Chapter XIII. 2007 #2
“You don’t have to do that,” she said, forcing a shy smile.
She’d known it would happen, that her father would trot her out like some prize pony, but she had not anticipated it in such an intimate setting as her own home.
This party and her reaction to it was a test. Her father’s voice was lighthearted but she knew the keenness in his gaze.
Every movement was being measured against some metric only he understood.
“Already done. Invitations went out about an hour ago. I told Chef quail eggs and caviar to start. You went on and on about them at Christmas last year. Thought it would be a nice treat.”
She didn’t dare ask about her mother when she already knew he would keep her locked away. “When is it?”
“Tuesday night. I figured that’ll give Chef enough time to prepare. And you time enough to get to feeling better.”
Two days. Of course, he wouldn’t want to wait any longer than necessary. She’d robbed him of his moment of triumph by skipping that day’s sermon. If he could have pulled the party off that night, he would have done it.
She stretched her mouth further. A beauty queen smile. “Who’s invited?”
“Darlin’, I invited everyone.”
She could only hope everyone also meant Noah and Brianna and Vera. If her father told the truth, it meant Noah would have an opportunity to bring her a phone, and, if she was lucky and very careful, she would be able to sneak away from the party and find a way to talk with Vera.
But when Camilla came down the stairs on her father’s arm two nights later—her lungs aching against the corset top of her dress—Noah, and Brianna, and Vera were noticeably absent from the crowd in the foyer.
As expected, her mother was locked in her room, monitored by a nurse who looked less friendly bedside manner and more undercover assassin.
Camilla had been allowed inside her room the night before to say goodnight, the watchful eyes of her father and the nurse preventing her from doing anything more than offering a whispered “I love you.”
Her father placed his hand on her arm as he guided her down the steps.
“You look lovely. I knew you weren’t my little girl anymore, but I hadn’t realized you’d become a woman.
” They reached the bottom, and a round of applause went up that made Camilla want to die even as she dipped her head in assumed humility.
She thought of her mother upstairs. Her teeth and her blood on the floor. She thought of her mother so she would not forget why she had to play the good girl.
“Thank you, Daddy.”
He hugged her, and there was more clapping, and she wondered how much kerosene it would take to set the house on fire. After she got her mother out, of course.
Camilla drifted from group to group, dropping kisses on the women’s cheeks and turning her body away from the men’s hugs, their hands lingering at the small of her back as they told her what a good daughter she was.
An inspiration. That she was a prize who would one day make someone a very lucky husband.
She breathed through it. The good girl. She was temperate.
She was submissive. She was gentle and hospitable.
She could be all those things if it meant her father would believe them and turn his attention from her for even just a moment.
After Beau Fannin ignored propriety and let his liver-spotted hands rest firmly on her backside, she excused herself. “Enjoy the party,” she said instead of kicking him in the crotch.
She closed herself in the downstairs powder room, locked the door behind her, and then checked it three times before she leaned against the sink.
“It’s okay. You’re okay,” she said.
Two minutes. Then five. Outside, someone gave a delicate knock and then drifted away to find an unoccupied toilet.
She could do this. Even without Noah and Brianna.
She’d hoped they would be there, but she should have known better.
Her father never had any intention of inviting anyone who might serve as a negative influence on her, and Brianna’s family was likely still keeping her hidden away.
But it would be okay. They would help her, and she could figure out a way to talk with Vera.
She blotted her face, touched up her lipstick, and forced herself to smile even if it looked more like she was snarling.
Already, the party’s volume had risen, so when her father announced dinner was served, Camilla felt a rush of relief. At least her ass would be firmly planted in her seat and shielded from any wayward hands.
The dining room glowed. Candlelight caught at the china’s cream-and-gold pattern, the table linen, the bowls of roses and lily of the valley all lit like holy relics, the crystal already filled with the dark jewel tones of her father’s finest grand cru.
A fairy tale breathed into life by wealth and prestige.
