Gemma came awake with an abrupt jolt when the curricle stopped.
She realized with a start that she was cuddled up against Cam’s side like an ivy vine twining around an arbor. She pulled away, trying to be casual about it, but given that he was about two inches away it was doubtful he’d failed to notice.
“We’re here,” he said unnecessarily.
Fortunately William appeared at the side of the vehicle then, and she hastily scrambled to climb down with his assistance instead of Cam’s.
But to her dismay he was there just as she gained her footing and offered her his arm.
When she hesitated, his lifted brow was all it took to spur her into accepting his escort.
“I’ve got the papers here,” he said as they walked. “I thought perhaps we should wait until tomorrow to go over them. You need to get warmed up after…”
“After exposing my legs like a common strumpet?” she asked bitterly. She truly wanted to recover her fossil, but this afternoon’s escapade had perhaps been too bold even for her.
“I didn’t see anything,” he said with a haste that told her he had in fact seen everything.
When they reached the door, it swung inward and George ushered them inside with a tutting noise. She must have looked more bedraggled than she realized, Gemma thought with an inward sigh.
“This mud will be the death of us, Miss Gemma,” said the butler with a shake of his head. “I’ll see to it that Tillie takes good care of this.”
She looked down and realized that, indeed, her lovely persimmon velvet was thoroughly spattered. Which reminded her of something else.
“I know I’ve resisted it, but I suppose you’d best choose a ladies maid for me from among the staff, George,” she said. “Or perhaps Serena won’t mind sharing Tillie with me for a few days until one can be hired on? Either way, one of them should be able to salvage it.”
To his credit, the butler’s eyes only widened for a half-second before he nodded and said he would do so at once.
“Look at me nattering on about household business while you wait,” she said, realizing that Cam had been standing silently behind her. “Let George take your things. I’m sure Maitland or Kerr have something you can change into while yours are cleaned.”
But to her surprise—and disappointment, she realized—he shook his head.
“I won’t be staying. You need some rest, and if I’m to reach the vicarage in time for supper, I should leave now.”
Gemma frowned and turned to look at him. She’d been embarrassed by her behavior in the curricle, but somehow she’d thought he’d take his evening meal here.
“I wish to discuss the best course of action in our search for your fossil with Benedick,” he said. “He’s a bit of a nuisance as brothers go, but he’s not entirely useless.”
“You’re frozen to the bone, he added. “Get warm and get some rest. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
This last he said with such gentleness she felt her chest squeeze.
Perhaps it was better if he left now. If she wasn’t careful, she’d become so attached to him she wouldn’t be able to break their engagement when the time came.
“Then I’ll see you tomorrow,” she said with what she hoped sounded like lofty unconcern. “We can go over Sir Everard’s papers.”
“Yes,” he said with a nod.
They stood awkwardly for a moment. How did one take leave of the man who’d had a close up view of one’s naked thighs, she wondered. That wasn’t even accounting for the kissing.
To her shock, when she offered him her hand, Cam pulled her closer and kissed her on the mouth.
“You didn’t see that, Stephens,” he said to the butler.
“See what, my lord?”
“Until tomorrow,” Cam said to Gemma.
And then he was gone.
She stood dumbfounded for a moment. When Stephens coughed slightly, she realized it had been longer than she’d realized.
“Send up a bath please, Stephens,” she said over her shoulder as she hurried up the stairs. At least one reason for her shivers could be taken care of.
* * *
An hour later, Cam was seated in Benedick’s study. Fortunately, they were of a size, so he’d been able to borrow a mud-free, dry set of clothes. He’d need to send for his things tomorrow. Any pretense of normalcy at Pearson Close had been lost with Sir Everard’s murder and Cam would rather be here, close to Beauchamp House in case Gemma had need of him.
Good lord, he was a fool.
“Already regretting your actions of the day?” Benedick asked with one of his omniscient vicar looks. Cam knew there was no actual all-knowingness behind them, but it was an effective tool in his brother’s repertoire of expressions that annoyed Cam.
“Not at all,” he replied blithely, despite his very real misgivings. “We’ll dissolve the betrothal a few months from now and all will be well. Gemma wishes to marry me as little as I wish to marry her.”
“I can’t imagine she’s eager to give up ownership of Beauchamp House so soon after inheriting it,” Benedick agreed. “Especially after she’s been the one heiress to escape the parson’s mousetrap over the course of the year. I can’t say I blame her for being reluctant.”
That was one aspect of the situation Cam hadn’t considered.
“I know it’s the law that her property would become mine, but I’m not a monster. I’m sure I could have my solicitor draw something up if it came to that,” he said with a frown. “She knows I wouldn’t do anything with her property without consulting her first.”
“Does she?” Benedick wondered thoughtfully.
