Lily (32 page)

“Nothing, what do you mean? It’s late—”

“No, don’t.”

He looked at her then. Past the glitter of her unshed tears he could see all her pain. He recoiled. Bitterness rushed through his veins like acid; contempt for his own cowardice brought a dark flush to his face. He had to turn away from her again.

“Was it too good, Devon? Did you feel too much?”

He couldn’t answer. He could only wait, hoping that anger would come soon and rescue him.

What was the point of taunting him? He was what he was; she could never change him. She stared at the stiff, bleak line of his shoulders until she couldn’t bear it. Then she dropped her head. How easy it would be to weep. But a second later, she discovered that her love was even stronger than her pride.

He heard the rustle of covers, the creak of the bed ropes. When he turned and saw her, her nakedness drove all the words he’d thought to say from his mind. “Oh, Lily,” he murmured with a grim smile. “Not fair.”

Ignoring that, ignoring all the voices in her head that were shouting,
You’re a fool,
she went to him. She drew one of his clenched hands from his pocket and held it between both of hers. “Don’t do this, Dev. I know why you’re afraid, but I would never, ever hurt you. I swear it.”

He swore foully.

She held tighter and told him. “I’m in love with you.”

He heard, but he kept it out. “Then I feel sorry for you.” Her nostrils thinned; she was holding herself very carefully. Heat rushed through him. “Don’t say that,” he told her, without the snarl this time. “I don’t want to hear it.”

She yanked at his hand. “Don’t tell me not to love you! And don’t you dare leave me again, Devon, I will not allow it.”

He saw that every muscle was tense; even her skin looked tender, vulnerable. “My dear, I never meant to hurt you. But what you want is not inside me. If you like, we can—make an arrangement, an agreement we both—”

“Stop it, stop! I told you last night, I want no ‘arrangement.’”

“Then—”

“We can make each other happy, Dev. For just a little while. Don’t you feel it? Don’t you know?” He put his hands on her face, cupping the sides, holding so tightly her bones hurt. But she didn’t move, and she didn’t drop her urgent gaze. “I love you. You’re everything to me. You’re in my heart, there won’t ever be anyone else.” She saw the anger and fright and shock in his eyes, and faced it down. “I would never deliberately hurt you. I’m me,
Lily,
I’m not like anyone but myself. And I love you so much.”

“But I don’t want your love.”

“It doesn’t matter what you want. It’s free, I give it to you.”

He wanted to push her away, her and her unwanted gift, but he couldn’t make his hands let go of her. Something tore inside, and it felt like the tender, jagged edges of a wound that had never healed. “I don’t want you,” he whispered, shaking his head over and over. “I don’t want you, Lily.”

“Too bad.” She shook her head right back. How confident she sounded! Whatever happened, she must not cry.

“You’re a fool.”

“Doubtless. I love you.”

He cursed again—not her, but life in general—and then his brain shut down and he pulled her into a rough, angry embrace. “You’ll regret this,” he said into her tousled, sweet-smelling hair.

Oh, yes, she knew that. But she was so in love that she even appreciated the warning. She was standing stiffly, holding her breath, because the grip he had on her hurt her ribs. He noticed, and instantly lightened his hold. She felt his lips on her temple and sighed deeply. “I have to tell you about myself,” she said, moving her hands up and down his back in slow, ardent strokes. “I have so much to tell you.”

He swore again.

She went rigid, thinking he didn’t want to know. Then she heard it: a thump, and the soft scrape of wood against wood. Clay was back. “Judas,” she swore softly.

He pulled back to look at her. She was dry-eyed, but her face was full of emotion. How could he let her go? How could he not? Love and relief glowed in her serious gray-green eyes, and strength, and pain, and a dark, stoic knowledge. Whatever happened, and for as long as he lived, he would never forget the way she looked right now. He kissed her lips with a sweet, weary promise that said,
I will try.
God help him. For once he meant it.

The clatter of footsteps on the companionway ladder jolted them apart. Five fast knocks. Devon stepped between Lily and the door instinctively—and not a minute too soon. Before either could speak, the door opened and Clay loomed in the threshold. Lily watched him over Devon’s shoulder in speechless disbelief.

“God damn it, Clay—!”

