Page 55 of His Lordship's True Lady
The intersection cleared, and Lily led Hessian into the street. “She upset you.”
“A woman like that can start talk, and that talk will not make Daisy’s life easier. Mrs. Braithwaite says she wants to provide a home for the child, but I suspect she wants money.” Maybe Lady Evers’s diary could shed light on the role Daisy’s aunt should play in her life? Hessian would have to read the damned thing to find out.
“Would parting with some coin be that much of a hardship?”
Lily sounded impatient with Hessian, not with the grasping woman who’d use a child to further her own security.
“The issue isn’t coin and isn’t even entirely the principle,” Hessian said. “My concern is pragmatic: If Mrs. Braithwaite will threaten scandal or litigation over fifty pounds per quarter, what would she do to gain a thousand? What mad schemes would she fabricate, what wild stories would she propound? Why would Daisy be better off in the care of such a woman than in my own, considering I was clearly the choice of the girl’s parents?”
When Hessian wasn’t contemplating the pleasant prospect of his next encounter with Lily, such questions increasingly filled his mind. Lady Evers’s journal weighed on his conscience, much as a pistol carried in his pocket would have disturbed the line of a well-tailored jacket.
Hessian would have to investigate the contents of that damned journal, though not today. He was escorting Lily in the direction of his town house, and the choice of destination had been hers.
“You think Mrs. Braithwaite would stoop to creating scandal for her own niece?” Lily asked.
“What does she have to lose? She’ll cast herself as the wounded widow, longing for the company of her departed sister’s daughter, and I’ll be the unbending aristocrat, keeping a child from her only family on the strength of my arrogant, nipfarthing whim.”
To describe the situation thus made Hessian seem unreasonable even to himself. And yet, he could not fathom releasing Daisy into the custody of that woman.
“You are not arrogant.”
“I’m not a pennypincher either, but until recently, I had to manage my coin carefully. That is no secret.”
Hessian escorted Lily into his house, the lack of a maid, chaperone, or screeching children making the situation feel a trifle improper—or daring. Worth had doubtless flouted convention far more adventurously, but then, Worth hadn’t been the earl.
“We’ll take luncheon in the conservatory,” Hessian informed the butler, “and I’ll drive Miss Ferguson home in the phaeton.”
“Very good, my lord.”
Hessian offered Lily his arm, which was silly when no hazard greater than a carpet fringe threatened their progress.
“We’ve yet to set the tender plants outside, so my conservatory is quite the jungle.”
Lily accompanied him without comment, which was odd. She never hesitated to speak her mind, and her opinions were always well-thought-out. She had every air and grace claimed by a true lady, and yet, when conversation would have settled Hessian’s nerves, she remained silent.
He held the conservatory door for her, and then they were enveloped in warmth and quiet. Potted palms and ferns lined walkways between lemon and orange trees. Near the windows, boxes of Holland bulbs were sporting a few precocious daffodils and tulips. The fragrance of hyacinths joined the scents of greenery and rich earth.
“Daisy and her friends will discover this place on the very next rainy day,” Lily said. “It’s lovely.”
Lily made no move to touch Hessian, and neither did her expression, posture, or tone invite him to embrace her.
“I’ve kept the door locked for the most part, lest Daisy disappear up a tree.” But then, Daisy hadn’t played that game since the night she’d met Lily.
“Mrs. Braithwaite introduced herself to me,” Lily said, brushing her hand over an airy fern. “She claimed to have been an acquaintance of my mother’s.”
So Roberta Braithwaite was the serpent in the garden. “Did you believe her claims?”
Lily tugged off her right glove, finger by finger, then her left. “I wish I hadn’t mentioned her name, when at long, long last we have a few minutes’ privacy. Perhaps we can speak of her later.”
Luncheon would be at least thirty minutes in preparation, and the conservatory doors boasted stout locks.
“As always, you make great good sense. So why are we standing three yards apart when I’d rather be kissing you silly?”
Chapter Twelve
Lily’s emotions were like the conservatory—a crowded tangle of obscured paths and dim shadows shot through with sunbeams of hope and the sweet scent of temptation. She longed to be courted by Hessian Kettering, but deceiving a man she respected took vast reserves of selfishness.
Self-preservation instincts, Lily had, but selfishness? Enough selfishness and calculation to marry him and carry forward a deception already ten years in the making?
