She paused at the edge of the lawn and looked up at the crystal night and stars twinkling like so many gems above her. A distant memory came to her, when she had been a small child, looking out the window of the drawing room at a night sky just like this one. I want to be a star when I grow up, Mama, she had said. Don’t be ridiculous, Lilliana! Now look at what you’ve done! You’ve missed another stitch! But Lilliana had not cared about stitches; she had wanted to be up there, flying high above the earth seeing what God saw. She still did. But at Blackfield Grange she was earthbound, stifled by boredom and a desire to know more. There was nothing in this parish to hold her except the overbearing sense of duty and propriety that had been drilled into her from the crib.
She could not let this one chance at heaven slip by. If she did, she would die, extinguished by a life so mundane as to stifle the breath from her. It didn’t matter what others said of Lord Albright—he was the man of her dreams, had always been, and she was not going to let him slip through her fingers because of some outdated fear of scandal. And her father was right—if she did not accept one of the two offers, Lord only knew what would become of her. She was two and twenty and lived in the middle of nowhere where less than a handful of eligible men knew of her existence. And without a suitable dowry her choices were extremely limited. So were Caroline’s, and she was blocking her sister’s chance at happiness with that ridiculously foppish Horace Feather—assuming, of course, her father ever agreed to accept “Mr. Featherbrain.”
Nonetheless, she felt terribly guilty and foolish and appalled by her reckless determination. But heaven help her, all she could think of was how perfect her life would be married to the most exciting man in all of Great Britain. God was smiling on her for once, offering her the one person who could make her truly happy—Adrian Spence.
At long last, she might soar.
Five
A SMILING LORD DASHELL greeted Adrian the next day when a footman showed him to the solarium, and Adrian took that to be a good sign.
Crossing the threshold of the brightly lit room, he noticed the sister before anything else. He bowed over her hand as Dashell introduced her, taking in the heavily lashed green eyes and hair the rich color of honey. In spite of Miss Caroline Dashell’s uncontrollable giggling, Adrian could see why Pearle had described her as the family beauty.
Dashell pointed him toward his other daughter. Lilliana was seated at an easel, but she came quickly to her feet as he crossed the room to greet her. “Lilliana,” he murmured, and bowed over her hand, allowing his lips to linger a moment longer than etiquette allowed. The rustic parish princess flushed furiously. “You look lovely,” he said, and her flush turned to a delightful smile, ending in a lone dimple in one cheek.
Behind him, Lord Dashell cleared his throat. “If you will excuse me, my lord. I have some business that cannot wait,” he said, and receiving a nod from Adrian, cast a pointed look at Lilliana before quitting the room. That left them with Caroline, who was still grinning like a simpleton.
Adrian turned his attention to Lilliana. “What are you painting?” he asked, and casually walked around to see her canvas. It was a painting of a vase stuffed with showy pink and white flowers, and it was actually quite good.
“Just some flowers,” she mumbled, and clasping her hands demurely, smiled shyly. “They grew in our garden last spring.” Across the room, Caroline giggled again, but was abruptly silenced by a sharp look from Lilliana.
“You are quite talented,” he said, and meant it; she obviously had an artist’s eye.
“Oh!” She blushed again, and looked at her feet. “Thank you, my lord, but I am not really very talented. “Obviously embarrassed, she turned and walked hastily to the cluster of chairs in the middle of the room, where she sat daintily on the edge of one, and looked at Caroline again. Her sister dutifully dropped into a chair next to her. Adrian smiled to himself—how long had it been since he had courted a woman in her drawing room? Never, actually, save that one unfortunate incident when he was eighteen years old. He preferred the uncomplicated liaisons at Madam Farantino’s.
“The, ah, weather is much warmer today,” Lilliana stammered as Adrian selected a chair directly across from her. Caroline giggled. “It is a mild winter,” she added, “but I suppose we could use some rain.” Adrian nodded again. She bit her lower lip and stole a glance at Caroline. “It is particularly dry,” she said, and locked her gaze on his mouth.
