With immense strength of will, Lily shook him off as she straightened her spine, thankful in that moment for Margot’s strict training. ‘I’ve told you, we’re perfectly content.
‘Content? Ah, yes, of course. Safe and unemotional. But is it enough?’
‘Of course it is enough,’ Lily sharply responded, pricked once more into irritation by his calm.
‘Wouldn’t your prefer passion?’ Then before she guessed what he was about he had pulled her hard against him and covered her mouth with his own. Warm, moist and dangerously exciting, it was the most outrageous, most cataclysmic, moment of Lily’s entire life. As the kiss deepened she felt as if her whole body had spun out of control, held in a soft limbo by the mist. Her fingers clung to him, grasping his neck for support she drank in the taste of him as if her very life depended upon it. Then quite abruptly he let her go, leaving her bruised and wounded, knowing she would never recover.
‘That wasn’t the kiss of a happily married woman.’
On impulse Lily lifted one hand and struck him. Nathan didn’t even flinch.
From a great distance the steam whistle shrieked and from close by came the sound of Bertie’s voice, calling for Nathan. He and Lily stepped apart.
‘Ah, there you are, old chap. Thought you’d slipped overboard. What are you up to? Trying to steal off with my wife, eh?’
‘Would you blame me?’
‘Not at all, you old rogue. But the elopement will have to wait,’ joked Bertie. ‘Got to get out of this pickle first. Stand up on the cabin roof, will you? You might be able to see over the mist and direct me, old sport.’
Bertie was instantly swallowed up again by the white fog as he hurried back to his post.
For a moment neither of them moved, then Lily turned away, anxious now to seek the company of the others. But she could not escape Nathan’s last words, for all they were barely above a whisper.
‘I’ll make you mine, Lily. Make no mistake about it, you belong to me. Always have and always will. And one day I mean to collect.’
Lily’s whole life had changed. What could she have been thinking of? Had she completely lost her reason?
She felt cold and shivery and strangely light-headed. Yet the warmth of Bertie’s body beside her in the big double bed offered no comfort that night. If Lily slept, she was not aware of it. Her heart pounded, she felt ill and sick, and her eyes stared up into the darkness till they were gritty and sore, yet still she could not rest.
What would one kiss mean to him? A great deal. Hadn’t he told her so?
She knew in her heart that these feelings had already been there between them, unacknowledged.
Perhaps, because of Nathan’s outrageous behaviour to her as a boy, she’d refused to admit that he might have had good reason for being such a rebel: problems at home perhaps, or some other unhappiness. Nor had she accepted that he might have changed now that he was a man.
Could the reaction she’d felt each time she looked into those blue eyes have been simple attraction then and not fear at all?
Lily put her head under the pillow and tried to bury her thoughts. Yet she could not banish from her mind the memory of the pent-up desire that had trembled through his body as he had held her close, or the matching excitement that had burst within herself like sunrise after a dank day.
How could you? she scolded herself. You’re married to Bertie, a fine gentleman, and don’t you ever forget it. But she wanted to forget - oh, she did indeed.
His voice had followed her even as she’d run from him. ‘Come to me when you’re ready, Lily. I’ll be waiting.’
Shocked and indignant at her own reaction as much as his effrontery, Lily made a vow that she would never go to him, no matter what her own weakness might crave. She would never see him again, if she could avoid it.
Bertie snuggled down beside her, his curly head deep in the soft pillows. He gave a gentle snore and Lily groaned. Who was she fooling? She longed even now for this to be Nathan in bed with her. To have him take off her clothes and make love to her with a fierce, all-consuming passion. She knew by that intimate smile, by the way his fingers had lingered upon her arm, and the heat that had flared between them when he’d kissed her, that he wanted it too.
Yet had he wanted Selene as well? Now the sickness inside her grew worse. If she’d still hated him, still been seeking revenge against the Clermont-Reads, what better way than to encourage their precious daughter to become involved with a ne’er-do-well like Nathan Monroe?
