“Yes.”
Del’s cheeks grew warm as she unraveled the conspiracy. “Let me guess, this Wittingham noticed you’ve been out of sorts lately and suggested a ride into the countryside would do wonders to improve your foul mood. He then gave you directions to an unnecessarily far-flung and secluded location and told you he would meet you there today at noon.”
“How did you know?” Camden asked.
“Because Jane did the same to me.”
“So we’ve been set up.”
“It appears so.”
Camden laughed, but the burst of merriment didn’t completely supplant the dark expression on his face. “I can only imagine how this came about.”
Del shrugged. “Perhaps Wittingham and Jane encountered each other somewhere and, after discovering how we are all mutually acquainted, hatched this outrageous scheme. It’s of little consequence how it actually happened, for the result is the same regardless.”
“Damn you, Wittingham,” he muttered, as if his absent, scheming friend could hear him in London. “You can never leave well enough alone.” He turned from Del to his horse and then back again, as if he couldn’t decide whether to stay or go.
Del could empathize.
“I’m sorry for the intrusion, Miss Beaumont. I assure you I had no idea what Wittingham was up to.”
Camden gathered the reins, and Del knew he was about to remount his stallion. She should let him go, let him ride back to London and out of her life and then finally she would be free of him and the turmoil he caused. But once again, she found herself unable to do it.
“Camden, wait,” she said, the words spoken before she could stop herself. “There is no reason to leave just yet. Let the horse rest, and we may as well make good use of the food you’ve brought, if you don’t mind sharing.”
Camden looked at her, and Del worried he would refuse her. She hadn’t thought of that when she’d spoken, that he would want nothing to do with her after she had so inelegantly rejected him. Perhaps it would be for the best if he took the decision out of her hands and refused any further contact. Perhaps then she could stop fighting herself over him and truly move on.
He reached for his saddle, and though Del knew she should be relieved that he was leaving, she couldn’t tamp down the twinge of pain and regret that surged through her. She closed her eyes, as if watching him go would be unbearable, but when she opened them, he was not gone. Instead, he had taken the blanket and spread it out on the ground and was now unpacking the satchel of food.
Del moved to the blanket and sat down. She broke off pieces of bread and cut slices of cheese, and otherwise busied herself readying their plates of food.
“I’ve only brought whisky,” Camden said, holding up the cut-glass bottle of brown liquid. “I was expecting Wittingham,” he added by way of explanation for not having a more female-appropriate libation.
“I could use a bit of whisky,” Del said as she held up one of the tumblers. Camden obliged in pouring her a draught.
The food unwrapped, cut, sliced, and plated, they ate in a slightly awkward, although mostly companionable, silence. Del sipped the whisky, and soon heady warmth traveled through her body and her limbs began to tingle. She relaxed, and the running dialogue she had been having in her head for weeks — about desire versus practicality and the illusion of carefree independence versus the realities of life — finally quieted. She leaned back on her hands and stretched her legs in front of her, closing her eyes to listen to the sounds of the countryside. She hadn’t done this since childhood, sat on a blanket on the ground in the sunshine and let herself just be in the moment.
She opened her eyes to find Camden watching her. She couldn’t interpret the look on his face, whether he thought her silly or childish or something else. She felt uncomfortably exposed, like a specimen under a microscope. The way he looked at her, it was as if he could see past her artfully composed façade into her raw, naked core. For the first time, it was if another person truly
saw
her. It made her want to run and hide. It made her want to stay and bare herself yet more to him. She still didn’t know which impulse would prevail.
“I admit to being surprised you wanted to stay and eat with me,” Camden said. He looked down at the hunk of bread in his hand, as if afraid to meet her eye, as if he were embarrassed or contrite.
“Why wouldn’t I?”
“Because of — the last time we met. How I behaved — ” Camden gulped his whisky.
“What do you mean?”
“With Ashe, when I struck him, when I lost control. I — what you must think of me — ”
Del knitted her brows, confused. “I think you were entirely justified in your behavior with Ashe.”
