Her Secret Fantasy (43 page)

The champagne flowed while the wedding feast was served. The cake awaited, a wonder to behold with its white tiers, its sprinkling of edible silver glitter, and its gardenlike profusion of pink and purple rosettes. Lily could not stop staring at it.

“I think it’s too pretty to eat,” she declared as Mrs. Clearwell joined her.

“Where is your husband? Oh, the sound of it! Your husband! You cannot know what a triumph this day is for me, my dear, you simply cannot know.” Mrs. Clearwell took a large gulp of champagne.

Lily wondered how many flutes of it she had already swallowed. She spotted Derek charming everyone, as he was wont to do. He was talking to Lord and Lady Balfour, being an attentive host, and, she realized, going out of his way to make the outsiders feel welcome. Darling man, she thought as she beckoned him over.

“What is it?” he asked, joining her with a kiss on the cheek.

Lily gestured to her chaperone. “Mrs. Clearwell has something to say to us.”

“I must give you my final words of advice, my dear young people!” Mrs. Clearwell whispered loudly.

“Yes?” Lily asked, waiting, all ears.

“We shall be happy to have them,” Derek replied a bit more skeptically, putting his hand on Mrs. Clearwell’s back to steady her. “Are you feeling quite all right, my dear?”

“I may be slightly tipsy,” she admitted. “But I have cause to celebrate. Besides, I’m off duty, aren’t I? My chaperoning work is through.” She sobbed loudly into her handkerchief. “Oh, I’m just so happy.”

“You were a wonderful chaperone,” Lily said, patting her arm.

“You were a wonderful charge.” She blew her nose and pulled herself together. “Now, then, listen well, for my advice is true.” She gathered both of them closer. “Follow your heart—trust it, my children! It knows more than your head ever will. It led you to each other. Trust
yourselves.
It is the only way you then can trust each other. There will be bad times, to be sure—there always are. But never give up. And whatever happens, never let each other go.”

“We won’t,” Derek assured her softly, but Lily just hugged her, too choked up to say a word.

A short while later, Gabriel came over and asked for a word with Derek.

“You made a beautiful toast,” Lily said to her new brother-in-law, who smiled modestly.

“I’ll return your husband in a moment, Mrs. Knight.”

She beamed at her new title.

Derek followed his brother toward one of the balconied windows. “What is it?” He furrowed his brow. “You’re not going to subject me to more marital advice, are you? I’ve been getting it all day—”

“No,” Gabriel said with a wry laugh. “Actually, I have a favor to ask of you.”

“Oh, you’re a fine one,” he exclaimed. “Asking me for favors on my wedding day? I suppose that means I can’t refuse.”

“Exactly.”

“What can I do for you?”

Gabriel paused, his stare intensifying. “I want you to take over the role of Father’s main heir.”

“What?”

“I don’t want to do it,” he said. “I don’t want the burden.”

Derek stared at him in shock. In all his life, he had never heard of his ultra-responsible elder brother shirking his duties. “But, Gabriel, you’re the firstborn.”

“So? It’s not like there’s a title to consider. Father can leave his fortune to either of us. I’ve spoken to him and he’s agreed to my plans. I had Charles Beecham draw up the papers. All you have to do is sign—and then, congratulations. You can be the firstborn, so to speak. I hope it pleases Lily. And her mother,” he added ruefully.

“Gabriel, why are you doing this?” Derek asked in deepening worry. “This is your birthright. I can’t possibly take it away from you. Have you lost your wits?”

“No, of course not. I’ve never been saner in my life. Will you do it or not?”

“Well, I will do whatever you ask of me, but—” His words broke off, for he was thoroughly stymied.

Obviously, this would change his situation, his future prospects. He would draw a larger income from the family’s holdings, one that could support a wife and children much more lavishly. As the designated heir to a nabob as rich as Lord Arthur Knight, all the merchants in England would give him virtually unlimited credit. He could live as he liked, and he knew how to manage the finances every bit as well as Gabriel did.

