One Night for Love

by Mary Balogh

  She had refused to marry Neville because she was uncomfortable in his world and could never fit the role of countess. She had refused for her own sake and for his too—eventually he would have been made intensely unhappy by her inadequacy.

  But the realization had come that she would no longer be uncomfortable or unfit in his world. Oh, she had not been transformed in little over a month. She still had a vast long way to go before she could function like a lady who had been born and raised to the life. But she was on the way. And slow and difficult as some of the lessons were, she knew that she could master them. She would never be a lady by birth, and there were those in the beau monde who would always hold that against her, but she would be a lady by training. And there were plenty of people—people she liked and respected—who would accept her.

  What was to stop her, then, from marrying Neville again?

  She would not allow him to marry her out of a sense of obligation, she told herself at first. But she knew that was ridiculous. She knew that he still loved her even before he stopped her outside the jeweler’s shop and said what he did about her locket. And she certainly knew that she loved him. She had not stopped adoring him since she was fourteen and first set eyes on him.

  She must think carefully, though. She must be very sure that she was not rationalizing. She must be certain that no lingering sense of inferiority would prevent her from seeing herself as his equal. She would not be his equal in birth or fortune. She must know for sure that that fact would never be a stumbling block for either of them—even after the first bright bloom had worn off their love, as it inevitably would in the course of their lives.

  But she would think when she was alone again. For this afternoon she would allow herself to relax into the magic and simply enjoy herself. And so she went to Gunter’s with him, and she ate her ice and talked to him about all the lessons she had learned in the past month. She chose to amuse him with all the comical details she could think of—most of them at her own expense. They laughed merrily together, and she knew, perhaps with a twinge of unease, that the magic had taken hold of him too.

  It was something of a disappointment to have their tête-à-tête interrupted, but Lily smiled politely at the gentleman who stopped at their table to have a word with them. It was difficult to remember the names of all the people to whom she had been introduced since the evening of the Ashton ball, but she remembered Mr. Dorsey immediately, partly because he had been at Newbury Abbey for a day or two after her arrival, but mainly because it was over him that Elizabeth and the Duke of Portfrey had quarreled.

  “Ah, Miss Doyle. Good afternoon,” he said, smiling and bowing and looking surprised, as if he had just spotted her. “Kilbourne?”

  They both answered politely but without any great enthusiasm. Neville wanted to be alone with her as much as she wished to be alone with him, Lily guessed. She was remembering Elizabeth’s brief reference to the incident at the ball the morning after. She could not break a confidence to give a full explanation, Elizabeth had said, but she believed there was indeed good reason for Lily to avoid furthering an acquaintance with Mr. Dorsey.

  But he was an amiable gentleman and surely harmless, Lily thought over the coming five minutes, during which he sat uninvited at their table and chatted with them. He had heard that the Earl of Kilbourne had recently been at Leavenscourt in Leicestershire. He wished he had known. He was heir to the ailing Baron Onslow, who lived at Nuttall Grange a mere five or six miles away. He would have been delighted to go there himself to show the earl the countryside. Or perhaps his lordship had been there on business?

  It was a rather embarrassing coincidence, Lily thought, that the Duke of Portfrey himself should happen to walk past Gunter’s during those five minutes and, glancing in, see the three of them there. He paused for a moment and then walked on after touching his hat to Lily. Well, she thought, at least she would be able to assure Elizabeth that she and Neville had been given no choice beyond being rude.

  A minute or two later Mr. Dorsey took his leave.

  “A curiously amiable fellow,” Neville said. “He would have gone all the way to Leicestershire merely to show me the countryside if he had known I was five miles away from his uncle’s estate? And yet I scarcely know him. Perhaps he believes he owes me a courtesy because he was a guest at Newbury in May. But he came as an acquaintance of Lauren’s grandfather. At least he has gone out of his way to show that he bears me no grudge.”

  They smiled at each other.

