The Lily Brand

by Sandra Schwab

  Perrin frowned, blinked, then shook his head as if to clear his thoughts. “No, he was not. He was wounded in some skirmish or other several months before and taken prisoner.” Their round through the room had almost come to an end. This seemed to make him remember his gentlemanly obligations. His fingers pressed reverently down on Lillian’s. “Would you like some refreshments, my lady?”

  Refreshments meant that she could forego the next dance. “Yes, my lord.” She bowed her head. “Thank you.”

  With purposeful steps the viscount guided her toward the refreshments room, a man with a mission. When they arrived, the smaller room was already filled with other thirsty dancers, smiling, talking, and sipping sparkling wine. Debutantes fingered their necklaces, rows of pearls or sparkling stones, and giggled while they stood beside their dance partners, who in turn puffed out their chests and held their wineglasses with elegant nonchalance.

  “Could I tempt you with a cup of soup?” Perrin asked solicitously His hand still rested over hers in an oddly protective gesture.

  Lillian looked at it.

  Or perhaps it was just possessive.

  Yet who would think such a thing of Alexander Markham, Viscount Perrin, with his innocent blue eyes and blushing cheeks? She lifted her gaze and met his, stared at him as if to penetrate all his secrets. But in the end, it did not matter. What ever did?

  His eyes darted away.

  “I would like a glass of lemonade,” Lillian said softly.

  ~*~

  He sent her a delicately painted fan the next day, which Lillian’s aunt could not stop admiring. “He must be in love with you, my child!” she exclaimed, obviously pleased with herself that she had managed to secure a good parti for her niece during her very first season. Aunt Louisa, a woman with an ample bosom and a preference for rainbow-colored dresses and cheerful turbans, exuded the soft scent of violets as she bowed over the viscount’s latest present. “Charming, absolutely charming,” she murmured. “Come and see, Lillian, my dear. Such an exquisite miniature. A scene from A Midsummer Night’s Dream, I believe.”

  Lillian stood up from the window seat of her grandfather’s drawing room, which conveniently overlooked the busy street outside. This way, the ladies of the house could observe what was going on in the neighborhood, who was paying a visit on whom, who had a new bonnet or a new walking dress. Lillian usually just stared out of the window without seeing anything.

  “Nanette, have you seen it?” Aunt Louisa asked the older woman, who sat knitting in a corner of the room. “It is truly charming, is it not?”

  Lillian magicked a smile on her face as she stepped beside her aunt to admire the fan, which was laid out on the small side table in front of them. The smooth ivory plates of the fan were, indeed, embellished with an Arcadian scene, showing a woman in a shift cuddling close to a donkey-headed man. Lillian touched the fan with the tip of her finger. How curious this was—a man with a donkey head.

  “And so very clever,” Aunt Louisa went on and clapped her hands in delight. “To send you a fan with a scene from the play we are to attend tonight.”

  Lillian, now truly enveloped in violet perfume, nodded and smiled and kept her ignorance to herself. There had not been many books in Château du Marais. They were things Camille had no use for.

  All at once, clouds seemed to darken the sunny March sky, and Lillian had to fight to keep her smile in place. “Will I take it with me to the theater, then?” she asked quietly.

  “Of course, my dear, of course.” Aunt Louisa turned to Nanette for support. “We want our Lillian to encourage the viscount’s suit, do we not? A very eligible young man, that Alexander Markham. And very handsome, too, if I may say so. I know his mother.” This hardly came as a surprise to Lillian. Aunt Louisa seemed to know everybody in London. “A very nice woman. Very elegant, very refined. She was quite a catch in her time. How devastated she was when her nephew was reported to be missing in action two years or so ago. Dreadful story that. But thankfully, the boy returned. He looked horribly haggard for some time, they say, but nothing like poor Ponsonby. Have you heard of Frederick Ponsonby, my dear?”

  Lillian nodded. Aunt Louisa had already told her all about Frederick Ponsonby.

