It wasn’t even simple jealousy or hurt that he could look so at another woman. It was understanding, crowding in on her from all sides.
John and Ellen Doverton hadn’t come to be friends, either with her or with Mrs. Grant. They had come to thrust Lady Lawrence in her face. And Lady Lawrence was clearly the first love Dove had once told her of, the lady who had broken his heart by marrying another. Tillie hadn’t realized it upon introduction, but that one smile of Dove’s told her everything as surely as if he’d spoken the words.
Her world reeled. It seemed to be doing that a lot recently, only never before with this kind of pain. By the time she managed to right it enough to keep an amiable expression pinned to her face, Dove had turned to greet her.
“How are you, Tillie?”
“Oh, quite well.” But piercing her own hurt, she saw that he looked tired. There were lines of strain around his mouth, dark shadows beneath his eyes. His mad dash to Liverpool and back had clearly caught up with him. Helplessly, she wondered how to persuade him to see Dr. Lampton. Or even if she should. Perhaps it was his determination to ignore his condition that kept him going.
“I’m pleased to hear it,” he said, walking toward her. “And I forgot to give you some other news.”
As he came and sat with her on the window seat, she was conscious of a surge of triumph and hope. “What is that?” she managed.
“I found Private Trent.”
“Big George?” she exclaimed with immediate delight. “Oh, well done, sir!”
“Not so well done. He didn’t exactly pack up and come with me, so don’t say anything to Annie. He didn’t know anything about the child. I do think he meant to go back to Annie, only he got stuck in Manchester looking after his father’s tavern to provide for his mother.”
Tillie frowned. “There must be a solution to that, but I can’t think right now.”
He leaned around to look into her face. “Are you truly well, Tillie? Is this all weighing you down?”
Of course, he meant the matter of her uncle and cousin. She could not say to him, I’d care nothing for any of it, if only you had not smiled at that woman. It was ridiculous. She was ridiculous.
The care in his eyes spread a tinge of warmth back into her heart. Maybe it was not over yet. Maybe she still had a chance. She forced a tremulous smile to her lips which had the effect of tugging down Dove’s brows.
But then Ellen’s voice said, “Oh, we must go. Lady Lawrence is eager to try the waters. Dove, will you accompany us, or does duty still keep you?”
It was a masterstroke, at once claiming Dove’s escort and reducing to mere duty his visit to the vicarage and to Tillie.
Dove understood it, too, for his lips tightened, though he spoke mildly enough. “I am not on duty right now. And of course, I shall be happy to escort you, since John has clearly forgotten the way.”
Ellen colored slightly and gave a tinkling little laugh. “Of course, I did not mean that! I merely meant we shall be glad of your company since you have been absent these last few days.”
“I hope you will all dine with us tomorrow evening,” Mrs. Grant said in the flurry of departures. “Mr. Ashley, too, if he’s free.”
Tillie, who had been so looking forward to seeing Dove again, was left feeling deflated and empty. She sat back on the window seat, watching the visitors walk down the garden path. Dove offered his arm to Lady Lawrence, his head attentively inclined to her as she spoke. Tillie’s heart twisted, for despite the widow’s weeds, they looked a perfect couple, both tall and handsome, and of the same world.
He had wanted to marry her once. Now, she was widowed. She was free. And Dove, loyal man that he was, clearly still loved her. Tillie had seen it in that first smile as soon as he’d looked at Lady Lawrence. It was an older, far more suitable love than that he bore for Tillie.
And then she realized something else. Dove had never spoken of marriage to her. Except that one mention of widow’s weeds, which could just have been his way of referring to mourning. It was Tillie who had put the interpretation of marriage on his words. But men of his class married within their own social circle. Women of lesser degree were their playthings and mistresses.
She had misunderstood his kindness. He had misunderstood her kisses.
And now, with that one smile, she had nothing.
