One Night for Love (17 page)

Neville bowed to her when she was close and reached out a hand for hers—and then kissed it.

“Good morning, Lily,” he said.

“I have been down on the beach,” she told him. “I wanted to watch the sun come up. And then I explored the rocks and found myself in the village.” Her purpose and destination would explain her appearance.

“I know.” He smiled at her. “I watched you go from my window.”

The marquess with the long name bowed to her then. “I am awed into incoherence,” he said, but he went on talking anyway. “None of the ladies of my acquaintance ever rise early enough to know that the sun even does anything as peculiar as rise in the morning.”

“Then they miss one of the greatest joys of life,” Lily assured him. “Please will you tell me your name again, sir? I only remember that it is long.”

“Joseph,” he said, and laughed, revealing himself to be
a very good-looking gentleman indeed. “You are a cousin now, Lily, and do not need to get your tongue around Attingsborough.”

“Joseph,” she repeated. “I believe I can remember that.”

“And James too,” one of the other gentlemen said, bowing to her. “Another cousin, Lily. I have a wife, who is Sylvia, and a young son, Patrick. My mother is Nev’s Aunt Julia, his father’s sister. My father—”

“Devil take it, James.” The fourth gentleman tossed his glance at the sky. “Lily’s eyes are crossing and her head is spinning on her shoulders. Why do you not add for her edification that Nev’s other paternal aunts are Mary and Elizabeth and that his uncle is the famous black sheep, the
lost
sheep, who embarked on a wedding journey more than twenty years ago and never returned? I am Ralph, Lily. Yes, another cousin. If you cannot recall my name the next time we meet, you are welcome to call me ‘you.’ ”

“Thank you,” she said, laughing. It was definitely easier this morning. Maybe everything would be easier. But then she had always been comfortable in the company of men, perhaps because she had grown up surrounded by so many of them.

“The exercise has whipped the most lovely roses into your cheeks, Lily,” the marquess said. “But however have you managed to walk so far in bare feet?” He was observing them through his quizzing glass.

“Oh.” She glanced down at them. “It is so much more comfortable than walking in shoes. If you were to take off your boots and walk in the grass, Joseph, you would discover that I am right.”

“Dear me,” he commented.

“But you will not do it,” she said, smiling sunnily at him. “I know. There were some men in the Peninsula who never removed their boots—ever. I swear they went to bed
with them on. Sometimes I wondered if they had feet at all, or if their legs ended just below the knee. They would not wish to admit to such a deformity, of course. Just imagine how short they would have been—and men set great store by their height. They hate to have to look up to other men and feel perfectly shamed to have to look up to a woman.”

The gentlemen were all laughing. Lily joined them.

“Good Lord,” Joseph said, using his quizzing glass now to look down at his own boots, “my secret is out. When I stopped growing at four foot ten, Lily, I had Hoby make me boots—
tall
boots. So that I could look down on the world from a lofty height.”

“He even dances in them, Lily,” Ralph said. “You would not wish to risk your toes by tripping a measure with Joe.”

“If you knock on them,” James added, “they ring hollow.”

“This conversation,” Lily declared gleefully, “has become absurd. But despite your teasing, I have felt the grass and the dew beneath my feet this morning and the sand between my toes. And I have seen the sun rise over the sea. England is a lovely country, as my papa always said it was.”

Neville smiled at her. “You are right, Lily,” he said. He offered her his arm. “Let me escort you to your room and summon Dolly to help you tidy up. My mother has come up from the dower house and is awaiting you in the morning room with several of the other ladies.”

He did not sound in any way annoyed. He did not utter one word of reproach either then or after they had left the company of his cousins. And yet Lily had not missed the detail about
several
of the ladies.

“Are the others out enjoying the morning?” she asked.

“They are still in bed or in their boudoirs. Ladies generally do not, ah,
enjoy the morning
until their maids have
dressed and coiffed them and they have breakfasted, Lily.” He smiled down at her as they climbed the grand staircase.

“Oh,” she said. Maids—she had not thought of ringing for Dolly when she got up. Besides, she would not have wished to wake the girl so early. And she had no dress suitable for Newbuiy Abbey except her green muslin, and she had doubts even about that. She might at least, she supposed, have tied back her hair and worn her shoes. “I did not think. I ought not to have gone out as I am, ought I? How embarrassed you must have been when I came back and all your cousins were out there to see me. I am so sorry.”

“No, no.” He covered her hand on his arm with his free one. “That was not my meaning. I was not
scolding
, for heaven’s sake. This is your home, Lily. You must do here whatever you wish.”

Lily fell silent, remembering how very elegantly Lauren had been dressed. She had been wearing a bonnet and even gloves.
She
would not have gone dancing off in bare feet and with her hair down her back to watch the sun rise over the sea.
She
would not have embarrassed him out on the terrace.

Neville took Lily down to the morning room after she had washed and put on stockings and her old shoes and Dolly had dressed her hair in a simple knot at the back of her head with two neat braids wound about it. Dolly had advised against wearing the green muslin as her ladyship would need something into which to change for the afternoon, and so the old cotton would have to do.

Neville stayed with her in the morning room for a short
while though there was no other gentleman present, but then he was summoned away to speak with his steward.

