“What was that, Mrs. Benedict?”
A startled shriek burst from her lips and Lily spun about. A young maid stood eying her as though she were an exhibit on display at the Royal Museum. God in Heaven, this thievery business was no easy task. “Oh, forgive me.” In an attempt to still her racing heart, Lily placed her free hand to her chest. “We have not met.” So, there was a maid, a butler, a footman, and Cook. Hardly the empty household as it had been presented.
“I am Claudia,” the girl said in a high singsong voice. Not much older than Lily had been when she’d been forced off to London to carve out a life for herself.
“Claudia,” she repeated back, softly. There were few options for vicars’ daughters without references, on their own in the world. What would her empty existence have been had she found honorable work as this girl had?
“Is everything all right, Mrs. Benedict?”
“Lily,” she automatically corrected. “Please, just Lily.” She gave her head a clearing shake as she belatedly registered the girl’s use of her name “How did you know my name?” She deliberately avoided answering the girl’s inquiry. She took to avoiding mistruths where she could. And the reality of Claudia’s question was that she had not been all right in nearly eight years.
The young woman tiptoed over with the quiet footfalls of one who feared rousing a beast. “We all know who you are, madam. That is, Harris and Thomas.” The blush on the girl’s cheeks hinted at more between the girl and the handsome footman. “And there is also Cook. Yes, we know a good deal about you.”
What was that? A whore? A thief? A liar? Her skin pricked hot and then cold with shame. “Oh,” she said dumbly.
Claudia lowered her voice to the faintest whisper. “You went down the corridor.”
Lily cast a confused look left and then right.
“The Beast’s halls,” the maid clarified, calling her attention back.
A slight frown pulled at her lips over the young woman’s description of her employer. It mattered not that Lily herself had the same thoughts about the bellowing lout. That unkindness, however, chafed for it hinted at why the duke bellowed and glowered. “You should not call him Beast.”
Claudia gave no indication that she heard the chastisement. “No one goes down those halls, miss. Well, Harris does, but only because he has no choice.”
Of course, all the servants on the duke’s staff would have the sense God gave a goat to not violate his orders. “Unlike me,” she mumbled. Who had no other choice if she were to secure that blasted diamond.
Claudia leaned close; her brow furrowed. “What was that, miss?”
“Er...nothing,” she said quickly, her cheeks warm. A dearth of friendships through the years had resulted in the rather bothersome tendency to speak aloud to oneself. It was a rather embarrassing habit—when people were around to hear it, that was.
“But you did go down those halls,” the maid carried on. She gesticulated wildly as she spoke. “He yelled and you did not flee as all the other governesses.”
They all spoke of their employer as though he were a monster. What a sad way to go through life. She slid her gaze away.
“You are still here,” the girl said excitedly. “You knocked on his door,” and I kissed him. Twice with wanton boldness. “You made demands of him.” If His Grace knew he had servants listening at the keyholes, he’d sack the lot of them. “And he threatened to toss you out, but he did not.”
Well, for now. But there was time yet. “How do you know all this?” She at last managed to put a question to the girl.
Claudia froze like a doe caught in a hunter’s snare. “How do I know all this?” the once garrulous girl went unexpectedly laconic. She shook her head. As in she would not answer the question? Or that she did not know? “Regardless, Mrs. Ben—”
“Lily,” she put in. She’d not have the handful of servants here treating her as something more than she was. There was nothing the least brave about her. She was a woman who’d sold her virtue and now her soul for freedom from fear. Bitterness tasted like acid on her tongue.
“How did you speak so bravely before him? I’ve been in his household a while now and cannot bring myself to approach his halls.”
“He is just a man, Claudia,” she said softly. “Society expects us to see perfection in the human form as a thing of safety and beauty, but that isn’t always the case, is it?” George’s rakish grin slid into her mind. His beautiful face could have made the angels weep with envy, yet such a man would have never taken a stranger from the street and defended her before his man-of-affairs.
