Wild Lily (Those Notorious Americans Book 1)

by Cerise DeLand

  “I say, Hanniford!”

  “No bluster, man! I see who you are. I am not blind nor as loose of principle. As for my own daughter, I take pride in her every move. If she wished to ride at night, she has the ability, if not the proper sense to take a maid and a footman instead of your son as her escort.” He offered his arm to her and with a shaking hand, she took it. “I also see by my girl’s attire that there was more to this night than riding and visiting a house.”

  “Mr. Hanniford.” Julian stepped up to them. “I would not hurt her.”

  “Is that so?” he asked with disbelief in his tone. “A hideous way to prove it.”

  “Papa, please.” Lily squeezed her father’s forearm. “Don’t argue. Take me back. I wish to return to London.”

  “No, Lily. You can’t.”

  “But—”

  “Sir, hear me out,” Julian pleaded. “I wish to marry Lily.”

  She met Julian’s gaze, her heart bleeding. “No, he doesn’t.” Not for love or money.

  Her father huffed. “How good of you, Lord Chelton.”

  “I was proposing to her before my father arrived and interfered.”

  Wasn’t it more a litany of reasons why he wouldn’t ever marry her?

  Her father stared down at her. “You’ll marry him.”

  “No!” She stepped backward. “This is outrageous.”

  “I agree,” her father said.

  “You can’t make me.”

  “It’s best, my dear.” He looked older, defeated. “The circumstances are such.”

  She’d never seen him without a swagger. “How can you say that, Papa? You agreed to let me choose my own husband.”

  “By your actions here tonight, Lily, you have chosen.”

  She shook her head vehemently. “I—”

  “I forbid the marriage,” said the duke.

  Julian confronted him. “Are you mad?”

  The duke gave his son a sardonic smile. “I warned you.”

  Julian glared at his father, then turned to hers with wildness that cast his features in stone. “He’s scheming, trying to manipulate us all. I won’t let him.”

  “Intriguing. How so?” asked her father.

  “He wants a higher price for the shipping company. Wanted me to negotiate again with you to persuade you. I refused. He’s angry at the loss. Angry that I’d court Lily in my own way. Angry that he’s penniless, by his own folly.”

  Her father pursed his lips and studied the duke. “So you’ll not give your consent to their marriage unless…what? I offer a higher price on stock?”

  The duke lifted on his toes, preening like a fool. “I’d say you have the right of it.”

  Her father shot a look at Julian. “You must be of age.”

  “I will be thirty-one June first, sir.”

  “Do you own stock in the shipping company?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Splendid. Send your lawyer to me for transfer of Lily’s dowry.”

  Lily gasped.

  Julian went white as a sheet. “I will, yes.”

  “Well, then, Seton.” Her father seemed without joy as he looked at the duke. “We have a wedding to plan.”

  Julian beamed at her father. “Thank you, sir.”

  Lily shrank away from them. “You cannot sell me.”

  Her father glared at her. “You consented to too much tonight. I do not sell you, dearest, as ensure you will live without disgrace.”

  The duke lurched forward, his face ruby red. “You need my approval!”

  “He’s right,” proclaimed the duchess with overweening pride. “Society will expect it. If Julian were to marry her, the chit would need my entre to the ton. And then there is the unfortunate possibility that this instance of riding at midnight and the seduction in my son’s parlor would get out.”

  Julian seethed. “You wouldn’t dare put that abroad.”

  She tut-tutted him. “Don’t be naïve, dear one. Servants talk, you know it.”

  Julian cursed broadly. “I thought you were a hellcat, but I’d no idea how unscrupulous you were. You’d do this for money? Renounce decency?”

  Lily could bear no more. She’d heard of families who starved because they drank away their wages or gambled the gold from their teeth. But the hypocrisy of the duke and duchess cut her like a knife. Did the son fall far from this tree—or could she trust Julian in spite of what was said and done here? “I don’t want anything from any of you. Not acceptance, not titles, not money—and not marriage.”