“Oops,” he exclaimed, but he didn’t leave. In fact, he grinned at them cheerfully, eyes alight with curiosity. He even stood on his toes a bit, trying to see over his brother’s shoulder. “Too early, am I? It’s almost ten, I was sure you’d be up.”

“Would you get the hell out of here?”

Devon sounded more exasperated than angry, and it amazed Lily that she felt the same. She wasn’t half as embarrassed as she knew she ought to be.

“I’m going, I’m going. I just wanted to tell you, Dev, that Trayer Howe’s been seen in the neighborhood. He’s limping around on a crutch, but he’s been making some interesting threats against you. And Lily, and me. Which is pretty stupid since I didn’t do anything,” he added to himself. “Lily either, of course. Anyway, I thought you’d like to know. In case you wanted to arrest him or something. Shall I go on deck now and wait for you?”

“Good idea.”

“Right you are. Morning, Lily. You’re looking lovely. At least, what I can see of you is certainly—”

“Out!”

“Right. On my way.” He winked broadly and pulled the door closed. Devon turned to Lily, then spun back around when it shot open again. “Shall we have breakfast in the village? Wiley’s a little under the weather this morning and wasn’t able to supply us with—”

“Out! Damn it! Get out!”

“Testy in the morning, aren’t we?” He chuckled and shut the door again, and presently they heard his ascending footsteps.

Devon turned back. “Idiot,” he muttered, but he couldn’t hide the twinkle in his eyes behind the scowl. “What’s wrong?” She was as white as a sheet. “He didn’t really see you, Lily, it’s—”

“No, not that.” She knew she was being foolish, but she couldn’t help it. When his arms went around her, she clung to him.

“What, then?” She wouldn’t answer. The warmth of her skin fired him, but he kept his touch comforting. “What is it? Tell me, love.”

“I’m afraid.”

“Of what?”

He would keep at her, she knew, until she admitted it. “Trayer.”

“Oh, no.” He encircled her with his arms, backed her against the wall and pressed gently against her, all to tell her she was safe. “He won’t hurt you. I won’t let him.”

“Clay said you could arrest him?”

“Certainly. If he stays in the neighborhood, he’ll be caught and I’ll have him sent to prison.”

“But not if—how can you?”

“It’s easy, I’m the magistrate. The parish constable’s already been notified to watch for him. If he comes anywhere near you, he’ll be captured. I’ll have him bound over for the Bodmin assizes. I swear to God, Lily, I’ll see him hang.”

First she went stiff, then limp and lifeless in his arms. “Lily?” Her shoulders shook; he thought she was crying. “Darling,” he breathed, and drew away to see her. She wasn’t crying, she was laughing. But there was an edge of something, an ironic weariness in the sound of her laughter that disturbed him.

“You’re the magistrate?” she said weakly.

“For the district. So you’re safe, love.”

“Safe. Oh, Dev.” She leaned back, and her smile was steeped in regret.

“Lily, what’s the matter?”

“Nothing. Hold me.” She drew him close, and his warmth eased her, helped her to forget. They kissed. Afterward, he forgot to ask her what it was she’d wanted to tell him about herself. He wouldn’t think of it again for a long time.

F
OR
L
ILY, THE WEEKS
that followed were a nerve-wracking combination of happiness and anxiety, euphoria and distress. The joy sprang from the fact that Devon was her lover, and the trepidation came from exactly the same source. Only at night were things clear and simple between them. Who she was to him, what he was to her—in each other’s arms, it was all a matter of indifference. They were lovers, and for those hours their hearts and minds and bodies were in harmony.

But Lily was aware that he didn’t know what to do with her, how to place her in his life. Like him, she had no idea what her new role was. She’d told him she wanted no “arrangement”—but what else was it when she ate his food and slept in his bed, in exchange for nothing more than her body?

When she’d been too ill to work, she could rationalize things into a prettier picture. But now there was nothing to prevent her from doing housework—nothing except Devon’s nearly violent refusal to allow it. So instead she busied herself with prodigious quantities of sewing and needlework, for him and his household and his numerous servants. But even that couldn’t alleviate her deep, persistent uneasiness. She was in limbo, taking her meals in her room, rarely going out, engaged in her endless mending. On the rare occasions when she saw him during the day, she never knew how to greet him. He was invariably cordial, and yet ever so slightly reserved. His reticence hurt, and made her more determined than ever to keep out of his way … until night fell and he came to her again and made her his.

