by Laurel McKee
She slowly sat up, staring uncertainly at his hand. “I should get home. I can’t be caught coming in looking like this.”
But Aidan found he didn’t want to lose her just yet. Something in him, some part he didn’t understand, wanted to keep her close for a little while longer. “Just for an hour or two, and then I will take you home. It’s a long time until dawn.”
Finally she nodded and took his hand. Aidan led her through the doorway into his bedchamber. The gaslight from the street outside cast shadows over the carved bed, making an undulating, inviting haven of the piled-up quilts and pillows. It was a small room, plainly decorated and furnished with old, unfashionable pieces from his family’s country home attics, but he usually didn’t bring women here. It was his own space, a place for escape, for writing and thinking. A place where he was only Aidan, not the son of the Duke of Carston.
But Lily seemed to belong there, a quiet, watchful presence that didn’t mar the peace. He pulled back the bedclothes and drew her down beside him onto the soft sheets. She still wore her disheveled dress, and the fabric rubbed over his bare chest as she slid into the angle of his body. He wrapped his arm around her shoulders, and she rested her head against him with a sigh.
Slowly, slowly, she relaxed until at last he felt her arm slide over his waist. They just lay there together, still and silent.
Aidan wound her hair around his wrist, combing the tangles from the long strands with his fingers. She traced a light pattern over the skin of his chest. It was a gentle, soothing touch, a connection in the darkness.
And it was much too intimate, too close. Aidan knew he should take her home now, push her away, but he couldn’t move. It felt too good to have her next to him. Tomorrow would be soon enough to move away.
The back of his hand rested on the soft, vulnerable nape of her neck. “Tell me why you were so frightened tonight,” he said quietly.
Lily stiffened against him, but he tightened his fingers in her hair and held her still. “Anyone would be frightened in the middle of a fight,” she said.
“Of course. Yet there was more than that. I saw you earlier, when I put you up on that table. You fought like a Valkyrie. But when I found you at the end, you were almost paralyzed. You can talk to me, Lily. You can tell me what happened, tell me how I can make it up to you.” Aidan knew even as he said the words and asked her to let him in that he was only digging himself deeper into a place he did not want and could not have. A place of real intimacy and understanding. A place where he could truly see a woman and let her see him. But that romantic notion was something that could only be found in plays.
Still he asked her that. Still he lay there with her, his body wrapped around hers.
She was so taut against him, and he saw her again as a delicate, trapped bird, her wings spreading to take flight and disappear.
“I don’t want to talk, Aidan,” she said. “It’s late, and I’m tired.”
She sat up with one hand on his chest and slid her other hand softly over his face. She made him close his eyes and then leaned over to press her lips against his.
“Just sleep now, my warrior,” she whispered. “And tomorrow you will see that you don’t really want to know anything about me at all.”
Aidan felt himself falling down into a dreamless sleep, her hand caressing him. And when he awoke with the sun on his face and his head pounding, she was gone.
Chapter Eleven
“You seem distracted today, Lily my dear.”
Lily glanced up from her account book and rubbed at the bridge of her nose as she smiled at her mother. Katherine St. Claire was arranging a large vase of roses at a table by the drawing room window. It was a dismal, gray day, the fog rolling down the London streets to banish the sun they had enjoyed for the last two days, and the dampness seemed to have seeped into the cheerful pale yellow room.
Two days had passed since she had seen Aidan. Two days since she had slipped from his bed in the predawn light, stealing one last glance at his gorgeous face as he slept.
The sight of him in his bed, his muscled torso glowing a pale gold on the white sheets, his hair tousled, had lingered in her mind every time she closed her eyes. She felt his hands on her, heard the murmur of his voice, saw the flash of his smile. She remembered how they had talked, how tempted she had been to confide in him. So, yes, she was a bit distracted today.
“I suppose I’m just tired,” she answered.
