A Season of Ruin (14 page)

Archie.
Again
.

Robyn dug his fingernails into his palms. “In case you hadn't noticed,
I'm
kind enough to help you, as well. Why won't you let me, Lily? It is really so difficult?”

“Yes.” One word. No hesitation.

He forgot about the tittering chits at the doorway and stepped toward Lily. “Why?”

“You frighten me, Robyn.”

Frightened her?
An odd sense of dread clawed at his throat. “No.”

“Yes,” she whispered, so low he had to lean toward her to hear it. “Because you break your promises, and then you flash that irresistible grin and it's impossible not to forgive you. And once you're forgiven, you break your promises again.”

Robyn searched her eyes for some hint she didn't mean it, but it was like looking into opaque blue glass.

“Perhaps you do wish to help me,” Lily said. “Tonight. But what about tomorrow? You will have found something else to amuse you by then, and where will that leave me?”

Where, indeed?

It was all true, of course, and it wasn't the first time he'd heard it, but for some reason this time the words did more than scratch the surface. This time they pierced through layers of muscle and bone.

There wasn't much he could say, really. “I see.”

Lily hesitated for a second, as if she wished to say something more, but she thought better of it and remained silent.

That was it, then. There was no reason to linger. He jerked his chin in the direction of the ballroom. “Archie awaits.”

He turned away before she could say anything else. He wasn't sure why he'd come here in the first place. Lily made it more than clear that morning she didn't want him, and he wished to be free of her in any case. Well, now he was free, and just as well, as there were far more titillating diversions to be had tonight than the Chatsworths' ball.

Robyn rubbed a hand across his chest. Ridiculous that the hollow feeling should return now, when Lily had handed him just what he wanted.

He'd go off and find Pelkey. Surely some barmaid in London needed a cravat wrapped around her thigh.

Afterward, he couldn't have said what made him turn toward her again. Perhaps he hoped she'd call him back, or maybe he wanted one last glimpse of her in her bronze gown as she walked away from him.

Maybe he heard her gasp.

But turn he did. Lily stood at the entrance to the ballroom, frozen. Her back was to him, but he knew at once something was horribly wrong. She lifted one hand to her face, and he saw it was shaking.

He'd taken a hasty step back toward her before he noticed the other woman, also frozen, standing at the entrance to the ballroom, her gaze locked on Lily's face.

The woman was elderly, her body a victim of the ravages of time, but despite her shrunken frame and deeply lined face, she had a certain grand style still. Her plentiful white
hair was piled on top of her head and her blue eyes glittered with a determined intelligence. She was frail with age, but even so she carried her wasted frame with a regal haughtiness. A female companion held her by one arm, and in the other she carried a black, silver-tipped walking stick.

Robyn froze as well, staring at the woman over Lily's shoulder. There was something wrong. He couldn't quite put his finger on what it was, but it had to do with the unusual blue color of the woman's eyes. She looked familiar, a bit like . . .

Lily. She looked like Lily.

But the older woman couldn't be a Somerset. Lily's mother had died last year, and there was no one else, except—

Realization slammed into him. The woman wasn't a Somerset. She was a Chase. Lady Anne Chase, Lily's maternal grandmother, the woman who'd washed her hands of Lily's mother when Millicent dared to defy her family's expectations and marry Lily's father, Henry Somerset.

This was the woman who'd turned her back on her only child.

The woman stared at Lily, her aged face rigid and pale. She raised her walking stick slowly and pointed it at Lily. “You—”

But she got no further, for Lily turned and fled.

Robyn reached out for her, but she flew past him as if she didn't see him.

But he saw her. He saw her face, and the numb despair there made the blood freeze in his veins.

The crowd on the steps stood gaping stupidly after Lily as she fled down the stairs, then closed ranks behind her. Their voices rose in an excited buzz.

“What's happened? Was that the Somerset girl?”

“Oh ho, another scandal! Well, like mother, like daughter, they say.”

“What an entertaining season we're having. I do hope the younger girls are as exciting as the elder—”

Robyn shoved heedlessly against the silk-clad bodies. He tried to catch a glimpse of Lily ahead of him, but her dark gown disappeared against the brighter colors worn by the rest of the crowd.

His foot landed hard on the bottom step. She couldn't have gotten far . . .

There.

It felt as though he'd been at the Chatsworths' ball for hours, but it must have only been minutes, because the Sutherland carriage was still where they'd left it, caught in the crush near the stairs.

“Wait, Lily!”

It was too late. The driver saw her flying toward him. He scrambled down from the box, eyes wide, and threw open the door. Lily leapt into the dark interior and the driver slammed the door shut behind her.

Robyn's shoes rang against the cobbles as he charged after her. He could still catch her, if only—

Impossibly, the carriage began to thread its way through the tangled mass surrounding it.

Damn it.
Now what? He glared after the carriage as it forced its way into the congested street. A second carriage shoved in behind it, poised to take advantage of the opening.

