“I have the feeling,” she said severely, “that you will not allow me to complete any sentence you do not wish to hear.”
“You learn fast,” he said, rubbing his nose against hers and then trailing soft kisses across one cheek to her ear before nibbling on her earlobe and startling a cry of pure pleasure from her. “But then you are an intelligent woman. You must understand now how I intend to enforce wifely obedience.”
“I never realized how absurd you can be,” she said. “Or how unscrupulous. Lyndon?”
“Mmm?” He feathered kisses along her jaw toward her chin.
“I do love you, you know,” she said, closing her eyes. “As a dear friend and so very much more than just that. If I marry you, I will try my very hardest to give you a son.”
He threw back his head and laughed aloud before hugging her very tightly to him. “Will you indeed?” he said. “Those are provocative words, my dear—veryprovocative. I will test your resolve on our wedding night, I promise you, and every night following it. Perhaps on the occasional morning or afternoon too. When, Elizabeth? Soon? Sooner? By special license? I have no patience with banns, have you? I am forty-two years old. You are six-and-thirty. I want us to spend every day, every moment, of the rest of our lives together.”
“We are not so very old,” she protested.
“Certainly not too old,” he agreed, kissing her on the lips again. He grinned. “Let us see what those children decide to do during the next day or two, shall we? I shall certainly insist upon a proper wedding at Rutland for my beloved Lily—nowhere else will do. But I would dearly like her to have a stepmother to help me organize it.”
“Ah,” she cried,“nowwe come to the real point of all this.Nowwe come to the truth of why you are going to such pains to persuade me—”
He kissed her long and hard.
26
Newbury Abbey, Lily had discovered, looked much the same and yet so very different. She had been oppressed by it, dwarfed by it, overwhelmed by it when she had last been here. Now she could admire its magnificence and love the light elegance of its design. Now it felt like home. Because it washishome, and surely would be hers too.
During the day and a half since her arrival she had talked with everyone and enjoyed everyone’s company—including that of the kitchen staff with whom she had taken coffee at midmorning while she peeled potatoes. She had been in Neville’s company too, though she had not been alone with him even once. The most private they had been was that minute—no, not even so long—when he had leaned into her father’s carriage.
It did not matter. There was a way of being alone with someone even in the midst of crowds. She had grown up surrounded by a regiment of soldiers and its women and children and had learned that lesson early.
They conversed with each other—in company with others. They looked at each other and smiled at each other—in full view of everyone else. But all the time there was really just the two of them, and the shared understanding that at last the time was right. That at last she was home to stay. For the rest of their lives. Lily was sure she was not wrong.
It had not yet been spoken in words, for although the time was right, the exact, perfect moment had not yet arrived. And they would not rush it—it was as if they had a tacit agreement on that. They had waited a long time; they had endured a great deal. The moment of their final commitment would reveal itself. They would not try to force it.
The carpet in the drawing room was rolled back during the evening so that there could be dancing for the countess’s birthday party. Lady Wollston, Neville’s Aunt Mary, took her place at the pianoforte. Neville danced with his mother and then with Gwendoline, who liked to dance despite her injured leg. He danced with Elizabeth and Miranda.
And of course he danced with Lily—the last dance of the evening, a waltz.
“I am selfish, you see, Lily,” he told her with a smile. “If it were a country set, I would have to relinquish you to other partners with every new pattern of the dance. With a waltz, I have you all to myself.”
Lily laughed. She had danced with her father, with Joseph, with Ralph, with Hal. She had thoroughly enjoyed the evening. But only because she had known that finally, at last, she would dance with Neville.
“I knew it would be a waltz,” she told him.
“Lily.” He leaned his head a little closer. “You are a single woman, daughter of a duke, bound by all the proprieties that apply to a lady of thebeau monde.”
Lily’s eyes danced with merriment.
“I have already spoken with Portfrey and have won his consent,” he said. “I could speak with you formally in the library tomorrow. Your father or Elizabeth would bring you there and then tactfully leave us alone together for fifteen minutes. No longer than fifteen—it would be improper.”
“Or?” Lily laughed again. “I hear an alternative in your voice and see it in your face. If the prospect of fifteen minutes alone in the library makes you wince, as it does me, what then?”
He grinned at her. “Portfrey would challenge me to pistols at dawn for even thinking it,” he said.
“Neville.” She leaned a little closer. Their proximity would have scandalized thebeau mondeat atonball. But they were among family, who watched them with affectionate indulgence while pretending not to watch at all. “What is the alternative to the library? Oh. ShallIsay it? You mean the valley, don’t you? And the waterfall and pool. The cottage.”
He nodded and smiled slowly.
“Tomorrow morning?” she asked. “No, that would not provoke a challenge from any irate father. You mean tonight, don’t you?”
His smile lingered, as did her own. But they were gazing deep into each other’s eyes, performing the steps of the waltz almost without realizing that they still danced. And Lily, feeling a tightening in her breasts and a weakening in her knees, knew that the moment had found itself. The perfect moment. He spoke again only when the music came to an end.