Well, one thing was certain—the Princess of the Grange was not very good at small talk. As for Caroline, that young simpleton could hardly contain herself. The two of them lacked the sophistication Adrian was accustomed to. They would never survive a London Season, not with such a blatant lack of feminine finesse. Fortunately, he didn’t need a society belle for a wife.
“I prefer mild weather, because the house gets so drafty when it is very cold,” Lilliana muttered, and dropped her gaze to her hands.
Adrian suppressed the urge to chuckle at her helplessness. As he was feeling a bit charitable, he decided to end her agony. He suddenly leaned forward, and propping his forearms on his thighs, let his hands dangle between his legs. “Lilliana? Have you thought about my offer?” he asked softly, and arched a brow at the girls’ collective gasps. Caroline gaped at him. Lilliana blinked. Several times. A bolt of lightning could have struck that solarium and not moved them. “Have you?” he asked, inserting a hint of anxiousness in his voice.
Lilliana and Caroline exchanged sidelong glances. “Umm, yes. Yes. Yes I have,” she said slowly, and bravely lifted her chin.
“Might you share your decision with me? Or shall I be forced to endure the agony of waiting for your reply?”
Caroline turned at least three shades of red and, giggling hysterically, jerked around to gape at her sister. In stark contrast, Lilliana had gone deathly pale. She gulped. “Caroline, I do believe Mother could use some help with the sewing.”
That caused Caroline to pierce Adrian with a sharp look. “But she said—”
“She said she needed help with the sewing. In the sitting room,” Lilliana replied with a bit more confidence.
Her sister squirmed a bit, looked at her hands, then reluctantly came to her feet. “Yes, the sewing,” she said unconvincingly. “If you need me, I shall be in the sitting room.” She said it so distinctly that Adrian had to suppress another smile of amusement Caroline looked once more at him, then practically sprinted for the door. She peered carefully into the corridor before slipping through, and closed the door softly behind her.
Thankful to be free of the giggler, Adrian smiled warmly at Lilliana. “You must assure your sister that I am not accustomed to offending women in their father’s study.”
The tension seemed to have left her, and she flicked a dismissive hand toward the door. “Oh, that is my mother’s doing. Caroline lives in mortal fear that I shall receive another tongue-lashing,” she said absently.
“I beg your pardon?”
Lilliana jerked a wide-eyed gaze to him. “I mean … I mean … Mother worries that I will be un-chaperoned. Quite a lot,” she added with a quick, impatient roll of her eyes.
“Indeed? And are you in need of a chaperone?”
Her indelicate snort surprised him. “Hardly! What on earth could happen at Blackfield Grange?”
And so did her naivete. “If one were so inclined, I rather imagine anything.”
She frowned thoughtfully at him. “Indeed? Such as?”
Adrian chuckled. “Lilliana, my offer?” he prompted her. She did not immediately answer, but gave him a soft shrug of her shoulders. All right, she was going to make him work for it. “Would you torture me with your silence? If your answer is no, then please, do me the favor of ending this uncertainty.”
That made her wince ever so slightly. “I … I think it very kind of you, my lord, but I should … It’s just that … it’s just that I should very much like to know some things,” she said uneasily.
“Anything.”
S
he glanced up, assessing him. “Well … I should like to know why you offered my father such a large sum of money.”
God, had Dashell told her the terms? Rather indelicate, but then Lord knew what customs ruled in the country. “Quite simple. I wanted to make sure he understood how determined I am. I hold you in great esteem, Lilliana, and I did not want to dicker over the terms of the betrothal if you would have me.”
For a fleeting second she looked confused, then startled him by laughing gaily. “Oh my, you are not very practiced, are you?”
Oddly, that remark made him want to squirm. “I beg your pardon?”
“At least I may surmise that you have not offered for many others, as you would know that my father would have accepted far less than what you proposed. Without dickering.” She laughed again, flashing the lone dimple.
“You have me there. I am quite new to this,” he agreed, feeling a sense of relief. “Is there more you would know?”
