“Who did you think it was?” he asked her curiously. She was not wearing a bonnet—his mother would be scandalized—though her hair was neatly dressed.
She shook her head. “I do not know,” she said. “The Duke of Portfrey, perhaps.”
“Portfrey?” He frowned. But she had beenafraid.
““What have you done with your cloak?” she asked.
“I did not wear one today,” he replied, looking down at his riding clothes. “It is too warm.”
“Oh,” she said. “I was mistaken, then.”
He would not touch her, but he leaned his head a little closer to hers. “Why were you frightened?”
Her smile was a little wan. “I was not really. It was nothing. I am just jumping at shadows.”
His eyes roamed over her face. She looked even now as if she were afraid to abandon the safety of the tree against which she leaned. A new and painful thought struck him.
“I have thought about your captivity,” he said, “and I have thought of you in Lisbon, trying to get someone in the army to believe your story. But there is a chunk of missing time I have not considered, is there not? You were somewhere in Spain and walked all the way back to Lisbon in Portugal. Alone, Lily?”
She nodded.
“And every hill and hollow and thicket in both countries might have concealed a band of partisans,” he said, “or French troops caught behind their own lines. Or even our own men. You had no papers. I should have given thought to that journey of yours before now, should I not?” What sort of terrors must she have lived through in addition to the physical hardships of such a journey?
“Everyone’s life contains suffering,” she said. “We each have enough of our own. We do not need to shoulder the burden of other people’s too.”
“Even when the other person is one’s wife?” he asked. She should have been able to look on the partisans as friends, of course—they were all Britain’s allies. But her experience with the one group must have given her a healthy fear of meeting another band. And he had not eventhoughtof that journey. “Forgive me, Lily.”
“For what?” She smiled at him and looked her old sweet beguiling self again. “These woods are beautiful. Old. Secluded. Filled with birds and birdsong.”
“Give it time,” he told her. “Eventually you will come to believe in the peace and safety of England. And of your home in particular. You are safe here, Lily.”
“I am not afraid now,” she assured him, and her serene smile seemed to bear out the words. “It was just a—a feeling. It was foolish. Am I late? Is that why you came for me? Are there visitors? I forget that there are always visitors.”
“You are not late,” he said, “and there are no visitors—though there will be this evening. But even if youwerelate and even if therewerevisitors, it would not matter. You must feel free here, Lily. This is your home.”
She nodded, though she did not reply. He held out a hand for hers without thinking. But before he could return his arm to his side, she took his hand and curled her fingers about it as if touching him were the most natural thing in the world to do. It was a warm, smooth hand, which he clasped firmly as they began to walk in the direction of home.
It was the first time he had touched her since that afternoon at the cottage. He looked down at her blond head with its coiled braid at the back and felt curiously like crying.
She was changed. She was no longer Lily Doyle, the carefree young woman who had gladdened the hearts of a hardened, jaded regiment in Portugal. She had lost her innocence. And yet it clung about her still like an almost visible aura.
12
The afternoon had turned unseasonably hot. The evening had remained warm and was still comfortably cool at a little before midnight, when Neville saw his guests on their way home from the terrace. His Aunt and Uncle Wollston, with their sons, Hal and Richard; Lauren and Gwen; Charles Cannadine with his mother and sister; Paul Longford; Lord and Lady Leigh with their eldest daughter—all had come to dinner and had stayed for an evening of music and cards.
Lily had found it a difficult evening, Neville knew. She did not play cards—poor Lily, it was yet another absent accomplishment that his friends and neighbors had discovered in her. And while she might have found congenial company with Hal and Richard or even perhaps with Charles or Paul—he had noticed without surprise that she was always more comfortable with men than with women—she had been taken under the wing of Lady Leigh and Mrs. Cannadine, who had proceeded to discover all the other attributes of a lady she simply did not possess. Then she had been borne off by Lauren to the music room, where all the young ladies except Lily had proceeded to display their accomplishments at the pianoforte.
They had been absolutelyfascinated, Lady Leigh had assured Neville later in the evening, to learn that Lady Kilbourne had often been forced to sleep on the hard ground under the stars in the Peninsula, surrounded bya thousand men. His lordship’s dear wife simply must be prevailed upon to tell them more about her shocking experiences.
It had often been considerably more than a thousand, Neville thought with inner amusement, and wondered if the ladies, clearly titillated by such scandalous information concerning his countess, realized that sometimes there was safety in numbers.
He was restless after everyone had retired to bed. Being alone again with Lily during the morning, talking and strolling with her, holding her hand, had reawakened the hunger he had been trying to deny for her companionship, for the intimacy of marriage with her. Not just sexual intimacy—though there was that too, he admitted—but emotional closeness, the cleaving of mind to mind and heart to heart. It was something, he realized, that he had never particularly craved with Lauren. With her he would have been content with the comfortable friendship and affection they had always shared. But not with Lily.
He fought the temptation to go into her room to check on her, something he had not done since that day at the cottage. He was afraid he might try to find an excuse to stay.
But suddenly he leaned closer to the window of his bedchamber, through which he had been idly gazing. He braced his hands on the windowsill. Yes, it was Lily down there. Did he even need to doubt the evidence of his own eyes? Who else would be leaving the house at this time of night? Her cloak was billowing out behind her as she hurried in the direction of the valley path—and her hair too. It was loose down her back.
It seemed strange to him at first that she had chosen to go out alone in the middle of the night when she had been frightened in the forest in the middle of the day. But only at first. He understood soon enough that if Lily had demons to fight, she would not cower away from them but would face them head-on. Besides, her peace and serenity had always been drawn from the outdoors and from the solitude she had seemed able to find even in the midst of a teeming army.
