Page 72 of His Lordship's True Lady
“Early morning outings have left me fatigued,” Lily said, tucking her embroidery into her workbasket. “I believe I’ll retire.”
The rhythm of Miss Fotheringham’s snores hitched, then resumed.
Uncle turned a page. “Good night, ladies.”
Meaning Lily was to rouse her companion and escort her upstairs. Miss Fotheringham was by no means elderly, but she had elderly ways, which for the most part, Lily appreciated. A drowsy companion prone to megrims and chills was less of a burden.
The dignified procession up the steps plucked Lily’s last nerve, though she parted from her companion on the landing, the same as she had for a thousand other nights. Miss Fotheringham had been an acquaintance of Tippy’s, though Lily had never been sure what her companion knew, or what she surmised.
Lily’s bed had been turned down, her fire built up, meaning the maids would not disturb her. The first order of business was to unlatch her window, for Hessian’s instruction had been clear.
Rather than undress or take down her hair, she went to the wardrobe. Her money was in its little glove box, beneath the satin lining. She poured the lot of it into her oldest reticule. Next, she assembled the least-impressive, sturdiest, most-sensible ensemble she could—brown velvet walking dress, plain brown cloak, a straw hat such as any shop girl might own, gloves darned on the right index finger—
“Might I ask what you’re about?”
Lily turned to find Hessian Kettering standing just inside the window she’d opened not five minutes before.
“Hessian.” She was across the room without another thought, her arms wrapped around him.
His remained at his sides.
She held him tightly for one more moment, needing the feel of him close, loathing the sense that her embrace was merely tolerated.
“I would greet you as Lily, except I suspect you are not she.”
His gaze was once again the distant nobleman, the man easily annoyed with posturing or dithering. Lily stepped back as his words penetrated her whirling mind.
“I am Lily Ferguson.”
His gaze flicked to the drab clothing on the bed. “But are you my Lily, or some creature fashioned for your uncle’s convenience—if he’s your uncle?”
The question was gently put, and yet, Lily sank onto the bed, felled by the disappointment she saw in Hessian’s eyes. He remained by the window, probably unwilling to come any nearer to a woman who was a lie.
Protestations suggested themselves, the same ones she’d offered Oscar:You have leaped to conclusions, you speculate, you conjecture from hunches and innuendo.
She barely tolerated Oscar; she loved Hessian Kettering.
“Walter Leggett is my uncle, my mother’s brother.”
A night breeze caught the curtains. Hessian closed the window and tied the curtains shut. “You are a by-blow?”
Lily seized on the question for the invitation it was. “My mother was newly widowed, not newly widowed enough, and I was conceived. She could not marry the man with whom she’d faltered, so she traveled. I was born in Bern. The first language I learned was German.”
Still, Hessian remained in the shadows across the room. “Go on.”
He’d be fair, then, hearing her out, or perhaps he was simply appeasing his curiosity. Lily owed him—and only him—an explanation.
“When I was three, Mama found a vicar and his wife in Derbyshire whose discretion she trusted. For the next six years, I was raised as their distant relation. My mother visited when she could and brought my half-sister with her most of the time. I was not unhappy.”
Lily got up to pace, and to be nearer to the man she was losing. “My sister treated me as a curiosity. She was more than two years my senior, and though much indulged, she grasped that my circumstances were not as comfortable as hers. Then Mama died.”
Oh, how the words hurt. “I’d lived for those visits from Mama, for her letters. I never knew when she was coming, and I never knew what to say to her. She’d hug me so tightly, then tell me to play with my sister, and I could feel a weight, always, of love, but also frustration, hers and mine. A mother and child should not be parted, but she’d tell me to be good and leave.”
Hessian held a square of white linen out to her, at arm’s length.
Lily took his handkerchief and dabbed at her cheeks. “I never cry, but then, I never talk about this.”
“I lost my mother when I was a youth. I miss her still, and my papa.”
