Annie was there, standing near the bottom of the stairs. She was leaning over the railing, giggling at a handsome young man. A young man who could not have been more than twenty-one years old.
Lily cleared her throat.
Annie straightened up and pushed a dark curl back into the bun atop her head. Her eyes darted back and forth and she bit her lip. “Oh, Lily, there you are. I didn’t think you’d be home from the Hathaway affair until later.”
“Yes.” Lily hurried forth and pulled Annie up the steps by her arm. “I am home and you shouldn’t be out alone at this time of night. What are you thinking?”
Annie continued to worry her lower lip, her gaze flitting to the young man. “Allow me to introduce Mr. Eggleston. Mr. Arthur Eggleston. Arthur, this is my sister, Lady Merrill.”
Lily glanced at the young man and gave him a once-over. He was tall, handsome, and seemed to possess a modicum of charm as evidenced by the jaunty smile on his face. All quite dangerous for Annie. And for Lily’s peace of mind. He’d straightened to his full height and cleared his throat. “My pleasure, Lady Merrill.”
Lily’s eyes shot daggers at her sister. “Annie, please go inside. I’ll be in in a moment.”
Annie gave her a desperate look, but she obeyed, glancing back longingly at Arthur, who wished her a good evening, bowed, and stared after her. Annie gave Arthur a last longing glance before she marched up the steps and into the town house.
Lily waited for the door to close behind her sister before she turned to the young man.
“Mr. Eggleston,” she said with as much pleasantness as she could muster.
“Lady Merrill,” Arthur replied with a nod.
Lily crossed her arms over her chest and stared Mr. Eggleston down. “You must know it’s completely inappropriate for you to be speaking to my sister alone in the middle of the night.”
“Well, I—”
She gave him a tight smile. “If you do it again, you’ll live to regret it. Do I make myself clear?”
Mr. Eggleston went pale. “Oh, yes, yes. I’m very sorry, Lady Merr—”
Arms still crossed, Lily drummed her fingertips along her elbows. “My sister tells me you’ve already asked for a dance at her debut.”
His nod was much too enthusiastic. “I do hope you don’t mind, Lady Merrill.”
“Yes, well, I do. Very much. Annie has a very different idea about her debut than I do and I find it exceedingly inappropriate for you to be addressing her and asking for dances before you both are even formally introduced.”
Arthur tugged at his cravat. “I understand, Lady Merrill. It’s just that—”
“I shall trust that you’ll see to it that you behave with more discretion in the future. Good evening, Mr. Eggleston.” Giving him a dismissive nod, Lily stomped up the stairs, slipped inside the house, and shut the door behind her with a reverberating crack.
Annie was hovering in the foyer. “What did you say to him?” she asked in a high-pitched voice.
Lily’s heart sank at Annie’s lovesick expression. “That young man is lucky I don’t sic Leopold on him.”
Hearing his name, Leopold bounded up to greet them. Evans, sitting on his usual perch, shook himself awake, nodded briefly to the foyer’s other occupants, and took himself to bed.
After bidding the butler good night, Lily glared at Annie and opened her mouth to speak.
Annie put up a hand. “Before you lecture me, I know something you’ll want to hear.”
Lily pulled her gloves from her fingers and gave her sister a dubious glare. “I highly doubt that. Now, listen—”
“Mr. Eggleston told me Miss Templeton’s mama is positively beside herself since she cried off from the marquis.”
Lily shut her mouth abruptly. For the first time, the spark of jealousy hit her. Devon was trying to seduce her, but was he also still courting Miss Templeton? Attempting to woo her back? And what did he see in Miss Templeton, anyway? Other than her ostentatiously large dowry, of course.
Lily blinked. “Beside herself? What else did he say?”
A sly smile lit Annie’s face. “Mrs. Templeton has been pleading with Miss Templeton to reconsider.”
Lily leaned in closer. “And did she convince her?”
“No, but she’s said to be at her wits’ end. It’s expected to be just a matter of time before she persuades Miss Templeton to see reason.”
Lily shook her head, dismissing the subject. Mrs. Templeton might be beside herself over her birdlike blond daughter, but Lily had a determined, curly-haired brunette to deal with. She couldn’t allow Annie to change the subject.
