Sarah’s eyes grew wider and wider with every revelation, but she did not interrupt and Lily was grateful for her silence. When she was finished, when there was no detail left unsaid, she slumped back in her chair, threw an arm up over her face, and groaned loudly. “And so you see I am now quite ruined. James will not have me, Christmas is right around the corner, and we will soon lose everything to Cousin Eustace.” She opened one eye and peeked under her wrist. “Have I left anything out?”
“Heavens,” Sarah said dazedly, “I hope not.”
Lily’s smile was both wry and self deprecating. “I do not know what to do,” she admitted. “I thought sleeping with James would solve all of my problems, but now I fear I have only made them worse. What if he tells someone what we did? No man would have me after that.”
“I do not know Captain Rigby overly well, but from what I have heard of him he seems like a man of high moral character.” Sarah’s smile was encouraging. “So you should not worry about him spreading idle gossip.”
“Yes, no one need know I’ve lost my virginity until my future husband discovers my lack of innocence on our wedding night and tosses me out on my ear.”
“I wouldn’t worry about that either. Seeing as your cousin will soon have all of your money and you will not be in possession of a dowry, no man of consequence is likely to look twice at you.”
Lily dropped her arm to stare incredulously at her friend. “Is that supposed to make me feel better?”
“No, I suppose not.” Sarah took a thoughtful bite of her scone. “But I am confident we will come up with a solution. After all, what happened to you is not so different than what happened to me, and look how well everything turned out with Devlin and I!”
“I fear James is not the sort of man to profess his love over a sleigh ride through the park. He did not say a word, Sarah. Not a word when we parted ways.” The anxiety of it all settled in her chest like a stone, weighing her down and leaving her rooted in the chair where she once would have paced circles around the room. What was she going to do? For once, Lily did not have an answer.
“Well, did you say anything when you parted ways this morning?” Sarah asked.
“I… No,” she said after she thought about it. “I didn’t.”
“There you have it, then!” Sarah said excitedly. A bit too excitedly, Lily thought with a scowl, given the dower circumstances. “You did not say anything so he did not say anything. Perhaps he is sitting in a drawing room somewhere at this very moment, having the same exact conversation we are!”
“I highly doubt that.”
“Oh, posh.” Sarah waved her hand in the air. “What do you know? Look at what a muck of things you’ve made so far. I must say, this is not at all your best scheming. Which makes it all the more interesting, does it not?”
“You are talking in riddles,” Lily said irritably, “and not being at all helpful.”
“I am being incredibly helpful,” Sarah corrected with a beaming smile. “And I have come up with a perfect solution.”
Hope flickered inside Lily’s heart, hesitant as a newly born flame. Was there a way to fix everything? Sarah certainly seemed to think so. She bit the inside of her cheek, telling herself not to get too excited even as the anticipation nearly drove her up and out of her chair. She wrapped her arms around her chest to contain the pounding of her heart and leaned forward. “Which is?”
“It is quite simple, really. All you have to do is ask Captain Rigby to marry you.”
James had not moved from his chair for the past hour. He sat in silence, staring down at his desk and the blank piece of blank parchment resting on top of it. The words that needed to be written on the parchment – a simple letter to a solicitor – echoed in his mind, but try as he might he could not summon the concentration necessary to commit them to paper. His mind was preoccupied, his thoughts very much elsewhere.
As the second hour began to pass his muscles grew stiff but still he remained in the chair. Not moving, just staring, as though the empty page before him would reveal all the answers he sought if he but studied it long enough.
“I knocked, but you did not answer. What are you doing?”
James jumped at the sound of his sister’s voice. He’d been so deep in thought he hadn’t heard her at the door nor, it seemed, noticed when she entered the room. Dressed in a drab gray dress with a white shawl wrapped around her shoulders she looked old beyond her years… and far more serious than any sixteen year old girl should ever appear. “I was thinking about something,” he said honestly. “What are you doing awake and dressed?” He glanced out the window, thinking perhaps more time had passed than he initially believed, but the sun was still rising in the sky, indicating the hour to be quite early.
Natalie shrugged her shoulders beneath the shawl. “I could not sleep.” Tucking her legs up, she settled into a chair, but kept her gaze on him, her blue eyes inquisitive. “You did not come home last night.”
“No.” He did not offer an explanation, for what could he say? I did not come home because I was in the process of ruining a young woman’s life. What woman? Oh, the very same one you met at the Heathcliff’s ball. He hoped Natalie would be satisfied with the fact that he was home now and leave the matter alone, but he should have known better. His sister had always been curious and, when it came down to it, often quite nosy. As a girl she’d been caught eavesdropping behind doors on more than one occasion, a habit which seemed unbroken even after all this time.
“Did you go into town?” she asked, resting her chin on her knees and looking very much like the baby sister he had left instead of the waif like, sad eyed woman he’d returned home to. “Or to the pub? Or perhaps you went—”
“Leave it alone Natty,” he said, a hard edge to his voice. Her face paled, and he could have kicked himself. “What I meant to say, is my absence is nothing you should concern yourself with… sweetheart.” The endearment sounded odd even to his own ears, but he was determined to be softer with his sister, and what better way than to begin using terms of affection? Unfortunately, it did not have the effect on Natalie he would have hoped.
