It was the marquess who opened the carriage door and set down the steps. The duke was out almost before they had been lowered and turned to hand Elizabeth down. The countess came forward to hug her. Everyone was trying to talk at once.
Then someone leaned inside the carriage and reached out a hand toward Lily-and they might as easily have been alone. Everything else faded from sight and sound. He was gazing at her with shining eyes and tightly compressed lips. She was beaming foolishly back at him.
"Lily," he said.
"Yes." And suddenly she knew that all her anxieties had been very foolish indeed. "h.e.l.lo, Neville."
She set her hand in his.
There were a number of guests already at the house even though the birthday party was still one day away. Dinner was a crowded and noisy affair. His mother, Neville was pleased to note, had seated Portfrey at her right hand, Lily at her left. They were far distant from his place at the head of the table. Apart from those moments on the terrace during the afternoon, there had been scarcely a chance to exchange a word with her.
He did not really mind. He was content for the moment to observe, to watch her, to note the changes a few months had wrought in her. He remembered Elizabeth telling him at one time that new knowledge and skills did not change a person but merely added to what was already there. It was true of Lily. She was fashionable and poised and animated. Gone was the terrible sense of inadequacy that had tongue-tied her in genteel company-in female company, at least-when she was last at Newbury Abbey. She talked as much as anyone and more than many. She smiled and laughed.
But she was still Lily. She was Lily as she had been created to be-but free now to find joy in any company and in any surroundings.
He caught snippets of her conversation for the simple reason that she seemed somehow to be the focus of attention with everyone and there was often near silence along the length of the table as everyone leaned forward to hear her-when Joseph asked her how her reading skills were coming along, for example.
"Oh, you would lose a very large wager if you were foolish enough to make one now, I do a.s.sure you," she told him. "I read very well indeed. Do I not, Elizabeth? I can read a whole page in half an hour, I daresay, if there are no distractions and no very long words. And I do not have to say the words aloud or even mouth them silently. What do you think of that, Joseph?" She laughed merrily at her own expense, a sound that was echoed along the table.
"I think I would fall asleep long before you reached the end of the page, Lily," Joseph said, yawning, the fingers of one hand delicately patting his mouth.
She was delightful, Neville thought, trying to take his eyes off her occasionally so that he could keep up a conversation with the relatives who sat closer to him. It was not easy to do.
Oh, yes, she was still Lily, he thought a few minutes later. One of the footmen leaned across the table beside her to remove a dish, and she looked up at him, her face brightening with recognition.
"Mr. Jones!" she exclaimed. "How do you do?"
Poor Jones almost dropped the dish. He blushed scarlet and mumbled something that Neville did not catch.
"Oh, I know," Lily said, instantly contrite. "I do apologize for embarra.s.sing you. I shall come down to the kitchen tomorrow morning if I may and chat with everyone. It seems an age since I saw you all."
His mother, Neville noticed, was smiling at Lily with what looked to be genuine affection.
"If you do not mind, that is, ma"am," Lily said, turning to her. "I forget that I am not at home. I often go down to the kitchen at home, do I not, Father? It is the coziest room in the house, and I can always be sure of finding something useful to do there. Father does not mind."
"And neither do I, child," the countess said, patting her hand on the table.
"One quickly learns, ma"am," the Duke of Portfrey said with a sigh, "that daughters were created for the express purpose of wrapping their fathers about their little fingers."
He looked like a different man, Neville had noticed almost from the moment of his arrival. There was a glow of happiness about him, and he did little if anything to disguise the enormous pride he felt in his daughter.
Later, in the drawing room, Lily made herself charming to everyone, sitting and talking with each of his aunts and with his mother. After the tea tray had been removed and some of the cousins had gone into the music room to entertain themselves with music, she sat for a while with Lauren and talked earnestly to her, holding her hand as she did so. And then Gwen was bending over her, saying something, and they smiled at each other before going into the music room arm in arm.