“Of course she does,” Cam said with a vehemence he immediately regretted. So much for appearing calm and collected.
“Does she?” Ben asked again. “It’s not difficult to believe she might not know that. You don’t know one another that well, do you?”
Rather than protest that they knew one another quite well, in fact, Cam instead tried for nonchalance. He set one booted ankle on his knee and leaned back in his chair.
The picture of calm.
“It isn’t important,” he said. “We’ve agreed not to go through with it.”
Why did the room, which earlier had seemed a comfortable temperature, despite the cold outdoors, seem blisteringly hot?
He resisted the urge to run a finger beneath his cravat.
“Hmmm.” Benedick got up to stoke the fire and Cam had a tiny fantasy of leaping to his feet and throwing all the windows open. But he remained where he was.
“I thought the two of you were better suited than we’d realized,” Ben said once he’d stood upright again. “But you know best, of course. I don’t know where you’ll find another woman who would be content with your collection of dead things and stones.”
That surprised a laugh out of Cam. “But I know very well where I can find a wife who will not put up a fuss about anything. Much less my fossil collection. Gemma would no doubt object to everything but the fossils.”
“Oh, and where is this magical place where uncomplaining wives are so readily available?” Ben asked, sitting on the edge of his desk. “For I must save up the name and tell everyone at Brooks’ when next I’m in town.”
“Come now, Ben,” Cam said to his brother with a roll of his eyes. “You know as well as I do that young ladies willing to marry into a ducal family are thick on the ground in London during the season. I could likely find a half dozen willing to wed me in the course of one trip to Almack’s.”
“You seem to assume that these ladies have no minds of their own,” Ben said with a shake of his head. “I think you may be mistaken in that.”
“And you seem to have become accustomed to having the sort of wife who doesn’t know her place,” Cam said. Even as he said the words he knew he was being rude.
But Ben had never been quick to anger. “If I were a different sort of man,” he said dryly, “I’d call you out for that. Fortunately for you, I only inflict physical harm on one person per day. And it’s too damned cold out to duel.”
It was his brother’s sangfroid that made Cam feel the worst. He deserved a thrashing.
“That was badly done of me,” he admitted, dropping the pose of calm and leaning forward to set his brandy glass down. “I don’t know what I want, Ben, and that’s the honest truth.”
“I know you’re uneasy in your mind,” his brother replied. He’d also never been the sort to say ‘I told you so’. “But perhaps this time you spend together searching for Gemma’s missing fossil will give you the answers you seek.”
“It’s proximity that I’m afraid of,” Cam said, thrusting a hand through his hair. “I fear the more time we’re together, the more opportunities I’ll have to compromise her beyond the point where either of us can call off the match.”
Perhaps not the best thing to tell the brother who was also a sort of guardian for the lady in question. But Cam had no one else to confide in. And as Ben knew Gemma better than he did, maybe he’d have some notion of what to do.
“What does your heart say?” Benedick asked.
Cam laughed bitterly. “I don’t know that I have a heart. I’ve spent most of my adult life pleasing only myself and seeking to fulfill only my ambitions in the quest for the next discovery. I’d always thought finding a wife would be another extension of that.”
“What do you feel when you’re with her?”
Cam sighed. “Did you hear what I said? I don’t feel anything.”
“You must feel something or you’d not be so miserable.”
He hated it when Ben was right.
“I feel something,” Cam amended grudgingly. “Lust, affection, protectiveness perhaps.” He thought back to that moment in the curricle when she’d slept, curled up next to him like an exhausted kitten. He’d wanted to carry her up to her bedchamber at Beauchamp House and tuck her in. Then climb in and sleep next to her.
On top of the counterpane.
He was clearly losing his mind.
“And you don’t think you would feel any of those things for a wife?” Ben asked, unaware of the thoughts racing through his brother’s mind.
“I don’t want that sort of marriage, Ben,” he said, his frustration at the situation and his happily married brother overtaking him. “I’m not cut out for that sort of thing. The rest of you can be blissful with your willful wives. But I don’t want the sort of thing our parents have. It’s nothing but a sham.”
He hadn’t meant to say that.
That day he’d seen his father leaving the house of a local widow had shattered his understanding of the Duke and Duchess of Pemberton’s marriage. Of what a happy marriage looked like. They might seem happy on the surface, but the rot that lay beneath had spoiled all such facades for Cam. Ben might think his union with Sophia was destined to remain blissful, but Cam knew that it was an illusion at best.
Far from protesting Cam’s confession, however, Benedick instead said, “You aren’t seriously telling me you won’t allow yourself to be happy because Papa had a mistress when we were young? Are you?”
Cam looked up at his brother and saw that he was indeed serious.
“You knew?”