, glancing toward the punch bowl. “Do you think… Could I have a bit more of that punch? It is so warming.”

“Of course.” Sedgewick politely took her cup and ladled more of the spicy brew into it, also refilling his and Benedict’s cups.

“You are going to wind up with an intoxicated female,” Benedict warned him dryly, taking his own cup and drinking from it.

“Don’t be nonsensical,” Camilla retorted. “I have neber, uh, never, been intoxicated in my life.”

“Hush, Benedict. Now, Miss Ferrand, please proceed.”

She took a sip of her drink, drew a deep breath and began. “Well, as I told you, Grandpapa was taken with apoplexy, and the doctor put him in bed and said he hadn’t long to live. Of course, I posted down to Chevington Park as soon as I heard.”

“Chevington Park?” Sedgewick repeated, surprised. “You mean…your grandfather is…”

“The Earl of Chevington.” Camilla nodded. She was looking down at the cup in her hands and so did not see the swift glance that her benefactor cast toward Benedict. “Yes. My mother was his daughter.

“My parents died when I was a child. So I was raised by my grandparents, as well as by my aunt Lydia—Lady Marbridge, that is. She was married to my uncle, the heir to the Earl, but he died when their son Anthony was just a child. So it was quite kind of her to take me on, as well. We all lived at the Park with my grandparents. I suppose that is why I am so close to my grandfather. My grandmother died a few years ago. I came to see my grandpapa as soon as I learned that he had been taken ill. The doctor said we should all be very careful not to upset him, that it would damage his health, maybe even send him into another fit. But I could not keep him from worrying about me. He was so very anxious, you see, because I am not married. He kept saying that I needed a husband to take care of me, which is, really, the most absurd thing, because I am quite capable of taking care of myself.”

Benedict made a muffled noise, and Camilla turned to look at him sharply. He gave her a bland look in return and gestured for her to continue.

“As I was saying, he was fretting himself tremendously. You see, Grandpapa is rather old-fashioned, and he is convinced that I ought to be married.”

Sedgewick cleared his throat deprecatingly. “Well, it is the usual thing for a young lady to do.”

“Yes, but, you see, I am not the usual young lady. I don’t wish to be married.”

“Indeed.”

“Yes.” She nodded vigorously. “Marriage, you see, is an institution designed for the benefit of men, and I see little advantage for a woman in marrying.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Well, it’s true. Men, after they marry, are still free to do as they please, the rulers of their households, whereas their wives have no freedom at all. They are expected to obey their husbands and raise heirs and keep the house in order. And nothing else. They have no rights and no freedom.”

Sedgewick smiled faintly. “Come now, Miss Ferrand, surely you overstate the matter.”

“Do I?” She straightened, looking at him with narrowed eyes. “A woman’s property becomes her husband’s as soon as they are married. She, in fact, is considered his property, a chattel. He has the right to discipline her, to restrict her movements, even to beat her if he wishes. She cannot vote.”

“Vote? Good Gad, you wish to vote?”

“I don’t see why not. But that is beside the matter. The point is, whether I wish to or not, I cannot. I have had an excellent education, and my understanding, I think I may say without contradiction, is not small. Yet the stupidest fellow is allowed to vote, simply because he is a man and owns property, whereas I am not.”

“God help us,” Benedict commented dryly. “A bluestocking.”

Camilla shot him a look that would have blighted a less sturdy sort. “I fail to see what is so reprehensible about a female of intellect and education. No doubt you are the sort who thinks that women should tend to their knitting and not speak unless spoken to or have a thought in their heads that does not pertain to dresses and hairstyles.”

“No, Miss Ferrand, actually, I have had quite enough of empty-headed females.” He gave her a small bow, a faint smile on his lips conveying the distinct impression that he included her among that number.

Sedgewick turned the conversation back to its original track. “So that is why you have not married, Miss Ferrand?”

“Yes. I see no reason to give any man control over myself or my property. I am a person in my own right, and I shall remain so as long as I do not marry. Therefore, I am twenty-five years old and a spinster, and while I am quite happy in that condition, it has worried my grandfather for years. After he was taken ill, it plagued him even more. He would tell me how he could not bear the thought of dying and leaving me unprotected. And no matter how I tried to tell him that I was fine, that I had the property my mother and father left me, so I am quite able to live independently, he would not stop fretting about it. He told me it was an unnatural sort of life I was leading, living on my own, even though I have a companion, so it is perfectly respectable. But he wanted me to have children and a man to take care of, and all the things that he said were right and natural for a woman.” She paused, then sighed and confessed, “So I told him that I was engaged.”

