His Lordship's True Lady (True Gentlemen Book 4)

by Grace Burrowes

  “I practiced, in Switzerland.”

  “I do wonder about Switzerland. Perhaps Switzerland is what we’re now to call some finishing school in the West Riding, except I’ve not heard a single rumor to that effect. Nobody suspects, and you’ve done such a good job of being Lily that I’ve doubted myself from time to time.”

  He had no proof, none. So far, all he’d offered was speculation and conjecture.

  “I might as well contend that you are not Oscar Leggett. You’re some by-blow your mother brought to the marriage because Walter is unable to procreate. You don’t resemble him in temperament or looks or… anything.”

  Oscar’s smile was pitying. “Lily, you needn’t panic. I do resemble my sire to the extent that I’m capable of exploiting an advantage when it comes my way. We will marry, I will be a decent husband to you, and by degrees, as you provide the grandchildren, I will gain control of Papa’s wealth.”

  “My wealth.”

  He patted his lips with his serviette. “You’re a woman. You can’t have wealth. In any case, if Papa proves difficult, I’ll simply air my theories regarding your origins and declare the marriage fraudulent.”

  Lily rose and paced to the far corner of the breakfast parlor, putting as much distance as she could between her and the nightmare munching toast at the table.

  “If the marriage is fraudulent, then I go to jail, and Uncle regains control of my fortune.”

  “Does he? Or does he go to jail with you? You would have been quite young when you undertook to impersonate my cousin. She was seventeen when she disappeared with that Lawrence Delmar fellow, and girls are so impressionable at that age. Helpless, really. Year and year away from legal adulthood. Who knows what promises Uncle made to you, or what threats?”

  The silence in the breakfast parlor was punctuated by Oscar slicing his ham, while Lily mentally shrieked at a world gone mad once too often.

  At fourteen, she’d chosen Uncle Walter’s dubious assistance over certain, repeated rape in the scullery. Other tavern maids had had family to be outraged at their ill treatment, to help them find work elsewhere if the stable boys or guests proved unruly.

  Lily had had nobody, and her orphan status had been common knowledge.

  “When is the wedding to be?”

  “Haven’t a clue. I’m to procure a special license, which means some time in the next six months. Your next birthday is significant, I believe, putting control of your fortune into your own hands. If you marry thereafter, your husband acquires that money, or it gets tied up in settlement trusts that I’ll manage. If you marry before that date, Uncle will decide the terms of the settlements.”

  Was Oscar lying? Lily had to assume he was, that the special license was already in hand.

  “Uncle will manage any funds I bring to the union. He might have hinted that you will have control, but I promise you—I promise you this on the life of my departed mother—that when you’re presented with the documents, they will very prettily accord to him control of every groat and farthing. He will trade on your trust in him as your father, on smoothly ambiguous lies, and on your own lack of acumen with legal language. You cannot trust him, except to operate in his own best interests.”

  Oscar speared the last bite of ham. “Like papa, like son, eh?” His tone was considering rather than offended. “I will think on this, but while I’m thinking, we will become an item of friendly speculation, Lily. You will drag me about on shopping expeditions. I will grow thoughtful when the other fellows mention holy matrimony. We’ll convince the world we’re something more than cousins, and all will fall into place.”

  He rose, came around the table to kiss Lily’s cheek, and then left her alone amid the detritus of his meal.

  A good two minutes went by before a footman came to clear the table, suggesting that the conversation would not be reported to Uncle.

  Oscar wasn’t awful. He, like Lily, was trying to make the best of a situation he’d not brought upon himself. For one moment, Lily was tempted to reconcile herself to the future he painted: a marriage of necessity, cordial on the surface, materially comfortable, and honest, in its way.

  But then he’d kissed her cheek.

  Oscar stank of last night’s cigars, hair pomade, and bitter coffee. His lips on Lily’s person, his hand on her arm, made her want to vomit. She’d spent years dodging cuffs and kisses at the inn, more than a decade as Uncle Walter’s frightened puppet, and now this—marriage to another man who’d use her however he pleased, even intimately.

