But she played on. And finally she succeeded in playing, not only without interruption, but with what she considered more competence than ever before. She lowered her hands to her lap when she was finished and waited for the verdict.
“Wonderful!” he exclaimed.
Her head whipped back over her shoulder. He was standing in the open doorway of the drawing room with Elizabeth, looking both astonished and pleased.
“This is what you have been doing with your time, Lily?” he asked.
She got to her feet and curtsied to him. If there had been a deep black hole at her feet, she would gladly have jumped into it. She had been caught practicing an exercise that a five-year-old would surely be able to play with twice the competence. She glanced reproachfully at Elizabeth.
“I believe, Mr. Stanwick,” Elizabeth said to the music teacher, “Miss Doyle will agree to release you early today. Lily?”
Lily nodded. “Yes,” she said. “Thank you, Mr. Stanwick.”
Elizabeth went, quite unnecessarily, to see him on his way, and did not come back immediately.
“That sounded very pretty,” Neville said.
“It was a very elementary exercise,” she said, “which I played indifferently well, my lord.”
“Yes,” he agreed gravely, “it was and you did.”
And so he had taken argument away from her as a weapon. She felt indignant then. Had he paid her a compliment only to withdraw it?
“And all within one month,” he continued. “It is an extraordinary achievement, Lily. And you have learned how to mingle with high society with grace and ease—as well as how to dance. What else have you been doing?”
“I have been learning to read and write,” she said, lifting her chin. “I can do neither even indifferently well—yet.”
He smiled at her. “I remember your saying—it was at the cottage,” he said, “that you thought it must be the most wonderful feeling in the world to be able to read and write. I missed my cue then. It was no idle dream, was it? I thought all you needed was freedom and the soothing balm of wild nature.”
She half turned from him and sat down on the edge of the pianoforte bench. She did not want to be reminded of the cottage. Those memories were her greatest weakness.
“How is Lauren?” she asked—had she asked him that last night?
“Well,” he said.
She was examining the backs of her hands. “Are you—is there to be a summer wedding?” she asked without ever intending to.
“Between Lauren and me?” he said. “No, Lily.”
She had not realized how much she had feared it until she heard his answer, though of course he had not said there would not be an autumn wedding or a winter one or…
“Why not?” she asked him.
“Because I am already married,” he said quietly.
Lily felt as if her insides had somersaulted. But it was exactly the way he had talked at Newbury. Nothing had changed. If he were to ask her again what he had asked there, her answer would be the same. It could not change.
“I have brought you the gift I mentioned last evening,” he said, walking a little closer to her. Glancing at him she could see that he carried a package. He held it out to her.
He had said it was nothing personal. If it were, she must refuse it. He had bought her clothes and shoes when she was at Newbury Abbey, and she had kept them. But that was different. She had thought herself to be his legal wife at that time. Now she was a single woman in company with a single gentleman and could not accept gifts from him. But she lifted one arm and took the package.
She knew what it was as soon as she opened the wrapping, even though it was faded and misshapen and unnaturally clean. But she asked the question anyway as she set her hand flat on top of it.
“Papa’s?” she whispered.
“Yes,” he said. “I am afraid the contents are all gone, Lily. This is all I could retrieve for you. But I thought you would wish to have it anyway.”
“Yes.” There was a painful aching in her throat. “Yes. Thank you. Oh, thank you.” She watched a dark wet spot spreading on the pack and blotted it with one finger. “Thank you.” She stumbled to her feet and had her arms about his neck and her face among the folds of his cravat before she realized what she was doing. His arms came firmly about her. She clutched the pack tightly in one hand and felt the link of security there had been during those years in the Peninsula—her father, Major Lord Newbury, and herself. They had not been carefree years—war could never be anything but horrifying—but nostalgia washed over her nonetheless. She had her eyes tightly shut almost as if she were willing herself to be back there in that life when she opened them.
