Lily sat quite tall. “Not a ruse, Annie. An elaborate and fraudulent deception, in which I gather you were complicit.”
“When I learned of it,” Mrs. Delmar said, “which was more than two years after my arrival in Scotland, I remained silent. I’m sorry for it, and I hope someday you can forgive me.”
* * *
This is not what I want.
The thought ran through Lily’s mind like a Greek chorus, counterpointing the action in a drama Lily wished were over.
I don’t want a father —much less a ducal father —who is ignorant of my existence.
I don’t want a sister who left me to make shift with a lying, manipulative bully of an uncle.
I don’t want to forgive anybody —except myself. I assuredly want to forgive myself.
“Perhaps,” Hessian said, “if you explain the circumstances in Scotland, Mrs. Delmar, Lily will be better able to understand your motivations.”
Thank God for Hessian Kettering and for his ability to keep the peace when Lily didn’t know whether to weep, shout, or leave the scene in high dudgeon.
Except, this was the bucolic splendor of Hyde Park, one of the few places she felt safe and happy. Bedamned to any sister who thought Lily would yield this ground without having heard the whole, miserable truth.
“When Lawrence left London,” Annie began, “he begged me to stay behind, to make a good match, to patch up my differences with Uncle Walter. I could not do it. I could not put up with Uncle’s schemes to marry me off, his constant innuendo about Mama. I made Lawrence take me with him. We could not afford to go by post, so we ended up on a public stage.”
At seventeen, Lily’s sister had been able to choose her future. Lily was bitterly resentful—also glad for her sister.
“Public stages are notoriously prone to overbalancing,” Lily said. They carried as many passengers as they could cram inside, on the roof, and clinging to the boot, and half the time, the coachman was drunk.
“Ours got into a spectacular crash,” Annie said. “One elderly woman did not survive her injuries. I broke my arm, sprained my ankle, and took a blow to the head. I was not expected to recover. Lawrence had been riding on the roof and was able to jump clear.”
Hessian’s hand on Lily’s shoulder was an anchor to the present moment, but she recalled all too well the silent tension at the coaching inn when a stage was late, then later still. The roads were miserable, accidents frequent, and tragedy not uncommon.
“But you did not die,” Lily said. “I am glad you did not die.” She could concede that much, could concede it was better to know the truth, to have a sibling alive and well.
“I healed slowly, with frequent headaches, and I have never been able to recall the accident itself. As I lay in my bed, day after day, I thought about what going back to London would mean. I had no idea Uncle would inveigle you into impersonating me, Lily. No idea at all.
“All I knew was that Uncle had made Mama and me miserable. He’d assured me you were well provided for, but refused to tell me where you were. I don’t think Tippy knew either, not then. I could go back to London to my supposed fortune, my excellent birth, my doting Uncle, or I could have Lawrence. I chose Lawrence.”
“And we,” Mr. Delmar said, “chose to deceive Leggett. I had a cousin post a letter from France informing Leggett that his niece had died as a result of injuries sustained in a coaching accident, nothing more. We knew the Ferguson fortune would remain in his hands, but we honestly thought it would become yours, Lily.”
“I never wanted a fortune,” Lily said. “I still don’t want a fortune.” Though Mama had said Lily would be provided for. Had she told Annie that her younger sister would be taken care of?
“And I never wanted you to take my place,” Annie said. “Was it awful?”
Clearly, Lily was supposed to offer her sister a soothing lie. “Yes, life with Uncle Walter was awful. I wanted for nothing in a material sense, but I had no privacy. I was afraid all the time, for myself, for Tippy. I had no independence and few friends, nobody I could trust with the truth. He made your life hell, Annie. Imagine the havoc he wrought with mine.”
Annie scowled, her expression reminiscent of Lily’s mama. “That’s what Uncle does. He cuts you off from anybody who might give you a good opinion of yourself, frightens you, and then pretends he was just joking. When I learned that you were being paraded around London in my place, I’d already presented Lawrence with our oldest boy. Tippy assured me you were managing, and I hoped you might make the good match Uncle was always trying to arrange for me.”
“To Oscar the noddypoop?”
