One Night for Love (16 page)

How could she fail to let go of the suffocating shreds of her dream and of all the misgivings about her new life that had oppressed her yesterday?

At least it was life.

And at least it was new. Ever and always new. Every day.

Lily stretched her arms out to the sides, tipped her face up to the rising sun, and twirled twice about on the sand, overwhelmed by her fleeting glimpse into the very heart of the mystery.

She was alive.

She was!

Filled with new hope, new courage, new exuberance, she set off exploring, picking her way carefully with her bare feet over the rocks at the end of the beach, reveling in the increased seclusion offered by the high cliffs to her left and the ocean to her right. Though the seclusion did not last for long. As soon as she had rounded a bend in the headland, she could see little boats bobbing on the water ahead of her and small houses and other buildings huddled at the base of the cliffs. It must be the lower village, Lower Newbury, she realized, at the bottom of that steep hill she had seen beside the inn.

Lily smiled brightly and continued on her way. She
could see people up and about in the village, early as the hour must still be. Ordinary folk, like herself.

Lily was feeling happy by the time her bare feet finally took her through the gates of Newbury Abbey and onto the long driveway. She had walked up the steep hill to Upper Newbury and across the green, raising a hand in greeting to the few people she had seen. All of them, after some hesitation, had returned her gesture.

It was amazing how a new day could restore one’s spirits and one’s courage.

But as she was walking past the smaller lane to her left, along which she and Neville had turned the day before on their way from the church, she could see that the path was not deserted. There were two ladies walking toward her along it, not far distant. Lily stopped and smiled. They were very smartly dressed young ladies, probably guests from the house, though she did not recognize either of them.

One of them was tall and slim and dark-haired. The other was smaller and fairer and limped slightly. Both were lovely. The sight of their immaculate elegance reminded Lily of how she must look in her shabby dress and bare feet, her hair loose and curly and tangled by the wind, her complexion doubtless rosy from the air and exercise. She hesitated, about to move on. These ladies were strangers, after all.

But then, with a lurching of her stomach, she recognized the taller of the two, though her face had been veiled the day before.

And they both recognized her. That was very clear. Both stopped walking. Both looked at her with widened eyes and identical expressions of dismay. Then the taller lady came closer.

“You are Lily,” she said. Ah, she was very beautiful despite the paleness of her face and the dark shadows beneath her violet eyes.

“Yes.” The other lady, Lily noticed, had stiffened with obvious hostility. “And you are Lauren. Major Newbury’s bride.”

“Major—?” Lauren nodded with understanding. “Ah, yes—Neville. I am pleased to make your acquaintance, Lily. This is Lady Gwendoline, Lady Muir, Neville’s sister.”

His
sister
. Her own sister-in-law. Lady Gwendoline glared at her with undisguised dislike and said nothing. She stayed where she was.

Lauren’s face held no such expression. Or any other either. It was a pale mask.

“I am so very sorry for what happened yesterday,” Lily said—oh, the inadequacy of words. “I truly am.”

“Well.” Lauren’s eyes, she noticed, were not quite meeting her own. “Let us look on the bright side. Better yesterday than today or tomorrow. But are you out without a companion or maid, Lily? You ought not to be. Does Neville know?”

Lily felt an overwhelming need to push past the terrible awkwardness of the meeting and to say something that would lift the blank look from the other woman’s face. What a shock she must have suffered. “Oh, I have had
such
a wonderful morning,” she told Lauren. “I went down onto the beach to watch the sun rise and then crossed the rocks out of curiosity and came to the village below. Some of the fishermen were getting ready to take their boats out, and their wives were out helping them, and their children were running about, playing. I talked with several of the people and they were
so
kind to me. I had breakfast with Mrs. Fundy—do you know her?—and amused her children while she fed the baby. I do not know how she manages to look after four such young children
and keep her house neat all at the same time, but she does. I have made friends with them all and have promised to go back as often as I may.” She laughed. “They were all funny at first and wanted to curtsy and bow to me and call me ‘my lady,’ Can you imagine?”

Lady Gwendoline’s silence became almost loud.

Lauren’s face stretched for a moment into what might have been a smile.

“But I am keeping you,” Lily said, her animation fading. “I really
am
sorry. You are very gracious. He—Major Newbury—told me last night that he was very fond of you. I do not wonder at it. I—Well, I am sorry.” She was saying all the wrong things, of course. But were there
right
things to say? “Do you live at Newbury Abbey?”

