Camille’s eyes went wide with embarrassment. Her shoulders felt heavy, since
her body was shutting down from the very thought. How on earth did her parents
know? How had they not heard the many objections from her perspective?
“Demetrius asked for your hand yesterday. I said, 'yes,' obviously, as you did as
well,” her father said.
He never glanced up from his steamy tea and newspaper.
Her mother nodded; satisfied with her husband’s confidence. They both went
back to eating.
Camille had never noticed before what loud eaters they were. Their breathing
became labored as they gorged on multiple breakfast tarts and spoke about the growing
threat across the Channel.
Her father seemed particularly old this morning. He was no older or younger,
than an eighteen-year-old's father should be, but talking about Demetrius as if he
was his own protégé or son made him seem ancient. How could he not
understand? His thick black grizzled hair seemed to hide his brain below.
“Actually, no,” Camille said, with a fervor of dead-set youth.
“I’m sorry?” her mother said.
“He didn’t propose?” her father said.
Her father stared at her as though she had just committed a murder in cold
blood. .
Camille looked up from her breakfast and knit her delicate fingers together.
They looked like soft cotton on a loom. She was very glad there was no ring
amidst those fingers.
“Yes, he proposed, but I refused him.”
“What? What on earth would convince you that refusing him was a good idea?”
Mr. Locksford asked.
Her father broke the handle off his floral china tea cup as he formed an
agitated fist.
“My own good sense,” Camille said.
She had only meant to think it, not to say it! Even if it was Demetrius, the most
preposterous and unfaithful man in the whole world.
“Am I to believe that you just sassed your father?”
“Yes, Elizabeth, I believe she did! Camille, I have had an excess of this attitude
from you. This is the second proposal you have refused."
That he knew of.
“Oh, father,” Camille said.
"We will not even speak of your stupidity in refusing the first one. You could
have been a duchess! Well, I have had enough!”
“Father?”
“Go write to your Aunt Catherine Kemper. You’ll be staying with them,
indefinitely."
"Arthur, isn’t that a little rash?”
“She doesn’t like Cornwall boys? She can stay with your sister. As a matter of
fact, she will not return until she has swallowed her insufferable pride and
married a fine gentleman.”
Camille choked out a cry, rising from the table, with a great clatter. She ran up
to her room, her fervent, hot tears dotting the page as she wrote the expected
letter.
The Second of April, 1798
Dearest Aunt Kemper,
The belief that true love can overlook anything, even money, is the truest sentiment ever spoken. However, money is the most attractive quality one can find in the opposite gender, apart from a pliability that can only be matched by their looks and place in society.