“Do not call me that,” she said fiercely.
James’ forehead creased in bewilderment. “Sweetheart, I did not mean—”
“STOP IT! STOP IT! STOP IT!” she shrieked, and in the aftermath of her sudden outburst they were both silent. Natalie was breathing heavily, her small chest pushing in and out quick as a bird’s.
James noted her fingers were pressed into the arms of the leather chair so hard her knuckles shone white in the drowsy light of morning. She was terrified, he realized dumbly. Absolutely terrified. But of what? Of him? Somehow, he did not think he was the cause. The shell shocked expression on her face was the same he’d seen worn by men on the battlefield after they’d witnessed an unspeakable horror. “Natty,” he began, careful to keep his voice calm so as not to upset her further, “is there something you are not telling me?”
She shook her head quickly. Too quickly, James thought.
“Did… did something happen to you while I was away?” he persisted, not willing to let the matter drop until he had answers. They could not go on like this. He could not go on like this: walking on eggshells around his own sister, afraid of what to say, never knowing what to do. It was time she faced her demons and started healing. It was time they both faced their demons and started healing. For some reason, at that very moment, Lily’s face rose unbidden in his mind. He saw her quick smile. Her violet eyes, filled with laughter. Her long, silky legs, wrapped around his hips…
“I do not wish to speak of it,” his sister whispered, efficiently drawing him back to the present.
“Natty…”
“You should marry,” she said suddenly.
James blinked, as caught off the guard by the sudden change in conversation as he was by the topic. “I should… I should what?”
“Marry,” she repeated. “I think it would be good for you to have someone.”
“You need someone else,” she insisted. “Someone to help care for you and this house. Someone to make you laugh.”
Lily makes me laugh.
“You deserve to be happy again.” Natalie’s blue eyes were wide and beseeching. James looked away, unable to meet her gaze and the truth he saw reflected within. Pain recognized pain, he thought. Which was why his sister could so clearly see what he kept hidden inside.
“I have not thought of marriage.” A lie. It was all he’d been thinking about since he woke up that morning tangled in the arms of a beautiful, mischievous sprite. He knew what he had to do. What he was honor bound to do. He had taken Lily’s virginity, something that should have exclusively belonged to her future husband, and while she had been a willing party, he would not let her face the consequences of their actions alone.
And yet James could not help but think it would not be such a consequence. He knew nothing about Lily Kincaid except the husky sound of her laughter, the stubborn glint that gleamed in her eye when she’d set her mind to something, and her willingness to risk her life for an old hound anyone else would have abandoned to the wilderness. More lies. He also knew the taste of her skin. The tempo of her heart. The sound of her moan… He shook his head to clear it, and dared a quick glance at Natalie. His sister was studying him intently, the oddest of smiles on her pale face.
“Do you know what I would like for Christmas above all else?” she asked.
James did not have the faintest of ideas. “A new dress?” he ventured.
Natalie shook her head. “A sister. I should very, very much like a sister.” Leaving him gaping after her, she gathered her skirts and skipped from the room.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
25 days until Christmas
Time was running out.
Lily knew it. Her mother knew it. Elsa knew it. Even Mr. Betram knew it, if his constant nightly howling was any indication.
From James she’d heard not a word, which only made everything all the worse for she thought of him constantly. He invaded her dreams every night without fail, sliding into her subconscious as stealthily as a shadow and filling her mind with the sound of his husky voice, the serious slant of his mouth, the touch of his skin…
During the day it was not much better. Even though only three days had passed since their time together in the cottage she must have imagined him a hundred, nay, a thousand times. If she did not keep herself busy she thought of him. If she slept she thought of him. It seemed with every breath she drew she thought of him, until she was so consumed it was nearly impossible to think of anything else. Which was why, on a bright, sundrenched afternoon, she found herself with Sarah at the very last place she desired to be: a holiday fair in the middle of town.
Shop owners hawked their wares from every street corner. A man with a white beard pushed a wooden cart filled to the brim with wreaths. Children ran through the crowd selling bright red ribbons. A group of women, wearing matching green cloaks and fur muffs, sang cheerful carols at the top of their lungs.
Sarah, boasting a bright smile, held fast to Lily’s arm and steered them both towards a vendor selling steaming hot cups of chocolate. There was a rather long line – no surprise given the frigid temperature – and Sarah turned to Lily after they’d shuffled their way into it. “Isn’t this positively delightful?” she asked, raising her voice to be heard above the din.
Lily did a quick, sweeping glance of the organized chaos and struggled not to grimace. “Yes,” she lied. “Delightful.”
Sarah’s face fell. “You are not having a good time at all, are you?”
The line moved forward a few feet, and they moved with it. Lily sighed. “I am trying. Truly I am. But all of the festivities—”
“—are only reminding you that Christmas is right around the corner,” Sarah finished. “I should have taken that under consideration. We can leave, if you would like.”