  Her brave pronouncements notwithstanding, Oscar would have every legal right to exercise his marital privileges, and he was not a man who’d forego available pleasure.

  Beyond the window, the coach was coming around from the mews to take Lily on her first social call with Oscar in the role of intended. She dreaded to go, and she didn’t dare stay home, for it might be her last opportunity to see Hessian Kettering, and she did want to see him again.

  Desperately.

  * * *

  Hessian arrived to Worth’s town house at a quarter past the hour, because Daisy had insisted on coming with him. In truth, the child’s company was welcome, for he’d have to report to Lily that the interview with Walter Leggett had gone poorly.

  Very poorly.

  To Hessian’s surprise, Oscar Leggett was swilling tea in Jacaranda’s parlor, looking as if he and Lily always went about socializing as a pair.

  Lily sat beside her cousin, nibbling a biscuit—and avoiding Hessian’s gaze.

  “Might we take a turn in the garden?” Hessian suggested when Jacaranda had served two cups all around. “I can hear the children making a lovely racket, and mild weather is still a rare treat.”

  “Capital notion.” Oscar Leggett stood and assisted Lily to her feet, while Worth aided his wife.

  “I’ll get Meda,” Worth said. “Are you a dog fancier, Mr. Leggett?”

  “Dogs?”

  In the space of one syllable, Hessian watched Oscar weigh, measure, and conclude that dog fanciers stood higher in Worth Kettering’s esteem than those who had no use for canines.

  “I adore a noble hound,” Oscar said. “Provided he’s a frequently bathed and well-behaved fellow. Man’s best friend and all that.”

  Worth lured Oscar from Lily’s side with some taradiddle about finding Meda’s leash in the study across the hall, and Hessian affixed himself at Lily’s elbow despite Jacaranda’s raised eyebrow.

  “They will natter on about dogs and hounds and whelping boxes until midsummer’s night,” Hessian said, leading Lily out onto the terrace. “Talk to me, Lily. Your uncle was very unforthcoming when I called upon him. I did not raise the subject of courtship, and now you look as if you’ve seen Hamlet’s ghost.”

  Jacaranda had disappeared to instruct some servant or other—and a nursery maid sat on a bench halfway down the garden walk near Daisy and Avery, who chased away pigeons, the better to chalk flowers onto the paving stones.

  “Uncle has decided I’m to marry Oscar,” Lily said, her gaze on the children. “Oscar is in a state of gleeful anticipation, though I’m to know nothing of my impending nuptial bliss until after my birthday.”

  Had Lily kicked Hessian in the stomach, she could not have delivered a worse surprise—a worse betrayal.

  “You have not objected.”

  “I have not had time to think, Hessian. I did not foresee this, but it makes perfect sense. Uncle controls the money, and he controls Oscar, and thus… don’t look at me like that. I had no notion of this, no inkling, and it qualifies as my worst nightmare short of going to prison for a capital offense. I was too besotted with you to pay proper attention, but I’m soon to turn twenty-eight, and that will change everything, apparently.”

  The beautiful day, the tidy garden, everything faded behind the dull thud of Hessian’s heart against his ribs.

  “Will you play me false, Lily? Will you go willingly to the altar because your uncle commands it? What has that bleating stripling to offer y
ou that’s preferable to being my countess?”

  Lily’s eyes confirmed her uncle’s scheme was her idea of hell, but of words, she gave Hessian nothing.

  “Lily, I had hoped that my feelings for you were reciprocated, else I would never have… I would not have presumed. Then you declare, with no explanation whatsoever, that you will wed another. Help me understand, for I cannot reconcile the woman who yielded so sweetly in my conservatory with the silent, miserable creature in my brother’s garden.”

  “I am so far beyond miserable.”

  Across the garden, the little girls had gone into whoops of laughter, while the poor pigeons strutted indignantly atop the garden wall. Lily wandered down the walk, and when she came to the first of the chalk drawings, she sat on the paving stones as the children had done and took up a length of chalk.

  While Hessian silently lost his mind, Jacaranda reappeared on the terrace with a footman. He bore a tea tray, and every item on the tray was in miniature. The set had clearly come from the nursery, and the girls left off mocking the pigeons to take their tea by the sundial.