  Julian caught her hands. “That’s not true. I want you.”

  “Listen to him, Lily,” her father urged. “This rejection does you no good.”

  She yanked away. “No.”

  “I’ll not have scandal on my doorstep, Lily. I told you that before. I warned you. This is as much your doing as Lord Chelton’s. Fix it.”

  “No, no,” the duke persisted. “I won’t approve of it.”

  “Quiet, Seton. You’ll have your price for the sale.” Her father patted her hand and led her more snuggly by his side. “I’ll have my daughter wed with all due respect. You will approve. And you, Your Grace,” he said to the duchess with a murderous look over the rims of his glasses, “will put no rumors of this night out to anyone. Understood?”

  With an indignant lift of her chin, the woman demurred. “As you wish.”

  He looked at Julian. “How soon is a wedding possible without feeding the gossips?”

  “The banns should be read in church for three Sundays.”

  “See it done. That makes the wedding the first week in June. Our house. I will post the engagement announcement in the newspaper. Also, Lord Chelton, be sure to find some exquisite family bauble that your mother has not yet sold to pay her nefarious debts. It will become an engagement gift for your fiancée. Send it round to the house Monday. We’ll host a ball two nights before the wedding. Meanwhile, Lily goes to Paris for fittings for her trousseau.”

  She opened her mouth to object.

  But he quashed her efforts with a shake of his head. “Do not disappoint me. None of you.”

  Chapter Ten

  Three weeks later, Lily walked to the head of the grand staircase in their home and steeled herself for the day ahead. Behind her, she trailed a three-foot ecru veil to match the satin and tulle of her wedding dress. Ahead of her walked her younger sister Ada in a Corinthian green who’d arrived only yesterday with their older brother Pierce. Beside Lily was Marianne, resplendent in a raspberry confection, who had assured her innumerable times that marrying Julian was the most wonderful thing that had happened to her.

  But it terrified her. She’d lain awake most of the night, anticipating with delight what might happen in his arms…or dreading what might not happen if he did not come to her.

  Early this morning, Marianne had swept into her bedroom, taken one look at her and thrown back her bed linens. “Up! Up! To your bath, woman. He cares for you. Weren’t you sure of that when you went riding with him?”

  With a heavy heart, Lily doubted it. “That was before that hideous scene with his father.”

  “And after, Julian didn’t walk away from you, did he? No. So, there you are.” From behind her back, Marianne had revealed a bottle of brandy. “I keep it in my room for a nip now and then. A bit of Dutch courage is the answer. You’ll have one shot. Maybe two!”

  Lily had drunk three.

  “How’s my breath?” she whispered to Marianne as they rounded the first landing.

  “Chewing the mint leaves worked.”

  “They’d better.” Lily could imagine what the ton would say if the bride were discovered to be tipsy for the nuptials. Two scandal sheets had already speculated “If the American Girl L—H— had urgent reasons to accept the proposal of a certain marquess of C—. She skips her presentation at court to marry. What can compel her?”

  My father. That’s who.

  He stood at the bottom of the stairs, resplendent in his formal cutaway, his jet-black ha
ir glistening in the morning sunshine streaming through the front glass. “You’re stunning, my darling Lily.”

  She took the last few steps down in the comfort of his smile. “I hope this service is short.”

  He patted her hand and looped her arm through his. “Chelton assures me it is.”

  She gazed down the hall toward the ballroom. Two footmen stood aside the closed doors. The guests there totaled two hundred and ten. The prospect of greeting each of them made her stomach quake. She’d requested an intimate affair, but her father had insisted that only a large one, a lavish one, would hush any of the tattlers. Lily had succumbed to his intentions, wishing no arguments.

  “Lily’s the most glorious bride, isn’t she, Papa?” Ada, at eighteen and fresh to London, was atwitter with excitement for the day and every aspect of her own future. With her curly cinnamon hair and grass-green eyes, she was a bubbly creature whom everyone adored.