“At the dower house,” Lauren said, nodding in the direction of the trees opposite, through which Lily could see a house just visible when she turned her head to look. “With Gwen and the countess, her mother. Perhaps I will call upon you some time. Tomorrow maybe?”

“Yes.” Lily smiled, vastly relived. “I should like that, please. I should like it very much. Will you come too … Gwendoline?” She looked uncertainly at her sister-in-law, who did not answer, but whose nostrils flared with what was clearly barely controlled anger.

Gwendoline loved her cousin, Lily thought. Her anger was understandable. She smiled fleetingly at them both before continuing on her way to the abbey. She felt considerably discomposed. Lauren was beautiful and dignified and far more gracious than she might have been expected to be. How could Neville
not
love her?

Some of the oppressive feeling of the day before weighed down on Lily again.

Lauren and Gwendoline stood gazing after her.

“Well!” Gwendoline expelled her breath audibly and came to stand beside her cousin as Lily moved out of earshot. “I have never been so affronted in my life. How dared she stop and talk to us—to you in particular.”

“How dared she, Gwen?” Lauren gazed after the disappearing figure. “She is Neville’s
wife
. She is your sister-in-law. She is the Countess of Kilbourne. Besides, I was the first to speak.” She laughed, though there was no amusement in the sound. “She is very lovely.”

“Lovely
?” Gwendoline spoke with the utmost scorn. “She would put even a beggar to the blush. Is she deliberately trying to disgrace Neville, or does she simply not know any better? She has appeared in both villages for all to see, looking like that—no bonnet, no shoes, no—” She made a sound of exasperation. “Does she know
nothing
about how to behave?”

“But oh, Gwen,” Lauren said so quietly that her cousin almost did not hear the words, “did you not see that she is vivid and original? Something quite out of the ordinary? The sort of woman who would draw a man’s eyes and desires? Neville’s, for example?”

Gwendoline looked incredulously at her cousin. “Are you mad?” she asked rhetorically. “She is disgusting. She is impossible. And you of all people should hate her, Lauren. You are not defending her, are you?”

Lauren laughed quietly again as she crossed the driveway and strode in the direction of the dower house. “I am merely trying to see her through Neville’s eyes,” she said. “I am trying to understand why he left me and told me not to wait and then met her and married her. Oh, Gwen,
of course
I hate her.” For the first time her voice became impassioned though she did not raise it. “I feel the most intense hatred for her. I wish she were dead. I know I ought not to feel that
way. I am horrified by my own feelings. I
wish
she were dead. And so I must try, you see—yes, I really must try to understand. It is not her fault after all, is it? I daresay Neville did not tell her about me any more than he told me about her. And what was there to tell anyway? He had
told
me not to wait. He was under no obligation to me. We were not betrothed. I must try to like her. I
will
try to like her.”

Gwendoline limped along beside her, finding it difficult to keep up. “Well, I do not intend even to try,” she said. “I will hate her enough for both of us. She has ruined your life and Neville’s—though it is entirely his own fault—and you are the two people I love above all others. And do not tell me that Lily is not to blame.
Of course
she is not to blame and of course I am being unfair to her. But she is a loathsome creature for all that, and how can I not hate her when I see you so dreadfully unhappy?”

They had arrived at the house. But Lauren stopped before entering it. “We are going to have to teach her things,” she said, her voice flat again as it had been the day before. “How to dress, how to behave, how to be a lady. I
will
call on her tomorrow, Gwen. I will try—to be kind to her.”

“And we are going to try learning to play the harp and to balance halos on our heads too,” Gwendoline said crossly, “so that we will be ready to become saints or angels when we die.”

They both laughed.

“Please, Gwen,” Lauren said, taking her cousin’s arm in a tight grip, “help me not to hate her. Help me … Oh, how
could
Neville have married such a—such a wild fairy creature? What is the matter with
me
?”

Gwendoline did not answer. There was no reasonable answer to give.

  
9
  

L
ily felt suddenly almost as if she were returning to a prison. Her footsteps lagged as the house came into sight. But then they quickened again. She could see that Neville was outside on the terrace, three other gentlemen with him. For so long she had held him steadfastly in her memory and her dreams. But now he was real again. And he was watching her approach, his lips pursed, his eyes crinkled at the corners. They were
all
watching her approach. She had been right earlier, she thought. Things did look brighter this morning after all.