Chapter 13 #3
“No, I guess you’re right about that,” Corliss agreed, the damaged door forgotten as she swept an approving glance over Susanna’s apricot-colored gown. “No wonder you dressed so pretty today. Does Mr. Spencer know you’re coming to call?”
“Of course he does. We arranged everything at the Grymes’s barbeque on Saturday,” she lied, looking in the mirror as she tied the ribbons to her matching silk hat under her chin.
She thought fleetingly that she appeared a bit pale this morning, but no wonder!
She still couldn’t believe she had allowed Adam to… to…
Chasing away the vivid memories that kept leaping into her mind, she whirled to face her maid, adding firmly, “But this is a secret, Corliss. Our secret, and Elias’s, who’ll be driving the coach.
I don’t want you to say anything about this journey to anyone.
Not to Ertha or Prue or any of the other maids. No one.”
“A secret?” the young woman asked, clearly confused.
“Yes. I can’t have my other suitors knowing I’m traipsing about the Tidewater paying solitary calls on a rival. From the way all of you gossip around here, any chance visitor might overhear you, and that’s how rumors get started. I don’t want to crush anyone’s hopes, at least not yet.”
Understanding crept into Corliss’s lively dark eyes. “I ‘spect Mr. Grymes is going to find himself mighty disappointed before too long, isn’t he, Miss Camille? A host of other young” —she put special stress on the word— “gentlemen, too.”
Susanna forced a conspiratorial smile. “Perhaps.
After turning around for a last glimpse at herself in the mirror, she picked up her fan and gracefully opened it, giving it an expert flutter.
She had been practicing over the past few weeks.
Feeling a much-needed boost of confidence, she snapped the fan shut and walked to the door, her wide skirt rustling.
“Now, if anyone asks, Corliss, just say we’re going into Yorktown to do some more shopping.”
“I hear you, Miss Camille.” Glancing at the damaged door as she passed it, the maid shook her head.
“You better start drinking some of Prue’s special chamomile and peppermint tea before bedtime if you want to stop those nightmares from coming,” she suggested, following Susanna into the hallway.
“It’ll help you sleep nice and peaceful.
That way Mr. Thornton won’t have to wear out any more doors like he did to that one. ”
Susanna made no comment, but she did make a mental note to try some of that tea tonight. She certainly didn’t want a repeat of last eve—
No, she wasn’t going to think about it! It was bad enough that she could almost feel the warm weight of Adam’s hands upon her body, his fingers teasing her intimately.
And those words she had dreamed he had said…
I love you, Camille. That was the last thing she wanted to hear him say to her!
How could she have ever dreamt such nonsense?
Heaving a sigh, Susanna stopped outside his room. “I forgot something, Corliss. Why don’t you go on ahead and see that Elias is ready with the coach.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Waiting until the maid had disappeared down the stairs, she drew from her bodice a note she had hastily written to Adam in case he came back to the house and she still hadn’t returned from Raven’s Point.
He had become so possessive of her, she imagined he would be upset when he learned she had left without his knowledge.
She hoped the short missive explaining that she had enjoyed shopping so much that she had gone into town to do some more would appease him, especially since she had signed it Yours always, Camille.
This was the first time she had signed anything with that name.
She had been intending to write Lady Redmayne a letter to inform her that all was well, as Camille would have done weeks ago.
But she still didn’t trust her imitation of Camille’s signature.
She needed more time to practice, using as a guide a letter Camille had written to her father.
During a visit to Briarwood a few days after Susanna’s arrival, William Booth, the family attorney, had given her a key to James Cary’s strongbox in which his personal papers were kept.
She had immediately destroyed Camille’s letters, save for one, and as soon as she felt confident enough writing the signature, she would have to dispose of it, too, however reluctantly.
Sighing, Susanna opened the note and briefly reread it, lingering on the neatly inscribed closing.
Yours always, Camille.
Frustrated anew by the same niggling regret that had plagued her since the night she and Adam had first kissed, she defiantly refolded the paper and entered his room.
She had no fears that he would discover the ruse.
If he had ever seen Camille’s letters, he’d hardly remember a signature, and even if he did, it would be passable enough to fool him.
“Now, where shall I put this?” she said to herself, thinking how much neater his chamber was now than the first time she had ventured into it. The room’s decidedly masculine appearance hadn’t changed, however, with its dark, heavy furnishings and his personal belongings placed here and there.
Idly touching the pages of a book that had been left open upon the bedside table, Homer’s Iliad, Susanna suddenly had the strangest sensation that she could feel Adam’s presence all around her—compelling, warm, and powerful, like the flesh-and-blood man himself.
Becoming flustered, she quickly propped the note against a silver candlestick and hastened from the room.
She could not help wondering as she hurried down the stairs if Adam Thornton would haunt her memory long after he had left Briarwood.