  “You have not, I suppose,” he said, leaning toward her, the interruption forgotten, “been to Vauxhall Gardens yet, have you, Lily?”

  “No.” She shook her head. “But I have heard of them. They are said to be enchanted at night.”

  “Will you go there with me,” he asked her, “if I can get up a party?”

  It might well be a most dangerous place to go if upon careful consideration she decided that she could not after all change her mind about him. She should perhaps refuse outright now. Or at least she should say no more than that she would think about it and talk with Elizabeth about it.

  But she found herself leaning eagerly toward him until their faces were only inches apart.

  “Oh, yes,” she said. “Yes, please, my lord.”

  21

  “I wonder,” the Duke of Portfrey said, “what Mr. Calvin Dorsey’s interest in you might be, Miss Doyle.”

  Elizabeth and Lily were members of a party of guests the duke had invited to share his box at the theater. Lily had been enthralled by the whole experience so far—by the sumptuous elegance of the theater, by the audience in the other boxes, the pit, and the galleries, by the first act of the play. She had been swept away into another world as soon as the performance had begun and had lost all sense of her separate identity—she had become the characters on stage and had lived their lives with them. But now there was an interval, and the box had filled with visitors come to greet Elizabeth or other members of the party—and to get a closer look at the famous Lily Doyle.

  His grace had wasted no time on idle chatter. He had suggested that Lily stroll outside the box with him for a while.

  “What is anyone’s interest in me, your grace?” she said in answer to his remark. “By ton standards I am a nobody.”

  “He has never been in the petticoat line,” his grace said, “or into any particular gallantries to the ladies. But he has deliberately sought you out on two separate occasions that I am aware of.”

  “I believe, your grace,” Lily said, “it is none of your concern.”

  “Ah, that flashing of the eye and jerking upward of the chin,” he said, shaking his head. “Lily, what does one do when … Well, no matter.”

  “Besides,” Lily said, “Mr. Dorsey was more interested in the Earl of Kilbourne than in me at Gunter’s. He would have gone to Leicestershire himself a few weeks ago, he said, if he had known his lordship was there.”

  “Kilbourne was in Leicestershire?” the duke asked.

  “At Leavenscourt,” Lily said, “where my father grew up—my grandfather was a groom there.”

  “He is still alive?” his grace asked.

  “No,” Lily said. “He died before my father did, and my father’s brother has died since then too.”

  “Ah,” the duke said, “so there is no one left. I am sorry.”

  “Only an aunt,” Lily said, “and two cousins.”

  “My wife was from Leicestershire,” the duke said. “Did you know I was once married, Lily? She grew up at Nuttall Grange a few miles from Leavenscourt. Calvin Dorsey was her cousin. And your mother was once her personal maid.”

  Lily stopped walking abruptly. She stared at him, not even noticing other strollers, who almost collided with them and were obliged to circle about them. Suddenly, for no reason she could name, she felt very afraid.

  “How do you know?” she asked almost in a whisper.

  “I have spoken with her sister,” he said. “Another aunt.”

  During the
past week Lily had discovered certain facts about her parents’ roots. And she had just discovered that both had surviving family. She was not quite as alone in the world as she had thought. But instead of exulting, her mind was churning with unease—worse than unease. She could get no grip on the feeling, though. Of what exactly—or of whom exactly—was she afraid?

  “I believe,” his grace said, “it is time we returned to the box, Lily. The second act will be beginning soon.”

  Lily was extremely fond of Elizabeth, who exemplified for her all the finer qualities of a true lady. Lily respected and admired her. She was also aware of the fact that she was Elizabeth’s employee, who did almost no work for her very generous salary. All Elizabeth required by way of service was that Lily apply herself to the lessons she herself had dreamed of and that she display as much as possible of her newly acquired knowledge and skills by attending certain social functions with her employer.

