One Night for Love (39 page)

The best Neville could do, since he had not received an invitation to the garden party, was call at Elizabeth’s the following afternoon and sit drinking tea and conversing with a group of visitors that did not include Lily. It was not until the next afternoon that she was finally declared free to go with him to a jeweler’s. And even then Elizabeth would have accompanied them if he had not been able to assure her that he would be taking an open carriage with his groom up behind.

Elizabeth, of course, had always been a high stickler. But she was treating Lily more like a treasured ward than a paid companion. It was frustrating, but Neville found himself glad of it too. All too many young blades had called for tea at Elizabeth’s with no other apparent reason for doing so than a wish to ogle Lily.

The sun was shining again at last on the appointed afternoon, and Lily was wearing an attractive and extremely fashionable green dress with a straw bonnet. Neville handed her into his phaeton and took his seat beside her before taking the ribbons from his groom’s hand and waiting for the boy to clamber up behind.

“Tell me the truth, Lily,” he said as they drove in the direction of Bond Street. “Are you enjoying yourself?”

She considered her answer. “I feel … at ease,” she said. “I feel that I can now mingle with almost any company in which I happen to find myself during the rest of my life. It is a good feeling, my lord.”

“And are you learning all you wished to learn?” he asked her.

“By no means,” she said. “I doubt one can ever learn or even be in the process of learning all the fascinating facts and mysteries of life. I am learning far more slowly than I expected. I can barely read and yet I have been having lessons for over a month. Yet every day when I become frustrated and unhappy with myself I remember how I
have always yearned for knowledge and skills. And I remember how very fortunate I am to be able to satisfy my yearning at last.”

He sighed. “I did not want you to change, Lily,” he said. “I liked you just as you were. But when I told Elizabeth that, she pointed out to me how selfish I was being. And I must admit that it is a delight to see you at your ease, as you put it.” He smiled across at her. “And I
do
like your hair that way.”

“So do I.” She smiled gaily and raised one gloved hand in greeting to two ladies who were emerging from a milliner’s shop. At the same moment George Brigham, who was passing on the street, touched the brim of his hat with his cane and inclined his head to Lily.

She was looking like and she was being treated like a young lady of
ton
, Neville realized. Her own courage and Elizabeth’s encouragement had brought her out of hiding and she was at ease. He would have sheltered and protected her and made her forever uncomfortable and unhappy. It was not a pleasant admission to make to himself.

He escorted her into the shop of the jeweler he had selected as the best and explained that Miss Doyle would rather not leave her locket to be collected later, but would like to watch as the chain was mended. And so they were given seats, and the precious piece did not leave her sight.

The locket was gold. So was the chain. It was not the sort of trinket one would expect to have been within the means of a soldier who had not even had a sergeant’s pay when it had been purchased. Neville had seen it dozens of times about Lily’s neck. It had seemed a part of her. It had never occurred to him to wonder about it. There was some sort of intricate design on the outside of the locket, but he did not attempt to lean close enough to examine it. For some reason Lily guarded its privacy. He would respect her wishes.

He paid for the work when it was finished, and she put the locket carefully back inside her reticule.

“You are not going to wear it?” he asked her as they left the shop.

“I have not worn it for so long,” she said, “that I wish to choose some special occasion on which to wear it for the first time again. I do not know when. I will think of the right time.”

“Let me take you to Gunter’s for an ice?” he asked.

She bit her lip, but she nodded. “Yes,” she said. “Thank you, my lord. And thank you for having my locket mended. You are very kind.”

He stopped on the pavement with her and bent his head closer to hers so that he could look into her eyes.

“Lily,” he said, “do not deceive yourself into thinking I acted from kindness. I have been selfish again. When you wear the locket once more, I hope—indeed, I believe—that you will remember not only your mama and papa but also the man who will always consider himself your husband.”

“Oh, don’t,” she said quickly, gazing back at him with wide blue eyes.

“But you
will
remember that, will you not?” he said.

She did not answer him, but she nodded almost imperceptibly after a few moments.

Lily had been dreading the afternoon. She had prayed that Elizabeth would go with them. After the question of the carriage had been settled, she had prayed for rain so that he would be forced to bring a closed carriage and Elizabeth would have to accompany them after all.

She was so very weak. It was so difficult to see him, to speak with him, to be alone with him and not reveal her
true feelings to him. It was an agony to know that these memories of him would cling about her with almost unbearable pain once he had gone home again. She did not need more memories. She already had far too many.

But in the event she was finding the afternoon quite magical. The weather had turned summery again after several days of gloom and intermittent rain. Riding in an open phaeton and feeling the warmth of the sun and seeing its brightness gave a wonderful lift to her spirits. So did his company.

