your husband.”
Her aunt’s words were followed by a complete silence. Camilla gaped at Lydia. Aunt Beryl’s shrewd eyes flickered from Camilla’s stupefied face to Benedict’s.
“How do you do, Mr. Lassiter?” Lydia went on, as if she had said nothing out of the ordinary. “I am Viscountess Marbridge. Camilla’s aunt.”
Benedict recovered well, smiling at the Viscountess and giving her an excellent bow. “How do you do, my lady? It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance.”
He turned toward Camilla, and a look of pure fury flashed from his eyes. He was certain that she had played him for a fool, had for some strange reason maneuvered him into this situation.
Lydia, too, looked at Camilla. “Oh, dear,” she said, pouting prettily. “I hope I haven’t completely spoiled your surprise.”
“Oh. No, of course not,” Camilla responded faintly.
Lydia started across the room away from them. Benedict, smiling warmly down at Camilla, curled his hand around Camilla’s wrist and squeezed it in a most unloverlike grip. Bending close to her ear, he whispered, “What the devil do you think you’re doing? Whatever you hope to trap me into, I promise you, it won’t work.”
Camilla could not control the irritation that flashed over her features. “I have no idea what’s going on,” she whispered back, baring her teeth in what she hoped would pass for a smile. “I know nothing about this.”
Benedict’s eyes told her that he would like to pursue the point further, but by that time Aunt Lydia was upon them. She took Camilla’s hands in hers, squeezing them significantly. “I know you wanted me to keep the news a secret, but I was simply so elated when I received your letter that I could not resist telling everyone the news. Please say you will forgive me.”
“Yes. Certainly.” Camilla had recovered her poise and her senses well enough to know that she had no choice but to play along with her aunt’s outrageous statements.
“So unexpected,” Aunt Beryl put in, and Camilla could feel Aunt Beryl’s eyes boring into her.
She forced herself to meet her other aunt’s gaze, hoping that she looked adequately calm and in control. “Yes, wasn’t it?”
Lydia went on, “I am sure you must be very tired after your journey.” Squinting at Camilla, she leaned closer to her and whispered, “My dear, is that mud on your neck?”
Camilla put a hand to her neck. “Yes, I am rather tired,” she agreed, seizing on the opportunity to get out of this room and be alone with her aunt. “My—our coachman got lost.”
“How dreadful. You must go up to your room and rest.” Lydia took her arm, starting toward the door, but Aunt Beryl’s voice stopped her.
“Now, now, Lydia,” Aunt Beryl said in a jovial tone. “We won’t allow you to steal Camilla away like that. Will we, girls? We are simply agog to hear all the details of the wedding. It isn’t often that something so…unexpected happens. And you must meet Mr. Oglesby and Mr. Thorne.”
“What? Who?” Lydia asked vaguely, then turned toward the two young men whom Camilla did not recognize. “Oh, yes, of course.” She led Camilla and Benedict toward the mantel, where Cousin Bertram and the two young men stood.
Camilla followed her reluctantly. She had no desire to have to make polite chitchat with strangers. All she wanted was to get her featherbrained aunt alone and find out why she had pushed this outrageous pretense on Camilla.
But Aunt Lydia was rushing on, saying, “Camilla, Mr. Lassiter, this is Edmund Thorne, a, ah, friend of mine from London. He has been so kind as to visit us the past few weeks.”
Mr. Thorne was a stocky young man with a starched cravat so high that he looked as if it might choke him at any moment. His brown hair was arranged in seemingly careless curls that Camilla suspected he had spent hours getting just so.
He bowed deeply over her hand, saying, “Fair Diana—for Aphrodite, you see, can be no other than Her Ladyship.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“But no.” He put out a hand dramatically, as if to stop something. His other hand went to his brow. “Ah, yes, I see it. But of course—the fair Persephone. I feel the muse upon me. Lady Marbridge is Demeter, so filled with joy at seeing her daughter again at last—though, of course, no one could believe that Her Ladyship is old enough to be your mother. More a sister.”
Beside her, Benedict made an odd strangling noise, which he turned into a cough. Cousin Bertram raised his quizzing glass and studied Mr. Thorne.
“Really, Mr. Thorne,” Bertram said dryly. “They would hardly be Demeter and Persephone then, would they?”
“But such a nice thought, Mr. Thorne,” Lydia assured him kindly. Turning to Camilla and Benedict, she added, “Mr. Thorne is a poet, you see.”
“Ah.” Benedict nodded. “No doubt that explains it.”
“Allow me to introduce Mr. Terence Oglesby,” Cousin Bertram began, clearly dismissing the boring subject of Edmund Thorne.
Cousin Bertram was a dandy, and it showed. From the top of his hair, coiffed in a style known as Windswept, down to his tasseled boots, rumored to be polished in a special blend of champagne and bootblack, he was the very picture of the man of high fashion. While he did not indulge in the most excessive of styles, such as enormous boutonnieres in his lapel or coats so padded at the shoulders and so nipped in at the waist that his silhouette resembled that of a wasp more than a man’s, it was obvious that he considered his clothes as his art. It took him almost two hours in the morning to dress, for he often used as many as ten fresh cravats before he had one arranged to his liking, and the fit of his coats was so nice that it took his valet, as well as his butler, to ease him into it. Indeed, it was said about one of his coats that his valet had to slit it partway up the back to get him out and sew him back up in it when he put it on.
His companion was dressed in similar finery. However, Terence Oglesby obviously had no need of fine accoutrements in order to be noticed. He was, quite simply, the handsomest man that Camilla had ever seen. Everything about him was golden—his skin, his hair, even the pale sherry-brown of his eyes—and his broad-shouldered, slim-hipped figure required no enhancement from his clothes. He smiled now at Camilla and bowed over her hand, and Camilla had little doubt that he had entrée into many of the best houses of London.
“Have you been here long?” Camilla inquired politely.
Oglesby merely smiled and turned toward Cousin Bertram, who answered, “Oh, a few weeks now. London’s gotten dreadfully boring, full of hungry mamas pushing their daughters on the Marriage Mart. So Terence and I decided to rusticate for a while.”
Knowing that Bertram lived to be seen, and thrived in the social scene of London, Camilla had grave doubts about the truthfulness of his explanation. The truth more probably was that his notoriously tightfisted father had cut off his allowance after he plunged too deep at cards or got himself far in debt to the moneylenders.
Accurately reading the speculation in Camilla’s eyes, Cousin Bertram sent her a wink, as though to confirm her suspicions.
“Now, stop monopolizing your cousin, Bertie,” Aunt Beryl scolded