It must be a difficult evening for Lauren, Neville thought sadly. There had been a certain awkwardness between them since his return from London-she had not after all gone to Yorkshire-for though nothing had been said in their hearing, they both knew that speculation was rife in the neighborhood about his future plans. Did he intend to offer for Lady Lilian Montague, or did he intend to renew his plans to marry Lauren?
He and Lauren both knew the answer. But it had never been put into words between them. How could it be? How could he tell her that he had no intention of renewing his addresses to her without implying that she expected such a thing? And how could she tell him that she understood there could be nothing more between them than friendship without implying that she expected him to marry her?
But as always she behaved with outer poise and dignity. There was no knowing what went on in her mind.
He had loved Lily for a long time. He had not thought it possible back in the spring to love her more. But he did. He had tried to live his old life without brooding constantly about her. He had tried not to be too certain that she would in her own time come back to him.
But one sight of her had banished all pretense from his mind. Without Lily life would have very little meaning for him. She was sunshine and warmth and laughter. She was ... Well, she was simply his love.
He kept his distance from her. He would not rush her even though there was an inevitability to the way this visit was developing. She had come with her father to celebrate a birthday party. He would allow her to enjoy it, then-tomorrow. But after tomorrow ...
All his dreams rested upon what would surely happen after tomorrow. He refused to doubt, to fear.
Lauren and Gwendoline did not go immediately to bed when they returned to the dower house even though the hour was late. They sat together in the sitting room, in which a fire had been lit. It was a smaller, cozier room than the drawing room. They both gazed into the depths of the crackling flames for a while without talking.
"Do you know what she told me?" Lauren said at last.
"What?" Gwendoline asked. There was no need to clarify about whom they were talking.
"She told me that she knows I must resent her," Lauren said. "She told me that she resented me too last spring because I was so perfect, the model of what all ladies should be, so much more suited to being Neville"s countess than she was. She told me that she admires my restraint, my dignity, my unfailing kindness to her despite what my real feelings must be. She asked me to forgive her for ever doubting my motives."
"She is right to have spoken so openly of what is between you," Gwendoline said. "She does speak her mind, does she not?"
"She is-" Lauren closed her eyes. "She is the woman Neville wants. Did you notice the way he looked at her all evening? Did you see his eyes?"
"She told me," Gwendoline said quietly, "that she knew she had hurt me by stepping all unbidden into the midst of my family when I had not finished grieving for Vernon or adjusting to all the upheavals of my life. She asked me to forgive her. She was not being obsequious, Lauren. She meant it. I still wish it were possible to hate her, but it is not, is it? She is so very likable."
Lauren smiled into the fire.
"When I said that," Gwendoline added hastily, "I did not mean-"
"That you do not therefore like me?" Lauren said, looking at her. "No, of course not, Gwen. Why should it mean that? She is not my rival. Neville and I would have married if she had not come, but it is a good thing she did. Ours would not have been a love match."
"Oh, Lauren, of course it would!" Gwendoline cried.
"No." Lauren shook her head. "You must have felt this evening what everyone else was feeling, Gwen. The air fairly crackled with the tension of their pa.s.sion for each other. They were meant for each other. There was never that between Neville and me."
"Perhaps-" Gwendoline began, but Lauren was gazing into the fire again and something in her face silenced her cousin.
"I saw them once, you know," Lauren said, "when I ought not to have done so. They were down at the pool together, early one morning. They were bathing and laughing and entirely happy. The door of the cottage was open-they had spent the night together there. That is what love should be like, Gwen. It is what you had with Lord Muir."
Gwendoline"s hands tightened about the arms of her chair and she drew a sharp breath, but she said nothing.
"It is the sort of love I will never know," Lauren said.