They shared a smile, and Lily felt a spark of hope.
“If I might ask,” Hessian interjected, “how did you learn Lily had taken your place?”
Excellent question. Lily also wanted to know why her own sister hadn’t done anything to re-establish contact.
“Tippy was my governess,” Annie said, “my rock, when Mama died and thereafter. Lawrence didn’t think it fair to let her believe I was dead. He wrote to her sister in Chelsea, and two years later, when you had made your bow, Lily, Tippy began writing back. She was in a difficult position.”
“More difficult than I was?” Lily retorted. “Tippy had a snug cottage she could have sold, a tidy sum earning interest, and no obligation to Walter Leggett. I was fourteen years old, Annie. Fourteen, not a friend in the world, holes in both boots, and the stable boys were drawing lots to see which one would despoil me. Uncle offered me pretty frocks, lessons in French, and a come out. Not until he’d shipped me off to Switzerland did he make it plain all of this largesse was conditioned upon my learning to impersonate you.”
Squirrels chattered overhead, and from beyond the hedges came the sounds of laughing children and a honking goose. Hessian had been right to choose this place rather than some parlor or garden Lily didn’t own.
“I am sorry, Lily,” Annie said. “I am so very sorry, but I wasn’t much older than you when I married Lawrence. I’m not proud of the decisions I made when I was seventeen, though I’d do the same again if it meant I could have these past ten years with Lawrence in Scotland. I hope you’ll give me the rest of our lives to put matters right between us.”
Seventeen for a pampered London heiress wasn’t much older than fourteen, and Annie had been much closer to Mama than Lily had been.
“I must think on this,” Lily said. “I am angry with you, though I don’t want to be. I have wished…”
Hessian took her hand without her having to ask.
“I have wished,” she went on softly, “that I was dead, that Uncle was dead. I have also wished that you were alive, Annie, and of all my wishes, I’m glad that one came true.”
The realization gave Lily some peace, and Hessian’s hand, offered freely and before others, gave her strength.
“And yet,” Annie said, “I never questioned Tippy’s reports when she claimed you were thriving, even though I knew Walter Leggett better than anybody. I am your only family worth the name, and I’m not worth the name.”
Lily rose, keeping Hessian’s hand in hers. “Not so, Annie. We share an uncle and a cousin, both of whom have played us false. I’m told I’ll be biding with the Countess of Rosecroft for the nonce. Perhaps you might pay a call on me there later this week?”
Delmar helped his wife to her feet, and Annie seemed to need his support.
“You don’t want to be seen in public with me,” she said. “I understand.”
“No, you do not,” Lily said. “Uncle thinks you dead, and if you and I should be seen together, our resemblance is striking. Walter Leggett must not have any warning that his plans have come to an even sorrier pass than he knows. He has disrespected Mama’s memory, her in-laws, both of her daughters, and her legacy. We were young, without resources, and did the best we could, but Walter Leggett has no excuse.”
“That is generous of you,” Annie replied. “Also the truth. Mama’s inheritance was sizable, and if Walter ha
s frittered the lot of it away, he’s the next thing to a thief, as well as a bully and a charlatan.”
She looked like she was about to cry, as did Delmar. Hessian looked as if he wanted to call out both Noddypoop the Elder and Noddypoop the Younger.
What a fine man was Hessian Kettering.
“We won’t let Uncle get away with this,” Lily said, hugging her sister. “He’s had everything his way, no matter the cost to anybody else, and somebody must hold him accountable.”
The embrace was careful and brief, but it was a start. Lily watched Annie go, wanting to call her back for another hug, and also relieved the initial encounter was over.
But what to do about Walter? Perhaps Hessian had a few ideas. He was ever one for developing sound and detailed strategies.
* * *
“That went well,” Lily said.
It hadn’t gone awfully. Hessian had managed to keep foul oaths behind his teeth, for example. “You were kind,” Hessian replied. “You have much to consider.” Too much to consider, which was why he wasn’t on bended knee importuning Lily for her hand. “There’s more, Lily.”
“If you tell me I have a brother… but I do have a brother. His Grace of Clarendon doubtless has an heir or three. More family who know nothing of my existence.”
