Review
"Four unconventional American sisters and three aristocratic bachelor brothers set the stage for the first novel in Camp's Willowmere trilogy. With a bit of mayhem, humor, misunderstandings and enough sensuality to please any reader, this consummate storyteller writes a well-crafted and enchanting tale. " - Romantic Times (4.5 stars) on A Lady Never Tells
“A storyteller who touches the heart of her readers time and again.”
—Romantic Times
"Like Camp’s other books, this one is beautifully crafted. The characters are so real you feel as though you know them, and the feisty matchmaker and the stubborn duke make a memorable couple." --Booklist on The Courtship Dance
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About the Author
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
In a few days she would be gone. Eve Hawthorne could almost taste freedom.
No more lectures from a stepmother only eight years older than herself. No more tight-lipped frowns at a remark deemed too frivolous. No more having to endure the heavy-handed attempts at matchmaking with whatever widower or bachelor her stepmother hoped might be willing to take Eve off their hands.
When Eve’s husband died two years ago, he had left her, at twenty-six years of age, not only alone but nearly penniless. The Hawthornes had never been renowned for their ability to keep money in their pockets, and Bruce, the youngest son of a middle son of an earl, had had no income beyond his military commission, which had made it even more difficult for him to stay within his means. Eve used what little money Major Hawthorne had left her to pay off his debts, and even then she had been forced to sell their furniture and many of their belongings in order to satisfy his creditors. She had had no recourse but to return to her father’s home to live.
After almost eight years of marriage and managing her own life and household, it would have been hard in any case to have once more become a dependent child, but since Eve’s father had remarried several years earlier, Eve had found herself living not only on the Reverend Childe’s charity but on that of her stepmother as well. It had not been a welcome situation for either woman.
Eve faced her stepmother now, determined to keep a pleasant smile on her face. Surely these last few days they could manage to get along without their usual subtle struggle.
“It is a beautiful day, Imogene,” Eve observed. “Quite pleasant and warm for September. And Julian has finished all his lessons. Did he tell you how well he did in Latin?”
Eve realized as soon as she said it that her words had been a mistake. Much as Imogene Childe reveled in her son’s intelligence and education, it was always a sore spot with her that she herself had not received the sort of classical education that Eve had had at the hands of the Reverend Childe. She did not like to be reminded that Eve helped her father teach Julian, whereas Imogene, his own mother, could not.
“I am aware of Julian’s achievement in the subject,” Imogene responded, her mouth pruning up. “But he has not made the progress he has by ignoring his studies and running off to play.”
Eve knew better than to advance the argument that her half brother needed some time to play just as he did to study. Instead, she said, “But Julian will not be playing; we will be observing nature. The animals . . . the plants . . . the ways in which autumn is making changes in them. Besides, it is important for Julian to observe the beauty and wonder of the world that God has made for us, is it not?”
She smiled at Imogene sweetly, knowing that the pious woman would have more difficulty combating this argument.
But it was Julian himself who clinched it. “Please, Mother?” he asked, looking his most angelic. “Auntie Eve will be here only a few more days, and then she and I can’t do this anymore.”
The thought of her stepdaughter’s imminent departure brightened Imogene’s expression, and, with a sigh, she relented. “Very well, you may go with your aunt, Julian.” She turned her gaze to Eve. “But pray, do not bring him home muddy again or with grass stains all over his clean shirt.”
“We shall do our very best to stay clean,” Eve promised her. She no longer tried to make her stepmother understand that one could not expect a young boy to remain perfectly tidy unless he did nothing but sit in a chair all day.
Mrs. Childe nodded, the tight corkscrew curls on either side of her face bouncing. “You had best remember, Eve, that the Earl of Stewkesbury is not looking for someone who will let his cousins run wild. The Talbots are one of the finest families in England. He wants a woman who is a model of decorum. Those girls’ reputations will depend on what you do as their chaperone. It is a heavy responsibility, and I hope the earl will not regret entrusting it to someone as young and frivolous in attitude as you.”
Eve managed to retain her smile, though it was more a grimace than an expression of humor or goodwill at this point. “I will keep that in mind, ma’am, I promise you.”
After picking up her long-brimmed bonnet and tying it on, Eve followed her half brother out of the house and across the yard, cutting through the churchyard and cemetery to the beckoning field beyond. She smiled to herself as she watched Julian race ahead, then squat to observe some insect making its way through the grass.