Katherine looked at Lily over the red flowers, a worried frown on her brow. She looked like a bright flash of summer in the gloomy day, with her pale blue dress and her hair the same red-gold as Isabel’s, only lightly touched with threads of silver. The frown seemed foreign on her pretty face, yet it had been there too often lately when she looked at her children.
“You’ve been working too hard, Lily,” she said. “You do the accounts for that club and the theater, and who knows what else Dominic and Brendan drop on you. You should let someone else help. Hire a secretary.”
Lily laughed. “I doubt we would want a secretary, an outsider, to pry into our accounts.”
“Then your brothers should help more.” A wry, affectionate smile touched Katherine’s lips. “My dear William is brilliant at many things, but the practicalities of numbers is not one of them.”
Lily shook her head. Her father was often off on flights of fancy, deeply into a play or a piece of music, or off talking to people. “I like doing the accounts. That is not what’s making me tired.”
“We wouldn’t be where we are if not for you, Lily,” Katherine said. “We wouldn’t be so secure financially. You have been a blessing to us, and if we ask too much of you…”
“You have been my blessing, Mama,” Lily protested. “I’m only happy there is something I can do for you. I would be dead now if not for you and Father. Or worse—I would be like my mother.”
“No, my dear! No, you must not say that.” Katherine hurried over to Lily’s side, dropping onto the satin slipper chair by the desk to take Lily’s hand. “You are strong and clever. You would have found a way to save yourself even if we hadn’t come along when we did. But I am thankful every day that we did.”
Lily smiled at her mother. Katherine held so tightly to Lily’s hand that her rings bit into the skin, but she didn’t care. Her mother’s soft touch, the rosy smell of her perfume, was always a comfort. “I’m thankful as well.”
Katherine nodded. They never spoke of that day so long ago, when Lily had been caught trying to pick William St. Claire’s pocket as he and Katherine walked past in the Covent Garden crowd. Rather than box her ears or shout for a constable, rather than leaving her to Tom Beaumont for another beating or worse, Katherine had knelt beside her and stared deeply into her eyes. She had smiled at Lily and spoken softly, until Lily let William lift her in his arms and carry her away.
When Beaumont tried to get her back, William’s men gave him a thrashing, and she never saw him again. Her life of dirty streets, hunger, crime, and beatings was over. Instead there were lessons with a governess in a clean, cozy nursery, with new brothers and a sister, pretty clothes, the theater, books.
She heard that Beaumont was transported to Australia soon after. Until now. Until he held her against that barroom wall and smiled that terrible smile.
Lily pressed her other hand to her eyes and tried to swallow back the cold nausea that rose up in her throat. She couldn’t worry her mother with Beaumont. It was her own problem, her own past, and she would find a way to take care of it. But how she hated Tom Beaumont for what he had done! Such burning, violent hatred she had thought—hoped—was long banished from her life.
“Lily, something is wrong,” Katherine said. “Is it that man? The one who sent you violets?”
Lily sat up straight and pulled her hand away from her mother’s. “Why would you say that?”
Katherine laughed. “Because you haven’t said anything about him. Whenever you turn all quiet and cautious like that, I know something is amiss.”<
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“He is just someone I met once or twice. We… talked a bit.”
“And he sent you flowers after talking?”
Lily shrugged. She tried to be casual, careless, but she didn’t meet Katherine’s watchful green eyes. Aidan was her secret, just as the return of Beaumont was. She couldn’t let her family know she was actually seeing a Huntington. They would explode with fury. Except Isabel, sweet, romantic Isabel, who she knew would keep her secret.
Lily owed the St. Claires far too much to do anything to hurt them.
“Come, my dear, sit with me on the settee. I’ll ring for some tea,” Katherine said, letting the subject of secret admirers drop for the moment.
Lily glanced back at the open book on her desk. “I should finish these…”
“Later. It’s teatime. And I want to ask your advice about something.”