*
The next day, Lady Sylvester Gaunt called on Tillie to propose a walk and a look in at the art gallery. Tillie hesitated, for both the Grants were occupied on other matters, and to take James the footman on such an expedition seemed to be putting on airs. After all, Lady Sylvester was the squire’s daughter, married to a marquis’s son, and she came without servants of any kind. But after Luke’s blatant attack at the theatre, Tillie was reluctant to go anywhere unprotected by a repellingly large male.
Fortunately, they were saved by the arrival of Mr. Ashely, who pronounced himself delighted to escort them to the art gallery.
“Dove is a bit entangled with family today,” he said easily. “So, he asked me to call and be useful if I can.”
For the first time, Tillie knew a spurt of anger against Dove. How dare he send his friend to her while spending his time with the Lawrence woman? But at least it revived her spirit.
“Useful and most pleasant company,” she insisted. And, in fact, he was. Amusing, quick-witted, and perceptive, he kept Tillie and Lady Sylvester—whom she quickly learned to call Catherine—well entertained.
“It’s upside down,” he insisted of one of the gallery’s less-pleasing paintings of a rather flat looking basket of fruit.
“No, it isn’t,” Tillie argued.
“Yes, it is—look.” And he took the picture off the wall and hung it the other way around, which at least gave the fruit some life, as if they were falling out of the upturned basket.
Tillie laughed.
“I believe I shall buy it,” Ashley said.
“No, don’t!” Catherine insisted. “If you truly wish to buy a picture, you should look first at my brother-in-law’s.”
“Your brother-in-law paints?” Tillie asked, intrigued as Catherine pulled her by the arm across the gallery.
“Very well. He has become quite in demand in London.”
“I’m not surprised,” Tillie said a moment later, gazing at a spectacular scene of the stormy sea. It was so realistic she could almost imagine herself once more in the heaving little boat after Dove had rescued her, drifting in and out of consciousness. The painting captured the sheer, terrifying power of the sea, as well as its spellbinding beauty. “I would buy that in a heartbeat.”
“Well, you wouldn’t get it for this price in London,” Catherine encouraged her.
But of course, she had no access to her own money. Catherine seemed to realize this after she’d spoken, for she hastily drew Tillie’s attention to a sculpture instead.
But Tillie’s gaze kept drifting back to the seascape.
“It’s certainly apt for a waif from a shipwreck,” Mr. Ashley observed.
“Does he live here?” Tillie asked Catherine.
“Tamar? No. He did for a while, but he lives down in Devon now, on the family estates. We’re going to visit in the spring.”
The conversation moved on, but Tillie was aware of Ashley’s gaze on her.
When they left the gallery, they walked slowly, gazing in shop windows on their way back to the vicarage. There, Lord Sylvester was waiting with an old-fashioned gig he drove for himself. Greeting everyone with casual good nature, he handed his wife up into the gig and drove off.
“I believe the whole family’s eccentric,” Ashley commented. “I didn’t know about their connection to Blackhaven.”
“I think Blackhaven is connected to just about everyone,” Tillie said. “Thank you for your escort, sir. Will you come in and have tea?”
He hesitated. “No, tempting as it is, I won’t. You’d be sick of the sight of me, since I believe we dine with you tonight.”
*
&
nbsp; After a good night’s sleep, Dove’s aching body felt much easier. However, the whole situation with Felicity being in town as his brother’s guest still seemed unreal, agitating his mind.
When he had come face to face with Felicity in the vicarage yesterday, there had been a moment when the years had slipped away, leaving nothing but all his old feelings for her. And then he’d all but forgotten her again in his anxiety over the stricken look in Tillie’s eyes, which he was at a loss to account for.
It was Ash, oddly, who explained that. “She knows about your late engagement,” he said wryly. “And according to both Ellen and John, you just goggled at Felicity as though she was your dinner and you hadn’t eaten for four years.”
“No, I didn’t,” Dove protested. “Though I’ll own you could have knocked me down with a feather when I first saw her sitting there.”
“And now?”
But Dove did not want to talk about this. Something about it all bothered him too much. “What’s it to you, you gossiping old woman?” he asked lightly.
