He exhaled a long breath. It was best he and Camille had not had this talk about the past when he had first arrived. These last days together had given him the chance to work his way back into her good graces and even possibly her heart. If they had rehashed all these feelings in the beginning, they might not be able to get past them. Even if now it seemed they had not cleared the air as much as muddied the waters. Still, it was a beginning.

God, he had been such a fool. Not merely eleven years ago, but every day since then. Even tonight, there were things he should have said. Oh, he certainly had said his feelings were unchanged and that he wanted to go forward with her. But he should have been clearer. He should have said he wanted to spend the rest of his days with her. He should have said he would spend each and every one of those days making amends for his mistakes. And he should have told her he loved her.

Then why hadn’t he?

He tossed back the rest of his brandy and started after her. Be the man he had become, she’d said. Tell her why you’re really here and what you really want, Beryl had told him. Stop being so nice. He had tread cautiously up to now, but Beryl was right. It was time to stop being Camille’s friend. He had said he wasn’t the same boy he was eleven years ago. Past time to prove it.

He reached her door and resisted the urge to slam his fist against it. It would be wise not to have everyone in the house know their business—although, with the exception of the actors and Pruzinsky, everyone, no doubt, did. Nor, at the moment, did he care. He pounded on the door.

“Go away!” Camille said from the other side of the door.

“No! Never again. I have no intention of going away. Nor do I have any intention of walking off in a huff.”

She paused. “I did not walk off in a huff.”

“It certainly seemed like a huff. It seemed, as well, like something a nineteen-year-old girl would do. Not a woman who claims to know—”

The door jerked open. “Come in, then, before you awaken everyone in the house.”

He stepped inside and she closed the door behind him; then rested her back against it. Her eyes narrowed in suspicion. “What do you want?”

She had changed into that dreadfully practical nightgown, a high-necked garment with endless buttons running up the front. Buttons she had failed to close completely, revealing her neck and the shadow between her breasts.

“I said this was not over.”

“I was finished!”

“And I was just beginning.”

“I thought you had said quite enough!” Her breath quickened and her breasts rose and fell beneath the thin fabric with every breath she took.