Archie's carriage.

“Carlson!” Robyn bellowed to the driver as he barreled through the last of the bodies lingering on the sidewalk.

Carlson looked over his shoulder, saw Robyn, and pulled the horses to a stop. Before he could descend from the box, Robyn yanked open the door and threw himself into the carriage. “My town house, and hurry, man. It's urgent.”

“Yes, sir. Right away, Mr. Sutherland.”

Carlson had missed his chance to escape the crush of carriages when he'd stopped to wait for Robyn, and by the time they were free of the labyrinth of wheels and hooves, the Sutherland carriage was nowhere in sight.

Robyn resisted the urge to pound his fist on the roof to hurry Carlson along. If Lily had fled to her room by the time he arrived, he'd damn well chase her right into her bedchamber.

Again.

Robyn had the carriage door open even before Carlson rolled to a stop in front of the town house. “Return to the
ball and find Lord Archibald. Tell him Miss Somerset has been taken ill and I've escorted her home.”

“Yes, sir.”

Robyn ran up the front steps, slammed through the door, and skidded to a halt in the foyer. “Lily.”

She sat slumped on a stair in a puddle of bronze silk, her head against the railing. She looked as if she'd tried to climb the stairs but had given up before she could reach the top.

She raised her head when he entered and looked at him dully. “I—I think my grandmother knows I'm in London.”

“Yes. I think she does.”

He climbed a few steps and held out his hand to her. To his relief, she took it—not because she'd forgiven him, he was sure, but because she was too exhausted to fight with anyone anymore. He tugged her gently to her feet and led her down the last few stairs and into the long hallway that led to Alec's study.

The servants still came in here to dust, but they hadn't laid a fire in this room since Alec and Delia moved to Grosvenor Street weeks before. Alec had offered Robyn the room for his own use, but short of debauching a woman on the wide desktop, Robyn couldn't think of a single use for a study.

“It's a bit chilly, but it will do.” He lit the lamp on the desk then crossed to the sideboard and studied the decanters arranged across the top. “Ah, here we are. Alec's left his brandy, and a fine one it is, too.”

Lily stood in the middle of the room, rubbing her hands up and down her arms.

Robyn poured three fingers of brandy into a glass, handed it to her, and gestured toward a plump leather sofa. He retrieved a blanket from the back of a chair and draped it across Lily's shoulders before he joined her. “There. That's better. Still cold? Drink your brandy.”

She took an obedient sip and stared down into her glass. For a long time neither of them said anything.

Finally Lily stirred. “Well.” She looked at him and tried to smile. “At least there's no reason to worry about Mrs. Tittleton anymore.”

He didn't pretend to misunderstand her. Mrs. Tittleton could print a full retraction, but if Lady Chase cut Lily and her sisters, it would end any chance they had of being accepted by the
ton
. If one could judge by Lady Chase's reaction when she saw Lily, it seemed more a question of
when
she'd cut them, than
if
.

Robyn took a long swallow of his bandy. “Have you ever met her? Lady Chase, I mean?”

“No. My mother wrote to her for several years after she and my father married, but Lady Chase never answered any of her letters. We didn't talk about her much when we were growing up. I've never even seen her before tonight, but I knew right away who she was.”

No doubt. Millicent Somerset must have inherited her looks from her mother.

“It might not be as bad as you imagine,” he said. “She may cut you, but the Sutherlands will back you. It's not over yet.”

Lily pulled the blanket tighter around her shoulders. “It is for me. Perhaps it's just as well. I'm not destined for London society, it seems.”

Robyn's fingers tightened on his glass. He couldn't deny she'd had a rough go of it, or that he was the cause of most of her problems. Blast it, how had it gotten to this point? He'd begun innocently enough, his only thought to tease her a little, perhaps have a little amusement—

You'll find something else to amuse you, and where will that leave me?

He thought of the look on Lily's face as she'd turned and fled tonight. Somewhere along the way, it had ceased to be amusing.

“Don't tell me you're going to let Lady Chase frighten you off.”

“I don't see what choice I have. She can't be dismissed as easily as Mrs. Tittleton. She's a wealthy, influential countess, and the only family we have. If our own grandmother cuts us, and she will, the
ton
will take note of it and follow her lead.”

Just when he'd decided she did have spirit, after all . . . “I never took you for such a coward, Lily.”

He sat and waited for her to argue with him, to tell him she was no coward, but she said nothing. She kept her eyes on her glass, turning it around and around between her palms. “You don't understand,” she whispered at last. “I can't get into a battle with Lady Chase.”

She'd just give up, then?
Robyn drained his glass in one angry swallow. He reached forward, snatched her glass from her, and dropped it on the table. The brandy sloshed over the side and splashed his hand. “Why the devil not? Because it wouldn't be
polite
? Because it's not
proper
to row with one's grandmother?”

