A Yuletide Treasure by Cynthia Bailey Pratt Page B

her that the physical admiration he’d known in the coach had already deepened into an acknowledgment of pleasure in her company and conversation. Camilla could not prevent a warmer feeling blossoming in her own breast. She felt that she’d met a friend.
    For all that, a chilly feeling arose with the consciousness that she had already cracked, if not broken, several of her mother’s most dearly held and most often reiterated rules. Perhaps it was “fast” to be too friendly even when every feeling encouraged her to ripen this friendship. Therefore, it was Camilla who looked away first
    Then Lady LaCorte came in, and the instant blackening of her face when she saw Sir Philip and Camilla tête-à-tête informedCamilla that she’d made an enemy.
     

Chapter Six
     
    At dinner, Camilla saw several servants she’d not realized the manor house possessed. There was a frigidly correct butler whose name seemed, however unlikely, to be Samson. Mavis did not serve, but an older maid whose quiet urging to “take another chop, do,” proclaimed her to be one of Mrs. Duke’s children.
    Since the numbers were uneven and they only used half the large table, Camilla sat alone on one side, while Sir Philip and Lady LaCorte bracketed her at the head and foot. Tinarose sat next to the doctor on the other side.
    In the golden glow of the many-branched candelabra, Dr. March glowed like a highly polished bronze statue. His thoughts and words were those of a man of science while his appetite was that of a young man who’d taken unaccustomed exercise in winter.
    “I have been meaning to learn to ride, but there never seemed to be enough time now that I’m living here. There certainly was no time while I was training.”
    “Of course, you lived in town then, didn’t you?” Tinarose said, making excuses.
    “Edinburgh,” he said. “They have horses there, but they also have very hard streets.”
    “Hard streets?”
    “You know. Cobblestones and the like. I couldn’t see learning to ride there. All the falling off.”
    ‘You should learn to ride while the snow is still thick upon the ground. It will be safer for you.”
    “I found it no less distressing,” he said, glancing with a half laugh at Sir Philip.
    “Oh, come. It was only the once, and you landed in a large snowbank. Believe me, I didn’t get off nearly so gently when I learned. It was during the longest drought in years. The ground was like a sheet of iron. As I remember well,” he added with a reminiscent grimace.
    “Yes, but how old were you?”
    “Six, I think. It was the year before I went to school.”
    “Ah,” the doctor said. Turning to Tinarose, he leaned toward her confidentially. “The young, Miss LaCorte, being more flexible may take a toss without harm. We who are older cannot so easily recoup from such a shock.”
    At first, Tinarose’s eyes flickered in pained surprise when he seemed to refer to her as young. But the latter half of his comment, grouping her in the “older” category with him, made her smile hopefully and nod her complete agreement.
    Camilla glanced at the black and silent figure at the end of the table. Lady LaCorte showed animation only whenever Sir Philip spoke to Camilla. Her own daughter’s lively interest in the doctor seemed to escape her notice.
    As a good guest, Camilla tried to divide her attention evenly between her hostess and her host. She attempted to develop topics of interest to whichever of them she was speaking. Yet even while discussing the virulent weather with Sir Philip and praising the excellence of the dinner to Lady LaCorte, Camilla’s mind busied itself with the mystery of the Manor. It could not be that Lady LaCorte had transferred her affections so quickly from her husband to her brother-in-law.
    Not because such matters were beyond the scope of the human heart in even less time than the length of Lady LaCorte’s widowhood, but she gave no sign of even being fond of Sir Philip. She lapsed into