  “A stab in the lungs is no laughing matter, or so they say. That boy should be happy to be alive. Well, Murgatroyd Sacheverell is probably happy to be alive, too, I say, even though he just looked haggard for a month or two. Now, that one is quite a catch, too. The Earl of Ravenhurst. A girl could do worse.” She gently patted Lillian’s cheek. “But this is nothing our girl has to be concerned about. You are quite well off, yourself, my dear, if I may say so. To have caught the attention of Alexander Markham, Viscount Perrin! He will be a marquis one day, you know.” Her face took on a dreamy expression. “The Most Honorable the Marchioness of Waldron—wouldn’t that be a fine title for our Lillian?”

  ~*~

  He came to their box that evening, during the interval. He brought a napkin and oranges, which he proceeded to peel and separate into juicy slices to tempt the ladies. Their fresh scent mingled with the perfume of violets as Aunt Louisa chatted on about dreadful incidents she had seen happening on and off stage. “And the night Drury Lane burnt down…” Like a trapped bird, her fan fluttered against her heaving bosom. “The whole sky across London was lit up by the blaze. And the moon was all red that night, blood red…” She sighed, rather theatrically so.

  To Lillian it seemed as if going to the theater had a certain stimulating effect on her aunt, and she nearly smiled when she heard her grandfather’s snort behind her. Yet Aunt Louisa carried on, lost in memories of bygone Seasons. “And the elegant Apollo on the roof sank into the sea of flames and was seen nevermore. Very tragic, very tragic that. What a fate for a god! Even for one who was just cast in bronze.” She sadly shook her head. “And that just after Covent Garden had burnt down in the year before.”

  “A dreadful story,” the Viscount Perrin said wistfully as if he had seen the blaze reflected on London’s sky himself. He offered a slice of orange to Aunt Louisa.

  “Ahhh, Covent Garden…” The orange slice disappeared into Aunt Louisa’s mouth, and she munched and swallowed thoughtfully. “Master Betty had his debut there, if I remember correctly. Have you heard of Master Betty, my dear?” She turned to look at her niece.

  Lillian shook her head.

  “An excellent actor,” the viscount remarked. “Especially for so young a boy. He was but a boy, Lady Lillian, when he first appeared on a London stage in… in…”

  Aunt Louisa clicked her tongue. “In 1804. Twelve years ago, in the middle of winter. We would not have been in Town that winter if it had not been for William Betty.”

  Lillian stared at the young man who sat beside her peeling oranges. He made such an effort to appear all wise and manly, when he could not have been more than a mere boy himself, back in 1804. His slender, graceful fingers made quick work of the oranges. Clever fingers, yet carefully groomed and manicured, they showed no traces of hard labor, and the skin was smooth and white as fresh milk. Lillian imagined his body, the skin pale and unblemished. Smooth, without marks.

  No brands.

  No scars.

  Such an innocent body.

  Vividly she remembered another body, another man, tall and lean, but all innocence ripped away, the scorched lily on his chest—

  Lillian shook her head to chase the unwanted memory away. The past is gone. She folded her hands in her lap to still their trembling. It is all over.

  Aunt Louisa frowned. “Master Betty. They were all wild for that snooty boy. Even my Lord Wishart.” The frown deepened. “Especially Wishart. How he would dart backstage to see the boy rubbed down by his father! As if he did not have sons of his own, Wishart. His behavior was rather embarrassing to watch, especially for a wife, if I may say so. But then, he had always been a bit soft in his head, my Wishart. Which is what probably got him killed in the first place.” She flipped her fan shut in order to poke it into P
errin’s padded waistcoat. “You know one end of a gun from the other, do you?”

  “Madam!” Clearly affronted, Perrin squared his shoulders and puffed out his chest. “I might not have fought against the Frenchmen, but believe me, I am well renowned for my sportsmanship!”

  “What a relief to know,” Lillian’s grandfather said in a low tone, which seemed meant for Lillian’s ears alone. Turning around, she caught his wink. He bent forward and murmured, “Can always bring you home some game, the boy. It’s very reassuring to know you won’t starve.” His clear green eyes twinkled merrily.

  Lillian’s lips lifted in a shy smile for the man who had been a quiet, benevolent presence in the background during the last few months. He had called in the teachers and Aunt Louisa, had ordered a new wardrobe to be made for his granddaughter, and had remained in his library for most of the time. And yet, he now did not seem to like the thought of parting with Lillian.

