Chapter 6
Chapter Six
Cameron felt the intense pressure of his little sister charging down the hallway toward his office door. He imagined the sensation was akin to a typhoon building out at sea and gaining power before it made landfall.
He set his pen down atop his bookkeeping, leaned with his elbows on the desk and cradled his head in his hands. Bracing himself.
A moment later, two sharp knocks on his office door informed him that the storm had arrived. “Yes?” he groaned.
One of the double doors flung open and Rachelle strode inside. Lennon, clearly exasperated, trailed helplessly in her wake.
“Cameron Dwight Ashford, have you lost your ever-loving mind?” She stood with her hands on her hips, radiant in a plum-colored jumpsuit that complemented the warm undertones in her brown skin.
Her dark hair was braided and twisted up in some complicated, elegant fashion, and she wore a furred headband, giving the overall impression of a winter empress.
This sensation was further emphasized by the impressive pink-diamond studs twinkling at her earlobes.
“Cameron, I’ve told her that she cannot come barging into rooms unannounced now that you have a bonding partner,” Lennon exclaimed from her side. “Not that you should be doing it anyway!”
“About that,” Rachelle said, her intense hazel scrutiny centered on Cameron.
“Why was I at Lotus Tea House yesterday for my weekly date with Henry, when the tea master comes over to graciously extend his congratulations to my brother on his new bonding arrangement, and I had to pretend as if I knew what the hell he was talking about?”
Cameron rubbed his temples and sighed. “Hello, brother, thank you for doing what I, along with our parents, have been pestering you to do for the past decade and therefore saving me from inheriting the burden of running this estate and Upper Avalon. Truly, you are the best brother a vampire could—”
“Cameron. No one told you to make a hasty and questionable arrangement in secret! There’s a process to these things. Careful deliberations to be made.”
A process. Cameron had skipped right over that, hadn’t he? It had been a terrible mistake, but he wasn’t going to admit that to his sister—or anyone. Ever.
“I’ve deliberated—carefully, mind you—and made my choice,” Cameron explained. He sat back in his seat and folded his arms tightly over his chest. “It’s finished and we have an understanding… I did this so you would stop shouting at me. What the hell?”
Rachelle folded her arms, matching his frustration. “And when were you planning on telling me?”
“Today. Calmly, I had hoped, upon your visiting. I’d planned to introduce you to him. We only finalized the arrangement this past Sunday.”
“Have you told our parents?”
“I wrote them.”
Rachelle’s eyes went wide. “You wrote them? Why not call?”
“For the same reason I would have written you, if it were possible.” In Cameron’s estimation, these vampires were never satisfied.
Run the estate, Cameron. Pay all the servants a livable wage and keep the house in a stately fashion.
Collect the taxes and make sure the realm is economically sound and everyone is happy.
Find Rachelle a gallant partner. Find yourself one before you’re deemed a lecherous old pervert. And on and on.
The responsibilities never ended. He’d have responsibilities until the day he dropped dead.
Writing his parents a letter about the arrangement ensured he wouldn’t need to talk to them about it… until the letter arrived in Australia, anyway. Even then, he could avoid their phone calls for a few more days.
“Len,” Rachelle said, turning to the manservant, “can I talk to him alone, please?”
Lennon looked to Cameron, then to Rachelle. “Yes, my lady, but—please try not to make this any harder for him to cope with than it already is? You know he means well.”
“I know that. I apologize for yelling, and I’m calm now, I promise.”
Reluctantly, Lennon nodded, then turned and left the room. When the door was secured, Rachelle exhaled a heavy breath. “Alright, alright… I’m just trying to wrap my head around this because it’s so out of the blue.”
Cameron huffed, glancing away to look out the window and toward yet another dreary and cold day. “How? I’ve only done what you all have asked me to—like I always do. I don’t understand what the goddamned problem is.”
Rachelle paced the floor in front of his desk. The only seating in Cameron’s office was a thick velvet cushion in the largest windowsill or the two comfy chairs set across from each other beside his wall of accounting and legal references, files and notebooks.
He rarely entertained guests—business or otherwise—so he kept his office sparse and to his liking. Offering seating in front of his desk would subliminally invoke an invitation to sit and talk. He wanted neither.
“Why Thomas Blakeley?” Rachelle finally asked.
Cameron shrugged. “Why not?”
“Well, again, it’s a name from out of nowhere.
