Lily

by Patricia Gaffney

  “I haven’t tried to see you, and I’m sorry if you think I’ve been distant or unfriendly or—uncaring since I’ve come back. But I haven’t been able to be with people, you see. I haven’t been able to talk.”

  “You’ve had a deuced bad time.” He reached for her hand clumsily.

  “Lowdy said you have headaches sometimes. I’m so sorry about what happened to you. I didn’t want you to think that I don’t care about you.”

  “No, I didn’t think that.”

  She smiled, relieved because, as bad a time as he’d had, his charming self-assurance had not diminished a whit. She glanced down at their clasped hands. “I suppose Devon told you what he thought, at first. That… I had shot you.”

  His eyes filled with sympathy. “Yes. That must have been hard.”

  She acknowledged it in silence. “How long was it before you could remember?”

  “Remember?”

  “That it wasn’t I.”

  He looked puzzled. “Well, you know, I don’t remember.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “A lot of time is missing, even before the shooting. Months are gone. The last thing I can really recall was a few days before, I think: I can clearly remember having breakfast with Dev. After that, it’s hazy. But it’s coming back to me in bits … um, bits …” He gestured impatiently.

  “Bits and pieces.”

  “Yes, bits and pieces, all the time now. Fast.”

  Lily released her hand when she realized she was squeezing Clay’s too hard. “You—you’re saying you don’t remember who tried to kill you? You don’t know for sure it wasn’t me?”

  He laughed. “That’s two different questions; no fair trying to confuse me.” His smile faded when he saw her expression. “I don’t know who tried to kill me,” he said slowly, “and I know it wasn’t you.”

  “Then—you didn’t tell Devon it was someone else?”

  “No, of course not. Lily, I have no idea who shot me.”

  She sat back weakly.

  “Why? What did he say?”

  “That’s—nothing, I mean—that’s what he said.” But she hadn’t believed him—she’d been so sure he was lying!

  “Listen, don’t tell anyone my mem-memory’s coming back, will you?”

  “No. But—why?”

  “Well, Dev says I’m only … only safe as long as the person who shot me thinks … um, thinks I can’t remember anything. So we’ve been keep—keeping it a secret. Did Dev tell you about Wiley Falk?”

  “Who?”

  “He was my first mate. You met him that day on the Spider.”

  “Yes, I remember.”

  “He’s dead.”

  “Oh, Clay. I’m so sorry.”

  He ducked his head. “They found him shot to …. shot to death in his house. Head wound.”

  Lily went white. “What does it mean?”

  “We don’t know. If only I could remember!” A lookof panic swept across his thin face—gone in a second. “Marsh says I might n-never remember. Dev says to forget about it, just to think about before the shooting, try to remember who my m-m-middleman was.”

  “Middleman?”

  “Someone sold the, um, stuff, the contraband for me and gave my share of the profits away.”

  “Gave it away?”

  “To the poor,” he smirked. “I was a philanthropist.” His grin widened. “Don’t look like that, Lily; you look just like Dev. He says I wasn’t a—a philanthropist, I was an idiot.”

  She shook her head at him. “For once I agree with him.”

  “He says I told him when I got back from—from France that I’d come upon something ‘big.’ I told him if I weren’t already a rich man, I would be now.”

  “And you can’t remember what it is?”

  “Or wh—where it is. Wiley was the only one left who knew.”

  “The rest of your crew—?”

  “Gone. Scattered.”

  “And now Mr. Falk is dead,” Lily said slowly. Clay rubbed his forehead, eyes shut tight. She stood up abruptly. “You’re tired, I’ve stayed too long.”

  He reached for her hand again. “Will you come back?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “Good. Because I never—I forgot to talk about what I wanted to talk to you about.”

  “What is it?”

  “It might take a while. It’s about Dev.”

  “Oh.” She slid her hand out of his grasp quickly.

  “Lily, listen—”

  “No, Clay, please don’t. Don’t spoil it, we’ve had such a nice visit.”

  “But—”

  “Don’t.”