  Smiling, the Marquis of Larkmoor took his granddaughter’s hand and blew a kiss on its back. “Have I already told you, my dear, that you’ve got your grandmother’s eyes?” He patted her hand. “A fine woman, your grandmother. A very fine woman.” His voice took on a mellow tone. He squeezed Lillian’s fingers, and the warmth of his hand seeped through her gloves to warm the skin below.

  As she sat there in the stuffy theater box, looking at her grandfather while her aunt and her suitor discussed guns and the advantages of good fencing skills, a spark, a feeling of belonging ignited in Lillian. The tiny warmth settled in her heart and started to thaw the ice within.

  Lillian glanced at Alexander Markham, Viscount Perrin, at his sweet, rosy face, the blond locks that curled around his head like those of the angel she had seen in her mother’s prayer book a long time ago. With her forefinger she traced the painted plates of the fan he had given her.

  A sweet man, a good man, with innocent skin of milk.

  And when, in his conversation with Aunt Louisa, his eyes suddenly darted to Lillian, she gave him, too, a shy smile and watched how warmth suffused his face.

  ~*~

  And so, like butterflies, they fluttered on, from soirée to concert, from theater to ball. The Viscount Perrin became a steady companion, forever sending Lillian tokens of his devotion—flowers, sweets and fruit, the latest print from Ackermann’s or a slim volume of poetry. By the end of March, Lillian had three of these, and as they sat in the Amphitheater one evening, he pressed her gloved hand, intertwining his fingers with hers while the thunder of the horses’ hooves reverberated through the round.

  The pleasure gardens were not yet opened, but he joined Lillian and Aunt Louisa on their daily morning drive around Hyde Park, a stately figure on horseback, thighs pressed around the sides of his raven-black horse. Lillian liked looking at him then, when the wind ruffled his blond curls and the sky seemed to be mirrored in his round blue eyes.

  By the beginning of April he had kissed Lillian’s gloved hand on two occasions, and Aunt Louisa had allowed him to dance the waltz with her niece. Sometimes on the ballroom floor, Lillian would then feel his gloved fingers gently caressing the exposed skin of her shoulders and upper back, a quick, light brush of silk. But she had to force a smile then, for, all at once, his arms around her felt like the bars of a cage. And she would remember another night, another man, and the pressure of the arms around her, imprisoning her…

  She would remember the play of candlelight over bronzed skin, over the mark shaped like a rose, over the red droplets blooming on the linen.

  Blood shows so well on white.

  She would have to reach for the chill gathering in the corners of the room then, would have to cloak herself with cold. Slowly, the spark of warmth inside her, which had kindled that night in the theater, faded and died.

  Still, she smiled on, smiled until her cheeks hurt, smiled when his mother and younger sisters were introduced to her, giggling girls not yet old enough to be out, but happy to pursue those pleasures of London that were open to them; smiled when his grandmother came for tea, a stately woman, demanding respect and watching Lillian with sharp eyes like those of an eagle. His family was drawing in, examining the girl their heir might want to bring home—like a cow from the market.

  They were subtle about it, for sure; nevertheless images of a prison at the end of the world rose before Lillian’s inner eye. The stench of unwashed bodies. The rustling of filthy rushes and the clinking of chains.

  The sight of Camille’s cold, hard eyes sliding over man after man.

  And still, Lillian smiled on, smiled even though she thought that the skin of her face must surely crack; smiled when his breath touched her cheek as he whirled her around and around the room in three-four time.

  The past is over… over…

  “You look so lovely tonight,” he whispered to her. “So lovely.” His fingers clenched around her hand, almost painfully.

  Perhaps he would ask her tonight. Aunt Louisa had said that it was to be expected any day now, and Nanette had laid her hand against Lillian’s cheek. “Mon petit chou-chou,” she had said, “oh, mon petit chou-chou.” And her eyes had been swimming in tears, happy tears, that she had seen her charge through all misfortunes to bring her to this, to this, to be the Right Honorable the Viscountess Perrin.