She shook her head. “Not because of that, but because . . . because—didn't you see her, Robyn? Did you see her face? Her eyes?”

“I saw her. What of it? You're making excuses.”

She lifted her hands to hide her face and Robyn saw they were shaking again.

What in God's name was wrong?

“Jesus. What is it? Did she say something to you?”

When she didn't answer, he slid across the sofa, took hold of her wrists, and pulled her hands away so he could see her face. He sucked in a breath at the despair he saw there. She'd had that same look when she'd fled past him tonight—a look he'd hoped never to see again.

He dropped her wrists and cradled her face in his hands. “Tell me.”

Lily took a deep, shuddering breath. “She looks so much like my mother. Oh, she's much older, and I know it sounds foolish, but when I saw her I thought, just for one brief
second, I hoped . . . I haven't seen my mother in so very long, and her eyes are the same . . .”

Her voice trailed off then, but Robyn heard what she couldn't say.

To see her grandmother standing there, as if she'd been conjured out of thin air . . . it must have been a terrible shock for her, and even Robyn had noticed the resemblance between Lady Chase and Lily, who was said to be the image of Millicent Somerset.

For the briefest moment, when she'd seen Lady Chase, Lily had hoped for the impossible. She'd hoped she was looking at her mother.

He stared into Lily's anguished face and something shifted painfully in his chest. He knew she'd lost both her parents in a carriage accident, had known it as long as he'd known her, but he'd never understood the depth of that loss until he saw it written on her face tonight.

Now that Lily had got those first words out, the rest poured from her as though a dam had given way. “Don't you see? My mother wouldn't want me to . . . hurt Lady Chase. For all my grandmother's faults, my mother loved her still. She deeply regretted the estrangement between them. Lady Chase might despise me and my sisters, but I can't despise her in return. I can't hurt her. She may be a miserable old lady, but she's all I have left of my mother, and—”

“Hush, Lily. It's all right. I understand.”

But he didn't. How could he? He loved his family, of course, but selfish as he was, he never put their desires before his own. He never put anyone's desires before his own.

Oh, perhaps he had as a child, but that had been a long time ago. He hadn't the first notion how it felt to sacrifice anything for the people he loved anymore, much less to care for the feelings of someone he didn't even know.

But Lily did. Lady Chase would wrong her, would publicly repudiate her family, and yet still Lily wished to spare her grandmother pain.

Lily—he'd always thought her beautiful, and since their kiss in Lord Barrow's study he'd wanted her desperately, but even his desire for her was selfish. He wanted her for the same reason he wanted any beautiful thing. For his own amusement, his own gratification.

He closed his eyes to shut out the sight of Lily's face, still cradled in his hands, but he saw her, behind his eyelids, not as she was now, but as she might have been at age five, a small blond-haired child, lost in a puzzle maze.

He didn't want to see inside Lily's heart; he didn't want to see all she hid behind her tight lips and rigid propriety. He didn't want to know that her beauty was the least remarkable thing about her. He wished he hadn't seen any of it even now, even as her face still rested in his hands.

He felt a drop of wetness touch his thumb and opened his eyes to see tears caught in her lashes. Pain, hot and sharp as a blade, slashed through him. “Don't cry, love. Don't . . .”

He brushed his thumbs under her eyes to catch her tears, and then, somehow, his mouth was there. Her tears wet his lips, warm salt on his tongue. He pressed his lips to her eyelids, one at a time, and felt them flutter closed under his mouth.

Her lips were a breath away from his.
Just a few harmless kisses . . . nothing more.

But even as the words echoed through him, he knew they were a lie. There was no such thing as harmless anymore, and there was no such thing as simple, either. Not when it came to Lily.

She gazed at him with soft blue eyes for a moment. Her silk skirts rustled faintly as she slid toward him across the leather sofa, closing the distance between them.

If she touched him now
 . . . “Don't.”

Her gown brushed against his legs. Robyn closed his eyes and dredged up every drop of his control. “You're upset, Lily. You don't know what you're doing.”

Her hands settled on his chest. One fist closed around a fold of his waistcoat.

He looked down at her parted lips and a strangled sound tore from his throat, either a groan or a sigh. He caught her around her waist, his fingers slippery against the bronze silk, and urged her forward until her hips were cradled between his thighs.

He touched her then, with one long finger, just the lightest caress against her bottom lip.

So gentle, the press of his thumb against her lip, just the slightest pressure, just enough to open her mouth the merest fraction. He stared at her, his hand cradling her chin, and eased his thumb down until it slipped inside her mouth to touch the wet warmth there.

A tremor shook him. “God, Lily.”

Long waves of her hair had come loose during her flight, and he brushed them aside so he could press his lips to her ear. “Put your arms around me,” he demanded in a whisper.

She slid her fingers into the hair at the back of his neck, and his body shook with the urge to roll her beneath him.