Page 102 of Wild Lily
Lily’s delicate dark brows inched high. “Unchaperoned?”
“No. Nothing like that. But it was a series of silly trials.”
“She was testing each of you?” Lily asked with a certain disdain in her features.
“She was. It seemed funny, romantic. We were young. Well, I was twenty-three. And I’d never been—”
They stared at each other, across the abyss created by his abrupt silence.
Her eyes turned dark with worry. “Say it.”
“I’d never been in love before.”
She swallowed, her slender throat convulsing with the news. “Go on.”
He licked his lower lip. “I took hope that she favored me. I—”
“Why?” Lily interrupted him.
“She allowed me liberties. And so I—”
“Made love to her?” she asked in such a flat tone, he thought he might’ve imagined her question.
“No. Never anything so enormous as that.”
“But what?”
He got to his feet. “You can’t expect me to tell you everything.”
“Why not?”
“Because it occurred eight, nine years ago and for you to know it all is irrelevant.”
“Is it?” she countered him, her pale face turned up to him.
“It is.” He would not hurt his wife unnecessarily.
“What happened?”
“That June, each of us proposed to her.” He laughed that the memory had surprisingly faded, the sorrow was hollowed of its old aching sense of loss. “On the same day, as it turns out. She chose the man she is married to. Has been these many years.”
“And he is young?”
“The same age as I am.”
“And healthy?” she persisted.
“He is.”
“And why is he not here with her?”
Julian shrugged. The salacious pastimes of the Duke of Norfield were nothing his wife would ever understand, nor wish to. “I didn’t ask her.”
“What did she want to discuss with you tonight?”
Ah, well. That was easy to say. After all, he’d come this far. “My marriage to you.”
Lily nodded, her expression blank. “She’s curious. I saw that. And I suppose that’s natural. Given that she’d like to resume her…her friendship with you.”