Benedict let out a short bark of laughter. “Oh, that’s rich—the defender of women’s rights, pretending that she has snagged a husband.”

“I was trying to keep him from worrying!” Camilla snapped. “Of course, you would never think of such a thing as trying to save someone pain or worry.”

“Whatever your reasoning,” he pointed out mildly, “’tis still a lie.”

“Fine words from a thief!” Camilla retorted hotly. “Or smuggler, or whatever you are. You don’t hesitate to steal carriages and kidnap people, or to knock a man senseless or draw an innocent bystander into a fight, but you draw the line, of course, at telling a small fib to ease the mind of a dying man!”

“Benedict…” Sedgewick shot him a quelling look. “Pay him no attention, Miss Ferrand. Benedict has little use for us ordinary mortals and our petty problems. It’s perfectly understandable that you would have told your grandfather that story, so that he could die more peacefully.”

“Thank you.” Camilla smiled at him gratefully and took another sip of her drink. It no longer felt like fire as it rolled down into her stomach; it merely sent a pleasant warmth spreading throughout her, lifting her spirits a little. She felt better already, she thought, and she realized that confession must indeed be good for the soul.

“You are a very understanding gentleman,” she told Sedgewick with a warm smile. “I am so glad I told you. You see, I didn’t want to lie to Grandpapa, but it seemed a small enough thing to do to make him happy. He was so sick that he didn’t ask me much about the man or how we had met.” She smiled faintly. “He didn’t even lecture me on the impropriety of becoming engaged without the man coming to ask for my hand from him first. He was quite happy about it, and after that he rested more quietly. Then he began to improve a little, and soon he began to feel much better. Before we knew it, he was cursing his valet and wanting to get up and go downstairs, and ringing a peal over the doctor’s head for not letting him. The better he felt, the more he asked me about my fiancé, and it became most awkward. Of course, I had to make everything up, and I felt so awful about lying to him. I regretted ever having told him, but I couldn’t tell him that I had invented the whole thing. I was afraid it would upset him so that he would have apoplexy again. Finally, I could not bear it any longer, and I fled back to Bath. But then I kept getting letters from him asking about my fiancé, wanting to know when I was going to bring him to Chevington Park to meet him. I have been trying ever since to figure out a way to get out of it.”

“Just tell him the fellow cried off,” Benedict suggested callously. “That will put an end to the matter. It is quite believable. If your escapade tonight was any indication, you would give any man adequate reason to get out of an engagement.”

Camilla swung on him. “You have the gall to blame me for what happened tonight? Anyway, my fiancé is not the sort of man who would ‘cry off’ an engagement, as you so vulgarly put it.”

He let out a bark of laughter. “That’s rich. Since your fiancé exists only in your imagination, I would imagine that he can do anything you wish.”

“I mean that the sort of man I have told my grandfather he is would never do such an ungentlemanly thing. You cannot understand that, no doubt, but most gentlemen have a code of honor.”

“Oh, aye, that’s a bit out of my reach, miss,” he replied, adopting a thick accent and tugging at an imaginary forelock like some dim-witted farmhand. “Not being used to Quality, like.”

“Do shut up, Benedict,” Sedgewick said mildly. “Obviously she could not tell her grandfather that either of them had broken off the engagement, because the old gentleman is not supposed to be upset.”

“That’s it exactly,” Camilla agreed, pleased to see that he understood. “Grandpapa is still in ill health, and the doctor says not to disturb him. He says it is a miracle that he hasn’t gone already. So I kept putting him off about when Mr. Lassiter and I were going to come to Chevington.”

“Mr. Lassiter?” Benedict asked.

“My fiancé.”

“Ah, yes, of course.”

“Would you let her get on with the story, Benedict?” Sedgewick asked. “I still haven’t heard about Aunt Beryl. That is what I’m waiting for.”