  A silk-clad finger traced the curve of her neck and shoulder. “So very lovely. I—” His throat worked; fire raced up from underneath his white cravat.

  Lillian stared at that bit of starched white linen and willed herself not to flinch under his touch.

  The past is over.

  “I wish I were a poet.” Perrin’s breath, warm and moist, touched her ear, his voice hoarse. “So that I might write poems in your praise.” The candlelight danced over his blond curls in three-four time, transforming them into spun gold. His voice sank to a breathless whisper. “‘Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day…’”

  She recalled hot, moist breath touching her skin alongside hands, large hands, arranging her limbs…

  Lillian swayed against the arms currently around her. She seemed to float, weightless, and her ears filled with the roaring of her blood, which shut out the noise of the ballroom.

  “Lady Lillian? Lady Lillian?”

  Lillian blinked.

  Round eyes hovered in front of her face like shiny blue marbles. A frown marred the line of his smooth forehead. “Are you all right, Lady Lillian?”

  She straightened her back and forced another smile onto her stiff lips. “I am fine, thank you. Just—”

  “How very inconsiderate of me.” Perrin led her to the side of the dance floor. “To force two of these exhausting waltzes on you. I am sorry, most sorry. Shall I get you some refreshments?” Without waiting for her answer, he led her on, hooking her hand in the crook of his elbow and pressing her arm against his side. Lillian had no choice but to follow, while the other couples swirled on with the music.

  “Have I already told you that my cousin has arrived in London?” Perrin made a slight bow to an acquaintance he had spotted among the ball guests, before he turned his attention back to Lillian. “Will you do me the honor of letting me introduce him to you? He promised that he would be here this evening. He runs late, I gather. You must not hold it against him, though.” Solicitously he saw to it that she would not stumble over the threshold of the refreshments room.

  Lillian’s gaze was caught by the black dragons that curled threateningly across the bright red wallpaper and chased each other on the Chinese lanterns on the lacquered side tables. The feet of these were formed like the paws of a lion, with sharp golden claws that might tear through a man’s flesh and bone.

  The past is over.

  From the bowls and cups and pots on the main table, the smell of coffee and beef soup rose to mingle sickeningly with the scent of the ball guests’ various sweetwaters.

  “He still tires easily, I believe,” Perrin continued, his voice full of importance. “And he has not yet regained his old strength. So you will not hold it agains
t him, will you?”

  “Of course not,” Lillian murmured, without knowing whom he was talking about. She yearned for the cool, fresh night air, for a place of quiet and solitude.

  Perrin guided her to an empty chair of black wood. “Please sit down. I will get you something to drink and you will feel much better, soon.” With that, he hurried away.

  While she waited for him, Lillian watched the coming and going of the people around her, who sipped wine and talked and laughed, talked and laughed and—

  “Here you are.” Perrin held out a glass of sparkling red wine to her. “Try this. It will revive you.”

  The thin, elegant stem of the glass felt cool in Lillian’s ginger grip, a fragile thing, so easy to break, to destroy, to shatter into a million pieces…

  Lillian took a deep breath and let the coolness of the glass soothe her. She took a tentative sip of the chilled wine, the bubbles tickling her nose. She would have preferred lemonade made of sour limes without any trace of sweetness.

  “You might think it strange,” Perrin said, “that I would wish to introduce my cousin to you. I love him like a brother, you must know. He is one of my best friends.”

  Lillian took another sip, welcomed the coolness that washed down her throat. “I see,” she said softly. But how could she? She had never had any brothers or sisters or friends. Just Nanette. Nanette had always been there.

  Perrin’s eyes shone merrily. “We grew up together, my coz and I.” And how much effort he took to sound like a fashionable gentleman, a man of the world. “A fine pair of rascals we were! Rambling around the Ravenhurst estate, full of boyish mischief and pranks.”

  “So you are of the same age?” Lillian forced herself to show some interest in what he told her.

  “Oh no, he is five years my senior—but what a fine big brother he would have made! I followed him everywhere…”

  Like a puppy, a lap dog, Lillian added silently.

  “…admired him ardently. He was the hero of my boyhood.”