by Liz Tyner
‘I’ll start if you’ll promise never to speak to me again.’
‘So, what did happen with the lofty Edgeworth?’
Abigail took the last bite from Lily’s plate.
‘I was going to eat that,’ Lily said.
‘No you weren’t.’ She swallowed. ‘So what happened?’
‘Nothing.’
‘That tart was good.’ She paused. ‘Wonder if there is more?’
Lily didn’t answer.
‘Fox didn’t even know you and Edgeworth are avoiding each other, but I told him.’ Abigail still held her fork. ‘I thought you’d want him to know.’
‘So kind of you.’
‘He said Edge is acting like a lion with a thorn in its paw and when he told Edgeworth that he’d be glad to have the thorn, Edge shouted at him. He said he’d never seen Edge shout and he didn’t even know Edge had a temper, and apparently Edge has a monstrous temper. Then Edge said he was going to the country because he could not stay in this town another second.’
Abigail tapped her plate, making the most annoying clicks. ‘I’m going to have Fox ask Edge’s mother what has happened.’
‘You do that.’ Lily stood.
‘There’s fleas in your bed. I put them there.’
Lily shrugged, leaving. ‘No different than when I shared a room with you.’
* * *
Lily knocked on her mother’s door, but didn’t wait for an answer. Her mother sat, eyes red, head down, hair scattered about her face, the butterfly hairpin she preferred lying on the dressing table. She looked up. ‘Lily, there’s something wrong with me.’
Lily leaned against the open door. ‘I know. There always has been.’
Her mother brushed back a tangle of hair, but it fell forward again. ‘I’m so happy some moments that I can hardly stand it and the next, I weep for days.’
Lily walked over and took the last pins from her mother’s hair, letting the locks fall, and gathered the brush, running her hand over the bristles. ‘Yes.’
‘Your father. He said he loves me.’
‘Well, there’s something wrong with him, too.’
Her mother sighed. ‘Thank you for bringing me home from Sophia’s.’ She gazed up at Lily. ‘I wanted to know why she did that to me. She said she shouldn’t have done it, but I could tell she wasn’t sincere. I’d thought we were true friends. Not that she was using me to find out information for her memoirs.’
Lily brushed her mother’s hair. Then twisted it up into a knot and put the pins back in.
‘I hate being here. Everyone remembers, and really, I didn’t do the things they say. At least—not all of them. I thought Sophia wouldn’t judge because she’s a courtesan, but she’s false.’
She sniffled and reached for a handkerchief. Lily’s eyes followed the white cloth.
‘I was happier in the country and I wasn’t upset all the time,’ her mother continued. ‘And no one visited and tempted me to go out.’
‘No one will visit you here now. Since you left, no one calls, and if someone visits, the butler can say you’re unwell.’
‘Your father wanted me in London. And I did miss my girls terribly. So I had to leave the plants I’d tended for years. And I had a goat named Samuel Johnson and he ate the vegetables I grew. I left him behind.’
‘You grew the vegetables or your gardener did?’
‘I didn’t have a gardener. Didn’t want one. I got up early and, if I couldn’t sleep, even at night, I worked in the garden. In the winter, I would make plans for the next season. I even had turnips because I could feed them to the horse. And winter onions. And I don’t like onions.’
‘And did you have a beau?’
‘No. I stayed away from men. Without your father getting upset it seemed pointless.’
‘Did you throw things?’
‘No. Your father wasn’t there.’
‘He can be irritating.’
‘You’re so sensible, Lily. You’re nothing like me.’
‘Are you sure?’ Lily waited for the answer even before she’d finished asking the question. She studied her mother’s face.
‘I’m positive. I would know.’ She grimaced. ‘Even before I married, I was rather dismal and sad most of the time. When I met your father and felt better, I thought that would fix everything. It didn’t. But he had a lot of money and he didn’t mind that I was taller than him.’
The older woman turned in her chair. ‘What of Edgeworth? Abigail said you were going to marry him and now you’re not.’
‘No, I’m not.’
‘Why?’
‘Several reasons. And he makes me feel all fluttery and insensible.’
‘That’s just at the beginning when you get attached to someone. It goes away. Then your mind returns and you look at him without any pretensions. That’s when the funds are handy.’
‘Mother. If you liked the plants, why don’t you grow them here?’
‘Nothing will grow here. It’s all shaded.’
‘What about in front of the house?’
‘Your father would have a temper. What will everyone think if I start digging around in the dirt?’
Possibly a lot nicer things than they’d said before, Lily thought. ‘When the flowers grow, they might think you’re happier. Perhaps you could tell Father you won’t break any windows if you have a garden. And if he lets you have a cat, you’ll not shout.’
‘And if I can cook confections in the middle of the night when I can’t sleep, it will be so much better.’
‘Then just start digging up the dirt and cooking when you want and tell Father to go to the devil if he doesn’t like it.’
Her mother smiled and tossed the handkerchief aside. ‘I’m so pleased you’re not like me.’
Lily leaned to the table top and took the butterfly pin. She tucked it into her mother’s hair.