  Hessian hunkered down as if to admire Lily’s sketching, which had resulted in the girls’ birds becoming dragons. “Lily? Have you nothing more to say?”

  Hessian had more to say, but his tirade was aimed at himself.

  Worth had warned him that caution was in order. Bitter experience had taught Hessian to reconnoiter at length where women and matrimony were concerned. Worse, Daisy was growing attached to Lily, and compared to Hessian’s consternation, Daisy would be devastated if Lily simply dropped from her life.

  Oscar, Worth, and the damned dog came out onto the terrace next, Meda’s attention riveted on the children, who were arranging their tea set on a blanket in the grass.

  “I cannot say what I need to here with Oscar ready to pounce,” Lily murmured as she embellished the wings on the smaller dragon, “but I am sorry Hessian. I’m deeply, deeply sorry. My situation has become… impossible, and that has nothing to do with you.”

  She’d said she was besotted with him. Hessian clung to that spar of hope in a sea of doubt and outrage.

  “Do you want to marry Oscar?”

  “Of course not.”

  Rational thought pushed past the humiliation and confusion in Hessian’s mind. Why would a woman of means marry against her will? Why would a woman who’d turned aside many other suitors yield to Hessian what she’d never allowed another?

  Those questions plagued him for the remaining thirty minutes of a social call that would never end. He replied to queries when spoken to, he admired the growing parade of chalk drawings. He nearly snatched Daisy up when she threw her arms around Lily’s neck and announced that no dragons had come to the nursery since she’d learned to sleep with the curtains open.

  Worth cast Hessian odd looks, and the children were very much underfoot. Oscar Leggett was trying to ingratiate himself with Worth’s dog, who was making a pest of herself to Lily. Jacaranda sent the occasional glance to the upper windows, where her infant daughter might well be rising from a nap.

  “Daisy,” Hessian said, “we must soon take our leave. Make your farewells and thank your hostess.”

  A spate of French between the little girls ensued, for Avery’s native tongue was French, and Daisy had apparently yet to figure out that adults could speak the language as well.

  “I hope Miss Lily will be my mama,” Daisy said, not nearly quietly enough. “And I hope she marries my new papa.”

  Either Hessian was in the presence of the most socially adept adults in London, or the dog’s waving tail, the nursery maid’s efforts to tidy up the tea set, and Oscar Leggett’s bumbling attempts to present himself as fascinated by the stock exchange meant only Hessian had heard Daisy’s confidence.

  Avery giggled and confided something about Uncle Worth and Aunt Jacaranda taking more naps than the baby—what a scandalous observation for a small child to make.

  Lily had paid attention to the children, though, for her ears were pink, and she was taking inordinate care donning her gloves. She twisted them around her fingers, then both gloves fell to the terrace.

  As a young man, Hessian had studied all the flirtations as general studied battle maps. Fans were a popular means of conveying ballroom code, but parasols, gloves, flowers, and other items had been appropriated by lovers seeking to communicate silently.

  Twisted gloves meant: Be careful, we are being watched.

  Both gloves dropped at once meant: I love you.

  And yet, Lily was apparently to wed her goose of a cousin, for no reason Hessian could discern.

  He was furious, hurt, and bewildered, but still a gentleman. He picked up Lily’s gloves and passed them to her one at a time.

  She smoothed them on, thanked him, and looked ready to shatter into a thousand pieces.

  Hessian took her arm to escort her through the house, and the throng came with them—the children, the dog, the damned cousin, Worth, and Jacaranda. Hessian used the few moments of sorting through walking sticks, pelisses, and gloves at the front door to study Lily one last time.

  He wanted to see devastation in her eyes, and found it, also a wildness he’d never noted before. This version of Lily was hanging on by a thread. She’d asked him once about eloping, and he’d dismissed the question. He couldn’t dismiss it now.

  Jacaranda passed Hessian Lily’s cloak, a light silk wrap of blue that complemented the sprigged muslin of her puffed-sleeve day dress. He tended to the civilities, bowing low over Lily’s hand and taking special care with her frogs, while Worth promised Daisy to bring Avery over for tea “soon.”