  He studied her intently. After a moment he cleared his throat and said carefully, “Lily, I’m sorry for everything that hap—happened. I apologize for my brother, all the hurt, all the pain he caused you. If there’s anything I can do, amends I can make—”

  She leaned over and gave him a quick hug to stop him. “You’ve nothing to apologize for,” she whispered. “I’ll come to see you again soon. Good-bye, Clay.” She kissed his cheek and fled.

  Twenty-six

  HALFWAY DOWN THE STAIRCASE she saw Devon waiting for her. She halted and her heart stuttered; she grabbed at the banister, off balance. He was standing under the chandelier—repaired now—that he’d shot down with a pistol the night they’d met. Did he even remember that nigt? She would never forget it. She started down the steps again, slow and wary, conscious of her fear of him. It had intensified because of what Clay had said—that Devon had come to believe in her innocence on his own, without his brother’s word for it. Something had softened deep in her heart, she could feel it. It terrified her.

  She stopped again, three steps from the bottom, unable to go closer. He was dressed formally in a buff-colored coat with velvet lapels, brown breeches, a silk shirt. His handsome face was somber, but showed no aftereffects of his night of debauchery—if Lowdy’s story could be believed. Out of habit, she spoke coldly. “Was there something you wanted, Devon? You seem to have a lot of time on your hands lately.”

  Devon’s mouth quirked, easing some of the tension in his face. She looked beautiful to him in the red Chinese smock she’d bought from a gypsy for nine pence—Lowdy made an excellent spy for him these days—and holding her black straw hat in both hands. But she was pale, as always, and she didn’t weigh enough. He guessed she was in the seventh or eighth month of her pregnancy, but she looked too small.

  “Yes, there was something,” he said with the faintly mocking formality he’d taken to using with her as a mechanism for self-preservation. “Will you come into the library with me? I have something for you.”

  Predictably, she stiffened. “What is it?”

  His smile felt slightly battered. “Nothing fearsome, I promise. It’s a letter.”

  “A letter? Is it bad news?”

  “Not at all. I expect you’ll find it very good news. Come with me, Lily, I won’t bite you.”

  She lifted her lip in disdain, but gave in after a moment and preceded him down the hall to the library.

  The dusk was deepening; Devon lit the lamp on his library table, then a branch of candles on the mantel. Lily waited, hands folded across her copious stomach, pretending she wasn’t watching him. She loved to look at him, she realized glumly; the simple sight of him pleased her. But she wasn’t in love with him, thank God, and these stirrings were only a residual sensibility, the twitch of an amputated limb, not real. She was safe from him now. And she had learned that it was childishly easy to affect him: she simply withheld everything, all her thoughs and feelings, and spoke to him as little as possible. She didn’t ask herself why the results were not particularly gratifying, or why hurting him had never given her the satisfaction she’d once though it would.

  “This came for you today.”

  She took an envelope from his outstretched hand. There was an odd look in his blue-green eyes that she couldn’t decipher. “It’s been opened,” she noticed.

&
nbsp; “It was addressed to me. But it concerns you.”

  She moved around him, took up the lamp, and carried it to a small table between the terrace doors. With her back to him, she weighed the thick envelope in her hand. Feeling a strange reluctance, she pulled out the contents—folded papers, a letter wrapped around a thick, official-looking document. She tensed when the title of the document caught her eye—Last Will and Testament. Scanning the pages, she saw her father’s signature at the bottom of the last one, Charles Michael Trehearne, in his familiar heavy, flamboyant script. Her heart gave a little leap. She opened the letter.

  It was from someone named Matthew Bogrow, of the law firm of Bogrow, Griffin, Krowitz & Rice. Mr. Bogrow had ascertained from his colleague Mr. Witt, attorney to Rev. Roger Soames, that Lord Sandown might be in possession of knowledge of the whereabouts of Miss Lily Trehearne. Lily had to read that sentence again to absorb it. The name Witt sounded familiar—then she remembered: Mr. Witt was the man she’d met that night at Cousin Soames’s house. He’d given her something to sign, she recalled, a paper that turned over all her possessions to Lewis in the event of their marriage.

  She read the letter over—it wasn’t long—then read it again. She whirled around, holding it to her chest, and laughed out loud.