Heavy ecru place cards marked each setting, the calligraphy blurred in the golden light so that each guest leaned forward to read them, the women holding their hands to their chests to keep themselves modest. Each one of them quickly calculating their position within the church, how much esteem they held, based on their distance from the shepherd of their flock.
The party might have been in Camilla’s honor, but she held no power, even if she was the one seated at her father’s right hand.
Her gaze drifted toward the seat beside her, her face growing hot as she read the name.
Ada Burson. She turned away and dug her nails into her palm.
She blinked back the tears that were threatening to form as she simultaneously willed herself not to reach over and tear the name card into ragged pieces.
Her father would have never allowed her mother to attend the party, not in her condition, but the name card was an act. A counterfeit demonstration meant to show his congregation the care he still showed his ailing wife. If Camilla was the good girl, he was the devoted husband.
After a prayer and the first and second course, Camilla managed to swallow two spoonfuls of beluga and a singular bite of endive, but she was on her second glass of red wine—fuck it, she’d get her teeth bleached before the Ball—when a voice interrupted what she hoped was the tingling beginning of drunkenness.
“Seems a shame that the person this entire party is for has somehow ended up sitting alone.” The voice was a graveled sort of music. A warm depth that invited her to sink.
“You’re never alone if you have a drink.” Without bothering to look up and see who it was who’d spoken to her, she lifted her glass toward the voice and took another sip.
“May I?”
Camilla glanced again at the place card, at her mother’s name, and then let her heart turn to stone. If she was going to make it through the night, she had to lock those emotions away. At least she had the wine.
“Knock yourself out,” she said, tipped her glass again, and then frowned. Empty.
“Looks like I got here just in time. Could you bring her another?” The waiter standing at the head of the table dipped his head and, as if by magic, the bottle appeared in his hand, and he began to pour.
“My hero,” she said, and then, finally, turned to take in the person who inserted himself in her mother’s chair.
She bit down on her tongue, the sarcasm she called up vanishing as she tried not to gape at Grant Pemberton, who was grinning back at her.
His hair was longer than when she last saw him, and he wore it swept back from his face.
A navy blazer made his eyes look darker, more gray than the blue she’d memorized at fifteen.
He hadn’t bothered with a tie and left the top button of his shirt undone; he smiled as he watched her gaze drift toward that bare skin.
She flushed and looked away, and not because she was playing the good girl.
At the very least she had the good sense to feel guilty.
She couldn’t sit here at a party thrown in the name of her virtue, in the same house as her sick mother, and flirt with Grant Pemberton.
But it felt good to let herself lean toward him.
To allow herself this small excitement, the wine warming her blood.
“Thank you.”
“The very least I could do,” he said.
“Thought you’d gone off to Connecticut for good.”
“And leave all this behind?” He lifted his own glass in a sweeping motion. “Never. Besides, studying for the bar is a little easier at home. Fewer temptations.”
She lifted an eyebrow, watching him over the rim of her glass. “You sure about that?”
He laughed then, and it set her body on fire because she knew it shouldn’t. Because it wasn’t pure or modest or chaste to want him. Because she wasn’t fifteen anymore, and God, couldn’t she just have this one thing? To feel wanted for this one night?
“Maybe not so sure. Can’t hurt to find out,” he said, and she wanted him to lean into her, to brush his hand against her thigh so she could burn, but he turned to Brian Stillman on the other side of him, who was slapping his back and saying something about how no one ever could find a decent woman north of the Mason–Dixon line like the shit heel he was.
She sipped her wine, but she’d lost the need she’d had for it only minutes before. She dipped a finger into the liquid and watched as a scarlet droplet traced its way to her wrist. Like blood against bark. Like one braid twisting into another.
With a quick, feral movement, she drew her tongue over the trickle and let her eyes drift closed. Maybe she would drink it, after all.
Something brushed against her leg, and her eyes snapped open. She looked down and watched as Grant poked her again. He reached for his glass, his body angled away from Brian Stillman, and mouthed help me.
She stifled a grin as he slowly turned back to the conversation. She lifted her glass to her lips, let the liquid flood her mouth before swallowing. No harm in making him wait.