Claudia gave her a small smile. “I like you very much, ma’am.”
At the young woman’s kindness, gratitude lodged in Lily’s throat. She struggled to swallow. For so many years, she’d been the recipient of such disdain she no longer knew what to do with kindness. “I thought I would explore His Grace’s home,” she put in, needing to remove herself from this woman and her undeserving praise. She pulled her box close, praying the woman failed to note the damning object in her hands. “If you will excuse me?”
“Of course, ma’am.” Lily stepped around her when Claudia called out. “Wait, ma’am.” She turned back as the girl fished her hand about the front pocket of her apron. “This arrived for you earlier this evening. It came to the servants’ entrance.” Color filled the maid’s cheeks. “I was given good coin if I saw it delivered to you.”
Lily stilled as the girl brandished a folded note. Ice slid along her spine. Of course he would send ’round word. A man of Holdsworth’s determination would easily command such a feat. Fighting to calm her pounding heart, she accepted the page with fingers that shook. Unable to meet Claudia’s curious stare, Lily kept her gaze trained on the page, torn between wanting to crumple the sheet in her hands and wanting to read it right there. She looked up. “That will be all, Claudia. Thank you.”
The innocent maid dropped another curtsy. “Good evening, Mrs. Benedict.” With that she rushed off in the opposite direction.
Lily stared after her until she disappeared and then, with the ivory page nearly singing her fingers, she slipped into the nearest doorway. Presenting her back to the hall, she broke the unfamiliar seal and skimmed the page.
...You are to meet me at Highgate, Tuesday before the dawn breaks...
She quickly folded the page and tucked it inside the clever pocket sewn inside her wrapper. She stole a frantic look up and down the hall to determine whether anyone had observed her. Only the hum of nighttime silence filled her ears.
With the eeriness of this great labyrinth, lending an air of evil to the note in her pocket, Lily moved quietly down the hall and to the stairway. She hesitated at the top of the sweeping marble staircase that led to the foyer. With the duke’s warnings echoing in her mind, she took the steps slowly, and then stopped at the base of the stairs. The cold marble on her naked feet, oddly calming, she walked on to his office.
Do you intend to gape at me all day? Get out...!
At the haunting remembrance of his snarled words, she captured her lower lip between her teeth. It was very easy to fear the duke. With his wounded visage and black patch, he had the look of a ruthless warrior who’d slay anyone who so much as questioned him. What she’d begun to discover, however, is that for his gruff orders and barking commands, there was far more to the man than that angry beast. His sneers and snarls were nothing more than a cleverly crafted veneer that masked his gentle touch and a man who’d defend those in need of defending—a man who when he loved, would do so deeply and unwaveringly. A seething envy invaded every corner of her being for that fortunate woman who would one day heal his broken spirit and earn that love. She slowed her steps and took in the gold frames. His ancestors stared back at her in all their haughty, frozen arrogance and a chill stole down her spine. Even the inanimate canvases recognized the wrongness in her moving along these corridors.
Lily continued on, past the bewigged, powdered figures to the end of the hall. The inte
rsecting hall that led to those forbidden rooms. Why would they be forbidden? Why, unless there was something of great wealth he intended to keep from servants and outsiders? She started for that forbidden door when, from the corner of her eye, a flash of crimson caught her attention and momentarily froze her. She wetted her lips and then glanced about. Her gaze, unbidden, returned to the portrait at the end of the hall.
Your impulsivity will be your ruin...
Yes, she’d already proven her father correct in that regard. Lily cast a glance over her shoulder at those forbidden rooms and walked slowly across the intersecting hall to the end of the corridor. She came to a stop before the portrait.
Her heart kicked up a funny beat as she took in the uniformed soldier. Where the previous ancestors had been stern-faced, this man wore a bold half-grin that all but challenged life to erase that smile. Unable to draw her gaze away from the masterful picture he presented, Lily tipped her head to the side. The harsh, angular planes of his face bespoke power and regal strength. The blue of his eyes were pools that sucked at a person’s rational thought, and just held one silently captivated. She ran her stare over the frame, down to the strong, noble jaw...and then her heart missed a beat.