But it was long past time to let the dead rest, to forget her quest for revenge and concentrate on the living. Time to build a new life. What kind of a life that could be when she was married to one man and loved another whom she had always professed to hate, was quite unanswerable.
At the end of October came the Autumn Ball, the highlight of Margot’s social calendar. It was very much a country affair, with dowagers smiling proudly upon their lively offspring while they sat and contentedly chatted about the state of their gardens, the hunt, or who had won the Yacht Club Trophies this year.
A three-piece orchestra played the dances of the season: the waltz, polka, quadrille and lancers. Margot stood proudly at the door welcoming every guest personally, as if she were Queen Mary herself.
Lily, with little heart for such delights, was on her very best behaviour, saying little and eating less. She curtseyed, smiled, nodded to all and sundry, while Bertie remarked how beautiful she looked.
She wore a blue silk gown trimmed with cream roses about the hem and sleeves, its décolletage low and daring. Yet she did not feel beautiful. Lily felt like a waxwork with a painted smile upon her face, and a manufactured heart in her breast.
How she longed to feel happy again. She’d longed to escape from The Cobbles, move out of one world into another. Now, glancing about at the pretty young girls in their pale frocks, Lily knew that she was an outsider still, would always be so. She’d also failed to protect her own precious child in this clean, scented world from being tainted by the one she had left. Entirely her own fault.
Tears filled her eyes on a sudden rush of guilt and sadness, and Bertie was beside her on the instant. ‘Don’t cry, Lily. We both miss our little Amy, I know, but life must go on. Not forget exactly, but carry on, for her sake.’ He slipped an arm about Lily’s waist. ‘Maybe start another baby soon, eh? When you’re ready.’
She felt a surge of gratitude for his kindness. ‘It’s just that on top of everything I find these events rather overwhelming.’
‘All a bit strange, eh? Miss the old Cobbles?’
‘That would be silly.’
‘Course not. I miss it too. You were different there.’
‘Was I?’
‘We both were,’ he said, an echo of sadness in his voice. ‘I only want you to be happy, Lily. You’ve been so down lately.’
‘I am happy.’ And she danced a waltz with him to prove that it was true.
Lily couldn’t bring herself to think of having another child. Not just yet. The long cold months of winter seemed endless but she continued her valiant struggle to make Bertie a good wife in every other respect. She wrote down and memorised Margot’s instructions. She accepted every invitation, practised her grammar, her curtseys and deportment. Her punctiliousness in manners and grasp of current affairs were entirely suitable to her place in genteel society, and no one could fault her smiles.
Most importantly, she never permitted herself to think of Nathan Monroe. Not for more than the odd unguarded moment anyway.
Nor did she visit The Cobbles, not even to admire the new improvements or see her family. Lily decided that the only way for her to settle to her new life, was to put the old one firmly behind her for good. She confined her contact with them to a regular weekly letter, filled with news of her new activities and entertainments. It was meant to explain why she was too busy to call.
She thought herself very brave and noble, but none of her endeavours quite worked. Lily could see it in Bertie’s eyes whenever he
looked at her. In the way he paused, as if thinking twice before speaking to her, often changing his mind and saying nothing at all. And the times he spent away from home grew ever longer.
It was Selene who supplied the reason.
Lily was sitting in the summer house struggling to understand world affairs by reading a newspaper article in preparation for a dinner party that evening with the local Member of Parliament.
She was, for once, quite pleased to be interrupted by her sister-in-law. ‘Heavens, Selene, I can make nothing of this. It appears to applaud Britain’s diplomacy as the way forward to peace, yet to me it seems riddled with complacency.’
Selene draped herself comfortably upon a wrought-iron garden seat, smiling with a charm which should have set alarm bells ringing. Lily was too engrossed in the newspaper’s views on a possible war to notice.
‘As if Britain alone knows what’s best for the world, and can solve all of its problems with a sound scolding.’
‘I haven’t seen my brother around much lately?’
‘It says here that the Balkan States need a good talking to. Perhaps we should loan them Margot?’ Lily giggled, expecting Selene to join in her little joke. Instead she fidgeted with the bobble-trim on her peach linen gown and emitted a heavy sigh.