  “I’m proud of her,” he answered Ada, but his attention went to Lily. “Never forget that.”

  I won’t. She lifted her chin.

  Pierce at twenty-seven was the younger version of their father, strapping and virile. He tugged at his gloves and bent to kiss her cheek. “Give ‘em hell, Lil. They don’t deserve you.”

  Ada hugged her and turned to take Pierce’s arm. Her father nodded to the footmen that they were ready to begin. The servants opened the doors and her two siblings disappeared into the huge golden room where the crystal chandeliers were ablaze at ten in the morning for the much-heralded ‘wedding of the season’.

  Marianne squeezed her hand. “You’ll be happy.”

  Lily caught her breath. I’ll work to make it so.

  “Come, Lily.” Her father tipped his head. “I detect Chelton’s a good man. But if he’s not, you know I’m here for you.”

  “I do, Papa. Thank you.”

  They stood at the threshold a moment until the assembled guests rose to their feet. Her father had ordered hundreds of yards of green garlands to adorn the chairs. And in the aisles stood twenty-five-foot-tall vases of white lilies. The fragrance washed through her with a sweetness she hadn’t prepared for. At the end of the center aisle stood another sight she hadn’t anticipated. Julian Ash, Marquess of Chelton, tall and crisply elegant as ever in his bridegroom’s finery—gazed at her with apology in his beautiful dark eyes.

  The possibility that he might be fearful of her reaction to this marriage had never occurred to her. They had not been alone with each other since that hideous night at Willowreach. Her father had forbidden it and in fact, had allowed Julian to visit here only three times. Each time was for tea or dinner and the two of them were in the company of her father and Marianne or, like last night, a few business acquaintances of her father’s as well as Ada and Pierce. Lily and Julian hadn’t conversed together about any matter, let alone addressed the delicate issues of their relationship. So, this apology from him was novel—and welcome.

  But no sooner had she registered his emotion than he blinked, stiffened his spine and donned an expression that she swore signaled his indifference. Is it such a catastrophe to wed me?

  She halted.

  Her father clamped her arm to his side.

  Can I run?

  Julian blanched.

  Does she hate me so much she’d leave me at the altar?

  She seemed frozen, staring right through him. But then Killian whispered to her. She inclined her head to listen.

  And she walked forward.

  He let go his breath.

  She was so heartbreakingly lovely in that froth of white tulle and satin—and she should be his. Not because he’d debauched her that night in his home. But because she cared for him. Cared enough to allow him to touch her. She wouldn’t marry him without affection for him. Affection? Or was it lust?

  He had enough of that for both of them. God, he’d been so besotted, so heinous to maul her. But he was willing to pay the price. A sweet one it was, too. To have her. All of her. Forever more.

  Damn the circumstances of how or why he must take her to wife. Yet he welcomed the timing. Three weeks had gone by like three eternities. He’d been busy preparing for her. In London, he’d registered the banns with the parish church. In Willowreach, he’d had his suite refurbished. He’d met with her father, too. Signed the papers. Agreed to take his money. Enough to swell his bank account. Enough to pay last year’s debts on Willowreach and put him afloat to run the household. Better even than Pinkie’s two thousand a year. Although he hated to admit it to his estate manager, Lily’s dowry would permit him to hold his head up for the coming year. He’d pay off two new reapers for his tenants. In addition, he’d agreed to Killian Hanniford’s stipulation that none of her dowry be used to pay off any of the Broadmore mortgage debts incurred by his father. That last was an easy promise to make. One his father, when Julian had told him of it, had raged against.

  But his father’s objections were hollow arguments.

  Julian cared for none of them.

  He wanted Lily. Just Lily. In his arms and tonight in his bed.

  He frowned as he saw her take her measured steps down the aisle. Doubts riddled him. He hadn’t had a private conversation with her since their tempestuous embraces at Willowreach. He’d wanted to ask her if she’d rued the time she’d spent kissing such a craven creature as he. Without that chance, he was left to hope that as her husband, he’d be allowed to do more than kiss her. More than what he’d done that night in his parlor—

  And would she let him?