She bit the inside of her lip to keep it from quivering. She wasn’t telling her mother that she’d been crying for days and had only been able to stop twice since Edgeworth had called off their betrothal.
* * *
In her room, with the door latched, Lily hugged her pillow to her chest. Edge was in the country. But it didn’t matter.
She would never, ever let herself feel this way again. Memories of her mother’s despair flitted through Lily’s mind. She had to stop herself from making the same mistakes. If it felt this way the first time, she could not bear a lifetime of it. She’d seen the devastation in her mother’s face so many times. Lily’s choice to be a spinster had been the right one and when she’d forgotten it, the world had crashed, hurling all sorts of blades into her.
She’d not known the inside of a person could hurt so much more than the outside.
She’d tried crying it out, pounding it out with a fist into her pillow, and forced herself not to throw things because she’d already seen that accomplished nothing. But neither did anything else.
Edge had turned her mind both wrong side out and wrong side in. Her numb skin did nothing except work as a container to hold the aches neatly locked inside her body, and keep her raw and throbbing with each beat of her heart.
She’d walked to the window. And then she’d realised—she was watching for Edge and she wasn’t even at the right window for the view. Slamming the window shut, she forced herself to turn away.
A hundred times she’d seen her mother go through this, but her mother had lacked the strength to deal with it. Lily clenched her jaw. She might not have the willpower a second time. A second time would bring her to her knees just as it did her mother. Each time her mother gave in quicker to the feelings, sinking deeper and losing herself, and recovering a little less than she had the time before. And it had only taken a lifetime for her mother to discover her mist
ake. Lily couldn’t live like that another twenty-five years.
The door clattered as someone knocked and then tried to get in.
‘Go away,’ Lily said.
‘I can’t,’ Abigail answered. ‘I care about you. I need you healthy so some day you can repeat all those frightful talks you’ve told me and then explain them to the children I plan to have. I want them to like me so I can’t tell them all that folderol about how you hiccup and a baby pops out of your mouth.’
‘I corrected that error.’
‘Yes. I preferred the hiccup story, by the way. Much more sensible.’
‘Then stay. I’m not opening the door,’ Lily grumbled back. ‘I have food and water in here, and when I come out, don’t forget, I’m taller and I outweigh you.’
‘But I can run faster.’ Abigail’s voice faded, but kept its shrillness so Lily knew her sister walked away.
Against her wishes, but unable to help herself, Lily walked to the window. She couldn’t even see much of Edge’s gardens because her room faced the back of the house. She’d have to go to Abigail’s room for the best view because she wasn’t leaning out her window and turning sideways. But she did feel closer to him when she looked outside. Then she noticed the barest reflection of her face in the glass—all of her that was left.
* * *
Edge stepped from the rear door of his house. Going to the country hadn’t solved anything. Lily owed him an apology and an explanation. He couldn’t sleep for thinking how she’d betrayed his family and kept it from him. She knew. She’d been in his home and she’d known how she’d tossed his family’s secrets out into the wind, letting them scatter like thistle pods to open and spread their seeds to carry on for ever.
He didn’t move forward. At least the window across from his garden was the sister’s. The one at the back of the Hightower house, near the corner, almost hidden and looking over the shadows, was Lily’s.
He looked to Lily’s sister’s window, remembering the handkerchief, irritated he’d ever let that get started.
Movement caught his eye and he stepped closer to the other house.
Abigail marched underneath the window, with two workmen trudging along hefting a ladder.
She looked over, shook her fist his direction and kept walking.
Edge couldn’t help it. He moved where he could see the window at the back of the house—Lily’s. Damn Lily for reducing him to someone no better than the reader of a scandal sheet. Although he didn’t think anyone could avoid watching a neighbour with a hammer in her hand caterpillar her way up a ladder while trying to hold her skirt close to her body so the two workmen below would not be able to see her woman parts.
Abigail made it to the top and used the hammer to tap on the glass and raised the tool high. A true daughter of Mrs Hightower. The window opened and a splash of water dowsed her. She tossed the hammer inside and dived in behind it.
‘Out,’ a screeching voice shouted.
He couldn’t hear the answer.
The workmen looked up, one of them moving his head in the same manner of a new reader following a line of words.
The hammer flew out the open window, barely missing one of the men, and he half-expected Abigail to follow, but instead she stuck her head out, waved to the men below and shouted, ‘Thank you. We’re through for the day.’ Then she disappeared inside.
The one on the left looked to the one on the right and they remained, looking up, listening.
Edge walked closer to the men, stuck his arm out, pointing to the road. They bobbed their heads at him and left without even taking the ladder.
He went back inside and swore not to look at the house beside his. He would not. He would stick both legs into flames before he walked her direction again and he would not let his eyes betray him either.
* * *
Two days later, Gaunt appeared at his door. His face flicked between sadness and perhaps amusement.
‘A woman to see you.’
Righteous indignation swirled in Edge’s body. The apology. Not that it would matter. Lily had destroyed his family.
‘She’s dressed in mourning,’ Gaunt said, seeming to bite the inside of his lip to keep a calm demeanour.