‘Is Bertie home today?’ When Lily said nothing, she continued, ‘You know where he goes, don’t you?’
Lily, still frowning over the article which she was following with the tip of one finger, smiled abstractedly. ‘I’m sure you are going to enjoy telling me.’
Selene did so love to make trouble, Lily thought. No doubt she was jealous, if Nathan Monroe was out fishing with Bertie, it meant he wasn’t with her. Lily knew the friendship existed, certainly on Selene’s part, because she’d seen her taking detours to the pier to watch for him.
‘Of course, it’s perfectly fashionable for a man to have a mistress. Kings and princes do it all the time. And Bertie does like to be fashionable.’
The print blurred before her eyes and Lily was finally driven to redirect her gaze to Selene’s smirking face. ‘What did you say?’
‘My darling brother. He’s taken quite a fancy to a certain house on Fossburn Street. Bertie always did love to slum it.’
It was as though Selene had hit her full in the face. Nan. A mistress was one thing but Nan? Dear God, no. Bertie as a customer of Rose’s mother seemed somehow beyond endurance. With commendable control, Lily got to her feet, folded the newspaper with excessive care, and without even a glance in Selene’s direction, walked from the summer house across the garden and into the house.
Later, when she tackled Bertie on the subject, he did not trouble to deny it.
‘You ain’t the fun you were, old thing,’ he said with genuine regret in his voice. ‘Doesn’t signify that I love you any the less. But a chap needs his fun. Absolutely essential. You’re wrong about one thing though.’ He laughed then, as if it were all some merry schoolboy jape. ‘T’aint Nan I call on, but Rose. Dashed fine gel she is too.’
Somehow it was the final straw.
That night Lily moved out of his bedroom, and the very next day she went in search of Nathan.
Chapter Fourteen
For the remainder of that cold winter and well into spring, Lily experienced love as she had never known it before. Pride was of no consequence. It mattered only that she was with the man she loved.
Nathan had welcomed her without any sign of triumph, or even surprise. When she’d appeared on his doorstep that first evening, he’d simply held open the door and without a word from either of them, she’d stepped inside.
For a long moment he’d looked at her, then put his hands to either side of her face and kissed her brow: so chaste, so innocent, and yet the very softness of his touch had ignited her passion. The intensity of his expression had made her knees shake so that Lily thought she might crumple.
His love-making had been everything she desired - slow and tender, swiftly rising to a tide of passion that left them both exhausted. It was as if she had waited her whole life for this moment.
Later, as Lily lay with her cheek against his bare chest, there was no guilt, only complete harmony and deep satisfaction. She told herself that she’d never claimed to love Bertie, sweet and kind though he’d always been to her, and as enthusiastic and generous a lover as a wife could wish for. Yet their coupling had been nothing in comparison with this. She had never yearned for Bertie, never shivered with desire at the merest butterfly kiss on her brow. Loving Nathan was entirely different. It consumed her.
Yet she learned that embarking upon a passionate affair was not a comfortable experience. Constantly looking over her shoulder, she took risks, once even borrowing the gig without permission. She left it standing in the street, and someone came knocking on Nathan’s door to tease him about his newly acquired wealth. That taught her to be more discreet. But as winter clung fast to the hills and valleys of Lakeland, where else could they go to be alone?
After that she went on foot. She would call for the ferry, trying to avoid the curiosity in old Bob’s eyes as he transported her twice-weekly without a single question asked.
Nathan gave her a key to his house on the corner of Drake Road. He’d bought the property from his landlady and, save for a housekeeper who came and went like a ghost, lived in it alone. Which was exactly as he liked it. No prying neighbours, no one to tell him when to eat, or get up, or go to bed. So long as Lily took care to enter unobserved, preferably under cover of darkness, it offered complete privacy for their meetings.
Sometimes she would tell herself that she wouldn’t go again. But as the appointed hour drew near, she’d shake with nerves, desperate to escape her responsibilities at Barwick House. Sometimes she’d cry off with a headache from whatever function Margot was planning and hurry to Nathan’s side. But there were times when this was impossible, and she’d have to wait till the guests had departed before daring to sneak across the shingle and ring the bell.
