Page 70 of Wild Lily
“I will be thirty-one June first, sir.”
“Do you own stock in the shipping company?”
“No, sir.”
“Splendid. Send your lawyer to me for transfer of Lily’s dowry.”
Lily gasped.
Julian went white as a sheet. “I will, yes.”
“Well, then, Seton.” Her father seemed without joy as he looked at the duke. “We have a wedding to plan.”
Julian beamed at her father. “Thank you, sir.”
Lily shrank away from them. “You cannot sell me.”
Her father glared at her. “You consented to too much tonight. I do not sell you, dearest, as ensure you will live without disgrace.”
The duke lurched forward, his face ruby red. “You need my approval!”
“He’s right,” proclaimed the duchess with overweening pride. “Society will expect it. If Julian were to marry her, the chit would need myentreto theton. And then there is the unfortunate possibility that this instance of riding at midnight and the seduction in my son’s parlor would get out.”
Julian seethed. “You wouldn’t dare put that abroad.”
She tut-tutted him. “Don’t be naïve, dear one. Servants talk, you know it.”
Julian cursed broadly. “I thought you were a hellcat, but I’d no idea how unscrupulous you were. You’d do this for money? Renounce decency?”
Lily could bear no more. She’d heard of families who starved because they drank away their wages or gambled the gold from their teeth. But the hypocrisy of the duke and duchess cut her like a knife. Did the son fall far from this tree—or could she trust Julian in spite of what was said and done here? “I don’t want anything from any of you. Not acceptance, not titles, not money—and not marriage.”
Julian caught her hands. “That’s not true. I want you.”
“Listen to him, Lily,” her father urged. “This rejection does you no good.”
She yanked away. “No.”
“I’ll not have scandal on my doorstep, Lily. I told you that before. I warned you. This is as much your doing as Lord Chelton‘s. Fix it.”
“No, no,” The duke persisted. “I won’t approve of it.”
“Quiet, Seton. You’ll have your price for the sale.” Her father patted her hand and led her more snuggly by his side. “I’ll have my daughter wed with all due respect. You will approve. And you, Your Grace,” he said to the duchess with a murderous look over the rims of his glasses, “will put no rumors of this night out to anyone. Understood?”
With an indignant lift of her chin, the woman demurred. “As you wish.”
He looked at Julian. “How soon is a wedding possible without feeding the gossips?”
“The banns should be read in church for three Sundays.”
“See it done. That makes the wedding the first week in June. Our house. I will post the engagement announcement in the newspaper. Also, Lord Chelton, be sure to find some exquisite family bauble that your mother has not yet sold to pay her nefarious debts. It will become an engagement gift for your fiancé. Send it round to the house Monday. We’ll host a ball two nights before the wedding. Meanwhile, Lily goes to Paris for fittings for her trousseau.”
She opened her mouth to object.
But he quashed her efforts with a shake of his head. “Do not disappoint me. None of you.”