Edge’s shoulders stiffened. He would not make this easy for her.
Edge walked into the sitting room. The visitor sat, her face covered with the mourning veil.
She lifted her handkerchief, a plain one. Her shoulders heaved a bit and she lifted the veil enough to put the handkerchief to her lips. Her voice quivered and the deep breaths made it sound as if she sobbed, and her voice came in high-pitched, muffled, warbling sniffles.
‘I most sincerely apologise,’ she said.
‘For what?’
‘Everything.’
He spoke softly. ‘But, Abigail, you’ve done nothing to me.’
She flipped the veil up. ‘I’m here on behalf of my sister. She sent me to apologise.’
Like hell.
‘Accepted,’ he said and turned on his heel.
Just outside the door, he huffed a breath and turned back. ‘But thank you for your efforts on your sister’s behalf.’
She stood, walked up to him, pointed her nose in his direction, eyes narrow slits, and said, ‘I’m really here on your behalf. She’s too good for you.’
With a snap of her wrist, she pulled the veil down. ‘I don’t know what happened, but I hope you rot.’ She took a step and turned back. ‘She can’t sleep.’ She took another step and then turned back again, the mourning clothes swallowing her. ‘You destroyed her. I hope you’re happy.’ She put her hand on her hip. ‘She won’t even read her cookbook any more.’
He stood silent. He should have stayed in the country, but he’d just not been able to.
‘And she won’t eat. Not even those hideous orange things she likes.’
She could leave any time now.
‘I had Cook make her favourite orange biscuits and you would have thought I was trying to poison her when I took them to her.’ She was quiet for a second. ‘I thought she was going to cry.’ She raised her head higher, pointing a finger to the ceiling. ‘And my sister does not cry over biscuits.’
‘You may leave now.’
‘Edge...’ The Duchess’s voice.
He turned. His mother stood on one side and an addled woman on the other.
‘What is wrong?’ the older woman asked.
‘Nothing. Just a matter I’m clearing up.’
‘Ha.’ Abigail didn’t lift the veil. ‘He destroyed my sister. Took a knife to her tender emotions and stabbed her through with all his might.’ Then she whirled away and ran out the door.
His mother clasped her throat. ‘Edge. What did you do?’
‘That was Miss Abigail Hightower.’
‘Oh.’ The Duchess looked to the doorway, emotions fading from her face. ‘Takes after her mother?’
‘I would guess so.’
His mother appraised him. ‘And what did she mean by your taking a knife to her sister? I thought the two of you were courting.’
His teeth together and jaw locked, he shook his head, the weight of the movement taking all his strength.
‘Well...’ she reached out, picking a piece of lint from the sofa, but still every bit the Duchess as she emphasised her words with a shake of her head ‘...I told Lily you could be difficult.’
‘Mother, I do not doubt that I can be difficult, but the woman—’ He turned away from his mother, not wanting her to see his face. ‘You cannot believe what she is truly like.’
‘Fairly quiet, I would say, except when the two of you are together. Never heard a peep from her when she was growing up, unless you were outside. Then I could hear “Lion Owl” being shouted,’ she mumbled. ‘If I had named you William, per
haps, that would have been best. Your father wanted you named Lionel.’ She stopped. ‘A very lovely name.’
‘She should have addressed me properly.’
‘Booby-head?’
‘You listened?’
‘I’m your mother. It’s what I do.’
He watched as she moved the fripperies around on the mantel, arranging them in ways that made no discernible difference. Then she picked up a book and put it under her arm.
‘Have I given you any advice lately?’ she asked.
He huffed a breath. ‘No. And I know what you’re going to say. Forgive. Forget. Rise above. Duty. Heirs.’
‘I was going to say don’t be a booby-head, actually. Same thing, I suppose, but sounded better the way you said it.’ She stood back and examined the room. ‘Could you help me move the chair? I think one of the servants has it a little crooked.’
He stared. A footman should do that. But then she pressed her lips together and pointed to the furniture.
He picked up the arm, moving it just the amount she indicated. ‘Nice and tidy. Perfect. Just the way your father would have liked it. And he certainly wouldn’t have liked the thought that Lily Hightower would be a duchess in this house—at least, not at the end.’
‘She’s not going to be.’
She examined the chair. ‘He was a good man, your father, but not at the end. Not at the end. Sad. A whole life of doing the right thing and then—’ She snapped her fingers. ‘Just threw it all away.’ She tilted her head. ‘Don’t do that.’
‘You have to understand.’ His voice thundered. ‘Lily told the newspaper about Father.’
She put a hand to her cheek. ‘So is that what this little crisis is all about?’
‘I’m surprised you’re not more horrified.’
‘It was all a long time ago now, darling.’
‘Mother. She destroyed our family.’
‘Give your father some credit there.’ Her eyes pinched. ‘He did his share where that’s concerned.’ She gave a dainty kick to the leg of the chair. ‘He changed in one year into a stranger. He was irritable and not himself. I think he was getting ill and didn’t know what was wrong.’