“I will not prolong this visit,” he told her. “I will take my leave, Lily. Make my excuses to Elizabeth?”
She nodded.
They clung to each other’s hands for a few moments longer. But she was correct. It was not the right time. If she came back to him—whenshe came back to him—there must be no other need in her except to be with him for the rest of their lives.
He withdrew his hands gently, keeping the smile in his eyes, and left her without another word.
He was halfway back to Kilbourne House, striding unseeing along the streets, before he remembered that he had driven his curricle to Elizabeth’s.
PART V
A Wedding
25
Lily gazed eagerly from the carriage window, not even trying to appear properly genteel. The village of Upper Newbury looked so very familiar. There was the inn, where she had descended from the stagecoach, and the steep lane leading down to the lower village. And there—
“Oh,maythe carriage be stopped?” she asked.
The Duke of Portfrey, from his seat opposite, rapped on the front panel, and the carriage drew to an abrupt halt. Lily had the window down in a trice despite the coolness of the day and leaned her head through it.
“Mrs. Fundy,” she called. “How are you? And how are the children? Oh, the babyhasgrown.”
While the duke and Elizabeth exchanged glances of silent amusement, Mrs. Fundy, who had been gawking at the grand carriage with its ducal crest, smiled broadly, looked suddenly flustered, and bobbed a curtsy.
“We are all very well, thank you, my lady,” she said. “It is good to see you back again.”
“Oh, and it is good tobeback again,” Lily said. “I shall call on you one day if I may.”
She beamed at Mrs. Fundy while the carriage lurched into motion again. She was not coming home, she reminded herself. Newbury Abbey was not home. Oh, but shefeltas if it were. She had come to love Rutland Park, as her father had predicted she would. She had come to love him too, as she had been determined to do, though it had not proved difficult at all. She had even enjoyed their extended visit to Nuttall Grange, where she had won the affection of her bedridden grandpapa and of her two aunts who were not really aunts at all—Bessie Doyle and her mama’s sister. She had even come to feel happy and settled and at peace with herself and the world. She had not once, since leaving London, dreamed the nightmare.
But Newbury Abbey, though she had not seen either the park or the house yet, felt like home.
“Oh, look!” she exclaimed in awe after the carriage had turned through the gates and was proceeding along the driveway through the forest. The trees were all glorious shades of reds and yellows and browns. A few of the leaves had fallen already and lay in a colorful carpet along the drive. “Have you ever seen anything more splendid than England in autumn, Father? Have you, Elizabeth?”
“No,” her father said.
“Only England in the springtime,” Elizabeth said. “And that is notmoresplendid, I declare, onlyassplendid.”
It had been springtime when Lily had come here first. It was autumn now—October. How much had happened in the months between, Lily thought. She could remember trudging along this driveway at night, her bag clutched in her hand…
She had written to him at the beginning of September, as he had asked her to do. She had asked Elizabeth if it was unexceptionable to do so—for her to write to a single gentleman. Elizabeth had answered, with a twinkle in her eye, that it was really not the thing at all. But Father, who had also been present at the time, had reminded them all that she was Lily and was quite adept at stretching every rule almost to the breaking point without ever doing anything shockingly improper—that was her chief charm, he had added with the smiling indulgence that had surprised her about him at first. And so she had written—with laborious care and round, childish handwriting. She was working on her penmanship but it was going to take time.
She was happy with her father, she had written. She was happy with Elizabeth’s company. She had been to Nuttall Grange and met her grandfather. She had put flowers on her mother’s grave. She hoped Lady Kilbourne was well and Lauren and Gwendoline too. She hoped he was well. She was his obedient servant.
He had written back to invite her and her father to come as guests to Newbury Abbey for the celebration of his mother’s fiftieth birthday in October. Elizabeth had already made arrangements to attend.
And so here they were. They were merely guests. But it felt like a homecoming. And Lily, looking suddenly with shining eyes at her father as the house came into view, saw that he understood and was a little saddened, though he smiled at her.
“Father.” She leaned forward impulsively and took his hand. “Thank you for agreeing that we might come. I do love you so.”
He patted her hand with his free one. “Lily,” he said, “you are one-and-twenty, my dear. Shockingly old to be still at home with your father. I do not expect to have you all to myself for much longer.”
But that was far too explicit a thing to say. She sat back, her smile fading a little. She would take nothing for granted. Several months had passed. A great deal had changed in her life and might have changed in his also. He had invited them out of courtesy. Doubtless there were to be many other guests too. She would not set great store by the fact that he had invitedher.
If she told herself those foolish things often enough, perhaps she would come to believe them in the end.
Their carriage had been spotted. The great double doors opened as it approached, and people spilled out of the house—Gwendoline, Joseph, the countess, and…him.