Lily nodded and went to settle herself on the settee as Katherine rang the bellpull. It had begun to rain, cold, hard droplets that battered against the window glass and made Lily shiver. Her mood felt just as gray, and even her mother seemed affected as she sat next to Lily. Her beautiful oval face, so much like Isabel’s, was creased with some secret worry.
“What is it, Mama?” Lily asked, her concern growing. Had she been so preoccupied with her own troubles that she had missed something going on in her family? “Are you ill? Is it Father?”
Katherine shook her head. “Oh, no, we are perfectly well. It is James I’m worried about.”
“James?” Lily said, her mind racing. She thought back over the last few weeks and realized that it was true—James had not been his usual lighthearted self. She saw him only at breakfast and in quick snatches in passing, as he didn’t seem to be home very much, and when he was, he seemed quiet and brooding. Even Isabel had appeared a bit worried about her twin.
Lily almost cursed aloud. How had she not noticed before? “What is wrong with him?”
“He won’t talk to me. He is gone so much, and he won’t say where. Not that that should be anything unusual—he is a man now, and his brothers at that age never wanted to tell their mother what they were about either. But he won’t even talk to Isabel, and they have shared everything since they were born. I think she is rather hurt by that.”
“What of his friends?”
“There were the young men he knew at school, but he never mentions them now. He won’t go with us to the theater or the assembly rooms, and he shows no interest at all when your father tries to involve him in the productions at the Majestic.” A blush touched Katherine’s cheeks as she added, “I do think Dominic and Brendan tried to take him to… to a place they know for gentlemen, but I don’t know how that went.”
She paused when the maids came in with the tea trays. Lily’s thoughts turned.
“I can ask around, Mama, discreetly try to find out if he’s been seen in any of the usual places,” she said when they were alone again. “I could speak to him myself, but he wouldn’t tell me anything he wouldn’t tell you.”
Katherine nodded as she poured the tea. She seemed a little steadier now that she had shared her worries. “Thank you, my dear. I’m sure it’s just a phase of some sort, and soon enough he will settle into some kind of interest. But I do worry about my children. I can’t help it, even though you are all grown now.”
Over the gold rim of her cup, Lily met the steady, painted gaze of Mary St. Claire in her portrait. The image of the woman who had married a Huntington hung over the marble fireplace where she could be a reminder to the St. Claires never to trust the Huntingtons or people like them. Never to trust in love.
She thought of the often-told tale of Mary St. Claire, how she was the most beautiful woman at King Charles’s decadent court, pursued by every man, including the king. But she would have only John Huntington, the man she had loved since she was a girl, the man who swore he loved her in return. He made her his wife, his duchess, and carried her away to live in his castle.
Yet something went terribly wrong in their romantic paradise, something so dark and secret no one knew what it was. John cast Mary out, claiming she had been unfaithful, and went on to use his wealth and influence to ruin her whole family. The St. Claires went from respectable country gentry to bankrupted outcasts and eventually a motley collection of theater owners, slum landlords, and gamesters. Mary died of a broken heart, while John remarried and perpetuated his ducal line.
And no St. Claire could love a Huntington again.
“What really happened to you, Mary?” Lily whispered as she rubbed at her aching temple. Mary just smiled back, so sweet and sad.
“Are you quite all right, Lily dear?” she heard her mother ask.
“I’m fine,” Lily answered. “Just a touch of a headache. I think I’ll just go and lie down for a while before I go to the club tonight.”
“A very good idea. These late nights can’t be good for you, though I confess I had more than a few late nights myself when I was your age,” Katherine said with a laugh. Lily and her siblings always wondered how her parents had met, but they never told the story. Had it been a part of those “late nights”? “You have been working much too hard lately.”
Lily kissed her mother’s cheek and made her way up to her chamber, only to find one of the maids waiting for her there.
“This came for you while you were having tea, Mrs. Nichols,” the maid said as she laid a white box bound with red ribbons on the bed.