Oh, God. Her grip loosened upon the box and she quickly righted her hold on it. All the while she kept her attention on him. This man. This smiling stranger. The Duke of Blackthorne.
Emotion balled in her throat and she blinked back the crystal sheen that descended over her eyes. She cries. A single drop rolled down her cheek, followed by another, and another, until Derek’s powerful figure from some years ago was blurred before her tears. Her tears were not ones of pity. They were ones mourning the loss, not of looks that would have rivaled the archangel Gabriel, but rather the loss of that innocence he wore in the painting. She cried at the death of his happiness and the misery left in wake of whatever private hell he lived in.
The irony was not lost on her. They were both people living in the now, who could never go home. Not to the way home had been and would always be in those fond, distant memories. Life had aged them, battered them, and they’d emerged scathed and broken—but triumphant.
She brushed the back of her free hand over her cheeks. “Is this really triumphant,” she spat. What manner of joyless existence was this, for either of them? She with dreams of a cottage in the countryside of England and Derek with his lonely office were not very much different. Lily scrubbed her cheeks all the harder. And yet, at the same time, she and Derek may as well move within two entirely different universes. For despite the loss and sorrow he’d known, he at least had what she would never have—a family. A little girl was dependent upon him for her happiness and security, and should he just allow himself the possibility of it, a freedom to step out of his lair, and into the world—and again, live.
Lily hugged her arms close. The box in her arms bit painfully into her chest and she welcomed that slight sting of discomfort. She’d entered Derek’s home just four days ago, thinking to save herself through this act of thievery. But perhaps the reasons she’d come here, nay the reason she’d been brought here, was not for her own selfish need to survive, but rather to forgive—herself, his family, and through that, at last know peace. Mayhap she could just remain here as Flora’s governess.
She absently fingered the carved rose on the top of her box. How very foolish to believe Derek would want any help from her. The bellowing, angry duke he’d proven himself to be would sooner send her to the devil than acknowledge need of help from anyone. And yet... She wandered closer to that painting and met his once happy eyes.
At some point, everyone needed help. Life had taught her that.
The day Derek had lost his left eye, he’d come to appreciate his remaining senses. Scents became stronger and his hearing developed an acuity that would have been the envy of a buck avoiding being hunted. It was how, in the midnight hour, a faint sniveling penetrated his solitary thoughts. He glanced beyond the edge of the folded, still unread note in his hand, over at the closed door. A frown formed on his lips.
Silence.
Derek returned his attention to St. Cyr’s neat scrawl. They’d met as boys when St. Cyr and Maxwell had discovered Derek with a crystal inkwell in hand, one movement away from dumping ink into the tea of their nasty instructor with a fondness for a birch rod. He’d stood frozen at being caught in the man’s rooms. Wordlessly, St. Cyr had wandered in ahead of Maxwell, relieved Derek of the crystal jar, and dumped the ink. “I rather think this means we must be friends forever.” His mouth twisted with dry irony and he absently massaged the sore muscles of his useless leg. That damned boy, along with Maxwell, had followed him from the notorious rooms of Eton, on to Oxford. In the greatest twist of irony, Derek had followed St. Cyr but once—into the fields of battle. Maxwell had been with them on those battlefields, as well. He gave his head a regretful shake.
At the time it had seemed the perfect grand adventure for three daring and fearless boys who’d believed themselves invincible. His fingers tightened reflexively upon the page; wrinkling the sheet. Following Toulouse when he’d at last awakened from a drug-induced slumber to find his eye gone and his face burned, he damned the day he’d ever met St. Cyr.