But it was something else that created the magic. An idea had struck her and excited her, and she could not help but be buoyed up by it even though she knew she must return home and think carefully about it before in any way acting upon it.

She had refused to marry Neville because she was uncomfortable in his world and could never fit the role of countess. She had refused for her own sake and for his too—eventually he would have been made intensely unhappy by her inadequacy.

But the realization had come that she would no longer be uncomfortable or unfit in his world. Oh, she had not been transformed in little over a month. She still had a vast long way to go before she could function like a lady who had been born and raised to the life. But she was on the way. And slow and difficult as some of the lessons were, she knew that she could master them. She would never be a lady by birth, and there were those in the
beau monde
who would always hold that against her, but she would be a lady by training. And there were plenty of people—people she liked and respected—who would accept her.

What was to stop her, then, from marrying Neville again
?

She would not allow him to marry her out of a sense of
obligation, she told herself at first. But she knew that was ridiculous. She knew that he still loved her even before he stopped her outside the jeweler’s shop and said what he did about her locket. And she certainly knew that she loved him. She had not stopped adoring him since she was fourteen and first set eyes on him.

She must think carefully, though. She must be very sure that she was not rationalizing. She must be certain that no lingering sense of inferiority would prevent her from seeing herself as his equal. She would
not
be his equal in birth or fortune. She must know for sure that that fact would never be a stumbling block for either of them—even after the first bright bloom had worn off their love, as it inevitably would in the course of their lives.

But she would think when she was alone again. For this afternoon she would allow herself to relax into the magic and simply enjoy herself. And so she went to Gunter’s with him, and she ate her ice and talked to him about all the lessons she had learned in the past month. She chose to amuse him with all the comical details she could think of—most of them at her own expense. They laughed merrily together, and she knew, perhaps with a twinge of unease, that the magic had taken hold of him too.

It was something of a disappointment to have their tête-à-tête interrupted, but Lily smiled politely at the gentleman who stopped at their table to have a word with them. It was difficult to remember the names of all the people to whom she had been introduced since the evening of the Ashton ball, but she remembered Mr. Dorsey immediately, partly because he had been at Newbury Abbey for a day or two after her arrival, but mainly because it was over him that Elizabeth and the Duke of Portfrey had quarreled.

“Ah, Miss Doyle. Good afternoon,” he said, smiling and bowing and looking surprised, as if he had just spotted her. “Kilbourne?”

They both answered politely but without any great enthusiasm. Neville wanted to be alone with her as much as she wished to be alone with him, Lily guessed. She was remembering Elizabeth’s brief reference to the incident at the ball the morning after. She could not break a confidence to give a full explanation, Elizabeth had said, but she believed there was indeed good reason for Lily to avoid furthering an acquaintance with Mr. Dorsey.

But he was an amiable gentleman and surely harmless, Lily thought over the coming five minutes, during which he sat uninvited at their table and chatted with them. He had heard that the Earl of Kilbourne had recently been at Leavenscourt in Leicestershire. He wished he had known. He was heir to the ailing Baron Onslow, who lived at Nuttall Grange a mere five or six miles away. He would have been delighted to go there himself to show the earl the countryside. Or perhaps his lordship had been there on business?

It was a rather embarrassing coincidence, Lily thought, that the Duke of Portfrey himself should happen to walk past Gunter’s during those five minutes and, glancing in, see the three of them there. He paused for a moment and then walked on after touching his hat to Lily. Well, she thought, at least she would be able to assure Elizabeth that she and Neville had been given no choice beyond being rude.

A minute or two later Mr. Dorsey took his leave.

“A curiously amiable fellow,” Neville said. “He would have gone all the way to Leicestershire merely to show me the countryside if he had known I was five miles away from his uncle’s estate? And yet I scarcely know him. Perhaps he believes he owes me a courtesy because he was a guest at Newbury in May. But he came as an acquaintance of Lauren’s grandfather. At least he has gone out of his way to show that he bears me no grudge.”

They smiled at each other.

“You have not, I suppose,” he said, leaning toward her, the interruption forgotten, “been to Vauxhall Gardens yet, have you, Lily?”

“No.” She shook her head. “But I have heard of them. They are said to be enchanted at night.”

“Will you go there with me,” he asked her, “if I can get up a party?”

It might well be a most dangerous place to go if upon careful consideration she decided that she could not after all change her mind about him. She should perhaps refuse outright now. Or at least she should say no more than that she would think about it and talk with Elizabeth about it.

But she found herself leaning eagerly toward him until their faces were only inches apart.

“Oh, yes,” she said. “Yes, please, my lord.”

  
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