  A father learned to prevaricate.

  Somebody else had apparently learned to prevaricate.

  Hessian watched Lily accept Oscar’s escort to the waiting coach in the street.

  “You noticed?” Worth murmured.

  Hessian nodded. “No birthmark near her elbow.”

  “Birthmarks can fade.”

  Jacaranda was tying Daisy’s bonnet ribbons, while Hessian’s insides were already in a knot.

  “Birthmarks can fade,” Hessian said, “scars can heal, memories grow unreliable, but I’ve recalled something else: The young Lily was right-handed. Did you notice when this Lily drew a flower with the chalk on the paving stones?”

  “She used her left hand,” Worth said.

  “She throws a ball with her left hand too—throws it accurately.”

  Daisy swung Hessian’s hand, clearly ready to get back out into the fresh air.

  “You whispered something to the lady as you did up her cloak,” Worth said. “Oscar was occupied pretending to love my dog, but I noticed.”

  “One should enjoy the lovely weather while one can. I suggested she unfasten her window tonight.”

  Worth’s brows drew down. Jacaranda laced her arm through her husband’s and led him toward the door.

  “Thank our guests for coming, Worth.”

  Worth thanked Daisy effusively and shook Hessian’s hand. “If you need anything, Hessian, anything at all…”

  He’d needed to hear that he had his brother’s unequivocal support, but he also needed answers, and only Lily could provide them.

  Chapter Fifteen

  * * *

  The evening wore on more slowly than a funeral procession, the clock ticking loudly in the family parlor in counterpoint to Miss Fotheringham’s snores. Oscar had gone out, of course, while Uncle Walter remained across the room, nose buried in the financial pages.

  “Early morning outings have left me fatigued,” Lily said, tucking her embroidery into her workbasket. “I believe I’ll retire.”

  The rhythm of Miss Fotheringham’s snores hitched, then resumed.

  Uncle turned a page. “Good night, ladies.”

  Meaning Lily was to rouse her companion and escort her upstairs. Miss Fotheringham was by no means elderly, but she had elderly ways, which for the most part, Lily appreciated. A drowsy companion prone to megrims and chills w
as less of a burden.

  The dignified procession up the steps plucked Lily’s last nerve, though she parted from her companion on the landing, the same as she had for a thousand other nights. Miss Fotheringham had been an acquaintance of Tippy’s, though Lily had never been sure what her companion knew, or what she surmised.

  Lily’s bed had been turned down, her fire built up, meaning the maids would not disturb her. The first order of business was to unlatch her window, for Hessian’s instruction had been clear.

  Rather than undress or take down her hair, she went to the wardrobe. Her money was in its little glove box, beneath the satin lining. She poured the lot of it into her oldest reticule. Next, she assembled the least-impressive, sturdiest, most-sensible ensemble she could—brown velvet walking dress, plain brown cloak, a straw hat such as any shop girl might own, gloves darned on the right index finger—

  “Might I ask what you’re about?”

  Lily turned to find Hessian Kettering standing just inside the window she’d opened not five minutes before.

  “Hessian.” She was across the room without another thought, her arms wrapped around him.

  His remained at his sides.

  She held him tightly for one more moment, needing the feel of him close, loathing the sense that her embrace was merely tolerated.

  “I would greet you as Lily, except I suspect you are not she.”

  His gaze was once again the distant nobleman, the man easily annoyed with posturing or dithering. Lily stepped back as his words penetrated her whirling mind.

  “I am Lily Ferguson.”

  His gaze flicked to the drab clothing on the bed. “But are you my Lily, or some creature fashioned for your uncle’s convenience—if he’s your uncle?”

  The question was gently put, and yet, Lily sank onto the bed, felled by the disappointment she saw in Hessian’s eyes. He remained by the window, probably unwilling to come any nearer to a woman who was a lie.

  Protestations suggested themselves, the same ones she’d offered Oscar: You have leaped to conclusions, you speculate, you conjecture from hunches and innuendo.