Another faint whimper cut across his useless musings of the past. He stilled. In the shroud of midnight’s dark loneliness, he could almost believe his mind rang with those dying, once brave fools weeping in pools of their blood. “Do not be a bloody fool,” he muttered. Setting aside the latest letter sent ’round by St. Cyr on the rose-inlaid table next to his chair, Derek grabbed his cane. He used it to leverage himself to a standing position.
People did not enter these corridors. The thump-thump-thump of his cane echoed loudly as he made his way across the office. He jerked open the door and peered into the hall.
Silence.
Then another faint sniffle pulled his attention toward that portrait of his once-perfect self. The sight of the lady hovering beside that image weeping, hit him like a well-delivered punch to the gut. Did she stand there with the same pity and regret for the loss of that beautiful, charming gentleman? He opened his mouth to bellow her into leaving, but stopped. Lily stretched a hand out and brushed her fingertips tenderly along the white-gloved hand, the same hand that now required the assistance of a cane to amble his way along through life. Derek’s blustery tirade died swiftly and he remained rooted to the floor. His throat worked spasmodically.
Why should she stand before an old, frozen likeness of him with anything other than contempt and disdain? He’d proven himself a foul, bellowing beast and yet, she should linger there and caress that canvas. What manner of woman was Lily Benedict, this woman of otherworld perfection? A willowy creature who stood before him in nothing but her nightshift, with her braided black tresses flowing down her back.
He shifted his weight and the floorboards creaked, revealing his presence. Lily drew her shoulders back, but she remained silent, with her back presented to him. Derek started forward. “Lily Benedict, you continue to persist,” he drawled. He hitched his leg to correct his awkward stride.
She shuffled something in her arms and then with one hand, swatted at her face. “Your Grace,” she said in steady, even tones as she turned to greet him.
The sight of her sucked the breath from his lungs and he lost his footing. On a curse, Derek stumbled and caught himself hard against the wall. He grunted. God how he despised the weak soul he’d become.
Lily gasped and the box in her arms tumbled to the floor with a loud bang. “Are you all right, Your Grace?” Her long, slender legs ate away the distance between them and she rushed to a halt at his side. She wrapped her hands about his forearms, as though to steady him.
Despite the misery he’d cloaked himself in, that protective angriness that kept him safe, a smile pulled at his lips. Did the narrow-waisted, gentle beauty think she could prevent a man of his size from falling? “Derek,” he corrected.
As though she registered the impropriety of he
r touch, she jerked her hands back and let them fall to her side. “Derek,” she murmured. “Are you all right...Derek?” Her husky contralto wrapped around the harsh two-syllable word that was his name, sucking him into a vortex where he wished to lose himself in that soothing, seductive tone. Such a voice was the kind that healed and drove back previous pain.
“I am fine,” he said harshly. He took in the lady’s reddened eyes. She’d been crying. A thousand questions sprung to his lips, but he quelled them. As a man who celebrated his privacy, he’d not press her with questions, he himself would not answer.
She stiffened.
Seven years of nothing but his miserable self for company had erased all remembrances of those Social niceties. Such a detail shouldn’t matter. So, why did it?
In a bid to end the protracted silence, he bit out, “Are you unable to sleep?”
Lily hesitated and, for a moment, he suspected she’d not answer. Then she inclined her head. “I am. And are—?”
“I do not sleep,” he interrupted.
A small laugh escaped her. “Of course you sleep. Everyone sleeps.” He’d inspired nothing but fear in women since his return. This woman could laugh around him. Power headier than a potent aphrodisiac surged through him.
“You are mistaken.” He stole moments of rest, when he closed his eyes and sought the peace to be had in the unconsciousness. Inevitably, the demons entered; the sharp report of gunfire, the blast of cannonballs, and the agonized screams of the dead and dying—himself. And tonight the demons had come and he was too much of a coward to face them alone. I’ve been alone for so long...
Another long silence met his pronouncement. He shifted his gaze about and then his stare alighted on a crude box at the foot of the painting.
Rescued By a Lady's Love (Lords of Honor, #3) Page 20