Legacy of Secrets (21 page)

“Sometimes I wish I were too,” she admitted, “when there have been too many late nights, too many people to smile at and make conversation with. Too many dowagers with questions to ask, and too many mamas with eligible sons consulting my mama. Oh, it’s all lists, Finn, lists of people who may be invited and lists of people who may not.”

“Like me.”

She stared at him, exasperated. “There’s nothing I can do about that. But it doesn’t stop us being friends.”

“Aye. When you remember me, that is.” Finn flung himself back onto his horse.

“Oh, you’ll never understand,” she yelled.

“And nor will you,” he retorted, galloping off and leaving her staring bewilderedly after him.

L
ILY’S SEVENTEENTH BIRTHDAY
fell the day before the Lord Lieutenant’s levee, which marked the opening of the Season, and her parents hosted a grand celebration ball at their house in Fitzwilliam Square. A green-and-white striped awning was erected to protect their guests from the inclement weather and a red carpet was laid over the front steps and across the sidewalk. The footmen wore green livery and powdered wigs, the champagne was pink, and the grand house bloomed like a garden under a mass of creamy hothouse lilies.

Her mother’s maid laced Lily into a tight corset and then slipped the cream dress over her carefully upswept hair, fluffing out the delicate gold lace overlaying the rich satin skirt and exclaiming how gorgeous she looked.

Lily turned this way and that in front of the long mirror, and watching her, Lady Molyneux smiled a little regretfully
as she realized her tomboyish little girl had suddenly become a young woman. She said, “Sometimes I am so used to you, Lily, I forget how lovely you are.” She bent to kiss her. “This is a wonderful time for you, my darling. A girl’s debut is something she never forgets, all the dresses and the parties and the excitement. It’s the beginning of a whole new life, when everything still lies ahead and childhood is left behind. Enjoy it all, Lily. The next great event will be your wedding.”

Ciel sat on Lily’s bed watching enviously. Her dress was also made by Mrs. Simms, out of stiff blue taffetta that matched her eyes. It had a wide velvet sash and she wore matching blue satin ballet slippers. Her mother tucked a flower into her hair and said gaily, “Am I not the lucky woman to have two such gorgeous daughters? We shall be the talk of Dublin tonight.”

“Only because you are so pretty, Mammie,” Lily said, hugging her.

Lord Molyneux was standing with his back to the drawing room fire, holding up the tails of his coat and toasting his backside awaiting them. William stood nervously by the window. He would rather have not been there, but like his sister, he was now expected to take part in the Season’s social events.

Lord Molyneux smiled proudly at his women as they came in. A montage of Lily’s childhood flickered through his mind as, with head held high, she walked regally across the room and stood before him. He stared silently at her, remembering her as the black-haired blue-eyed infant; as a toddler with tousled hair; as a young daredevil on her first pony, and as a tomboyish adolescent. And now his darling girl was seventeen and a full-fledged beauty.

Music drifted from the ballroom and he held out his hand to her. “May I have the pleasure of this dance, Lady Lily?” he asked, formal as you please.

Picking up her gold lace train, Lily smiled into her father’s eyes. “I should be delighted, sir,” she said. And he
swept her, laughing, into his arms and around and around the drawing room in a waltz.

“I’m claiming my dance now because I shall obviously not stand a chance of getting near you once your guests arrive,” he said as the music stopped. “And I just wanted to tell you that you are beautiful and will be the belle of your own ball.”

“And you are the handsomest and dearest father of the birthday girl,” she whispered, flinging her arms around him.

“Gather around, Nora, children.” Lord Molyneux waved his family closer. He took a square blue suede box from a nearby table and handed it to Lily. “It’s time to give Lily her present.”

Lily held the box in both hands. She looked down at it and then up at them. “I almost daren’t open it,” she said, her eyes brilliant with excitement.

“Oh, for goodness’ sake, open it, Lily,” Ciel yelled impatiently. “I’m dying to see what it is.”

