Lillian had not known what to expect when she arrived at Wynthorpe Hall that morning.
She had dressed with care—not the elaborate care of a woman trying to impress, but the thoughtful care of a woman who wanted to look her best for someone who mattered. She had chosen the blue muslin that Daniel had seemed to notice, she had asked her maid to arrange her hair simply but becomingly and she had added the small pearl earrings that had been her grandmother's.
She had felt hopeful. Nervous, indeed, terribly nervous, but hopeful. Yesterday had changed everything. Yesterday, the man she had come to love against all expectation and all reason had told her he loved her back. He had held her in his arms and kissed her as though she were the answer to every question he had ever asked.
Today, she had thought, they would begin to discover what that meant.
Instead, she had been turned away at the door.
"His Grace is occupied with urgent estate business," the butler had informed her, his expression carefully neutral. "He regrets that he cannot see you today."
Lillian had stared at him, unable to process the words. "Occupied? But I…...We had spoken of…...I had thought..."
"I am sorry, Miss Whitcombe. His Grace was quite clear in his instructions."
Quite clear. Yes. That was Daniel all over, was it not? Quite clear. Quite precise. Quite absolutely certain about what he wanted and what he did not want.
And apparently, what he did not want was her.
Lillian had stood in the entrance hall for several long moments, trying to understand. Yesterday, he had said he loved her. Yesterday, he had promised to face whatever came together. Yesterday, he had kissed her with a desperation that had made her knees weak and her heart soar.
Today, he would not even see her.
What had changed? What could possibly have changed in the space of a single night to transform the man who had held her so tenderly into the duke who refused to emerge from his study?
She had asked to see Rosanne, hoping for some explanation, but the butler had informed her that Lady Rosanne was indisposed. Whether that was true or whether Daniel had simply forbidden his sister from receiving visitors, Lillian could not say.
So she had left. She had walked out the front door of Wynthorpe Hall, climbed into the gig, and allowed herself to be driven back to Hartfield in a fog of confusion and hurt.
She did not cry. She was not a woman given to tears, and besides, she was not certain she had the right to cry. Perhaps she had misunderstood everything. Perhaps what she had interpreted as love had been something else entirely; a momentary weakness, a fleeting attraction, a lapse of judgment that Daniel had recognized and corrected.
Perhaps she had been a fool to believe that a duke could truly love her.
The thought was bitter, but Lillian forced herself to consider it. She was a practical woman. She had always been a practical woman. She had learned early that the world did not arrange itself according to one's hopes, and that the wisest course was to accept reality as it was rather than as one wished it to be.
The reality was that Daniel had declared his love for her yesterday and refused to see her today. The reality was that something had changed in the intervening hours; something significant enough to override the passion and tenderness she had witnessed in his study.
The reality was that she did not know what that something was, and she had no way of finding out if he would not speak to her.
When she arrived at Hartfield, her mother was waiting in the entrance hall, her expression anxious.
"Lillian! You are back so soon. I thought you would spend the morning at Wynthorpe..." She broke off, taking in her daughter's pale face and rigid posture. "What has happened?"
"Nothing." The word came out flat, empty. "His Grace was occupied. I was unable to see him."
"Unable to see him? But yesterday..."
"I know what happened yesterday, Mother." Lillian's voice was sharper than she intended, and she saw her mother flinch. She forced herself to moderate her tone. "I apologise. I am merely tired. The events of the past several days have been exhausting."
"Of course. Your father's accident, and the strain of nursing him..."
"Yes. Precisely." Lillian latched onto the excuse gratefully. "If you will excuse me, I think I shall lie down for a while."
She escaped to her room before her mother could ask any more questions, closing the door behind her and leaning against it with her eyes shut.
She would not cry. She wouldnotcry.
But when she opened her eyes and saw the small gold earrings she had chosen so carefully that morning, the earrings she had worn because she wanted to look pretty for him, the tears came anyway.
