She drank her tea. She smiled at the guests who approached her. She said the right things in the right tone with the right posture and the right amount of warmth, and none of them could have guessed that every nerve in her body was still vibrating from a sentence a man had whispered to her and walked away from as if it had cost him nothing.
She excused herself early and climbed the stairs to her room with her composure intact and her hands shaking inside her gloves.
The following morning, Lily found Aunt Margaret in the gallery.
“This one looks constipated,” Margaret observed, gesturing toward a portrait of a man in an Elizabethan ruff and doublet. “And this one appears to have been painted mid-sneeze. The Beaumont family has a remarkable talent for choosing unflattering moments to sit for portraits.”
“Aunt Margaret, that is the second Duke of Thornwaite.”
“Then the second Duke of Thornwaite should have hired a better artist.” Margaret moved to the next painting; her opera glasses raised despite being indoors, and examined a landscape of the estate with her critical eye.
They walked through the gallery in companionable silence. The morning light streamed through the tall windows, and the house was quiet, most of the guests still at breakfast or preparing for the day’s activities.
Hugo had organized a group ride for the gentlemen and a garden tour for the ladies.
“You did well last night,” Aunt Margaret said. She did not turn from the landscape. “Lord Wilfrey was attentive.”
“He was.”
“And the Duke was watching you the entire time.”
Lily’s step faltered. “He was being a good host. Ensuring his guests were comfortable.”
Margaret lowered the glasses and turned to her niece. In the morning light, the lines around her eyes were deeper, and something grave had settled into her features. Margaret had weathered enough storms to recognize one gathering.
“Lily, I adore you. You know this. I took you across Europe not only because your parents were struggling financially, but because I also believed that a young woman who had seen the world would be better equipped to navigate it. And you have navigated it beautifully. You have managed this engagement, this scandal, this impossible situation with more grace and intelligence than most women twice your age could muster.”
“But?”
“But you are standing in a man’s house, wearing a gown he selected for you, performing a role he designed for you, and looking at him across a dinner table as though he holds the answer to a question you have not yet allowed yourself to ask.” Margaret’s voice was gentle. “That is not control, darling. That is the moment before control slips through your fingers.”
Lily opened her mouth to argue. The words that formed were the same words she had been repeating to herself for weeks.
It is an arrangement. He is helping me secure Wilfrey. I do not have feelings for the Duke. I am in control.
She closed her mouth.
Margaret watched her with the steady, loving patience of a woman who had no intention of sayingI told you so,but who had already written the speech in her head.
“Everything is under control, Aunt Margaret.”
“My darling girl.” Margaret tucked Lily’s arm through hers and guided her toward the next painting. “In my experience, when a woman tells herself that everything is under control, it means the thing she is trying to control has already won. She simply has not admitted it yet.”
With that, Lily wondered when, exactly, control had slipped through her fingers, and whether she had ever held it in the first place.
CHAPTER 17
“The soil composition along the eastern border is remarkable.” Lord Wilfrey stood at the window of the breakfast room, gazing out at the grounds of Thornwaite Hall.
He held a cup of tea in one hand and a small leather notebook in the other, and Hugo suspected he had been awake since dawn, cataloging.
“Is it?” Hugo poured himself coffee and settled into the chair beside Edward, who was reading the morning post with the focused efficiency of a man who had learned to process correspondence between bites of toast.
“Exceptionally. The clay content suggests a glacial deposit, which would account for the unusual drainage patterns I observed near the lake. You have a natural watershed on your property, Thornwaite. It is quite extraordinary.”
“I shall alert the watershed immediately. I am sure it will be flattered.”
Wilfrey blinked. The sarcasm sailed past him with the graceful indifference of a bird clearing a hedge. He returned to his notebook and scribbled something with the intensity of a man recording a discovery of national importance.
