Hadrian."
He pulled the striking cord. A muffled pop confirmed that her image, that
smile,
was embedded on the proving plate, part of history's record, theirs at least.
Straightening, he looked over the top of the camera and asked, "So tell me,
Callie,
what think your parents of your determination to remain husbandless and childless? Or do you have siblings sufficient to keep the family nurseries stocked?"
It was as if a veil had fallen over her face. Looking not so much at him as through him, she answered, "I have an older brother I haven't seen in years. He and his wife have twins, both boys, a fact that pleases my parents enormously-- carrying on the family name and all that."
"What are your parents like?"
She paused a moment before answering. "Staid, conventional. Father is the penultimate
pater familia.
Mother runs the household with an iron fist, yet wouldn't dream of picking up a newspaper and forming an opinion of her own. Aside from the occasional holiday, our contact is limited to correspondence, sketchy at best. I suppose it's fair to say my family doesn't approve of me." She kept her tone matter-of-fact, and yet he sensed the state of affairs caused her some degree of pain.
"It's their loss, I'm sure," he said not because he was working to woo her but because, quite simply, he felt it must be true.
"What of you? Do you have family here in London?"
He shook his head, marveling at how neatly she'd managed to turn the tables on him yet again. Sticking to the story he and Gavin had come up with when he'd resurfaced in London the year before, he said, "I'm an only child."
True enough, at least so far as he knew, though as a boy, he'd dreamt of having a brother just as he'd dreamt of living in the country. It wasn't until he'd left London and his past behind and made a fresh start at Roxbury House that he'd come close to realizing either dream.
"An only child and a boy at that, you must have found yourself fawned over by a great number of aunts and uncles and grandparents."
The happy family portrait she was painting was such a stark and cruel contrast to the circumstances of his actual upbringing that he felt the old buried bitterness rising up. "Hardly. My mother was a . . . widow actually." He thought of the other women who'd worked in Madame Dottie's, Sally especially, and for whatever reason was moved to embellish, "I had a number of aunts who spoiled me after a fashion. After Mum--Mother--died, I lived in an orphanage for a while."
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to pry." Her eyes were sad-- sad for him.
He shrugged to indicate it wasn't important, and yet for whatever reason, being the object of her pity hurt him, rather profoundly. "It wasn't a bad place. Quite the contrary, in fact. It was in the country, and in time I made three friends there, one of whom lives in London now."
"And the other two?"
"There's a big, braw Scot, Patrick, though we called him Rourke after his surname. The last I heard, he was somewhere in northern Scotland working on the railways. The little girl, Daisy, was adopted by a husband/wife acting team and whisked off to parts unknown."
"So you were left all alone?"
The way she said it brought back how very much it had hurt to find himself abandoned yet again. "For the most part, yes." He punctuated the admission with a shrug and then busied himself with changing out the exposed plates for blank ones. Aware of her watching him, he looked up and asked, "What are you thinking now?" not because he was playing her but because for whatever reason he genuinely wanted to know.
She turned to face him, a smile on her lips--lips he suddenly wanted to kiss rather badly. "That it is growing markedly colder not to mention coming on time you fulfilled your end of our bargain."
He'd wager the whole of his twenty-five hundred pounds that wasn't what she'd been thinking at all but rather than press, he said, "Time to pack up and pay the piper, is it?" Straightening, he stepped away from the
He pulled the striking cord. A muffled pop confirmed that her image, that
smile,
was embedded on the proving plate, part of history's record, theirs at least.
Straightening, he looked over the top of the camera and asked, "So tell me,
Callie,
what think your parents of your determination to remain husbandless and childless? Or do you have siblings sufficient to keep the family nurseries stocked?"
It was as if a veil had fallen over her face. Looking not so much at him as through him, she answered, "I have an older brother I haven't seen in years. He and his wife have twins, both boys, a fact that pleases my parents enormously-- carrying on the family name and all that."
"What are your parents like?"
She paused a moment before answering. "Staid, conventional. Father is the penultimate
pater familia.
Mother runs the household with an iron fist, yet wouldn't dream of picking up a newspaper and forming an opinion of her own. Aside from the occasional holiday, our contact is limited to correspondence, sketchy at best. I suppose it's fair to say my family doesn't approve of me." She kept her tone matter-of-fact, and yet he sensed the state of affairs caused her some degree of pain.
"It's their loss, I'm sure," he said not because he was working to woo her but because, quite simply, he felt it must be true.
"What of you? Do you have family here in London?"
He shook his head, marveling at how neatly she'd managed to turn the tables on him yet again. Sticking to the story he and Gavin had come up with when he'd resurfaced in London the year before, he said, "I'm an only child."
True enough, at least so far as he knew, though as a boy, he'd dreamt of having a brother just as he'd dreamt of living in the country. It wasn't until he'd left London and his past behind and made a fresh start at Roxbury House that he'd come close to realizing either dream.
"An only child and a boy at that, you must have found yourself fawned over by a great number of aunts and uncles and grandparents."
The happy family portrait she was painting was such a stark and cruel contrast to the circumstances of his actual upbringing that he felt the old buried bitterness rising up. "Hardly. My mother was a . . . widow actually." He thought of the other women who'd worked in Madame Dottie's, Sally especially, and for whatever reason was moved to embellish, "I had a number of aunts who spoiled me after a fashion. After Mum--Mother--died, I lived in an orphanage for a while."
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to pry." Her eyes were sad-- sad for him.
He shrugged to indicate it wasn't important, and yet for whatever reason, being the object of her pity hurt him, rather profoundly. "It wasn't a bad place. Quite the contrary, in fact. It was in the country, and in time I made three friends there, one of whom lives in London now."
"And the other two?"
"There's a big, braw Scot, Patrick, though we called him Rourke after his surname. The last I heard, he was somewhere in northern Scotland working on the railways. The little girl, Daisy, was adopted by a husband/wife acting team and whisked off to parts unknown."
"So you were left all alone?"
The way she said it brought back how very much it had hurt to find himself abandoned yet again. "For the most part, yes." He punctuated the admission with a shrug and then busied himself with changing out the exposed plates for blank ones. Aware of her watching him, he looked up and asked, "What are you thinking now?" not because he was playing her but because for whatever reason he genuinely wanted to know.
She turned to face him, a smile on her lips--lips he suddenly wanted to kiss rather badly. "That it is growing markedly colder not to mention coming on time you fulfilled your end of our bargain."
He'd wager the whole of his twenty-five hundred pounds that wasn't what she'd been thinking at all but rather than press, he said, "Time to pack up and pay the piper, is it?" Straightening, he stepped away from the
Similar Books
