Page 113 of Wild Lily
Lily was to do her correspondence in a room upstairs. Tiny, airless and without a fireplace, the room had once been—Lily was certain—a closet. Plus the only chair was wooden, minus upholstery. Extremely uncomfortable.
Lily’s lady’s maid Nora, whom she’d brought with her after her marriage, was to take on other household chores. None of them was usual for Nora’s stated position.
Furthermore, Lily was not to plan the meals. That was the dowager duchess’s job. Always had been.
Nor would Lily help plan for tomorrow’s reading of the late duke’s will in the library. The dowager had claimed that duty as solely her own. Elanna and Carbury were to arrive today. So too Julian’s cousin Valentine Arden, Lord Burnett. And all the servants of Broadmore. Lily had suggested tea for everyone, but she’d been vetoed because of the expense of feeding the staff tea and cakes. If the dowager pinched any more pennies, they’d all be eating gruel three times a day.
“Of course, I’ve eaten.” The woman marched toward Lily, her presence more forbidding than the man on the wall who peered over them. “It is most unbecoming for the mistress of Broadmore to take her breakfast anywhere else but in her bed.”
I take my husband in my bed, not my meals.
“I prefer to dine here.” She tucked into her eggs.
“It’s most,mostunladylike. What will the staff think of you? I forbid it.” She took hold of the bell pull, ready to summon a servant.
Lily froze her with a glare. “As I see it, madame, you can forbid me nothing. If I wish to eat here, I harm no one.”
“You know nothing of harm. Nothing of procedures or traditions.”
Lily put down her fork and knife. “I know that if I dine here, I relieve the staff of work they need not do.”
The lady clasped her hands together so tightly, her knuckles went white. “Servants are here to work. They are paid. They have their keep. That is sufficient.”
Lily had no idea what each person earned, nor what their keep cost the estate—and she’d correct that lack. However, she did know that the reason she’d seen so little of her husband lately was his worry over money. For the past ten days or so, Julian had spent long hours with the estate manager to examine the records. He’d told her no financial details. Each day, he worked and each day, he became more vexed, his temper short, his attention wandering, his passion for her dulled. What little time he did take to talk with her was riddled with concern over the incessant rain, the drowning crops and the disgruntled tenants. His preoccupations with the welfare of those on Broadmore, as well as reports of more tenants at Willowreach down with croup and bronchitis, had pushed her aside. She disliked Julian’s aloofness. Feared it might erode what intimacy they’d begun to build. Money, which she’d always taken for granted, might buy comfort and splendor, but it did not contribute to contentment.
“You must finish your meal quickly.” The dowager waved a hand at her.
“This is my house, madam.”
“No, it is mine.” The woman preened, her thin nose reminding Lily of a bird of prey.
Lily itched to be so crass as to remind this lady of precisely what she owed her. Or rather her father. “You will not chase me off, madam.”
“I am chatelaine here, you presumptuous chit. You come to England to throw your father’s money at us. You are an American spawn of a pirate, spreading your legs for Chelton so that he—”
Lily set her jaw, determined to maintain her dignity. “He, madame, is referred to as ‘His Grace,’ and I detest the insult to my father and myself.”
“As do I, Mother.”
In the entrance to the dining room stood Julian. He looked the very devil, his hair plastered to his skull, wet from the rain, his dark eyes heavy with fatigue.
“This is unseemly, Mother.” He approached her and she sniffed, uncowed. “I thought better of you.”
Lily frowned over that.Shehadn’t thought better of the dowager. She’d been given no reason to think highly of her. If Julian and his mother were to have a confrontation, Lily was determined to witness it.
But the woman did not give in easily. “I will not have your wife creating havoc in this house, Chelton.”
Lily’s stomach knotted. How could the woman be so insulting to her son? Was she determined to ignore her husband’s death? Why? Honoring the man now did nothing to redeem herself for the way she’d traded her husband when he was alive.
Julian raked his hands through his disheveled hair. “For Lily to take her breakfast where she pleases does not inspire havoc.”
“The servants will take advantage of her.”
You take advantage of me.
“I doubt that, Mother. She’s had servants.”
“Not ours.”