She sobered immediately and glanced at the carpet again. “What of Benedict? Do you really think the two of you shall, ah, come to an understanding? He is rather tenderhearted, and I do believe he will be quite … well, perturbed.”
She peeked up at him with such genuine concern that Adrian bit his tongue on the point that Benedict would fare well enough and always did. “We have suffered through worse and remain brothers.” It was not a lie. Lilliana said nothing, but drew her bottom lip between her teeth again. Adrian shifted forward in his chair. “What else would you like to know?”
A soft frown creased her brow. “Where shall we live?”
That should not have caught him by surprise, but he did not know the answer she wanted to hear. “Longbridge, for now,” he said carefully, “but if you prefer—”
“Is it very far away?” she asked earnestly.
Adrian nodded, thinking it best to leave the exact distance unsaid. “Not so far to prevent you from visiting your parents whenever you desire, but far enough one might think twice before arriving unannounced,” he said. To his considerable relief, she smiled fully and glanced at the window, a faraway look in her eye. “Is there more?” he asked cautiously.
She nodded and squared her shoulders, unconsciously, he thought, before meeting his gaze again. “I gather I have the requisite connections and breeding to be considered a suitable match—”
“Of course,” Adrian interjected.
“And I agree that either we suit or we don’t, but that there is no point in some protracted courtship in my father’s house.” Sensing victory, Adrian almost smiled. “I am not certain that we do suit,” she continued, deflating him a little, “but I hardly think one knows that sort of thing until one has … ah … resided in, ah … matrimony.” Coloring slightly, she gave him a tremulous smile.
“I agree,” he offered helpfully. “But?”
She drew a deep breath. “But … you implied we should be companions. Is that true?”
Companions? Had he actually said that? “Yes,” he said carefully.
Nodding thoughtfully, she leaned back.
“Is that not to your liking?”
“Oh no!” she said hastily. “I want to be a good companion to you. But I must have some assurance that I may …” Her voice trailed off; her fingers nervously plucked at the embroidery in the arm of the chair.
“What, Lilliana? What is it you want? I have the means to give you anything, you know that, don’t you?” he asked earnestly.
“I want … I want to … live,” she muttered, and jerked her gaze to him. “I want assurances I will be allowed to live. Experience life, that sort of thing. I want to live freely,” she added nervously.
Of all the things she could have asked him, that had to be the last one he expected. She wanted to live freely? What in the hell did that mean? “I beg your pardon?”
Lilliana suddenly shifted to the edge of her chair and eagerly leaned forward. “I want to live! I want to know true adventure! I want to see things, to travel to new places and hear strange foreign tongues and eat exotic foods!” she exclaimed, her hands gesturing wildly. “I want to meet people who would never come to Blackfield Grange! People who think the sky is red, not blue, and the earth flat not round!” she breathed excitedly.
Adrian was speechless—he had never heard such fantasy from a woman’s mouth! His jaw clenched tightly shut as he considered this unsophisticated Grange Princess. A whirlwind of thoughts tore through his brain, not the least of which was that he might have made a terrible mistake. Not ten minutes ago she had been a demure country girl with absolutely no idea of what to say to a man. At the moment, she sounded like a budding lunatic with her talk of red skies and a flat earth.
Her expression crumpled into bewilderment, and she sagged against her chair. “I have offended you, haven’t I? Proper ladies would never profess to wanting more than what your good name and title could give them, would they?” Good God, certainly not, he thought, and unthinkingly shook his head. “I was afraid of this,” she muttered sadly. “I am very sorry, my lord, but I cannot accept your offer.”
What? What in the bloody hell was this? He was the one who should have the opportunity to cry off at this moment, not her! And because he had not, apparently, responded to her absurdity in the earnest manner she seemed to think was necessary, she would refuse him? Irrationally disgruntled, he almost came out of his seat. “I, too, am sorry, but I cannot accept your refusal,” he said curtly.
“Pardon?” she squeaked.