  Lily had worked very hard, both for her own sake and for that of her employer. And she was pleased with the results, if a little impatient with the slowness by which some of them were being achieved. But sometimes a nostalgia for the old way of life became almost overwhelming. Sometimes the need to be outdoors, to be in communion with nature, to disappear into her own world of inner tranquility could not be denied. Hyde Park was no real substitute for the countryside, surrounded as it was by the largest, busiest city in the world. And through most of the day it was a fashionable resort for the beau monde, who liked to parade there to see and be seen, to exchange the latest on dits of gossip. But Lily had rarely known idyllic conditions in which to enjoy the natural world. She was accustomed to seeing what she wished to see while shutting out the world around her for precious moments of time. And Hyde Park in the early mornings came close to being idyllic.

  A few times since her arrival in London Lily had stolen out of the house alone soon after dawn in order to enjoy a quiet hour by herself before the lessons and the busy round of activities began. She never told Elizabeth, and if Elizabeth knew, she gave no indication. If she had admitted to knowing, of course, she would have felt obliged to insist that Lily take a maid or a footman with her. And that would have ruined the whole thing.

  Lily went to the park the morning after the play. It was a cool morning, a little misty, but with the promise of another lovely day ahead. There was scarcely anyone about. Lily avoided the paths and walked on the dew-wet grass. She was tempted to remove her shoes and stockings, but she did not do so. There were, alas, proprieties to be observed. The park was not quite deserted, after all. There were a few tradesmen hurrying about their early-morning business, and the occasional rider cantered along the paths.

  Lily tipped back her head to gaze at the treetops while she drew in deep lungfuls of air. She tried to clear her mind, in which unease and exhilaration mingled to such a disturbing degree that she had been waking and sleeping and waking and sleeping all night long—and there had been the old nightmare again.

  She could not understand quite why she had been frightened by what she had learned last evening. Perhaps it was just that she was accustomed to believing that she was without close connections. Since she was seven there had been only her father—a rock of security while he lived, but the only rock. Yet now suddenly there was a whole crowding of connections—two aunts, two cousins, and two acquaintances who had close ties with the place where her mother had been a maid. Lily had not even known that her mother had been in service. But she had been a personal maid to Mr. Dorsey’s cousin, the Duke of Portfrey’s wife.

  What made her vaguely uneasy about those facts? Lily could still not find an answer this morning. She tried to shake off the feeling.

  She knew very well why she was exhilarated. Neville had indeed got together a party to go to Vauxhall Gardens three evenings hence. She would have been excited just at the prospect of going to the famous pleasure gardens, Lily thought. But … Well, it was not just the idea of going there that had her so excited she could hardly sleep. Vauxhall Gardens was the place for romance, she had heard, with its tree-lined, lantern-lighted avenues and more private paths, with its private boxes and concerts and dances and fireworks displays.

  And she would be going there within a few evenings with Neville. The party was to consist of eight persons, but that fact meant nothing to Lily. She knew that he had invited the other six only because he could not invite her alone.

  She wondered if he planned an evening of romance—and if she would allow it. She still had not quite made up her mind.

  She tried not to mull over the old arguments as she walked in the park. She kept her face lifted and listened to the birds, which were singing in full chorus. She tried to focus her mind on the precious present moment.

  She would wear her locket to Vauxhall, she decided. He would notice and remember her telling him that she would wear it for some special occasion.

  But was she prepared to give him such a signal?

  She breathed in the slightly damp air with its strong smell of vegetation and listened to the distant sounds of a horse’s cantering hooves.

  If the Duke of Portfrey had talked with her mother’s sister, he too must have been in Leicestershire recently. But why not? He had been married to a woman who had grown up there. Perhaps he was still on terms of intimacy with her family.

  The horse was coming closer from behind her. Its pace had quickened almost to a gallop. The few times Lily had been on horseback, she had found riding a most wonderful sensation. She thought she would rather like to fly along the paths of Hyde Park on a horse’s back.