  She and Killian stepped right before him and Killian put his daughter’s hand in his. Lily’s flesh was cold as ice. The older man locked his gaze on Julian’s, a warning of unearthly magnitude in the American’s black eyes.

  With a tiny hope Lily might one day care for him more than she did today, Julian took her arm to direct her toward the clergyman. The man began a litany of which Julian heard none. At the appropriate times, he spoke, his voice tempered, his words rote.

  In unmarked moments, she was his. He was hers. And their future was before them, a set of promises to each other.

  He trusted her to keep hers. Yet their shared past and his family’s imperfections meant he would have to move heaven and earth to prove to her he would keep his own.

  * * * *

  With polite farewells to her father and the rest of her family, Julian led her from the arms of her father and helped her up into his town coach. His hands were cool. His expression unreadable.

  Is he happy?

  Can he be? Forced to marry her, he must question his motives that night in his parlor. Lily sought her own. But her answers lay wrapped in the emotions he’d roused in her—and not just that one night, but all the other occasions when she’d enjoyed his company.

  Enjoyed, the operative word.

  A word too grand for today’s events.

  To distract herself, to look busy, she fished in her little reticule for heaven knew what.

  She heard the coachman snap the reins. The vehicle lurched forward and the two horses clip-clopped their way along the streets. Jostled in body and spirit, she clamped her hands together.

  Julian and she hadn’t exchanged more than ten words since the ceremony this morning and the air was tight with anxiety. Lily smoothed the blue wool skirt of her carriage dress, at odds and ends what to say to her new husband now that they were alone. For many minutes, she busied herself with unbuttoning her pelisse and removing her bonnet. But she finally had to fall back to the cushions, unable to fiddle all the way south to Julian’s country house. He’d think her a nervous ninny. Which of course, she was.

  She pressed her lips together, frustrated at her awkwardness.

  “I hope you’ll be comfortable in this to go to Willowreach.” He removed his gloves and crossed one leg over the other.

  Was he trying to appear nonchalant? “I’m certain I will be.”

  “I sold my traveling carriage a year ago. I didn’t need so big a conveyance for only me. So
ld the four horses, too. This was less costly to maintain.”

  “It’s perfectly fine,” she said, more at ease in the purple velvet squabs now that he attempted to make conversation. “How fast does it go?”

  “We should be home before supper.” He cleared his throat and pushed aside the edge of the curtain. “Good weather for us. The coachman should make good time.”

  Three hours what what it had taken to go from London to Lord Carbury’s house weeks ago. Willowreach was so close to Carbury’s that she knew she had that time left until she and Julian would be doing more than talking. Before they went to his bed, she hoped they could bridge the gap between them in some ways. “Does he live at Willowreach?”

  “Who?”

  “The coachman. I thought you had only the one stable boy at the house.”

  “I do. But this man, Goodrich, is my father’s man from Broadmore. I had him come down to London just to take us to Willowreach.”

  “Thank you. That was thoughtful.”

  Julian shifted. Tapped his palm on his knee. “I thought the wedding very well done.”

  “I’m glad it met with your approval. We tried to meet your mother’s expectations. Elanna was a help, too. She sent me lots of letters with answers to my questions.”

  “She prepares for her own wedding in three weeks. Or I should say, my mother does.”

  “When will we go up to London?”

  He blinked, his gaze soft and searching. “You aren’t looking forward to it, are you?”

  “I’ll go, of course. But I thought— I wondered if we’ll stay with your parents in their London house.” Her relationship with Julian’s parents had not begun well. To be in their company so soon after her own wedding presented a fresh challenge she must prepare to meet.

  “We should. But you don’t want to, do you?”

  She considered her hands. “I’d rather stay with my family.”

  “Of course, you would. I understand. Ada and Pierce have just arrived and you’ve had little time with them.”

  It was the best possible reason to offer to avoid the Setons. “Would you mind if we did stay in Piccadilly?”