CHAPTER7
After just a full day at Pembrooke Hills, Lily had never felt more anxious to have additional guests arrive to a gathering. Not only would they provide a much-needed buffer between herself and Lockhart, but she knew she’d feel her own status less keenly with more people around. At present, she was the only attendee beyond her stepmother who was not attached. That meant she had to stand beside Prudence far too often as the couples paired off.
Even now, as the pre-supper drinks drained away and the butler came in to announce the meal was ready, Prudence stepped to Lily’s side to await their time to enter the dining room together.
“That is a very pretty dress, Prudence,” Lily said, attempting the kindness she always did when it came to the viscountess.
Prudence sniffed and her voice was strained as she said, “Thank you. You know, I see what you are doing.”
Lily turned toward her slightly. “Doing?” she repeated, her heart beginning to throb a little faster. The last person she wanted to know the truth was Prudence. If somehow she had guessed?—
“You are making yourself the center of the party,” Prudence clarified with a little glare. “Acting as thoughyouare the one more attached to Alice, whenIam her mother.”
Lily sighed. Over the years, she and Prudence had often exchanged words about this very topic. Her stepmother refused to acknowledge that she had not very much interest in Alice until she could start making arrangements for her good marriage. And that Lily had taken up the role of mother even though for many years she was just a child herself. When she was reminded of that fact? Well, punishment often followed, even when Lily no longer lived within her stepmother’s walls.
The latest version of that had been keeping Alice from her. When she’d been cut off from sister in the last six months, hearing of her life and her engagement only through letters, it had been like having a part of her heart torn away.
“We are all here to celebrate my sister and help her prepare for what I hope will be a very happy future,” Lily said, meeting Prudence’s eyes evenly. “Thatis all I care about.”
Prudence drew a breath as if she was going to continue speaking, but the group was moving and it had become time for them to join in it. They fell into step and Lily could feel her stepmother seething, though she said nothing else and merely flounced off to her place at the table when they reached the dining room. She didn’t even say a farewell.
Lily was pleased that she wouldn’t be near her that night, but as she reached the seat the footman had indicated to her, those happy feelings faded, for standing next to her chair, holding it out for her, was Lockhart.
He smiled at her and her heart thudded despite all attempts to be unmoved by him. “Good evening, Mrs. Manning. I am so glad we’re seated next to each other.”
The tenor of his voice made its way down her spine and she couldn’t breathe as memories threatened to mob her yet again. She shut her eyes, willing his husky moans of a very different kind of pleasure to leave her mind.
“Mrs. Manning?” he repeated, and there was concern in that voice now.
She opened her eyes and gasped out, “Are you? Why?”
His slight recoil at her sharpness was exactly what she didn’t want. It would only draw his attention to her all the more. Oh, why couldn’t she control herself when she was around him? Why did she keep making all her tangled thoughts more obvious, not less?
She straightened her spine, smoothed her skirt and took the seat he was still waiting for her to fill. He took his own beside her and turned slightly to continue their conversation. “Because I wish to get to know you better. I’m to marry your sister, after all, and you obviously mean a great deal to her.”
Lily looked down the table toward where Alice was seated near Lord and Lady Pembrooke, talking to them softly, a warm smile on her pretty face.
She sighed. “As she does to me.”
When she dared to look back at Lockhart, he was examining her face. She dropped her gaze, hoping he wouldn’t see anything he recognized. At least at present she was the only one carrying this horrible secret. If he realized the truth, she might expire on the spot.
“I must say, I’m surprised we never crossed paths before now. Alice tells me we are of an age,” he said as the first course was laid out before them.
She almost laughed, though there was no pleasure to be had at that observation. Whatwouldhe say if he knew exactly how and where their pathshadcrossed? Or would he think nothing of it? Was his reputation as a rake so true that he would care little for what they’d done? For how it might affect Alice?
Before she’d known who he was, how they knew each other, she had already worried about his man. Whatever else had transpired a few days ago in London, did she not still owe it to Alice to ask questions and make observations about him, his intentions and his ability to feel? After all, she knew the consequences of an arranged marriage when it went wrong.
She cleared her throat after she took a few bites of food that she didn’t even taste. “Well, my lord, I was married, of course. And I moved in the circles of my husband. Thomas was much older.”
His brows lifted in what appeared to be surprise. “Thomas Manning?”
She nodded.
“I hadn’t made the connection.” He seemed briefly troubled by that, but then he seemed to shake that reaction off. “Yes, he was a distant friend of my father’s from his youth rather than my own. Their fathers were friends, I think.”
She thought of Viscount Manning, her late husband’s father. A nasty man who had died almost immediately upon her marriage. His elder son had taken the title and Thomas had been locked out of whatever he hoped to receive from the estate beyond a living. But that had never been enough and it had only made him more bitter and cold, especially as she failed to produce heirs he might use to his advantage.
She shrugged, willing herself to push those memories aside and he continued, “It makes sense then, that we would move in different circles.”