"Of course you will," Gwendoline a.s.sured her. "You are young and lovely and-"
"And incapable of pa.s.sion," Lauren said. "Have you noted the contrast between Lily and me, Gwen? After the-the wedding, I could have left here. I could have gone home with Grandpapa. I daresay he would have done something for me. I could have begun a new life. I stayed here instead, hoping that she would die. And even after I decided later that I would go after all, I changed my mind. I was afraid to go lest I-miss something here. But Lily, who had far less to go to than I and far more to leave behind, went away to make a new life for herself rather than cling to what was not satisfactory for her at the time. I do not have that sort of courage."
"You are tired," Gwendoline said briskly, "and a little dispirited. Everything will look better in the morning."
"But there is one thing I do have the courage to do," Lauren said, getting to her feet. She stretched up with great care to remove a costly porcelain shepherdess from the mantel and held it in her hands, smiling at it. "Oh, yes, indeed I do."
She dashed the ornament onto the hearth, where it smashed into a thousand pieces.
The main celebrations for the countess"s birthday party were to occur during the evening, but with so many house guests at Newbury Abbey, even tea was a crowded, noisy affair. It was a raw, autumn day outside. Everyone was quite happy to be indoors.
Except Elizabeth. Oh, she was delighted to be home again, to see all her relatives again, to join in a family celebration. And she was more than delighted to see that what she had hoped for since the spring was about to happen. Although the occasion was nominally Clara"s birthday, everyone understood quite clearly that there was something far more significant than that afoot. The sort of love that Neville and Lily obviously shared was rare and wonderful to behold.
It gladdened the unselfish part of Elizabeth"s heart.
And saddened the selfish part.
She would no longer be needed, either by Lily or by-or by Lily"s father.
She withdrew quietly from the drawing room sooner than most of the other guests, fetched a warm cloak and bonnet and gloves from her rooms, and stepped outside for a solitary stroll to the rock garden. It looked rather bleak and colorless at this time of the year, she found. She remembered coming here on the day of Lily"s first arrival at Newbury Abbey, the day that was to have seen Neville and Lauren"s nuptials. Lyndon had questioned Lily closely on that occasion, and she, Elizabeth, had chided him, not knowing that even then he had suspected the truth. Such a long time ago ...
"Is company permitted?" a voice asked from behind her. "Or would you prefer to be alone?"
He had come after her. She turned to smile at him. She wished she had the strength to tell him that yes, indeed she did prefer to be alone, but it would have been a lie. She had the rest of a lifetime in which to be alone. There was no point in beginning before it was necessary.
"Lyndon," she said as he walked closer to her, "does it make you just a little sad? You have had so little time with her." She had watched the transformation of her friend since his discovery of Lily with amazement and gladness-and an unwilling chill at her heart.
"That she is going to desert me for Kilbourne?" he said. "Yes, a little. The past few months have been the happiest of my life. Shall we take the rhododendron walk? Or will you be too cold?"
She shook her head. But he did not offer his arm, she noticed, perhaps because she clasped her hands so determinedly behind her. She had never felt awkward with him. She felt awkward now.
"But there is also a certain feeling of satisfaction," he said. "Lily will be happy-if she accepts him. But I feel little doubt that it will happen. Neither does the countess or anyone else here at Newbury for that matter. There is a certain satisfaction, Elizabeth, in the knowledge that finally I will be able to proceed with my own life."
"When you wept at Frances"s grave last summer," she said, "as Lily did too, you were finally able to accept that she had gone, were you not? You must have loved her very dearly."
"Yes, I did," he said. "A long, long time ago. I used to think of remarrying, you know, and fathering a son and bringing him up as my heir. And then I used to imagine discovering Frances"s child and my own-and finding that it was a son. I pictured the enmity and bitterness that would develop between those two brothers-both children of my own loins but only one of them able to be my heir."
There was more beauty on the hill path than there had been in the garden. The leaves were multicolored above their heads and beneath their feet. The year was not yet quite dead.