“Her!” Camilla said with much disgust, her lip curling. “She decided that Grandpapa needed her care to improve, so she moved to Chevington Park, girls and all. Aunt Lydia says she just took advantage of the fact that Grandpapa is too sick to kick her out. Well, he can’t, very well, when she came there on an errand of mercy. But I am sure that she has been driving him mad. And it put the housekeeper’s nose out of joint, as if she couldn’t take care of the house unless one of the family was there to keep an eye on her. But that’s neither here nor there. The point is, Grandpapa told Aunt Beryl that I was engaged. I never dreamed of his doing that. Of course, when I told him the lie, I didn’t expect him to even be alive a few days later.”

“I see. And Aunt Beryl’s knowing it puts a whole different light on the matter, I presume.”

“Oh, yes.” Camilla shook her head sadly and took another sip of her drink. Despite the awful situation she was in, she was beginning to feel quite mellow. “Aunt Beryl is the worst of my relatives. She has two of the most insipid daughters, whom she is always trying to marry off, and it has been a source of great pleasure to her that I have not married before either of them. However, she is always afraid that I will yet tie the knot before she unloads her brood on some poor, unsuspecting men.”

“Haven’t you told her of your philosophical position against marriage?” Benedict asked, his lips curling in an amused way that Camilla found quite irritating.

“Of course I have, but she doesn’t believe me. She thinks that I am simply making excuses for being an old maid, and that I would jump at the opportunity to marry, just as her daughters would.”

“An understandable misapprehension, considering the fact that you are pretending to be engaged.”

Camilla frostily ignored Benedict’s interruption, speaking only to Sedgewick. “Aunt Beryl didn’t believe it—that I was engaged, I mean. Apparently she and Grandpapa had quite a quarrel about it. Lydia learned all about it when she went down to Chevington Park. The doctor was so angry that he told Aunt Beryl not to bring the subject up again with Grandpapa. But Lydia writes me that the two of them keep sniping at each other about it. Aunt Beryl makes pointed remarks about the fact that I have not brought my fiancé to visit. Lydia says that Grandpapa defends me.” Tears sprang into her eyes at the thought of her grandfather’s loyalty. “Oh! I feel so wretched! I have lied to him, and I cannot bear to think what he will think of me when he finds out. Because he must find out. Lydia wrote me that I have to come. Grandpapa keeps asking for me. She is right. I must go. I have to be with Grandpapa. I am afraid that it won’t be much longer before he—”

She broke off, her throat clogging with tears. Sedgewick reached out and patted her hand. “There, there, my dear.”

Camilla smiled at him waterily. “You are very kind. None of this is your problem, and you have been the kindest of men to listen to me.”

“But what are you going to do?” he asked.

“I must tell them the truth.” She sighed. “Lydia thinks that we can stave off Aunt Beryl’s questions and barbs, but I don’t see how. I am certain that she will ask me all sorts of things about my fiancé that I won’t be able to answer. Things one should know. She will want to know what family he belongs to and how he is related to this person or that. I would be bound to get caught in a lie, and that would be even worse than telling everyone that I am not engaged. And what sort of excuse can I give for his not coming with me? I mean, it is a family crisis, and he wouldn’t let me travel down here all by myself. But I don’t think that I can bear to confess that I lied about it all and have Aunt Beryl look at me in that pitying, superior way she has. And Grandpapa—what if it upsets him so that he dies? It is just too awful to contemplate.”

She stood up abruptly, setting her cup down on the table with a clatter, and began to pace agitatedly about the room. “If only I could think of some way out of it! I have been cudgeling my brain for days. All the way down from London, I could think of nothing else. But I came up with nothing…nothing!”

There was a long moment of silence, then Sedgewick said quietly, “What if I thought of a solution?”

Both Camilla and Benedict swung toward him in astonishment.

“What the devil—” Benedict began.

“What?” Camilla asked, hope rising in her face. She started toward him eagerly. “Do you mean it? Have you really thought of a way out of my predicament?”

He nodded. “Perhaps. If you are willing to risk it.”

“I would do anything!” she exclaimed rashly. “Just tell me what it is!”

“What you need to do is arrive at Chevington Park tonight with a fiancé.”

“What?” Camilla frowned, confused. Had the fellow not understood what she had been telling him? “How could I— Who—”

Sedgewick smiled and nodded toward the other man in the room. “Benedict will be your fiancé.”