“Oh, nothing,” Ash retorted. “Merely, if you’re hesitating, I might try to cut you out with the divine Tillie.”
“Leave Tillie alone,” Dove said irritably. “She’s been through too much already.” He caught Ashley’s significant glance. “I have no intention of hurting her!”
“Too late, my friend.”
“Ah.” Dove sat down. “Felicity.” Now that he was forced to confront the issue, he realized his instinct was right. Her being here was decidedly odd. “I never knew Ellen and Felicity were close. In fact, I thought Ellen didn’t care for her.”
“She didn’t, until Tillie.”
Dove blinked. “Seriously?”
“Seriously, Dove. Can’t you see what’s under your nose?”
“Tillie. I can only think of Tillie.”
“Then perhaps you should make that plain to her. And to Lady Lawrence.”
“Certainly to Ellen,” Dove said grimly. “Though perhaps after dinner. There’s nothing worse than an awkward meal.”
Although he was rather touched to think Tillie could be jealous of Felicity, Dove had no wish to hurt her further and resolved to give her all the attention he could over dinner at the vicarage. In this, however, he was frustrated, not so much by Ellen, let alone by Felicity, but by Tillie herself.
When they were shown into the vicarage drawing room, he saw that there were other guests who had already arrived—Colonel and Mrs. Benedict from Haven Hall. Tillie was deep in laughing conversation with Colonel Benedict, and although she glanced up and smiled in general at the newcomers, she did not rush to meet Dove as she usually did. Instead, she returned at once to her conversation with Benedict.
Somewhat piqued, he sat beside Kate. “No further adventures?” he asked.
Understanding at once, Kate shook her head. “No, the Dawlishes have not come near us. But they are still in Blackhaven, spreading the lie that Tillie is Luke’s wife. As though if they say it often enough it will be true.”
“It won’t,” Dove said flatly.
At last, when there was a quiet moment, he strolled across the room to Tillie. She smiled in friendly welcome, but something was missing. Something he couldn’t quite put his finger on.
“Is everything well?” he asked her.
“Oh, yes, of course. I have just been talking to Colonel Benedict about his book. Did you know he had published a book on botany?”
“Yes. I did know that. I believe I have a copy.”
“One of the five sold,” Benedict said with a deprecating grin.
“Nonsense,” his wife reproved. “It has done very well!”
“Oh, Mr. Ashely,” Tillie said and fluttered across the room to Ash, clearly with something else on her mind.
And Dove finally realized what he had missed in her greeting. Openness. As if she no longer trusted him. Something twisted painfully inside him. He had been too used to being a hero to her. Although he’d denied it, he’d also taken it for granted that she would continue to think so.
At dinner, he was glad to be placed beside her, but again, she was off-hand, like some amiable social butterfly who liked him no more and no less than she liked anyone else. In fact, she spent most of her time talking to Ash on her other side. Which left him giving attention largely to Felicity Lawrence on his other side—the opposite of what he’d intended.
However, he had to admit there was no hardship in conversing with Felicity. Since her appearance in Blackhaven, there had been little opportunity to do more than offer his condolences on the loss of her husband. Now, despite her widow’s weeds, she did not dwell on sad things but seemed to enjoy reminiscing about their shared youth in Shropshire, especially that summer’s leave he had spent there when she had been nineteen and he a mere three-and-twenty.
“We were so young,” she said after they had laughed over some prank of her little brothers’ that Dove and she had got the blame of. “It seemed as if the jollity would never end.”
“It can’t go on, unchanging. Life has to have its up and downs, but never think that happiness is over for you.”
“I confess, I have been very low,” she acknowledged with a quick smile. “I do not even have the blessing of children, and it sometimes feels as if I have had my chance at happiness and lost it.”
“That is silly. You are not yet five-and-twenty years old. I am sure you will marry again one day.”
Her eyes were wide and limpid just as he remembered them. She was probably even prettier than she had been before, and yet she no longer moved him. In fact, the knowledge that he could be married to her horrified him. For the first time that he could recall, he was actually grateful to her for jilting him.