  And then three things happened simultaneously—the sound of the horse’s hooves became muffled, as if they were riding now on grass; someone screamed; and Lily had that feeling again—that feeling of bone-chilling, mind-numbing terror. When she turned her head, horse and rider were almost upon her. By sheer instinct she twisted away and fell heavily to the grass. The horse thundered past and continued on its way at full gallop.

  The scream was repeated and a young serving girl came rushing across the grass, dropping a large basket as she did so. Two men, one in the dress of a laborer, the other looking more like a prosperous merchant, also appeared as if from nowhere. Lily lay dazed on the wet grass, gazing up at them.

  “Oh, miss.” The girl came down on her knees beside Lily. “Oh, miss, are you dead?”

  “She’s shocked, not dead, you daft girl,” the laborer said. “Are you ’urt, miss?”

  “No,” Lily said. “I think not. I do not know.”

  “Best not to move, ma’am,” the merchant said briskly, “until you are sure. Get your breath back and then see how your legs feel.”

  “The brute!” the maid exclaimed, glaring after the fast-disappearing horse and rider. “ ’E did not even look where ’e was going, ’e didn’t. Prob’ly don’t even know ’e almost killed someone.”

  “ ’E wouldn’t care,” the laborer added cynically. “The quality don’t care about ’urting a bloke or a wench provided they don’t damage the ’orseflesh under ’em. ’Ere, miss, do you want an ’and up?”

  “Leave her for a moment,” the merchant said. “You do not have your maid with you, ma’am?”

  Lily’s mind was just beginning to inform her that she had escaped death by a whisker—again. It had not yet drawn her attention to the various bruises she had sustained in her awkward fall.

  “I am quite all right,” she said. “Thank you.”

  “ ’E looked like the devil from ’ell, ’e did,” the maid was informing them all, “with that black cloak flying out be’ind ’im. I didn’t see ’is face. P’raps there was no face. Oooh, p’raps ’e really were the devil.”

  “Don’t be daft, girl,” the laborer told her. “Though why ’e were wearing an ’ood over ’is ’ead on a morning like this, I don’t know—unless ’e were a woman, that is, and she didn’t want anyone seeing ’er riding astride and recognizing ’er. The quality is all queer in the upper works if you arsk me.”


  The merchant was more practically engaged in helping Lily to her feet and allowing her to cling to his arm for a few moments until she could be sure that her legs would hold her upright.

  “Will you allow me to see you home, ma’am?” he asked her.

  “Oh, thank you,” she said. “But no. I am quite all right, if a little damp. Thank you all. I am very grateful to you.”

  “Well, if you are sure,” the merchant said, ruining his gesture of gallantry by withdrawing a watch from an upper pocket, frowning, and remarking that it was just as well as he was late for an appointment.

  Lily walked home alone and succeeded in getting into the house and up to her room without being seen by either Elizabeth or any of the servants. She stripped off her wet clothes before ringing for Dolly and then smiled beguilingly at her maid and told her that she had been to the park and slipped on the grass—but she would prefer that her escapade not be discovered by anyone else. Dolly entered gleefully into the conspiracy and promised that her lips would be tightly sealed—and then she proceeded, as she tended to Lily, to give an enthusiastic progress report on her budding relationship with Elizabeth’s handsome coachman.

  It had been an accident, Lily told herself, beginning to feel the painful effects of her bruises. A careless rider had strayed from the path and had not even noticed her.

  He had been wearing a dark cloak—with the hood up.

  Probably every gentleman in the nation owned at least one dark cloak. And the morning had been cool, even if not exactly cold.

  And it was certainly possible that the he really had been a she.

  It had been an accident.

  But she feared it had not been.

  Any more than the rock falling from the top of the cliff at Newbury had been.

  Matters were progressing slowly—if at all. Neville had not even seen Lily every day since his arrival in town. And when he did see her, it was usually at some entertainment when she stayed close to Elizabeth’s side and good manners kept him from trying to spend too much time with her.