  Devon’s heart missed a beat or two. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d heard Lily laugh. Her face, radiant and unguarded, rendered him speechless. He came toward her out of the shadows, smiling—and stopped when she turned away abruptly, breaking contact, breaking the mood. He took a deep breath, steadying himself. A moment of unwary happiness between them had been too much to hope for.

  “I’m glad for you, Lily,” he said somberly.

  She wasn’t sure she believed him. “Thank you. It’s—a surprise.”

  “Yes.”

  “My cousin told me he wanted Lewis and me to marry because it was God’s will; he’d seen it in a ‘vision,’ he said. It seems God’s will got a lot clearer to him after he became the executor of my father’s estate.” She shook her head slowly, wonderingly, confounded by the magnitude of Soames’s hypocrisy.

  Devon felt little surprise. He found it telling that Lily’s reaction to her cousin’s barefaced humbuggery was bewilderment, while his was cynical acceptance.

  “Well. I had better go now.”

  “May I walk with you? It’s almost dark.”

  She hesitated. “No, thank you, it’s not necessary. Gabriel is here, he’ll go with me.”

  Devon put his hands behind his back. “Thank you for coming to see Clay.”

  Lily looked down. “I should have done it sooner,” she admitted.

  “Will you come back?”

  “Yes, I’ve told him I will.” She paused again, uncomfortable. “Clay told me he can’t remember who shot him.” She lifted her chin and said steadily, “I apologize for not believing you when you told me that.” He gestured, making light of it. “But I couldn’t believe you had absolved me without any evidence—I thought surely he must have told you something. I beg your pardon for misjudging you.”

  The pale skin of Devon’s cheeks went bronze; he wanted to squirm under her grave, ingenuous regard. He could hardly look at her. But he couldn’t tell her the truth, and he couldn’t stop himself from taking advantage of this rare softness.

  He moved toward her and reached for her hand. It lay rigid in his, but he hardly noticed. Then he couldn’t think what to say. “I’m sorry,” came most naturally. He meant for everything. He’d tried to show her his remorse through his actions, but now the time seemed right for words. “Do you think you can forgive me, Lily?” Hope surged in him; for the first time she was not hiding her feelings, and her indecision was as plain as a printed sign.

  But at last she drew her hand out of his and took a step back. “I’m sorry too, Dev. I don’t think so.” Bleak sorrow in her eyes mirrored the same in his. She swallowed painfully. “What you’re asking is not in me to give anymore. I don’t want to hurt you, not now. But it’s too late.”

  He saw her eyes fill with tears. She turned away, fumbling at the knob of the terrace door, and hurried out. Her dog sent him a sober, accusing look before he trotted after her.

  Lowdy hadn’t waited for her. Sometimes they had supper together in the cottage while Lowdy told her about Galen MacLeaf, how he’d looked and what he’d done or said that day. They were engaged—they were to marry in June. But tonight Lowdy had deserted Lily, leaving a sausage pie and a jar of cider on the table for her supper.

  She lit a candle and took off her hat, hung it on the hook by the door. The room was absolutely silent. A panic of loneliness swept through her all at once. It passed, but afterward she felt edgy and unsettled. She wasn’t hungry, but she cut a piece of pie and carried it to the bed, sat down, and kicked off her shoes. After a bite or two, she gave the rest of the pie to Gabriel.

  Despair had a too-familiar feel. The irrevocability of what she had said to Devon weighed like sharp stones on her chest, crushing the life out of her. God, how could she bear this? But she was sick of tears. Desperate to cheer herself, she took out her letter and opened it again. She thought nothing anymore of talking out loud to Gabriel and the baby. “Listen to this, you won’t believe it,” she told them. Gabriel lifted his ears and watched her with every evidence of interest.