The ladies all greeted her pleasantly. The dowager countess even got to her feet to kiss Lily’s cheek and seated her beside herself on a love seat. But there was nothing comfortable about the conversation, as there had been out on the terrace. They talked about London and Almack’s and lending libraries and rose gardens and the management of servants, none of which topics were within Lily’s experience. And when the war was mentioned and the French spoken of as monsters of evil and depravity and Lily spoke up with the opinion that they were people just like the British and shared their capacity for tenderness and loyalty and love and all the finer feelings, the red-haired lady, who Lily remembered was Wilma—Joseph’s sister?—declared herself very close to fainting, and someone else scolded young Miranda for introducing such an ungenteel subject into the conversation of ladies.

Lily smiled sympathetically at the young girl, whose numerous ringlets made her appear slightly top heavy, but she was blushing and biting a wobbling lip and gazing downward.

Aunt Sadie tried to turn the awkward moment by asking Lily if she would like some embroidery to work on. Lily had noticed that almost all the ladies were busy with needlework. She was forced to admit that she had never been taught to embroider though she was quite skilled at patching and darning. There was an awkward little silence again before her mother-in-law suggested that Miranda go into the music room and leave the door open while she played for them on the pianoforte.

Lily was finally rescued by the appearance of the butler, who announced that Mrs. and Miss Holyoake had arrived to wait upon the Countess of Kilbourne.

Lily looked at the dowager countess as did all the other ladies present, and that lady raised her eyebrows.

“Whatever can Mrs. Holyoake want with me today?” she asked. “I certainly did not summon her.”

“I beg your pardon, my lady,” Mr. Forbes said with a discreet clearing of his throat, “but I understand his lordship did—for his wife. I have put them in the blue salon.”

Lily felt dreadfully embarrassed at the quickly suppressed look of chagrin on the face of her mother-in-law, who had clearly forgotten that she, Lily, was now the Countess of Kilbourne. This was all going to be quite impossible, Lily thought for the umpteenth time—except that it could not be allowed to be. Somehow she was going to have to live with this situation. They were
all
going to have to live with it.

Lady Elizabeth came hurrying toward her, both hands extended, as she left the morning room.

“Lily,” she said, taking her hands and kissing her cheek. “Good morning, my dear. It is quite all right, Forbes. I shall conduct her ladyship to the Holyoake ladies. They are the village dressmakers, Lily. Neville spoke to me about them earlier and asked if I would see to it that they measure you for as many pretty clothes as they have time to undertake.”

It was an enticing prospect, Lily had to admit. The two dresses she possessed were certainly not adequate to the needs of her new life. But more bewilderment was awaiting her in the blue salon. After she had been presented to Mrs. Holyoake and her daughter, black-haired, black-eyed ladies, who looked remarkably alike, and after they had curtsied deeply to her and called her “my lady,” she could see that they had brought with them so many bolts of fabric and so many patterns and other tools of their trade that it must have taken several servants to carry everything inside.

“Would it not have been more convenient for
me
to come to
you
?” she asked.

Both ladies looked shocked, and Elizabeth laughed.

“Not when you are the Countess of Kilbourne from Newbury Abbey, Lily,” she said.

It seemed that she was not to have just two or three new dresses, which would have seemed an impossible luxury to Lily, but a dozen or more. When she protested, she discovered that she was going to need morning dresses and tea dresses and evening dresses—some for family evenings, some for dinner parties, some for balls—and walking dresses and carriage dresses. And a riding habit too, when it was discovered that she could ride—though perhaps she ought not to have said she could since she had certainly never ridden a great deal.

Different functions of dress called for different fabrics and different designs, she discovered. There were many colors to choose among, but one might not simply choose just what one thought pretty. Apparently there were colors that suited certain people but not others. There were colors that looked good in daylight and others that looked better in candlelight. And there were all sorts of trimmings—suited to different fabrics and functions and occasions. There were trimmings identical in color to the fabrics they were to adorn. There were others that complemented the fabrics—or did not. There were styles that were fashionable and others that were too
avant garde
or too
passé
. There were styles suited to a young girl and others better suited to a young matron or to an older lady. There were measurements to be taken. There were …

For all the kindness of Elizabeth and the respect shown by the two dressmakers, Lily soon felt like a passive doll that lifted its arms when someone pulled the right string and pirouetted when someone pulled another, and smiled constantly with a painted smile. All the joy of having new
clothes fled early. She knew nothing and was forced to leave all decisions to those who did. And all the time there was the foolish worry—could he possibly
afford
all this? And she had forgotten to ask him if he would send the money she had borrowed from Captain Harris. How could she have neglected that?

Elizabeth took her arm when the ordeal was finally over and they had left the dressmakers to pack up their things—they had declined Lily’s offer of help, looking startled and agitated as they did so.

“Poor Lily,” she said. “This is very difficult for you, is it not? Come and have luncheon and relax.” She laughed ruefully. “But even a meal is not relaxing for you, is it? It will all get easier as time goes on, I promise you.”

Lily would have liked to believe her. But she was not sure she did. If only she could go back, she thought, even just a few days … But what else could she have done but come here? Even if she could go back and decide to wait for Captain Harris to write a letter, she would merely be postponing the inevitable. She could not simply have stayed away. She was Neville’s wife. He had a right to know that she was still alive.

What she
really
wished was that she could go all the way back to that day when her father had been killed. She wished she could go back and hear more clearly, more responsibly, what Major Newbury had said to her afterward so that she could summon the courage to say no where she had said yes.

Was that really what she wished? That she had never married him? That there had never been that night? If there had not been that night, that dream of love and perfection, she did not know if she would have been able to survive what had happened to her afterward. Not with her sanity intact, at least.