On these occasions Ferryman Bob’s efficiency seemed to vanish and he would cross the lake as slowly as a snail, complaining his working days grew longer and more tiring the older he got.
Lily would sit in the prow of the boat and speak not a word. What could she say? Her nerves were too tightly strung with worrying whether Nathan would have had the patience to wait for her.
He always did, if sometimes he grumbled at her lateness. Lily would try to explain how difficult it was for her to get away, the risks she took for him and the way Margot watched her with eagle eyes. Nathan would shrug those massive shoulders of his and smile, as if he were perfectly certain she would come to him at whatever cost.
When once Lily dared to ask him what they were about, and where this would all lead, he said, ‘Don’t think of the future. Be happy as we are. You know that I’m not a man who likes commitment.’
‘Selene seems to think you are. She imagines you are well worth pursuing as a husband.’
He cast her a sideways look which said everything, and told her nothing. ‘Jealous?’
Somehow this made her feel cheap and tawdry, but her twice-weekly visits continued. Nothing would keep her away. His love healed her, brought her back to life, though were it not for the very real and shuddering passion that consumed him when he made love to her, Lily might have believed Nathan didn’t care for her at all. But he did, she knew it. A man of independence, ambition and pride, he didn’t care to admit quite how much.
And throughout it all, Lily and Bertie continued to be perfect friends.
Margot’s social calendar continued as usual and Lily played her part in it with increased assurance. If she bloomed with a more brilliant radiance, wore her gowns with a more bewitching grace, nobody questioned it. They imagined she had finally overcome the worst of her grief and homesickness for a life long gone; that she’d finally settled to her new responsibilities.
‘How that girl has blossomed,’ they would say.
‘Not a girl any more but a be
autiful, elegant woman.’
‘A lady.’
Lily laughed when she heard them, remembering how she’d once quarrelled with the Clermont-Reads over this very point. Perhaps she had got her revenge, after all, in a most unexpected way.
Only once did Bertie suggest she return to his bed. ‘I’ll give Rose up if you want me to, Lily?’
She made no comment. She certainly had no wish to restore marital relations, so what Bertie did with his time was of no concern to her now.
If she stopped to think on it the wound was still raw. But perhaps that was only hurt pride. She’d not seen Rose from the moment she’d learned of the liaison. Not so naïve as the child she had once been when they’d first met, Lily now fully understood the nature of Rose’s ‘friendship’ with Dick, as well as with Bertie.
Perhaps their dual misfortune was that while Rose seemed set to follow in the path of her mother, Lily had no hope of emulating hers, with not even one child to love.
At one time that might not have troubled her. Now Lily viewed Hannah from a different perspective. She saw that her mother had been, and still was, loved by a good and faithful man, had enjoyed the fulfilment of being loved and respected by a brood of healthy children. What more could a woman ask for? Lily, childless and torn between two men and two worlds, who once had set little store by such things, would have given anything now for such riches.
Lily told herself she couldn’t expect to have everything in life. Nor must she ask for it. She had Nathan, didn’t she? At least as much of him as he was prepared to give. Lily marvelled now at how she could ever have hated him, ever have thought him a cruel bully.
Oh, but he was no angel. He gambled furiously, often all night. On these occasions he’d go straight into his office at the Steamship Company, without troubling to go to bed at all. But he never allowed these sessions to clash with Lily’s visits so she happily accepted them as a part of his nature, no real threat to their relationship.
The cold uncertain days of spring gave way to the warmth of early-summer. The rhododendrons and azaleas came into bloom, and the clumps of yellow globe flowers, wild hyacinth and garlic flowers that clustered all along the shoreline. The sun brought colour to Lily’s winter-pale cheeks, her hair glowed with a rich chestnut sheen, and her hazel eyes positively danced with delight at the slightest provocation. She looked as she felt, shiny with love. It seemed a miracle that no one ever commented upon it.
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