Page 7 of Ravishing Camille

“Dear heavens!” He chuckled, cast at sea. “I don’t know whether to congratulate you or dip you in the Channel for a nice cold swim.”

“Do try,” said his father. “I have. To no avail.”

Pierce let his jaw drop. But looking at her brought forth no counter arguments from her. He was quite simply stunned. Camille was no social butterfly. Had refused a debut and all the fuss to accompany it. His father, step-mother and his sisters, too, had written often about her. She had sent fewer letters than they to him, but still he knew much about her life and her choices.

She navigated social rungs with her sass and flare. Her parents’ social connections brought her the cream of society, and her own success as a novelist brought many in the literary world to her, clamoring for friendship. She had her own small apartment in London with a part-time maid. Enough money to live on. Enough friends to amuse her and gratify her need for gaiety. She was twenty-four, stunning and in need of no one to lighten her days. Which left, of course, what to do with the dark of her nights. “Why marry at all?”

“Ah,” said his father with a nod. “The heart of the matter.”

She waved a hand. “I grow older, you see. A woman must catch a man in her prime. Before her looks wither and she can no longer charm a stranger.”

“What?” He scoffed. Camille had little tolerance for the fripperies of female conventions. “True feminists do not need a man.”

She shrugged a shoulder. “I do not need one. I’d simply find one useful.”

“Poor fellow.” He was horrified and trying—for the sake of comity—to be mightily amused.

“I want fun, too. With a man who’ll adore me now and hopefully still will when I’m ninety-five.”

“Do these men love you?”

“They might.”

“Might?” He sputtered.

“I’m not certain yet.”

Killian rolled his eyes at Pierce.

“How can you learn?” he persisted with her.

“Oh,” she said with a hint of sarcasm, “a woman knows.”

He frowned at her. “You cannot consider a marriage to any man who doesn’t praise the ground you walk on.”

“Thank you. I agree.”

He focused out the window. Saw nothing. When would she marry? And go where? He’d come home, anticipating she’d be here. Lifting his spirits when he needed her. And he did now… He shook off the thought. “Who are they? These paragons of desirability?”

“You’ll meet them,” she said.

“When?”

“Soon. They come to dinner. The first comes tonight.”

He folded his arms. “I can hardly wait.”

She cast a jaundiced eye at his posture.“Hunh! You certainly won’t do them the justice they deserve, if you are set against them from the beginning.”

Well. That from her was a stinging blow. “I am sorry, Camille. It’s just a shock.”

“I wouldn’t pick simpletons. Besides, you knew someday I’d marry.”

Did I?

“Everyone else has married. Even you wanted to last year.”

He folded in on himself with that reminder. His loss of May was a wound, still tender. “Marriage is what we Hannifords do.”