She turned and wrapped her arms around Hessian, and he indulged in the need to hold her too, despite their relatively public location. Lily had been so composed, so fierce, with her sister, even as she’d withstood one revelation after another.
“Whether your paternal family continues to be kept in ignorance is up to you,” Hessian said, stealing a kiss to Lily’s cheek. “Though Clarendon’s offspring are cousins to your sister, and thus have a connection to you regardless of who you decide to be.”
Lily peered up at him, and Hessian could see mental gears turning. She drew away and wandered toward the path.
“You seem to think I have a choice. If I admit that I’m Lilith, Uncle can have me arrested for fraud. If I don’t admit that I’m Lilith, he’ll likely have me arrested anyway. He’ll be the injured party, taken in by his sister’s scheming by-blow, and that’s assuming you can get that farce of a wedding annulled, and then there’s the small matter of Mama’s fortune having gone missing, and if I lay eyes on Oscar again, I will do him a violent injury, which would mean assault charges, and—”
Hessian grasped her by the wrist, lest she work herself into a temper. “Your Uncle Walter is in no position to make demands, Lily. On the way north, I was thrown much into the company of my footman, Kendall.”
“He’s the African?”
“And a canny young fellow, also very much in love. I have Worth making discreet inquiries, but I suspect dear Uncle Walter has tried to make a fortune off enslavement of others like Kendall.”
The puzzle pieces fit neatly, particularly when Hessian added tidbits of remembered gossip to hunches and suppositions.
“Enslaving others is illegal,” Lily said, sinking on to a bench. “Please tell me… but then, Uncle Walter is no respecter of the law. We know this. I hope he lost every farthing, if that was his idea of how to manage funds.”
“He couldn’t touch the Ferguson portion of the trusts,” Hessian said, taking the place beside her, “but I suspect he put every penny he could steal into his illegal businesses, and there’s some indication he was also involved in smuggling. This explains why Oscar knows nothing of his father’s enterprises, why even Worth hears nothing of Walter’s investments. I should have put the facts together sooner, but I was distracted.”
In love qualified as distracted.
Lily gazed out across the park’s verdure, while Hessian resisted the urge to take her hand.
“The Fergusons will ruin Walter,” she said. “They won’t care about the scandal, and I won’t stop them. Lord, I’m half Irish.”
This was why Hessian must bide his time. Lily was coping with too much change, too much upset, for him to ask her for the rest of her life now. He hadn’t a notion how or when or where to propose again. He knew only that now was not the time.
“You are Lily,” Hessian said. “You are the same person who befriended my Daisy, the person whom the Countess of Rosecroft had best not interrogate too closely.” The woman I love.
“Daisy,” Lily said, her smile softening. “She will be quite the handful in no time. She missed you awfully, Hessian. I did too.”
Hessian hugged that admission to his heart and glanced about, for a patient suitor need not be a suitor entirely deprived of kisses. He led Lily behind a massive oak, and she seemed to sense his intent, when a scream pierced the air.
“That’s Daisy,” Lily said. “I’m sure that’s our Daisy.”
She lifted her skirts and took off down the path, Hessian racing beside her.
* * *
The scene Lily found a hundred yards up the path made her blood boil as all the recent revelations had not.
Mrs. Braithwaite had Daisy by the arm, while Worth Kettering stood two yards away, Jacaranda at his side. The widow looked ready to arch her back and hiss, while Daisy’s expression was purely frightened.
No. No, this would not happen. “Turn loose of our Daisy,” Lily said, striding up to Mrs. Braithwaite. “Turn loose of her this instant, or I will see you scorned from here to the Hebrides.”
“How dare you?” Mrs. Braithwaite sneered. “Of all people, you well know where scorn will be directed if this child is kept from me any longer.”
“Of all people?” Lily countered, stepping closer. “I’ve the blood of a duke flowing in my veins, a fortune to command, not one but two earls and a baronet who regard my welfare as a serious matter. Do your worst, madam, but let Daisy go lest I do mine.”