“You may live however you please, madam. If you want to wear grass skirts or speak in foreign tongues or howl at the moon, I will not stop you. If you want to believe the sky is red, I will be the last person to contradict you.”
Lilliana’s mouth dropped open. “You … you will honor my wish to experience life?”
He didn’t give a damn what she did with her life, but she would not refuse him. “Of course I shall,” he said bluntly. “Insofar as you do it without slandering my name,” he added, a little more roughly than he intended.
“Of course not!” she gasped. “How very wonderful that we may travel, and meet new people, and explore the world!” she exclaimed happily.
Explore the world with this bumpkin? Lord God, he could hardly imagine her beyond her own sitting room, much less in some of the finest salons of Europe. What nonsense … but what difference? He might take her to Europe once, let her experience life. Surely that would take care of her naive desire to meet savages in the far corners of the earth. The lass beamed at him as if he had just handed her a fistful of diamonds. “Lord Albright! I should very happily accept your offer!” she exclaimed. “I can hardly wait to tell Caroline! To think that I might actually see the Levant! I’ve read all about it, you see,” she eagerly explained, and launched into a monologue of some book she had read.
Adrian smiled as she spoke, but his victory over Archie did not taste nearly as sweet as he had anticipated.
The wedding took place exactly five days later. As Adrian was not welcome at Kealing Park, the traditional wedding breakfast was held in the village assembly rooms following the ceremony. It was the one thing Adrian had insisted upon, despite the Dashell pleas to host the affair at Blackfield Grange. On that point he was unyielding—the ceremony had to be in Kealing. He wanted everyone to see his victory.
And everyone seemed to be in attendance. If he had had to guess, Adrian suspected no fewer than five houses had been put to the task of preparing the wedding breakfast. He had no inkling of the details; his sole task had been to provide an endless stream of funds.
And inform Lord Kealing and his son of the happy occasion.
He would have liked to do that in person, but his requests for an audience were returned unopened. So he had resorted to informing them in writing. His note had been short and sweet: To the Right Honorable Marquis of Kealing, Archibald Spence, and Lord Benedict, it is with great happiness that I inform you I am to be wed on Saturday next to Miss Lilliana Dashell of Blackfield Grange. Please do me the grea
t honor of joining us on this, the happiest of occasions.
Lilliana had also sent a note to Benedict with his, one she labored over for a good hour. It had been the one unhappy moment Adrian had seen in her all week.
Beyond that, the Princess of Blackfield Grange had been completely ecstatic. He dutifully called every afternoon, more to occupy his time than to prove his sincerity, because he was making himself mad idly waiting for a response to his letter to Lord Rothembow. Every afternoon he was greeted with a flurry of anxious activity. Lord and Lady Dashell were frazzled by the daunting prospect of launching a wedding suitable for a baron’s daughter in less than a week, and had, in Adrian’s opinion, unwisely added to the melee by deciding to take the waters at Bath after the wedding. Apparently Baron Dashell, feeling a new sense of freedom with Adrian’s generous settlement, had determined that spending the winter months in Bath would be just the thing for Lady Dashell’s humor and to convince Caroline to set her sights on someone other than Horace Featherbrain. Young Tom remained quite sullen, rarely leaving his rooms when Adrian came. Caroline bounced about like an india rubber bail, chattering endlessly about gowns and trousseaus and little family secrets.
Adrian did feel honor-bound to explain his circumstance to his fiancée. He told her he was estranged from his father, but did not offer the details of why. The very thought of Phillip still made him ill—mentioning his name aloud was impossible. To her credit, Lilliana had listened attentively, then flashed a smile with that tantalizing little dimple and insisted that while she was sorry about his estrangement from his father, it did not concern her in the least. She did not ask any questions, and for that he was extremely grateful. And the next moment she was up and flitting about the drawing room, peering closely at her paintings—of which there were many—and asking his opinion of which would do at Longbridge. Lilliana, apparently, beamed from sunup to sundown.
Julia London 4 Book Bundle Page 6