"It is not too late, Lyndon," she forced herself to say, her heart cold and heavy, in tune with the chill breeze that blew in their faces. "To father a son and heir, I mean. You are not so very old, after all. And you are extremely eligible. If you were to marry a young woman, you might yet have several more children. You might have a family to comfort you for Lily"s absence."
"It is what you would advise then, my friend?" he asked her.
"Yes," she said, hoping that her voice was as cool and as firm as she intended it to be.
She had always loved the way the path had been constructed to bring one above the level of the treetops at its highest point so that one suddenly had a vast view over the abbey and the park to the sea in the distance. She concentrated her mind on the beauty of her surroundings while the silence stretched between them. They had stopped walking, she realized.
"Do you consider yourself young, Elizabeth?" he asked her at last.
Something lurched inside her. She gazed ahead to the leaden gray sea, refusing to pay attention to the fact that he was unclasping her hands from her back and taking one of them in his own.
"Not young enough," she said. "I am not young enough, Lyndon. I am six-and-thirty. I have remained single from choice, you know. I have always chosen not to marry where I cannot love. But now I am too old."
"Do you love me?" he asked her.
He was not himself looking at the view, which seemed absurd in light of the fact that they had walked all this way in order to do so. He was turned toward her and looking at her. It was not a fair question that he had asked. Her heart pounded so hard that it threatened to rob her of breath.
"As a very dear friend," she told him.
"Ah," he said softly. "That is a pity, Elizabeth. I might have said the same of my feelings for you until a few months ago. But no longer. There is little point in broaching the subject of marriage with you, then? You do not love me as you would wish to love a husband?"
"Lyndon," she whispered, "it is too late for me to bear you a son."
"Is it?" he asked her, lifting her hand to his lips and holding it there after pulling back her glove. "But you are only six-and-thirty, my dear."
He was laughing. Oh, not out loud, but there was laughter in his voice, wretched man. She tried to draw her hand away, but his own closed more tightly about it.
"Lyndon," she pleaded, "be sensible. You owe me nothing. You owe much to your name and your position."
"I owe something to myself," he told her. "I owe it to myself to marry where I love, Elizabeth. I love you. Will you marry me?"
"Oh," she said-and could think of nothing else to say for several moments while he turned her hand and found her bare wrist with his lips. "You will regret this in a few days" time after everything is settled with Lily and you realize you will soon be free to do whatever you wish with your life. You will be relieved that I have said no."
"Are you saying no, then, my dear?" He sounded suddenly sad, the laughter all gone from his voice. "Will you look at me now and tell me that it is because you do not love me and choose rather to live the rest of your life alone than with me? Into my eyes, if you please."
She turned her head and looked at his chin-and then into his very blue eyes. Ah, could such a look be intended for her? The sort of look with which Neville regarded Lily and which she had so envied? But the Duke of Portfrey was looking unwaveringly into her eyes.
"Promise me you will never regret it." Hope and terror all mingled together were doing painful and peculiar things to her insides. "Promise me you will not be sorry in a year"s time or two years" time if there are no children. Promise me-"
He kissed her hard.
"I have never known you to babble nonsense before today, Elizabeth," he said well over a minute later.
"Lyndon." She blinked her eyes to clear her vision. Somehow her hands had found their way to his shoulders. "Oh, Lyndon, are you quite, quite s-"
He kissed her again, open-mouthed this time, and pressed his tongue past her startled lips and teeth right into her mouth. It was such a shockingly intimate embrace that she lost both her breath and her knees and was forced to lock her arms about his neck and cling for dear life. And then she kissed him back, touching his tongue with her own, sucking on it, listening with exhultation to the soft murmurs of appreciation with which he responded.
He was smiling when he lifted his head again. "I do beg your pardon," he said. "I interrupted you. What were you saying?"
"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-very provocative. 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, "now we come to the real point of all this. Now we come to the truth of why you are going to such pains to persuade me-"
He kissed her long and hard.