Once she thought of moving back into her attic room with Lowdy. His reaction was predictable: he forbade it, refused even to discuss it. But what game were they playing? Lily was not accustomed to self-delusion. The fact that he did not repeat his offer of hard cash in return for her favors did not alter the facts of the case. She knew what a “kept woman” was. She was not accustomed to hypocrisy, either. If things continued as they were, she would either have to leave Darkstone or accept the fact that although she’d once refused, with fine indignation, to be his mistress, a mistress was exactly what she had become.

What was the solution? Sometimes she imagined that everything would be all right if only she could tell him the truth about herself. She was shrewd enough to recognize that his reluctance to involve himself with her was
partly
because he believed she came from the servant class. Women in that category—
women like Maura—
were venal and heartless, an unconscious, unreasoning part of him still believed, and they used men as tools for pulling themselves out of one class and into the next. But would it really change anything if she were to tell him she was educated, genteel, poor but respectable—that once she’d employed servants herself? She suspected not. Devon’s distrust went deeper, extended to women in general; the more intensely his emotions were engaged, the faster he ran from them.

Besides, she
couldn’t
tell him. He was the magistrate! What an unamusing joke. There was every likelihood that she was still wanted for theft and assault, and she’d fallen in love with a man who, if he knew it, would be duty-bound to arrest her. She hadn’t realized that God’s sense of humor was quite so ironic.

So there was nothing to do but wait. Perhaps a letter would come soon from Cousin Soames, saying that all was forgiven. Or perhaps Devon would fall in love with her. Perhaps one or both of these things would happen before his distrust returned and destroyed the fragile bond they were sharing, or before her own sense of shame forced her to leave him.

One day in August, when the warm wind slammed a light but unremitting rain sideways against the house, she heard a clatter of hooves and the jangle of harness in the gravel drive below her window. Carriages were infrequent at Darkstone; occasionally Francis Morgan arrived in one, but hardly anyone else did. Because she’d been sitting for hours, Lily got up from her chair, laid aside her sewing, and went to the window to see who it was.

It wasn’t Francis Morgan. This carriage bore the Darkwell arms on its lacquered black door, and yet she’d never seen it before. A footman in livery jumped from the boot, opened the door, and pulled down the step. A lady descended. She was tall, thin, past middle age; she was looking down, minding her step, but when she achieved the ground safely and turned back to wait for her companion, Lily saw her face. She’d never seen her before, and yet she knew without a doubt who she was. Devon’s mother.

That meant the small, graceful, brown-haired lady stepping down after her was Alice Fairfax. Lady Alice, of Fairfax House. Where, Lily clearly remembered Lady Alice’s maid confiding, there might be a wedding “one day soon, between your master and my mistress.”

The two women disappeared from view. Lily pressed her cheek to the window and let the damp chill of the glass seep inside her. Once before she’d felt jealousy. She observed its sure, razor-sharp return now helplessly, despising herself, unable to stop it. Alice Fairfax was not really beautiful; Lily could console herself with that. But she was regal as a queen, every inch a lady, and she would make Devon Darkwell a perfect wife.

Shuddering slightly, Lily left the window to sit on the edge of the bed. A little later she lay down and pulled the covers up, fully dressed. Misery, black and heavy, permeated her like a dank, filthy fog. Time passed. It had been a dark day, and her clock had run down; she had no idea what time it was when she heard footsteps in the corridor and feminine voices. Doors closed; silence drifted back. Lily sat up. Good God, were they staying? On this floor? A few doors down the hall?

She got up and began to pace. When it grew too dark to see, she lit candles. Every sound made her go tense, straining to interpret it. A girl brought her a cold supper on a tray, and it was only by an act of will that she refrained from pumping her for information. The night dragged on. Occasionally she heard laughter coming from downstairs. Her nerves stretched tighter. She bathed, put on her nightgown. Lying in bed in the dark, stiff-limbed and wide-eyed, she felt such contempt for herself that she wanted to disappear. Wretchedness made her body feel wooden, foreign, not even human. Much later, she heard steps again on the stairs, in the hall, and presently the murmur of quiet good nights. She waited. Breathless, motionless. Transfixed with anxiety.