Lily studied it suspiciously, as if the harmless-looking cardboard might come to life and snap at her. There had been too many unpleasant surprises lately. “Delivered from who?”
“The messenger didn’t say. Will you need help dressing later, Mrs. Nichols?”
“Yes, thank you.”
As soon as the maid left, Lily carefully slid the ribbon off the box and reached for the lid. She noticed a small label emblazoned on the white and red lettering that proclaimed it came from an exclusive French modiste. Curious, she tucked back the layers of tissue to reveal a silken, violet-scented cloud of pastel-colored underthings.
“Oh my,” Lily sighed. She lifted out pair after pair of featherlight drawers, pale pink, sky blue, butter yellow, and pure white, all with matching chemises and pairs of stockings tucked into satin bags. They were trimmed with the finest lace and gossamer ribbons, lovelier than anything she had in her wardrobe.
At the bottom of the box was a folded note, and Lily’s heart pounded as she reached for it. She already knew who had sent it, and the sight of the bold, spiky black lettering, the same writing she had seen on the notes that came with the violet bouquets, confirmed it.
With abject apologies, the note said. I hope these replacements are adequate for what I so carelessly destroyed. If so, come riding with me tomorrow. I promise to take you somewhere the horses can really run, no staid park pathways. Aidan.
Lily laid the note back down on the bed and stared at it as she rubbed a fold of pink silk between her fingers. Against her will, she found herself smiling.
If this was what Mary St. Claire had felt for her Huntington scoundrel so long ago, well surely the poor lady never stood a chance. And Lily feared that neither did she.
Chapter Twelve
“What is this place?” Lily asked. She drew in her horse at the crest of a hill and stared down at the vista that opened before her. It was beautiful, a rolling, pale green meadow that seemed to go on for miles, all empty and fresh and real under the gray sky. So different from the crowded London streets she saw every day.
She took a deep breath and let the clean, cool air fill her lungs. They had not ridden too far today, just over London Bridge and past Greenwich to where the old villages that surrounded London gave way to farms and dairies. Yet it felt like a different world.
Aidan drew his horse in beside hers and studied the land from under the shadowed brim of his hat. “I told you I would bring you someplace where you could run. Do you like it?”
“It’s beautiful. I forget there’s a world beyond the c
ity sometimes.” Lily’s horse shifted restlessly beneath her, and she tightened her hold on the reins. “But will we be caught trespassing?”
Aidan laughed. “Not at all. This land belongs to my father, though he never comes here.”
“This is your family’s?” she said in surprise. She studied the meadow again, the way the grassy slopes rose to the crest of another hill. In the distance, she glimpsed the redbrick chimneys of a house.
“If this was mine, I would never leave,” she said. “It’s so quiet and peaceful.”
He laughed again. Aidan seemed to be in a good mood today, lighthearted, and he made Lily feel the same. “Well, we can’t have that, can we? Come, I’ll race you to the top of that hill.” He took off at a gallop, leaving Lily to chase him.
Their horses’ hooves pounded the earth as they raced, fleet-footed and light, and the wind tore at the veil of Lily’s hat. It caught her laughter and carried it away, and she felt her heart rise with the speed and movement.
It had been so long since she really got to ride! To feel the power of her horse beneath her, controlled by her light touch on the reins. To feel the wind on her skin, the sky stretched above her, and to know she was free. That nothing could hold her down.
She knew it was all an illusion, that too many things held her tied with unbreakable bonds and she couldn’t outrun them. But in that moment, racing across a country meadow with Aidan, they didn’t matter. Only the fleeting movement and the sound of his laughter mattered.
She leaned down low over her horse’s neck and urged it faster and faster until at last she pulled ahead of Aidan. They soared over a ditch and turned to thunder up the hill, almost neck and neck. Lily managed to beat him by mere inches. She threw back her head and shouted with triumph.
“I wish I could accuse you of cheating,” Aidan said, laughter thick in his voice. “But I fear you beat me quite fairly. Where did you learn to ride like that?”