Lily laughed and snapped open the box then stared at the diamond love-knot necklace. “Oh, Pa,” was all she could say.

The diamonds sparkled in a ribbon of light as Lord Molyneux clasped the necklace around Lily’s neck. The love-knot’s bow fitted exactly into the hollow of her young, creamy throat and he said, “I chose it myself. I wanted to find exactly the right gift for my dear daughter on her seventeenth birthday.”

“Oh, and you have,” Ciel cried impetuously. “It’s wonderful.”

“I feel like a queen tonight,” Lily told him. “Thank you, Pa and darling Mammie. This is truly the most wonderful night of my life.”

“Until, of course, you get married,” her father replied. His eyes clouded at the idea of losing her, and seeing it, Lady Molyneux quickly reminded him that guests would be arriving any minute.

A crowd had gathered in the street outside to watch the
ladies in their satins and furs and jewels as they arrived, and some of them were dancing to the music that stole like a breeze across the misty square. An hour later the big house was alive with laughter and noise. The crystal chandeliers glowed like rainbows with a thousand candles, the pink champagne flowed and the knowledgeable white-haired dowagers, in their dark lace dresses and many rows of pearls and diamonds, nodded approvingly as Lily danced by in the arms of one fascinated young man after another. “She is bound to make a fine match,” they told each other, knowledgeably. “A beauty like that, and with her pedigree.”

“Isn’t she wonderful?” Ciel said, dancing with her brother. “I’m just so proud of her tonight, aren’t you, William?”

She tripped over his feet and he winced. “It’s your fault,” she said. “I’m a better dancer than you, even if I am only ten.”

“You’re right,” he admitted ruefully. “And you’ll still be a better dancer than me when you are twenty. I hate dancing.”

“More than horseback riding?”

Her little monkey face had an impish gleam and he laughed and said, “You know what, Ciel? When it’s your turn for your debut, you will be just as gorgeous as Lily.”

She shook her head. “No one in the whole world will ever be as beautiful as she is.”

Lily tossed a smile in their direction as she whirled around in her partner’s arms. Her cheeks were flushed, her upswept black hair gleamed and her diamond love-knot necklace glittered expensively around her neck, a tangible token of her beloved pa’s love and esteem for his eldest daughter.

“I didn’t know
he
was invited,” she whispered to Ciel, when she spotted Dermot Hathaway among the other young men.

“You mean the one you were trying to flirt with at the party?” Ciel asked innocently.

Lily threw her a withering glance. “You’re like an elephant, Ciel. You never forget. At least not the things you are supposed to!”

Dermot cut in on her at the next dance. “I know it’s not done,” he said, unsmiling, “but it was the only way to claim a dance with the girl of the moment.”

“Really?” she said, throwing back her head and meeting his eyes boldly. “But I’m sure there is ‘a girl of the moment’ for you every day of the week.”

“Maybe,” he acknowledged, holding her closer than anyone had ever held her before.

Lily’s heart was pounding so hard she thought he must surely hear it. She could feel the warmth of his white-gloved hand on her waist through the stuff of her dress, her breasts were crushed against his chest and she could hardly breathe as he swept her with a final flourish to the edge of the floor.

The white-haired ladies sitting on the gilt chairs along the wall eyed them disapprovingly, but Lily didn’t care. She was on top of the world with excitement and the feeling of her own feminine power. She glanced flirtatiously at him through her long curling black lashes. “I’m giving you permission to cut in again,” she said, twirling her little gilt pencil between her fingers while she pretended to consult her dance card. She struck out a name and wrote in his instead.

“Then you enjoyed our dance as much as the chocolate dessert, Lily?” His mocking voice caressed her name and she shivered inside.

“Oh, damn the chocolate.” She pouted. “Will you never forget?”

“I might,” he said consideringly. “But I think you had better reinstate that young man’s name on your dance card. I seem to remember I am already booked for that waltz.”