Lily was aware of Hessian standing to the left and one step back. He’d intervene if Mrs. Braithwaite took complete leave of her senses, but only then.
Brilliant man.
“Your ducal family might like to know of a by-blow rusticating in the Midlands,” Mrs. Braithwaite countered. “They might like to know that a woman whom they accepted as a daughter-in-law lifted her—”
Lily relied on the simplest maneuver known to the most inexperienced tavern maid. She peeled Mrs. Braithwaite’s smallest finger from Daisy’s wrist and wrenched back, hard.
Daisy was free, the widow was yelping, and Lily was barely getting started.
“Do you know what it’s like to be a child, alone in the world, frightened for your very life, when adults think only to exploit you? Do you know what it’s like to be so exhausted at the age of nine that you fall asleep on your feet and are punished for it? Do you know what it’s like to have no hope, no joy, no affection for years on end? I will be damned if I’ll let you threaten Daisy with such a fate.”
Mrs. Braithwaite’s gaze slewed around, for this was London on a fine spring day, and a crowd was gathering. “I know what I know, Miss Ferguson. Don’t expect me to remain silent.”
Hessian took Daisy up on his hip. “Do as you please, Mrs. Braithwaite, though I’d urge you to wait for a call from my brother before you undertake another rash act.”
The widow stomped off, the crowd parting for her.
Worth came up on Lily’s right, Jacaranda beside him. “Her companion warned me she’d try something like this.”
Jacaranda watched Mrs. Braithwaite marching for the park gates. “Flirting again, Worth?”
“Gathering intelligence. I offered Miss Smythe a hundred pounds to put Daisy’s interests ahead of Mrs. Braithwaite’s. The young lady was all too happy to take that offer. I believe she’d like to open a millinery shop and has caught the eye of a young tailor who’d be a perfect partner in that enterprise.”
“Well done,” Hessian said. “And Lily, very well done. I hadn’t grasped how to manage Mrs. Braithwaite—gentlemanly manners can be such a burden when one longs to throttle a woman in public—but you’ve given me some wonderful ideas.”
Lily remained between the two brothers, knowing full well tha
t their conversation was intended to give her time to calm her nerves.
“I wanted to push her down and bloody her nose,” Lily said. And that was wonderful. To have felt a sense of injustice and been able to act upon it. To have sent at least one conniving toad packing with a few unvarnished truths.
“I’m glad you made her go away,” Daisy echoed. “She was not nice.”
Lily found the nerve to look Hessian in the eye. She anticipated distaste for a public spectacle, or for a spectacular lapse in manners. Patience maybe, if she was lucky, or even amusement.
She found great, beaming approval.
Hessian kissed Daisy’s cheek, though Lily sensed the gesture was for her.
“You have the right of it, Daisy,” he said. “The widow was not nice. Our Lily, however, like the true lady she is, would have none of that. What say we all go for an ice? I’ve been told that in my absence, Gunter’s has set aside a table for the exclusive use of the Kettering family.”
Hessian took Lily’s hand—again in public, this time before his family—and restored her sense of balance and her hope. Mrs. Braithwaite could start talk, Uncle Walter could bring criminal charges, Oscar could contest the annulment, and the ducal Fergusons might be scandalized fourteen times over, but Hessian would be by her side.
And Lily by his.
Chapter Twenty-One
* * *
“Your annulment,” Worth said, tossing a sealed document onto the desk. “You may thank the Earl and Countess of Rosecroft, who both provided information regarding the suddenness of the ceremony, the bride’s obvious reluctance, and the celebrant’s utter failure to establish her consent. Their recollections match up in every detail with Lily’s version of events.”
“Because Lily’s version is the truth.” Hessian examined the document, reading it word for word and checking the date twice. “I’ll want copies. Can Leggett contest this?”
Worth snorted and leaned back in his chair. “How many ways do you want to ruin him? He can make a fuss, but the facts speak for themselves. To reveal the defect in the license is to reveal Leggett’s own criminal wrongdoing where Lily is concerned. He’s better off leaving the annulment at lack of consent. He can blame that on a misunderstanding or his unruly son.”
His Lordship's True Lady (True Gentlemen Book 4) Page 28