“Do you really think so?” she murmured, dragging him back to the present conversation.
“I know so.” He refilled her wine glass and smiled encouragingly.
Beside him, Tillie and Ash were laughing at something he hadn’t heard. An unworthy pang of jealousy slid through him. Had Ash been serious about trying to cut him out with Tillie? Dove was sure she was not so changeable in her affections and yet…
And yet, was Ash not a better man for her? He and Dove had been friends since their shared school days at Harrow. A respectable and charming landowner of excellent family, Ash could live into old age with her, give her children and grandchildren, and a happy life. With Dove, what did she have to look forward to? A few months, no more, with the pall of death hanging over both of them. If there was time for one child before he died, they would be blessed. And so, she would be left a widow, like Felicity. He could insure there was enough for her and any child to live on, and of course she was wealthy in her own right. But he had no land, no home to give her. And his family had already shown they thoroughly disapproved of her.
With a hint of panic, he rose to watch her and the other women follow Kate from the dining room. Tomorrow morning at dawn, he fought a duel with Tillie’s despicable cousin. Although the odds were in Dove’s favor, he had to face the chance that he could die. There was no provision in his current will for her. He could fix that with a letter explaining his wishes. John would see it carried out. But he did not want to part from Tillie in misunderstanding, not if it was to be their last.
“Looking a bit grim,” Ash said, pushing the port toward him.
Dove helped himself. “Not I.” He pushed the bottle across the table to his brother. “I just have a lot on my mind.”
“Like making a choice?” John said.
Dove held his gaze. “I have made my choice. And it is not your place or Ellen’s to interfere with that.”
John flung up both his hands. “Acquit me. Acquit us both. Ellen merely wanted you to be aware of the current situation.”
“It changes nothing.”
“Of course not,” John soothed. “Oh, stop glaring daggers at me, Dominic, we both just want someone—” He broke off, remembering a little late, clearly, that there were others present who could not know what
they were talking about. But Dove knew.
Someone to take care of him on his death bed. They imagined Tillie, with no “breeding”, would be useless at such a task. But Dove didn’t desire a nurse. He desired a wife, and that only because Tillie had made it obvious she wanted him, whatever the state of his health.
The gentleman did not linger long over their port, all anxious for different reasons to rejoin the ladies in the drawing room.
Here, Tillie and Kate were entertaining the other ladies with some comic duet at the pianoforte. Dove stopped beside them, unable to help smiling as he listened. For the first time that evening, he saw that his presence affected Tillie. Color mounted into her neck and face, and she stopped playing with an embarrassed laugh.
Kate laughed, too, and rose to her feet. “There, I think we’ve tortured everyone enough.”
“Hardly torture,” Caroline Benedict protested. “You are both talented, and very funny together!”
As Kate left, Dove sank into her place beside Tillie. “Another accomplishment discovered,” he said lightly.
“Hardly. Just a little fun.”
He depressed one key and glanced round at her. “Are you avoiding me, Tillie?”
Her flush deepened. She shook her head, then met his gaze with conscious bravery. “No. Just giving you the opportunity to avoid me.”
A frown tugged at his brow. “Why on earth would I do that?”
“Because you deserve it,” she blurted.
“Deserve what?” he asked, bewildered.
“Happiness.” With a gasp, she rose, and he stood, too, blocking her from the rest of the room.
“Tillie. You are my happiness. If I am not yours, you have only to tell me.”
Something flared in her eyes, sweet and exciting and passionate, and then her lashes swept down, veiling it. “I don’t change, Dove.” And she slipped past him.
After a moment, he strolled after her, but since she was sitting by Colonel Benedict, he took the place on the sofa beside Felicity.
“You are kind to that child,” she said warmly.
Dove’s lips twisted. “I’m not sure I am.”
“I’ve noticed the kindness with which you treat her—a girl alone without family and out of her own class. You have a generous spirit, Dominic. You always did.”
The Wicked Waif Page 14