Chapter 5 #3
“Shall we leave off the port and have one more game of billiards before joining the ladies?” Miles proposed to his cousin.
Pembroke agreed to it, and Evo needed no persuasion to play chess with Felix rather than sitting with them over port, which he had no taste for.
This left Camilla, her sisters, and their mother to talk and wait for the tea to be brought.
More than once, her mother expressed her distress over Camilla’s injury, while Sophia reassured her that it would quickly mend and no harm had been done.
Tilly showed Dorothea the embroidered signature she was perfecting for her creations.
Camilla thought of nothing but Pembroke’s return, wondering if he would seek a private audience with her before she could remind herself that she was not getting her hopes up.
The servants brought the tea and left again before Dorothea thought to ask them to retrieve the gentlemen from their game. She turned to Camilla. “Will you go and see if Miles and Pembroke have finished?”
She nodded, her heart fluttering from anticipation, and left with Sophia, who went the opposite way to the library to find her husband and Evo. Camilla directed her steps to the narrower corridor, and as she approached the billiard room, heard Miles say, “Nice shot.”
“A lucky one, I’m afraid. I was aiming for the other ball,” Pembroke’s humorous voice rang out in answer, and her steps slowed. The corners of her lips lifted.
At a second smack of balls striking, Camilla took another step toward the door.
“Have you decided to propose, then?”
Oh my heavens. A rush of excitement shot through her so quickly she felt faint. I shouldn’t be here. They are discussing matrimony! How embarrassing to be found listening. She turned to hurry away.
“To Miss Eubank? I am almost decided to do so.”
Camilla froze in place when she heard Pembroke’s reply. A roaring sound filled her ears, and she felt the blood drain from her face.
Another clink of the cue hitting the ball. “I urge you to it. She seems amiable enough, and you have always said that was the quality you wished for most in a wife. No arguing, no high drama.”
“True. I suppose I shall do the thing once I can bring myself to it. Over Christmas, perhaps.” To Camilla’s ears, Pembroke sounded resigned, bored… He also sounded determined. She could scarcely breathe, and the pain in her hand was nothing to the dull pain that now filled her chest.
“Christmas. Why not? You know your mother will keep putting forth prospects until you choose one. As well you put a stop to it by settling on a bride yourself.”
“You are very right—even if my mother was the one to suggest it.” He gave a humorless laugh. “At least she can put forth no objections.”
Camilla did not stay to hear more. She retraced her steps as quietly as she could, and when she turned the corner, came flush up against a footman.
“Excuse me,” she said in a voice barely audible. “I had intended to announce to Mr. Shaw and Lord Pembroke that tea was being served in the drawing room but have forgotten something in my bedchamber. Can you inform them of it?”
“Yes, milady.”
She began to move past him but turned back to the footman. “Do not tell them you saw me.”
“No, milady.”
Now she hurried away as quickly as she was able and could only breathe again when she was out of sight.
She crept up to her room and closed the door quietly.
There were only a few minutes to spare before she would need to make an appearance in the drawing room.
She used them by sitting on the bed and covering her face with her hands, the bump of the cotton pad pressing against her cheek.
She tried in vain to keep the tears from leaking out. No one must notice her distress.
The disappointment was acute. Ever since she had been old enough to love, she had refused to allow herself to think anyone might love her back.
Why would they? But she had let down her guard with Pembroke and allowed herself to believe.
The enormity of her error doused her in shame.
Had she revealed her hopes in his presence? Had he been able to read them?
“Stupid, stupid, stupid,” she whispered.
Pembroke is not interested in you—he never was.
He is holding out for an amiable wife. A Miss Eubank, it appeared.
It was time to stop thinking of him as a friend who might one day see something more in her.
Time to stop viewing him in anything of an intimate nature.
He must be Lord Pembroke to her and nothing more.
The thought plunged her into despair again, and she knew she would have to ring for a maid and send her excuses that night.
There was no point in remaining in the drawing room for tea now that she knew she had been grossly mistaken about his intentions.
Her knife wound served in this, at least, for no one would think it odd of her to claim fatigue after such a trying day.
She removed her hands from her face and clenched the uninjured one into a fist. Never again would she be so foolish as to convince herself of a true attachment based on such meager signs.
She had mistaken his comfortable posture around her, his small actions of protection or kindness as a sign of something deeper on his part, but she had been wrong.
Fortunately, she had learned of it before he knew her heart.
She had her pride, after all, and would be hero-worshiping him no longer.
It was finished.