Page 83 of His Lordship's True Lady
“And yet,” Hessian said, “you are dealt another blow to learn you’ve been subjected to yet another falsehood. I’m sorry, Lily.”
She did not want his apology, because he hadn’t wronged her by bringing this truth to light. “Hold me, for the love of God, please hold me.”
He plucked her from the chair and carried her to the bed. Lily had turned the sheets back to warm and scooted under the covers, while Hessian tugged off his boots.
“Get in here,” Lily said, untying her dressing gown and flinging it to the foot of the bed. “Get in here and tell me everything you know, Hessian Kettering. I will not engage in strong hysterics, despite the temptation, but neither can I promise you a ladylike vocabulary.”
He draped his coat and waistcoat over the back of the reading chair and drew the window curtains closed before coming to the bed.
He stood for a moment, gazing down at Lily as she lay on her side, willing him to join her.
The mattress dipped, and he was drawing the covers up over them both. “We must conclude your sister is alive and thriving, Lily. She doesn’t need to skimp on paper to the extent of crossing her letters. She uses a family crest to seal correspondence. She has the leisure to write regularly, and in all the years she’s been corresponding with Miss Tipton, her direction hasn’t changed. She’s not haring about after a man who can’t hold a job, not fleeing the law, or using an alias.”
“You are trying to reassure me.”
Hessian tucked an arm under Lily’s neck and drew her along his side. “Is it working?”
His sane, sensible conclusions would sink in after he’d left. What calmed Lily was his nearness. “Some. What did Her Grace of Quimbey have to add?”
Hessian had a way of holding Lily that was at once snug and easy. The bed was immediately warm with him in it, and despite all the clothing—far too much clothing—the fit of his body to Lily’s was comfortable.
Also comforting.
“Her Grace explained London to me. I seldom use my Town residence and haven’t paid much attention to domestic details. Most neighborhoods use the same dairy, the same bakeshop, the same laundresses and tinkers. The dairy maids, night soil men, crossing sweepers—they all share news and gossip, and they carry it from one back entrance to another, one stable to another.”
“You did not know this?” If there was any pleasure associated with working at a coaching inn, it was the sense of having all the news from every corner of the realm. A crop failure in Dorset, a spectacular barn fire in East Anglia, a great fair in Yorkshire—the coaching inns heard about everything in first-person accounts.
“I did not grasp the extent of a wealthy widow’s news sources, and for years before her present union, the duchess was widowed.”
Lily untied Hessian’s neckcloth and drew it off. “How is this relevant?”
The linen smelled of him, of soap and cedar, and faintly of starch. She tossed it in the direction of the reading chair.
“Her Grace of Quimbey keeps journals and thus was able to regale me with astonishing details. Lawrence Delmar was an exceedingly handsome, friendly fellow. The ladies all noticed him, from the maids, to the laundresses, to the occasional visitor paying a call on Walter. Delmar lived in and served as much as a man of business as a house steward. For a young man, he had a lot of responsibility, but he also rose to whatever challenge Walter Leggett threw at him.”
Next, Lily opened the buttons at the top of Hessian’s shirt. “Uncle speaks well of those with ambition, until they’re wealthy. Then they become encroaching mushrooms.”
“Lily, if you persist…”
She kissed him. “One can’t be comfortable in a bed when fully clothed. Finish your story.”
Hessian held her so her face was pressed to his shoulder. “How am I to think logically when you are removing my clothing?”
He let her go, and Lily subsided against him.Had he kept his hands to himself in aid of self-restraint?That would be very like Hessian Kettering.
“Delmar and Walter had a spectacular falling-out,” he went on. “The shouting could be heard throughout the house, though such a disagreement was unprecedented in their relationship. Nobody knows if the subject was permission to court your sister, a financial matter, or something else entirely. The next morning, Delmar was gone, and your sister was missing as well. Nobody saw them leave, and Walter was soon putting it about that his niece was off to a fine finishing school in Switzerland.”
“And Uncle has never had a house steward or man of business since,” Lily said. “Not that I know of, nor has he permitted Oscar to learn much about the finances.”
“Your hair… Do you use French soap? I can’t place the fragrance.”
Hessian sniffed right above Lily’s ear, and beneath the cozy covers, she shivered. “I buy it from a shop in Chelsea. If my sister is kicking her heels in Scotland, Uncle is probably that much more desperate to get her money out of the trust accounts and into his own hands.”
Next came more of a nuzzle than a sniff.
“IfWalter knows your sister is alive and well. Maybe she served him a portion of his own recipe and dissembled about her demise, the better to be left in peace.”
Quiet stretched, with only the crackling of the fire to mark the moment. Lily tried tothink—tried to parse how Hessian’s discoveries would impact Walter’s behavior—and was foiled by a welter of sensations.
