Page 68 of His Lordship's True Lady
That was Walter Leggett’s logic, also an excuse to tighten the noose of surveillance Lily had lived with since the age of fourteen.
“I’m going hat shopping.”
Oscar slurped his coffee. “Mustn’t lie, Lily. That’s not what you told the butler.”
And the coachman would disclose any and all locations Lily had visited. “I’m going hat shopping after I pay my call.”
“Excellent. I adore lounging about among ladies’ fripperies, flirting with shop girls, and consulting on purchases. I’m quite good at it.”
Lily took the seat at his elbow, when she wanted to toss the coffeepot at his head. “Because you indulge your mistresses.”
“One at a time, but of course. Mistresses are an exercise in mutual indulgence.”
“Mistresses are a means to contract horrid diseases, waste coin, and act like a fool in public.”
Oscar set down his coffee cup and selected a triangle of buttered toast. “If you intend to be that kind of wife, we can live apart once you’ve presented me with a pair of sons. I don’t plan on being difficult about Papa’s scheme, Lily, but you clearly do.”
Whyhadn’t she seen this coming?Whyhadn’t she made plans to run away years ago? A woman at age twenty-one became an adult in all particulars. Lily had less freedom than Daisy, who was closely supervised at every hour.
“Oscar, we are cousins. Surely you agree that cousins should not marry.”
“Tell that to King George or his sainted father. Nothing illegal about keeping wealth in the family with an occasional marriage between cousins. Why is there no marmalade for my toast? I always take my toast with marmalade.”
A lifetime of listening to Oscar whine for his marmalade was the best Lily faced as his wife.
“And look how His Majesty’s marriage turned out,” Lily muttered. “I can assure you, there will be no children. You will never know a husband’s privileges, Oscar, not with me.”
He brushed toast crumbs from his cravat. “You think to keep me from your bed because we are cousins? The church has no objection to such a match, and as to that, I doubt we are anything approaching cousins.”
All the worry, resentment, anger, and bewilderment in Lily came to a still point of incredulity. “I beg your pardon?”
“You bear a resemblance both to my cousin Lily and her late mother, but my cousin hated animals of any kind—horses, cats, dogs, birds. Never had a kind word for any species besides her own, and seldom for that one either. You dote on that slug of a mare, sneak treats to that feline hearth rug you call Hannibal, and can’t walk past a dog without petting it.”
“For God’s sake, Oscar, you cannot think… people change. They mature.”
“Horses made Lily itch, cats made her sneeze. She was honestly terrified of birds, because some woman at church got a sparrow stuck in her bonnet one Sunday, and the creature ended up dead—the sparrow, that is.”
“I am Lily Ferguson, and you are my cousin.”
“You are a very good actress, but the Lily Ferguson I knew as a boy was a fiend for the piano. You can barely get out a party piece.”
Oh God, oh God, oh God.“Skills grow rusty.”
“My cousin couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket, which I suspect is why she became so proficient at the keyboard. You sing like a nightingale.”
All the years of scrubbing floors at the inn in Derbyshire, all the summers spent hanging linen on the wash line had been leavened by the simple folk tunes that made a workday go more easily.
“I practiced, in Switzerland.”
“I do wonder about Switzerland. Perhaps Switzerland is what we’re now to call some finishing school in the West Riding, except I’ve not heard a single rumor to that effect. Nobody suspects, and you’ve done such a good job of being Lily that I’ve doubted myself from time to time.”
He had no proof, none. So far, all he’d offered was speculation and conjecture.
“I might as well contend that you are not Oscar Leggett. You’re some by-blow your mother brought to the marriage because Walter is unable to procreate. You don’t resemble him in temperament or looks or… anything.”
Oscar’s smile was pitying. “Lily, you needn’t panic. I do resemble my sire to the extent that I’m capable of exploiting an advantage when it comes my way. We will marry, I will be a decent husband to you, and by degrees, as you provide the grandchildren, I will gain control of Papa’s wealth.”
“My wealth.”