Camden’s head whipped up, and he looked at her finally. “But your reaction, you told me to leave.”
“You think I was upset with you?”
“Weren’t you?” Now it was Camden’s turn to appear confused.
“No, I wasn’t. It wasn’t you. It was just — ” Del took a deep breath, uncomfortable with the conversation. She was so accustomed to hiding her true thoughts and feelings it was difficult to let herself open up. “You know who I am, what I do.” Camden opened his mouth to speak, but Del waved him off. “And all of London does, too. When I’m with you, I tend to forget, but the world never does. It reminded me at the play, when we saw Hutchence, and he looked at me like I was something unpleasant he had just stepped in. And then again, with Ashe — ” Del hesitated, losing her nerve. She was telling him too much, giving him too much, but she couldn’t quite stop herself.
“What?” Camden said softly, encouraging her.
“It was just one more reminder of the impossibility of us ever being anything to each other.” Del wished the words unsaid as soon as they left her mouth. She had been too bold, all but telling him she wished they could be together. She could see Camden was about to ask her something, but she couldn’t bear to hear the question, and so she decided to distract him. “You truly thought I was upset with you?” she asked.
“Well, yes.”
“You thought the slightest outburst of emotion would cause me to turn my back on you. You keep a very tight rein on yourself, don’t you?”
“An ungoverned man is a weak man.”
“I have heard you make similar pronouncements,” Del said, “but it never sounds like
you
talking. It’s your father who believes such things, isn’t it?”
Camden’s expression grew cloudy, and Del worried she had pushed him too far, that he would put up a wall between them she would be unable to breach. He looked away from her, watched the ripples of water lap at the rocky edges of the pond. “Yes.”
“And do you agree with him?”
“I thought I did. But now — ” Camden sighed and shifted his weight, stretching his long legs in front of him on the blanket. “Now I don’t know what I think.”
“What’s changed?”
Camden returned his gaze to Del, his eyes fixed on hers. “You,” he said simply, and Del’s breathe hitched. “You live your life on your terms, and you don’t seem to give a damn what anyone thinks of it. I envy you.”
“I’ve merely followed the only option available to me.”
“What do you mean?”
Del bit her lip. Once again, she was having an internal struggle with how much to tell him, how much of herself she could expose. She looked at him, his face showing patience and concern, and she took a deep breath and decided to plunge ahead. “My parents died when I was five,” she said, and she had to look away from his expression of empathy and regret before she lost her nerve or broke down sobbing. “It was an illness that took them, and I could do nothing but sit and watch for weeks as they suffered, weakened, and finally — perhaps mercifully — died. I was powerless to do anything for them, to help them or cure them or even mitigate their pain. I could only watch their slow decline and know there was nothing I could do.” Del took a sip of whisky, thankful for the sense of warmth and fortification it gave her. “I was sent to live with my mother’s sister after. They weren’t close, and I had only met her once before. She wasn’t a cruel woman, exactly, but she was flighty and selfish and prone to alternating fits of extreme energy and deep melancholy. She had little concern for me beyond the money that came with me for my care, and once that was gone she sent me to live with a distant cousin. That woman
was
cruel and — ” Del broke off. She bit the inside of her cheek and pressed the heel of her hand into her mouth to keep from crying.
She silently cursed herself. After all the years that had gone by, after everything she had done to free herself of her past, it could still bubble up and overtake her, making her feel as though she were once again a small, helpless child, alone and bereft and in no more control of her own fate than a feather floating on a strong wind.
“Del, I’m sorry,” Camden said, and Del could see he meant it. He wasn’t mouthing an empty platitude; she could see it pained him to hear her story.
“After years of being passed around to different relatives, of living in circumstances ranging from merely lonely to actively miserable, I became determined to never depend on another for my well-being. But what could a young girl do to make her own fortunes?”