But he couldn’t help frowning. “Is this your way of trying to rescue your little brother once again?”

“No. Well, maybe in part.”

“Gabriel—”

“Derek, I want you to do this for me. You don’t understand. I have more pressing matters to attend to. I can’t be burdened with all of these material concerns.”

“What’s going on?”

He waited for some other guests to pass by to avoid being overheard and then leaned closer and lowered his voice. “You were there when I was struck by the arrow. You saw what happened to me.” Gabriel stared at him with feverish urgency.

“Yes.”

“Death came for me,” he said barely audibly, “but I slipped through his fingers. There has to be a reason why. There is something I’m supposed to do. I can feel it. But I don’t know what it is yet. I have to find it. I have to be ready. There is some new fate in store for me, and when the time comes, when it reveals itself, I will have to be ready to go. I cannot have these worldly impediments weighing me down.”

“Go where? I don’t understand.”

Gabriel’s stare intensified. “Into the light.”

“Oh, God—”

“Derek, my death was only postponed—”

“Don’t talk like that! Your end will not come about for another forty years!”

“Maybe, maybe not. All I know is that next time, I intend to be ready.”

“What do you mean?” he asked uneasily.

“Derek. This is what I didn’t want to tell you when you were still hell-bent on being a soldier. When I died—”

“Gabriel.”

“When I died,” he repeated insistently, “I caught a glimpse of the place where I was going. And let’s just say it wasn’t pretty.”

Derek’s eyes widened.

Gabriel leaned closer. “I was shown all the death that I had dealt out in the field of battle, all the agony I had caused my fellow man, the blood I spilled. I have renounced it. All of it.”

Derek swallowed hard, wondering if Gabriel’s vision could be real.

“My mind is made up. I have put down my sword. I will not fight again, and I have no use for these worldly possessions. You have married. I will not.”

“You’re giving up women, too?” he exclaimed.

“My fate is coming, Derek.” His brother grasped both of his shoulders and stared fiercely into his eyes. “If
you
don’t understand this, no one will. Somehow I have to clear the slate. I’ve been given a second chance to make up for all the blood I’ve spilled, and when my destiny presents itself, I must not hesitate. You must take care of Father and Georgie and the others. Promise me.”

Derek eyed him warily. “You can count on me, but—are you sure about this?”

“Dead sure.”

“Very well, then. I will do as you ask.”

Gabriel smiled guardedly and gave him a nod of thanks. Relief flickered in the depths of his dark blue eyes. He walked away abruptly, and as Derek watched him vanish into the crowd of guests, he could only wonder uneasily if his idolized brother was a little mad after his ordeal—or all too sane.

Lily had hoped that the picture-perfect weather on the day she brought her husband home would have shown off Balfour Manor in the most favorable light. But as they got out of the carriage, the brilliant sunshine had the opposite effect, illuminating every flaw and bringing its decrepit truth to light.

Her heart sank a bit as she gazed at her home after having been away long enough to view it with fresh eyes.

It was a sad and gloomy place.

She looked askance at Derek, cringing to see what his reaction might be. He studied it with a trace of worry in the quirked set of his lips. She’d be worried, too, if she were in his shoes. As the new man of the house, all her family’s headaches rested on his broad shoulders now.

“It actually looks better in the fog,” she said.

“Hm.”

“What do you think?”

He turned to her with a smile of slightly forced enthusiasm. “Picturesque.”

“Well, it’s not exactly the Pulteney Hotel.”

He quivered. “God, don’t mention that place. You’ll get me started,” he murmured.

She laughed wickedly as he put his arm around her shoulders. When he ducked his head to whisper a low growl into her ear, Lily would have blushed if she were still able to, but she had lost that ability sometime during their honeymoon.

