Page 6 of Ravishing Camille

“As she should,” said Camille. “We need the vote. And more ability to handle our own finances.”

“You handle your own,” Pierce said, but checked Killian’s suddenly tight expression. “A great advancement.”

She firmed her full lips, but stared at him.

He frowned. “The Marriage Law of a few years ago granted that to a woman of means.”

She frowned and crossed one leg over the other.

Not pleased at all, eh?“Why do you look like you ate a prune?”

Killian turned to his step-daughter. “Better tell him.”

“Tell him what?” Pierce asked when she clamped her lips together.

“I want to ensure that my earnings from my novels are only mine.” She brushed a hand along the contours of one long leg and fastened her dark chocolate gaze to his. Since she’d turned eighteen, she had penned one novel each year. Maybe more, if he was not counting carefully. All were popular and profitable enough for her to have rented out a London flat last autumn, so Liv told him in her letters. All of her novels were mysteries starring young women who fell in love with secretive men who hid ugly secrets and lived in eery castles.

“Why wouldn’t they be?” What had happened that she questioned this?

She scowled. “I want to ensure that all my money remains mine.”

Pierce shook his head. “Why wouldn’t it be? You wrote the books. You own them.”

She huffed. “Not the first two.”

“Why not?” Pierce checked his father’s grim expression.

“They persuaded me to sell them all the rights for a pittance.”

“All?” He sputtered. “How much of a pittance?”

“Thirty pounds for the first. And the right to republish until hell freezes over!”

“How can they have done that?” He could not believe she’d been so cheated.

“I got smarter after that and demanded a percentage of the net sales.”

“I should hope so! And hired a lawyer too.”

“Oh, indeed. The law suit continues.” She folded her arms.

“Well, well then, so what’s this that you fear your money is not yours to keep? I know you have your own bank account.” Every Hanniford did. She too. Pierce remembered the day he and his father had gone with her to the City to open it. “Your money is only yours. Isn’t it?”

When neither his father nor she uttered a word more, he sat back. “Just tell me.”

“I’m going to get married.”

Married.The word sank like a stone to his guts. Still he said, “Why that’s—”Impossible.“That’s marvelous!”

“Yes,” she said in such a measured way that he could have thought she was agreeing to another scoop of vanilla ice or a peach cotton for a new gown. “It is.”

Who is he?“Who is the lucky fellow?”

She shifted an iota among the squabs. “I haven’t decided.”

“What?” He laughed, relieved, confused. “How can you not know who you will marry?”

She met his gaze frankly. “I entertain two different gentlemen. Both are inclined to ask. But I’ve not decided which I will accept.”