“Surely marriage or — ”
Del scoffed. “I was an orphan with no dowry, no connections, no access to society high or low. I had no means to find a husband of any sort, let alone one who would take as dismal a prospect as I presented. Besides, marriage would have given me no more power over myself than what I had previously. I would have been beholden to my husband, some man I had become tied to for expedience and necessity rather than any kind of affection or desire. I would have had no property, no money, no independence. Marriage would have amounted to trading in one kind of servitude for another. I longed to be free of my bondage, not trade it in for a prettier, more socially acceptable kind.”
“And so you did what you had to do, and I cannot fault you for it,” Camden said solemnly, and Del could hear in his voice that he truly understood her and did not judge her for her choices.
“Yes,” Del said. “I found my independence and made my fortunes the only way I could, and I make no apologies for it.”
She wanted to add more, but she wasn’t yet able. She didn’t know how to tell Camden that lately, since meeting him, she was beginning to question whether she truly possessed the independence and power she had always sought. For as much as she had gained, she was beginning to think she was losing almost as much. She had her own house and her own income, but she had no one close to her to share it with. She was not dependent on anyone else’s benevolence to meet her needs, but there was no one with whom she could share her wants and desires. She knew countless people, but no one she could call a true friend, save Jane. She had sex but no intimacy. She conversed for hours at a time with various people, but no one knew who she really was. They knew nothing of her thoughts or feelings, likes or goals.
“I do sometimes miss the closeness a good match could have brought,” Del said. It was a deliberately vague statement, but it was all she could give at the moment.
“Indeed,” Camden said, and in that one word, Del knew that he had, as he always did, heard beyond her simple statement and understood what she was really trying to convey.
Camden poured them both more whisky. “My father grew up poor,” he said, and though it seemed a non sequitur, Del knew he had taken her gift of self-exposure for what it was, and was now returning it in kind. “Grindingly poor. His mother was weak and sickly, and his father was a sot and a bully who drank and gambled away whatever money the family happened to earn. My father would wake up some mornings to find a sibling gone, sold for work or — other unpleasantness.” Camden shook his head, as if it were all unspeakable. “He wouldn’t really talk about it, just a few comments here and there that hinted at a wretched childhood. He developed an all-encompassing drive to better himself, to create a means to escape his circumstances since none was going to just present itself. And he succeeded. He not only clawed his way out of the dire conditions of his youth, he became massively wealthy. He built a thriving business out of nothing, amassed properties and carriages and all manner of material goods. And he did it on his own, with nothing but sheer determination and stubbornness. It’s positively unheard of. But it’s not enough for him, he always wants more. Not just more money, but a title, and if not that then at least greater social respectability.” Camden shrugged and gulped his whisky. “The thing is, I’m beginning to think it will never be enough. That no matter what wealth or social position he achieves, it won’t fill the hole inside him because that’s not what he’s really seeking.”
“And your father has made his goals yours as well, hasn’t he?” Del asked.
Camden nodded. “If we are just driven enough, he tells me, disciplined enough, ruthless enough, we can make privileged society accept us as one of their own. But they can sniff it out you know, that he doesn’t belong. His accent, his manners, he is like a small child in his father’s clothing, trying to pass himself off as man. He only succeeds in looking ridiculous.” He gave a weak smile. “He’s become increasingly frustrated over the years as his wealth has increased but his social standing remains far below where he thinks it ought to be, and he now thinks it’s up to me to secure our social position.”
“You don’t seem overly concerned with such things, though.”
“I’m not, though I don’t think my father could even conceive of such a notion. I’m a man of legal age with an immense inheritance poised to take over an enormously successful business, and yet I don’t want any of it. I feel no more in control of my life than you did. Independence, freedom, control. I sometimes think it’s all an illusion.”
“What
do
you want?” Del asked.
Camden seemed surprised at the question, as if no one had ever asked him that before. “What do you mean?”
“If you could go anywhere, do anything, what would it be?”
Camden looked thoughtful. “I’m not even sure.”
“Hmmm,” Del said, sizing him up. “I could see you breeding horses on a small, quiet farm up north.”