A
HOT BLUSH BURNED
Lily’s cheeks as she watched him dancing. The woman he was with must be at least twenty-six,
she thought scornfully. “Damn him. Oh, damn him,” she muttered under her breath, glaring at the young man standing hopefully in front of her.

“My dance, I think, Lily?” he said, taken aback.

“What? Oh yes. Dammit, so it is.”

Dermot did not ask her to dance again, nor did he sit near her at supper. Lily was having such a good time she almost forgot him, but every now and again she would glance longingly his way, and Dermot did not fail to notice the gesture.

The ball ended at two
A.M.
and Lily was up at seven to prepare for the Lord Lieutenant’s levee, and the day after that she was presented at the ladies’ drawing room. She looked regal and exhausted, dressed in white satin, elegantly managing her long train and making a sweeping curtsy. She wore egret feathers in her hair and her diamond necklace and everyone there agreed that Lily Molyneux was breathtaking, that she was destined to become one of Ireland’s greatest beauties, and that she was guaranteed a wonderful match, for wasn’t every eligible young man already in love with her?

Later she went on to London for her presentation at Court and another round of parties, and again the gay flirtatious Lily was a huge success. Lord Molyneux was fiercely proud of his lovely daughter and now dowagers in both countries predicted a splendid marriage.

Ciel watched longingly, waiting her turn, though she knew she would never be the triumph Lily was. And William dutifully attended every dinner and ball with his popular sister, stiff and uncomfortable, longing for the moment he could be back at Ardnavarna, alone with his books or his bird-watching.

Yet when they finally returned to Ardnavarna for the quiet summer weeks, the one memory that was engraved in Lily’s mind was of Dermot Hathaway’s hot eyes burning into hers, of his hand on her waist and her body pressed
close to his. And of his mocking jibe as he left her to dance with someone else.

“One day, I shall make him pay for that,” she vowed, safe again at Ardnavarna. And it was then she decided she was going to marry Dermot Hathaway.

D
ERMOT WAS A MAN’S MAN.
He was a sportsman, like Lily’s father, and a clever businessman, dabbling in growing industries, railroads and steamship lines, in America. His business often took him away from Ireland, but he was always back in the autumn for the hunt. He was a tall, strapping, handsome fellow in that fleshy sensual way that women seemed to like, but he was also very popular with the men.

“A good fellow,” his contemporaries would describe him, “even if he has a bit of an eye for the women.”

In fact Dermot had more than “a bit of an eye” for them, and the word was that no woman was safe within fifty yards of him, including some of his friends’ wives.

And because he was the only man ever to seem indifferent to her girlish beauty and flirtatious ways—
and
the only one ever to put her in her place—well, naturally, he was the one Lily wanted. All the others, the handsome young sons of her parents’ friends with their grand titles, lords and dukes and even, they said, a prince, were swept from her mind as if they never existed. Dermot Hathaway was who she wanted and she set out to get him.

Lily was crazy about him. She could think of no one else. She found out through her network of friends exactly which house parties and dances he would be invited to, and then she made sure to attend them herself, always looking her dazzling best, always the proper little lady, always
chaperoned either by her mother or by the lady of the house in which she was a guest. She was rarely seated next to Dermot at formal dinners because he was so much older than she. He was a sophisticated talker and raconteur, far more glib than the poor boy who had thought all week about what he would say to the lovely Lily Molyneux after he had inveigled his hostess to put him by her side. He needn’t have bothered. She saved her flirtatious looks for Dermot across the table. And when, after the third party they attended together, he had still not asked her to dance, she asked him.

Lily knew it was never done, but she didn’t give a damn anymore. She knew she looked beautiful in the lemon silk dress with the sweeping tulle skirt. She patted her glossy black curls and wet her red lips with her tongue, then she made her way through the crowd to his side, and put her hand on his arm. She didn’t even blush as she said, “Sir Dermot, you cut in on me at my own party, so I feel that it’s quite proper for me to return the compliment, and ask you for a dance.”