This Perfect Kiss by Melody Thomas Page B

despite what had happened in the past, despite who her mother had been, despite the pain Christel had caused her family.
    If she believed in guardian angels, she would think it was Saundra watching over her, Saundra’s arms she felt around her. Saundra, bringing her home for a reason.

Chapter 5
    A s Camden stood in front of the tall frost-covered window of his private dressing room, tying his cravat, he felt that same familiar edge he’d always felt when he was home. In the far distance, he could see the Anna. Too large to come into the shallower waters nearer shore except during higher tides, she was still anchored outside the half-moon bay and would remain there until morning, when Bentwell would do a final assessment of the damage she had incurred during the rough weather.
    He had come ashore in a longboat earlier in the evening without the pomp and circumstance that usually occasioned his arrival. He had been welcomed only by a small party of retainers who had been alerted by those in the new watchtower. He had promptly learned that his errant younger brother was visiting with friends in the country.
    After first seeing to the welfare of his daughter and Mrs. Gables and arranging rooms for Christel to stay the night, he had come to his own chambers to make himself presentable to his grandmother. Now, he looked out over the distant scenic cove.
    Behind him, his solicitor sat on a chair in front of the hearth. The older man was a faithful, stalwart figure. His reflection became Camden’s focus in the window. Wearing a full-skirted orange coat with matching waistcoat and breeches, he was hard to miss in a room painted green and purple.
    His grandmother had always been an artist at heart, though she would never admit to something so common. Her love for all the colors of the rainbow was quite evident in this wing of the house, from the green walls to the purple upholstered chairs to the emerald velvet hangings on his bed. She had shared these rooms with his grandfather when he had been alive, an uncommon achievement for a wedded couple—to actually share in love both physical and emotional.
    â€œHow long has my brother been gone?” Camden asked his solicitor, holding his arms back as his valet slid on him an informal black coat.
    â€œA week, my lord. He does not stay away long. A month at most.”
    â€œHe left while Grandmother remained ill?”
    â€œShe forbade anyone telling him the severity of her illness. But you are here now. Already there is color back in her cheeks.”
    Dismissing his valet, Camden poured himself a glass of port and finished dressing at the window as the solicitor caught him up on the news and business of the day. Camden gave the requisite nod and occasional grunts, signaling that he was listening.
    The tall gilded clock at the end of the corridor bonged ten times, dutifully reminding him of the hour, just as it had for all Blackthorn’s occupants the last fifty years.
    That his grandmother’s illness had been a ruse to force him home still niggled at the back of his thoughts. But as he sipped his port, his mind remained wholly on Christel. Their conversation earlier that day still troubled him. It was not only that she had not told him she had been married; she had also betrayed herself to him with the onerous truth about the men who had murdered her husband, thus putting the burden of deciding what to do with such knowledge on his shoulders.
    What bothered him most was that he recognized a part of something he once was that still lived in Christel: her idealistic belief in honor, her courage and her copious conviction that a single person has the power to right the wrongs of the world.
    Her bravery in the face of adversity had unexpectedly affected Camden in a way he had not felt in years. He had not believed in anything for so long, and suddenly he found himself a taunting parody of his own importance.
    Uncomfortably aware of the direction of his thoughts,