“What do you think you were doing? You have absolutely no reason to be out on the front stairs, especially not in the middle of the night. What sort of a reputation do you think you’ll get with behavior like that? And your debut two nights away!”
Annie shrugged. “It was nothing more than a harmless chat. Mr. Eggleston was on the other side of the balustrade from me the entire time.”
Lily sighed. “Annie, that hardly matters and you know it. Well-reared young ladies are not out at all hours of the night speaking alone with strange gentlemen.”
“He’s not a strange gentleman. And I was only outside for a few moments.” Annie gave her an exasperated glare and promptly turned away.
“I am your guardian, your sister. I am supposed to look out for you, ensure you don’t ruin your reputation and—”
Annie whirled to face her. “My reputation? Your concern for reputation is quite ironic coming from the author of the most scandalous pamphlet of the decade.”
Lily pinched the bridge of her nose. “That’s a different matter altogether and you well know it. I did what I had to do in writing that pamphlet, but your reputation is of the utmost concern to me. Mr. Eggleston is not behaving appropriately and I don’t like it.”
Annie threw up her hands. “Oh, you never made such a mistake as talking to a man late at night, did you, Lily? You’re so perfect. You’d never do anything so unexpected as fall in love.”
“Love?” Lily scoffed. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. You barely even know Mr. Eggleston and—”
Annie folded her arms across her chest and tapped her foot against the marble floor. “I knew you would say this when you met Mr. Eggleston. I knew it. You are so … so …
predictable,
Lily!” Annie turned and fled up the staircase.
Lily’s shoulders slumped. She dropped her gloves, fan, and reticule on the table near the door and walked into the darkened salon. She collapsed on the edge of the settee and hung her head. How had this evening gone so wrong? When had everything become so complicated?
Predictable.
Is that what she had become? Someone who held no surprise? No mystery? Well, what was wrong with that? Responsible people were predictable. Accountable people were predictable. And who wasn’t predictable? Drunks and gamblers and silly young girls who believed in love. Being predictable wasn’t half bad.
Lily propped her chin in one hand and with the other petted Leopold who’d jumped up to snuggle next to her.
What was she to do? She’d already sold off everything that belonged to her including her mother’s jewels and her father’s prized cigar box. The only other items of value at her disposal were part of Merrill’s town house and they belonged to the new earl now. She’d rather live on the streets than disgrace herself by turning into a thief. Yes, things were very complicated lately. But there was no help for it. Annie’s debut was her highest priority at the moment. For now, she had to find a way to make it through the next two days with what little money she had left from the sale of the flowers, and without succumbing to Devon Morgan’s legendary charm.
CHAPTER 12
“I’ve come, my lady, bearing the fruits of your labor.” Viscount Medford strolled around the white salon where Lily sat in the center of the settee.
“What do you mean?” Lily was barely paying attention to her friend. She’d been mentally calculating how much money it would take to live out the rest of the Season in London.
Medford smiled at her, his bright hazel eyes sparkling. “Remember when you told me you wished you’d never written the pamphlet to begin with? If I recall correctly, ‘confounded’ was the word you used.”
“How could I forget?” Lily answered, sipping her sugarless, creamless tea. She eyed her friend warily. What was he up to this morning?
Medford pulled a paper from his coat pocket and presented it to Lily with a flourish. “Ah, but I wonder if you will change your mind once you see this.”
She snatched it from his hands and held it up to the light to inspect it.
“The last time we spoke, I believe you told me the pamphlet had brought you nothing but trouble,” Medford said, still grinning.
Lily whispered. “A voucher for the sum of fifty pounds.”
“Precisely.”
“Made out to me,” Lily continued, sucking in her breath.
“Exactly. Your share of the sales of
Secrets of a Wedding Night
to date.”
Lily’s hands trembled. She clutched the voucher to her chest. “This cannot be real.”
“I assure you, it’s very real. Koenig and Bensley tell me we’ve had every lady’s maid in the city come to the printing shop asking for a copy of your pamphlet for their mistress. They come wearing draped hats and they don’t allow their carriages to linger in the street too long. It’s clandestine, my dear, make no mistake. Clandestine, but immensely popular.”