Ah yes, she still recalled every detail of the glittering suite that Derek had reserved for their three-night stay at London’s most exclusive grand hotel.

If it were not for the fine room service, they’d have surely starved, for they had barely left the bed.

On the fourth morning, she had emerged from their hotel room a vastly more experienced lover, having had her introduction to the Tantric arts. Breath and energy, chakras and complicated positions inspired by yoga. In short, the erotic mysteries of the East were not all that mysterious anymore.

Although Lily had relished her husband’s masterful control, she was well aware that he had learned these delectable skills for the same reason he had once believed that he must attain fortune and glory in order to win his chosen lady’s love. But his chosen lady loved him well before she had ever heard of the Kama Sutra, and so all his study might as well have been in vain—except that it was an extremely pleasant way to spend a night.

Beside her, Derek took a deep breath and braced himself, still staring at the house as though it were a Hindu fortress he had been ordered to storm and conquer. He gave Lily a brave squeeze around her shoulders. “Let’s go.”

Derek refused to flinch when he saw the house.

He told himself it wasn’t half as bad as he had expected.

It was worse.

He met the staff, who came outside to greet them: a lovelorn footman who seemed to worship Lady Clarissa, an ancient groundskeeper who looked like he might keel over at any moment, a plump terse housekeeper, and an exhausted-looking maid. He gave them each twenty sovereigns, which included their back pay and a good deal extra for their loyalty. They nearly broke down in tears.

Doing his best to hearten them, he suggested to Lily a stroll around the grounds and into the village after the long carriage ride. She hastily agreed, perhaps not overly eager for him to view the interior yet.

He was dreading it, but there would be time for a thorough inspection of the place. Soon he would figure out just what he was dealing with. It was not encouraging, if the stable was any sign of things to come. The dilapidated barn was barely fit for a goat, but Mary Nonesuch and the black stallion accepted the indignity without complaint.

Lily, Aunt Daisy, and Cousin Pamela—who still knew nothing of his visit to John Murray, Publisher—escorted them down the two little streets that comprised their tiny village. They stopped at the church, where they paid their respects at her grandfather’s grave. Lily pointed to her father’s monument, though she said his body had been interred in India.

Meanwhile, Aunt Daisy drifted over to stand by a third Balfour headstone. Derek walked over to her and wondered why she had tears in her eyes. Then he looked at the grave and saw it read
Davy Balfour, 1796–1816. Beloved son.
He winced, noting the year and short span of the lad’s life, barely twenty when he had died.

Derek put his arm around Aunt Daisy’s plump shoulders and gave her a kiss on the head.

“I am so sorry,” he said softly. No wonder she was always such a wreck.

He was beginning to think that all these Balfour ladies needed rescuing.

“My little boy.” Aunt Daisy leaned her head against his shoulder with a small sniffle. “You and Lily be sure and have lots of sons for me to play with, won’t you?”

“I assure you, my dear, we are already hard at work on the matter.”

Aunt Daisy laughed at his sober tone and smacked him, which he deserved. But having restored a bit of a smile to her face, he let the ladies lead on back toward the grounds.

Lily gazed at him in tender thanks.

His air of calm assurance did not waver, although the interior of the house proved just as dark and dismal as he had expected.

For the following fortnight, Derek strove to get his arms around the whole of the renovation project, inspecting the manor from its damp root cellar to its bat-infested attic, from its sinking foundations to its holey roof and half-rotted beams. The crumbling mortar of all twenty fireplaces needed replacing. In several of them, the bricks had already caved in. Water damage had stained and warped the plaster throughout the top floor where everyone had their bedrooms. No wonder poor Pamela was constantly sneezing, with all of the mold.

Modern water closets and kitchen plumbing would eventually have to be installed to make the place properly inhabitable. They were also in desperate need of a new stable and outbuildings.

Agricultural improvements throughout the acreage would be required to make the fields productive again. The ground wasn’t even ready for oats and barley yet.