The thought of leaving Julian behind was the only thing that tugged at her heart, marring somewhat the joy of leaving this house. Her half brother had made the past two years bearable, easing her grief over Bruce with his warm affection. Even his mother’s rigid rules and sanctimonious airs had seemed less bothersome when Julian slipped his small hand in hers and smiled at her or tilted his head to the side like a curious sparrow as he asked her a question. Eve’s marriage had been childless, which had long been a sorrow to her, but Julian’s presence in her life had helped fill that hole in her heart.
It would pain her to leave him, but in only a couple of years Julian would be sent off to Eton as his father had been before him, and then Eve would be left in the house with only the company of her studious, abstracted father and her carping stepmother. It was a prospect to make one’s blood run cold.
That was why Eve had jumped at the opportunity to chaperone Lord Stewkesbury’s American cousins. Lady Vivian Carlyle, Eve’s friend since childhood, was also close to the Talbot family, headed by the Earl of Stewkesbury. Lady Vivian had written Eve recently to say that the earl was in desperate need of a chaperone for his young cousins who had arrived in London from the United States. It seemed that the chaperone Stewkesbury had first hired to help the young women enter English society had proved entirely unsuitable. What was needed, Vivian had written, was a woman of good family who could act as an older sister or young aunt to the girls, taking them under her wing and instructing them—as much by example as teaching—in the things they would need to know to make their way successfully through a London Season. Vivian had thought immediately of Eve and wanted to know if she would be interested in traveling to Willowmere, the country seat of the Talbot family, to assume the position of chaperone.
Eve had written back to assure her friend that she would indeed welcome the opportunity to chaperone the American girls. In reply, she had received a letter from the earl himself, offering her a generous stipend for her troubles and stating that he would send a carriage to bring her to Willowmere—a gesture Eve found most gracious, though it was doubtless inspired more by the fact that she was a friend of Lady Vivian than by any concern for Eve’s own person.
The earl had given her two weeks in which to pack and prepare for her journey, which meant that the carriage was scheduled to arrive anytime in the next two or three days. She had only these last few days to enjoy her half brother’s company, and she intended to take full advantage of them. So she put all of her stepmother’s injunctions out of her mind and followed the boy through the field and down to the brook.
They paused to watch the antics of a red squirrel and later to investigate the remains of a bird nest that had fallen from a tree. Julian had a healthy curiosity about all things in nature, both flora and fauna, and Eve did her best to read enough to keep up with his questions. She had never thought to learn so much about butterflies, or pheasants and robins, or birches, beeches, and oak trees as she had the last two years, but she had enjoyed exploring such topics—though she could not deny the little ache in her heart when she thought of how it would have been if she had children of her own with whom to share these wonders.
Before long they reached the brook that lay east of town and followed it to a large rock perfectly arranged for sitting and watching the shallow stream as it burbled its way over the rocks. Eve took off her bonnet and gloves and set them aside, followed by her walking boots and stockings. She kilted up her skirt and waded into the water after Julian, bending down to look at the little fish arrowing past their feet or chasing after a frog as it bounded from rock to rock.
Imogene’s strictures were ignored as they laughed and darted about. Julian had more than one streak of mud upon his shirt, and the bottoms of his trousers had been liberally splashed with water. His hands were grubby and his cheeks red, his eyes sparkling with pleasure. Eve, looking at him, wanted to grab him and squeeze him tight, but she was wise enough not to do so.
She was standing in the brook when she heard the sound of a horse’s hooves, and realized that they must have drawn closer to the road than she had thought. She turned to climb up the bank, and a small snake brushed her foot as it slithered by her. Eve let out a shriek, forgetting all about the road and the horse, and Julian fell into a fit of laughter.
“Oh, hush, Jules!” she told him crossly, then had to chuckle herself. She was sure she must have presented quite a sight, jumping straight up into the air as if she had been shot. “’Twasn’t funny.”
“Yes, it was,” the boy protested. “You’re laughing.”
“He has you there,” a voice said from behind them.
Eve whirled around. There, on the small wooden bridge that crossed the stream, stood an elegant black stallion, and on its back was a man with hair as black as the steed’s. They were both, man and hors...
