Page 100 of Wild Lily
“My, my, what did you say to her, Chelton?”
He pivoted toward the dulcet sounds of Margaret Sheffield. Gazing down into her dark green eyes, he was transported back to his youth and his desire to possess her. No one would argue, the woman was lovely. Polished. More than the American who had just escaped him. More than the young woman who had become his wife. He’d yearned for this one. But that desire had been different from his craving for Lily, hadn’t it? Urgent. Demanding. An animal’s impulse to mate and dominate.
He saw her now through the perspective of experience—and he congratulated himself that so far this weekend, he had side-stepped long conversations with her. “Nothing much.”
“Enough to send her running. You must be kinder to those less hardy than yourself, Chelton.” Her grass-green eyes challenged him.
“She told me tales that disturbed me.”
“Oh?” Margaret snapped open her fan and fluttered it near her abundant and perfectly rounded décolleté. “So you took the stuffing out of her? Shame on you, darling.”
“I was surprised.”
“Not an excuse.”
“No.” He admired his wife as she enjoyed herself on the floor with Pinkie. He wanted her back. When she was near him, he felt whole. “I hope you don’t wish to dance.”
“No, I don’t. But that’s beside the point. You should ask me.”
“It would be polite, I concede. But you did not approach me, Meg, in the hope of waltzing.”
She sighed. “Truth. It is a fine weapon. So tell me a truth, Chelton. Are you avoiding me?”
“We’ve spoken, Meg.”
“Pleasantries. Only. Pleasantries.”
“We have little in common.”
“Oh, my dear man. We have the past in common.”
He pursed his lips. She was a dog with a bone. “Our past is more than eight years old. To some, that’s ancient history.”
She inhaled slowly, her gaze going around the room. “I remember it all very well.”
“I don’t.”
She scoffed. “Has marriage made you crusty, Chelton?”
“On the contrary.”It’s made me appreciate my wife.He searched the ballroom.In the crush, he’d lost sight of Lily.
“Tamed you, I suppose? Interesting.”
Julian followed Meg’s line of sight. Lily twirled even more gracefully than before in the arms of Pinkhurst. He could be jealous. Could be…if he didn’t know in his soul that Lily came to him each night naked and willing andyes, more in love with him than he deserved.
“And you’re enchanted with her.” Meg’s words were an accusation.
He took them for a declaration. One that surprised him. One he could easily make aloud to her. “I am.”
“It will erode.”
He shook his head, though she’d named his greatest fear. He couldn’t let her see how her prediction gutted him. “I doubt it.”
“All enchantments disappear.” She waved her fan in a flourish. “A genie appears who dissolves the magic.”
That wouldn’t happen with Lily.
“Don’t look so stricken. All is not lost. When your days become humdrum, darling, do send for me.”