  ‘”Inasmuch as Mr. Trehearne applied for and was granted exclusive rights to make and sell the device known as Trehearne’s Saccharometer,’”—just saying the words made her smile—“‘such rights secured by letters patent under Patent No. 1049, enrolled 29 January 1790; and inasmuch as the Solicitor General has determined that Mr. Trehearne’s alcohol proof-measuring device is substantially and intrinsically different from and superior in accuracy to similar devices in use preceding its invention—‘ so on and so on—this is the good part—‘all stipends, fees, and royalties earned from said patent now entail to his heirs and assigns’—that’s me—‘according to the terms of his Will.’ Listen to this. ‘As of current date, first payment of such royalties, to be compounded henceforward on 1 June per annum, amounts to the sum of four diousand, seven hundred fifty-four pounds, eight shillings!’ “

  She shook her head in amazement. “A Saccharometer! Oh, Papa,” she exclaimed, then laughed softly. “It measures ‘specific gravity,’ whatever that is. Charlie, your grandfather invented something that—what was it?” She went back to the letter. “ ‘Proof spirit at 60°. contains 49.24% absolute alcohol by weight; the degrees over or under proof ascertained by Trehearne’s Saccharometer are percentages by volume of a standard spirit, which is the proof spirit.’ Well, anyway, it measures how strong the whiskey is!”

  Still smiling, she folded the letter and her father’s will and returned them to the envelope. She lay back on the bed and stared up at the shadowy ceiling. Ever so slowly her smile faded, and with it her elation. Nothing had changed, not really. She would leave Darkstone wealthy instead of poor, but she would still leave. She didn’t even know where she would go. Lyme, probably, at least at first, because she had one friend there. The irritatingly banal though surfaced that money, which she had needed for so long, couldn’t buy the one thing she really wanted.

  She flung herself onto her side. “You’re all I really want,” she corrected herself, rubbing a soft hand over her stomach. “You, Charlie, you’re the one and only thing. And that’s the truth.” It had to be, for Charlie was all she could have.

  “Oh, baby,” she whispered, feeling the damned, useless tears start again. “We’ll take care of each other and we’ll be all right. We’ll live in a big house. We’ll make friends and we won’t be lonely.” She closed her eyes and listened to the sad, far-off rumble of the surf. “Maybe we’ll live in a house by the sea,” she murmured tiredly, and slipped into a dream.

  She opened her eyes to the sound of knocking, and saw that the candle had begun to gutter. It wasn’t terribly late; Lowdy must have come back.

  But it wasn’t Lowdy—it was Devon.

/>   “May I come in?”

  “Why?”

  His face was shadowed, invisible; it was the sound of his voice when he said, “Please,” that compelled her to open the door wide and step back.

  He stood in the dim center of the room, hands at his sides. She had never let him into the cottage before. “It looks different. Cobb wouldn’t know the place.”

  She followed his gaze. It looked the same to her. She’d brought in flowers, moved the furniture a little, nothing more. To fill the new silence, she said, “I see Mr. Cobb occasionally on the grounds. He never speaks, never acknowledges me. I can imagine what he must think of me. I shouldn’t have taken his house.”

  “But that’s what you wanted. Anyway, I’ve told you, Cobb doesn’t care where he lives; he’s content in the room next to his office.”

  More silence. Lily went to the table and trimmed the flickering candle. When she turned back, Devon hadn’t moved. “It’s late,” she murmured. “What do you want with me, Dev?”

  Instead of answering, he moved toward her. She stepped back automatically, but he pulled the only chair out from the table and sat down. The light fluttered on his handsome face; she fancied she saw pain in his eyes. She opened her mouth to tell him to go.

  “I was twenty-three when I met my wife,” he said, watching her, his forearms on the table.

  Lily backed up until she felt the closed door against her shoulders. “If you tell me this, it won’t matter,” she said tightly. “It won’t make any difference.”

  “I was visiting my sister in Somerset,” he went on asif she hadn’t spoken. “Maura was the oldest child’s governess. She was half-French, half-Irish. Long black hair, black as midnight, and black eyes. She came from Dorset; her father was a tenant farmer. She got her education from the local parson, some kind soul who saw a spark of intelligence in her and helped her to find a way out. She never looked back.”

  “I tell you I don’t want to hear this.”

  “She was eighteen when I met her and—unbeknownst to me, of course—sexually experienced far beyond her years. It was her beauty that attracted me at first, but later it was the resdessness in her and the—energy, a kind of impatience that I’d already recognized in myself. She was pale and fragile, Lily, a tiny thing, incandescent, burning inside with needs and wants I thought I understood. I though we were alike.”