Lily pressed the voucher to her chest more tightly. “I didn’t write it to earn money.”
“No, but you might as well reap the rewards.”
She glanced away, biting her lip. Lily well remembered that day a few months ago. Medford had arrived at her house to pay a call and he’d brought a copy of the
Times.
He’d had an inscrutable look on his face.
“What is it?” Lily had asked, beginning to be a bit concerned.
Medford cleared his throat. “You might want to look at page five.”
Lily had taken the paper from him with cold, trembling hands. She knew page five. Page five contained engagement announcements. Her stomach dropped and she turned away from Medford, quickly shuffling open the pages until she found what she was looking for.
Her eyes scanned the parchment frantically until she saw it.
Devon’s engagement announcement.
She turned back to face Medford, her smile probably too bright. “Well, good luck to Miss Templeton, poor thing.”
Medford had stepped toward her, but Lily stepped back. “Lily, I know how much he meant—”
Lily shook her head and turned away, swallowing past the lump in her throat and the unshed tears she refused to allow. “The girl has no idea what she’s in for.”
Medford, perhaps sensing she needed to make light of it, had shrugged. “Money meets title. It’s a perfect
ton
match.”
Lily tossed the paper onto the table, resisting the urge to scrunch the thing into a ball and fling it into the rubbish heap. “I’m quite serious. Miss Templeton has no idea. She’s giving her life away to a man. Giving her
control
away to a man. And the poor girl doesn’t even know it. Any more than any of those unwitting young women do.”
Medford furrowed his brow. “What exactly do you mean?”
She tossed a hand in the air. “The young ladies making their debuts. All of them. They are at the beck and call of their fathers, men who are looking out for the best interests of other
men.
Who is there to warn these poor young women?”
Medford shrugged. “Their mothers?”
Lily rolled her eyes. “Hardly. Their mothers are part of the problem. They’re on the men’s side. Someone else needs to champion the young ladies. Or at least provide them with the facts. I spent my wedding night frightened half to death. I wish I could tell them. I wish I could shout it from the rooftops.”
Medford narrowed his eyes, appearing to contemplate the matter for a few moments. “The rooftops might not be ready for such information, my lady, but there may be another way to get your message out. I just happen to know a certain nobleman who has recently invested heavily in a new form of printing press.” He grinned. “My partners and I have published a few essays and the odd pamphlet to date, but just think how popular
this
subject would be.”
Lily gave him a suspicious look. “What exactly do
you
mean?”
Medford snapped his fingers. “Think of it.
Secrets of a Wedding Night,
you could call it. There won’t be an unmarried female in town who wouldn’t give her eyeteeth for a copy. Why, I’ll start the rumor of its existence at a finishing school and we’ll be sold out by week’s end.”
Lily’s eyes widened. “No. No, I couldn’t possibly.”
Medford gave her a wicked grin, one very few people knew he was capable of. “Why not?”
Lily bit her lip. “It would cause a scandal.”
“Wouldn’t be the first scandal this town’s witnessed.”
Lily contemplated him from the corners of her eyes. “I suppose that’s true.”
“C’mon, Lily. You said yourself, you’d be doing a public service.”
A thrill shot through her. She tapped a fingernail against her cheek. “It would have to be anonymous, of course.”
Medford nodded. “Goes without saying.”
“And I mean for it to be informative, mind you,
not
indecent.” Of course she hadn’t mentioned to Medford that she hadn’t anything indecent to write.
“Decency shall be our highest priority.”
Lily winced. “Oh, I suppose it
will
cause an awful scandal.”
Medford cracked a smile. “Oh, no doubt. But it cannot be as scandalous as Mr. Paine’s pamphlet in America was many years ago.”
Lily allowed a broad smile to sweep across her face. “Ah, yes,
Common Sense.
And may ours sell just as well!”
“Is that a yes?”
Lily held out her hand to him. “Lord Medford, I believe we have a bargain.”
And the rest had been history.
Now, she glanced up at Medford who was staring at the voucher she held pressed to her chest.
His eyes searched her face. “If you need money, Lily, you know you have only to ask me.”
Lily shook her head. She tried to laugh. “What makes you think—?”