Page 70 of His Lordship's True Lady
“I adore a noble hound,” Oscar said. “Provided he’s a frequently bathed and well-behaved fellow. Man’s best friend and all that.”
Worth lured Oscar from Lily’s side with some taradiddle about finding Meda’s leash in the study across the hall, and Hessian affixed himself at Lily’s elbow despite Jacaranda’s raised eyebrow.
“They will natter on about dogs and hounds and whelping boxes until midsummer’s night,” Hessian said, leading Lily out onto the terrace. “Talk to me, Lily. Your uncle was very unforthcoming when I called upon him. I did not raise the subject of courtship, and now you look as if you’ve seen Hamlet’s ghost.”
Jacaranda had disappeared to instruct some servant or other—and a nursery maid sat on a bench halfway down the garden walk near Daisy and Avery, who chased away pigeons, the better to chalk flowers onto the paving stones.
“Uncle has decided I’m to marry Oscar,” Lily said, her gaze on the children. “Oscar is in a state of gleeful anticipation, though I’m to know nothing of my impending nuptial bliss until after my birthday.”
Had Lily kicked Hessian in the stomach, she could not have delivered a worse surprise—a worse betrayal.
“You have not objected.”
“I have not had time tothink, Hessian. I did not foresee this, but it makes perfect sense. Uncle controls the money, and he controls Oscar, and thus… don’t look at me like that. I had no notion of this, no inkling, and it qualifies as my worst nightmare short of going to prison for a capital offense. I was too besotted with you to pay proper attention, but I’m soon to turn twenty-eight, and that will change everything, apparently.”
The beautiful day, the tidy garden, everything faded behind the dull thud of Hessian’s heart against his ribs.
“Will you play me false, Lily? Will you go willingly to the altar because your uncle commands it? What has that bleating stripling to offer you that’s preferable to being my countess?”
Lily’s eyes confirmed her uncle’s scheme was her idea of hell, but of words, she gave Hessian nothing.
“Lily, I had hoped that my feelings for you were reciprocated, else I would never have… I would not have presumed. Then you declare, with no explanation whatsoever, that you will wed another. Help me understand, for I cannot reconcile the woman who yielded so sweetly in my conservatory with the silent, miserable creature in my brother’s garden.”
“I am so far beyond miserable.”
Across the garden, the little girls had gone into whoops of laughter, while the poor pigeons strutted indignantly atop the garden wall. Lily wandered down the walk, and when she came to the first of the chalk drawings, she sat on the paving stones as the children had done and took up a length of chalk.
While Hessian silently lost his mind, Jacaranda reappeared on the terrace with a footman. He bore a tea tray, and every item on the tray was in miniature. The set had clearly come from the nursery, and the girls left off mocking the pigeons to take their tea by the sundial.
Hessian hunkered down as if to admire Lily’s sketching, which had resulted in the girls’ birds becoming dragons. “Lily? Have you nothing more to say?”
Hessian had more to say, but his tirade was aimed at himself.
Worth had warned him that caution was in order. Bitter experience had taught Hessian to reconnoiter at length where women and matrimony were concerned. Worse, Daisy was growing attached to Lily, and compared to Hessian’s consternation, Daisy would be devastated if Lily simply dropped from her life.
Oscar, Worth, and the damned dog came out onto the terrace next, Meda’s attention riveted on the children, who were arranging their tea set on a blanket in the grass.
“I cannot say what I need to here with Oscar ready to pounce,” Lily murmured as she embellished the wings on the smaller dragon, “but I am sorry Hessian. I’m deeply, deeply sorry. My situation has become… impossible, and that has nothing to do with you.”
She’d said she was besotted with him. Hessian clung to that spar of hope in a sea of doubt and outrage.
“Do you want to marry Oscar?”
“Of course not.”
Rational thought pushed past the humiliation and confusion in Hessian’s mind. Why would a woman of means marry against her will? Why would a woman who’d turned aside many other suitors yield to Hessian what she’d never allowed another?
Those questions plagued him for the remaining thirty minutes of a social call that would never end. He replied to queries when spoken to, he admired the growing parade of chalk drawings. He nearly snatched Daisy up when she threw her arms around Lily’s neck and announced that no dragons had come to the nursery since she’d learned to sleep with the curtains open.
Worth cast Hessian odd looks, and the children were very much underfoot. Oscar Leggett was trying to ingratiate himself with Worth’s dog, who was making a pest of herself to Lily. Jacaranda sent the occasional glance to the upper windows, where her infant daughter might well be rising from a nap.
“Daisy,” Hessian said, “we must soon take our leave. Make your farewells and thank your hostess.”
A spate of French between the little girls ensued, for Avery’s native tongue was French, and Daisy had apparently yet to figure out that adults could speak the language as well.
“I hope Miss Lily will be my mama,” Daisy said, not nearly quietly enough. “And I hope she marries my new papa.”
Either Hessian was in the presence of the most socially adept adults in London, or the dog’s waving tail, the nursery maid’s efforts to tidy up the tea set, and Oscar Leggett’s bumbling attempts to present himself as fascinated by the stock exchange meant only Hessian had heard Daisy’s confidence.