He went off to university a few years ago, but no one has heard from him or seen him socializing within the aristocracy in forever.
You must have some reason for plucking him out of obscurity and espousing him—as particular as you are, mind you. I want to know why.”
This was a tender point for Cameron, and he really, really didn’t want to think about it. He brushed over it as quickly as possible. “I saw him at a party once and found him interesting. That’s it.”
Rachelle’s eyes widened. “Wait… I do remember that. You asked me about him—at the Havenwrath winter solstice party, right?”
“Yes. So?”
“So, I remember because you noticed him and asked me for his name. This was remarkable, big brother, because your typical behavior is to ignore everyone and not know anyone’s name.”
Cameron was barely coping with feeling mortified and idiotic over the whole ordeal.
He didn’t want to talk about it. He could not.
He waved a hand. “You’re exaggerating. Anyway, I wasn’t plotting to ensnare him.
I saw him at a party recently and decided I would make an inquiry to his family estate for the purpose of getting you and our parents off my back.
It worked out and he’s in agreement with our arrangement. ”
“Which is?” Rachelle stopped pacing, her full attention focused on Cameron once more. “Are you planning any celebratory events? A wedding? Or maybe a ball? Will you honestly attempt to mate with him—”
“No, to everything. Not that it’s any of your business.”
“It’s my business when the tea master has asked me if there’s a ceremony planned so he can properly congratulate you,” Rachelle reasoned. “Many of Upper Avalon’s residents will want to celebrate their favored lord’s marriage—”
“No.” Cameron eyed her firmly, his brow furrowed.
There was no way he was giving in to this.
First, because Thomas hadn’t even consented to this arrangement.
Cameron had made so many assumptions, and all of them were dead wrong.
Second, because he’d done what they’d asked.
He had a partner, and that should have been enough.
He would not subject himself to a boisterous party where he’d be the center of attention. It sounded like a nightmare.
Rachelle sighed. “So, let me get this straight. You have a bonding contract with this young man—Sir Thomas Antony Blakeley—and he has happily agreed to your stringent terms? A sexless, fruitless union with you, a generous and, frankly, physically arresting man, with no party or celebratory events to boot?”
“Yes,” Cameron said, “he has.” Happily was a stretch. Nothing about Thomas outwardly suggested such an emotion.
This reminded him, though. He needed to reassure Thomas about sex. It hadn’t felt appropriate to bring it up right away, especially after they’d gotten off to a rocky start (Cameron’s fault, in every incomprehensible way).
He should discuss it with Thomas soon. Maybe at dinner tonight?
“I know we were pressuring you,” Rachelle began softly, “but I was hoping that maybe… you would take this opportunity to finally do something for yourself.” She stared at Cameron, waiting.
Cameron frowned. “What does that mean?”
“Ugh, Cam! It means you’re always so buried underneath all your responsibilities and tasks for the estate and the realm—and even looking out for me. Always doing this and that for everyone else. I’d hoped this mating contract would be something you could choose… selfishly, and be happy.”
Cameron balked, incensed. “Selfishly? That sounds horrible. And I was happy until our parents threatened to disinherit me if I didn’t get married!”
“Cameron—”
“I was also happy making all manner of choices for myself. I chose to separate the upper and lower libraries. I chose the new stone for the garden walkways, and I chose to turn the attic into a cocktail space—”
“Renovation decisions don’t count, you stubborn mule, because it’s still a responsibility. You’re still managing the upkeep of the estate.”
“It counts for me.” Cameron really didn’t need this today.
None of it. “The issue here is that my definition of ‘happy’ doesn’t match yours, our parents’ or the ideals of the aristocracy.
Now I’ve yielded and conformed to everyone’s demands, and yet I’m still being yelled at, because I didn’t conform in the right way. ”
Rachelle stood there for several beats, not speaking, but Cameron refused to break the silence. Eventually, she sighed. “I hear you, Cam. I apologize for freaking out.”
“It’s not helpful.”
“Okay, I get it. I am sorry… Will you introduce me to him? He is here, yes? I sense his presence.”
Cameron stood from the desk and rolled his shoulders. “He’s here. Probably in the library.”
“Do you sense him at all? Intimately, I mean. Does he have a unique scent for you?”
He paused, eyeing her. “No.” He walked around the desk, resisting the urge to tell her to mind her own damn business again.