“No.” Lily shook her head from side to side, causing the hood of her cloak to fall back. She’d pinned her hair up in a circular braid that wound around the crown of her head and woven red ribbon through the thick, glossy strands in an attempt to be festive. Unfortunately, it seemed not even pretty ribbon could boost her spirits, but she was not about to let her problems effect Sarah’s happiness. “We will get hot chocolate and walk all around. I saw a booth selling glass snowflakes when we first came in. I should like to buy one for Elsa, and find something for Mother as well.”
Sarah’s expression was doubtful. “Are you certain?”
“Yes, I—I…” She trailed off in sudden alarm.
“Lily? What is it? What’s wrong?”
But Lily wasn’t listening. She was, instead, doing her best to hide behind Sarah, but the blond kept spinning in a circle, making it quite difficult. “Stop moving!” she hissed, peeping up and over her friend’s shoulder at the man she’d spotted across the square. Even from this distance there was no mistaking James’ tall, rugged frame for anyone else’s.
“What on earth…” Sarah breathed, before she followed Lily’s gaze and picked James out from the crowd as well. It wasn’t very difficult to do. Even if he wasn’t dressed in all black he still would have stood out from the rest of the merry goers, as different from them as the moon was from the sun. He stood by himself off to the side, his expression shuttered. “Is that him? Is that Captain Rigby?”
Lily nodded.
Sarah squealed.
“Oh, this is perfect! You must go over and speak with him. And for heavens sake, get out from behind me.” Sarah’s frown was disapproving. “I have never seen you act like this in all my life. Why are you hiding?”
“I am not hiding,” Lily said automatically. Except she was. Feeling rather sheepish, she straightened up and stepped to the side of her friend, never taking her eyes from James. He looked well, she decided. In an I-am-angry-at-the-entire-world sort of way, which was so very typical she could not help but smile. Her smile was quick to fade, however, as she wondered if he’d been thinking of her as she’d been thinking of him.
Did he lay awake at night remembering their time spent together? Or was she already forgotten, a fleeting star in an endless sky of flickering lights? Suddenly, Lily didn’t know if she possessed the courage to find out.
“We need to leave,” she hissed, ducking back down behind Sarah’s shoulder.
“Too late,” Sarah said, sounding far too cheerful given the circumstances. Then, in a louder voice she said, “Captain Rigby, is it not? We were introduced, albeit briefly, at my home. And this” – reaching behind her, she grabbed a hold of Lily’s arm and forcibly dragged her forward – “is my dearest friend Lady Lily Kincaid.”
“We have met,” James said curtly. His eyes were cold, his countenance inscrutable. Lily could feel the words she wanted to say withering up and dieing inside of her throat. For someone who always had an answer for everything, it was a foreign – not to mention unpleasant – sensation.
“Well then,” Sarah said slowly as her gaze traveled from Lily to James and back again. “If you have already met, no doubt you wish to have a moment alone to be reacquainted. I will be right over there if you need me.” And she was gone, and even though they were surrounded by people in the middle of a very public town square, Lily had never felt more alone in all her life.
Say something, she thought desperately. Anything, say anything! “Mr. Betram is doing well,” she blurted.
“I am glad to hear it.”
Lily waited for him to say something else, but it seemed that was it. I am glad to hear it. Five short words which had nothing to do with the matter at hand. Inexplicably she was filled with an irrational surge of anger, most of it directed at the man standing in front of her. After all, he had been the one to approach her. And all he had to say for himself, after two days of silence, was ‘I am glad to hear it’? Her nostrils flared. “Could I speak with you,�
� she gritted out, “in a more private setting?”
James inclined his head and began to move through the crowd, his strides so long she had to pick up the hem of her skirts and run to catch up.
By the time they’d rounded the corner of the fabric store and stopped short in a narrow alley framed by two sizable brick buildings Lily was out of breath and in the grips of a temper she hadn’t felt in quite some time. “You,” she wheezed, jabbing her pointer finger at James, “are a pompous jackass.”
His eyebrows lifted. “Are we back to this?” He shifted his weight and leaned against one of the buildings. Flickers of sunlight, beaming in through the front of the alley, played across his face, illuminating the scruff of beard he’d failed to shave and a tiny white scar on the corner of his chin she hadn’t noticed until now. “Do you always toss insults about when you don’t know what else to say?”
Lily crossed her arms tight over her chest and glared. “I have plenty to say.”
“Well then, go on.”
Her mouth opened. Closed. She thought of the nights she’d spent awake staring at the ceiling and rehearsing, word for word, what she would tell James if given the opportunity. Now her chance was here, and she couldn’t think of a single thing to say.
So she said everything.
Beginning with the death of her father and ending with the cottage she left nothing out, and when she was finished it felt as though a great weight had been lifted from her shoulders. The guilt was gone, and even though her confession meant James would never marry her and everything was ruined, she was content with the knowledge she had not tricked him into a marriage they would both come to regret.
Having been unable to look him in the eye while she was spewing out the truth in quick, hot bursts of half sentences and jumbled words, she lifted her chin to gauge his reaction… and felt her jaw drop when she saw he was smiling. “Do you… Do you not understand what I have told you?”
“Oh, I understand perfectly,” he said.
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