Page 80 of Too Wanton to Wed
Guilt plagued him. To think he had presumed to judge her by his own impossible standards, when she had already fought and survived battles he did not even have the stomach to fathom. He was sickened by his self-righteousness and ashamed of the many times she must have suffered at his thoughtlessness.
“When they asked you your name, what did you say? Did you even have one?”
“I thought I did,” she answered wryly. “I’d been called ‘Violet Eyes’ often enough that I believed it my rightful name. I’d never seen myself, so I hadn’t the slightest inkling it was meant to be shorthand description, to tell one street rat from another. But when the laughter died down, the word stuck, and from that day forth I had a name. Two of them. After my eyes, and the place of my birth.”
“Violet Whitechapel,” he murmured, as the wanted bill sprung from his memory. He had accused her of giving him a false name. He couldn’t imagine not having any other kind.
“Violet Whitechapel,” she agreed with an ironic smile. “And she lived happily ever after.”
Alistair’s stomach twisted. His heart ached for her. He blamed himself for adding to her misery. “What happened to you was unimaginable, and if I could gibbet every man who ever touched you, I happily would. You were right to reprove me for my hypocrisy. I was foolish. I don’t care about your past, Violet. Even if you had willfully and eagerly been the most overworked courtesan in all of London, what right have I to judge you for something that happened before we had even met?”
Slowly, her eyes lost their deadness and gained a glimmer of hope. “Do you mean that?”
“‘Let he who is without sin cast the first stone,’” he quoted in self-deprecation. Amen. He was surprised the Lord didn’t strike him down right there in the library. “For someone who lives in an abbey, I’m not too skilled at soaking up Scripture.” He ran his knuckle down the side of her cheek and let his hand fall back into his lap. He had failed her. She deserved better. “I never had the right to judge you, Violet. I didn’t know your situation and I don’t know your past, but I do knowyou.”
Violet’s expression was shy, her smile hesitant. “I like to think it’s never too late for anyone.”
He grinned back at her. “Let’s start anew. And let’s include Lily. Will you please join me to dispose of that horrid gravestone with my child’s name on it?”
“Everyone would join us for that,” she returned, sounding almost like her old self again.
“Splendid,” he said and held out his hand. “I’ll arrange the festivities for tomorrow. But let’s ask the little matchmaker if she’d like to join us this evening for a walk under the stars.”
A few hours later,Violet was beside herself with excitement. Lily’s first time out-of-doors in years! She needed to experience the outside world, to taste it and touch it and smell it and see it. Toliveit. And tonight, she finally would. Magic seemed to crackle in the air.
Lily was reclining on her bed, perusing a book of flowers, when Violet and Alistair knocked upon the door.
“Lily,” he began solemnly. “If you are not terribly busy, would you like to join Violet and I tonight for a turn about the garden?”
Her dark eyes narrowed with suspicion. As soon as she realized two smiling faces could only mean the offer was genuine, she practically tumbled out of the bed in her haste to join them. “Truly?”
Laughing, Alistair crossed the room to assist, and within short order Lily was decked head to toe in boots and spencer and a grin wide enough to drown in.
“Ohhh,” she exclaimed, clapping her pale hands together excitedly. “I can’t wait!”
Violet was close to clapping her hands, too. The eagerness in Lily’s smile warmed her heart not just because it transformed the child’s usually somber demeanor into that of a happy little girl, but because she had lately realized that Lily rarely smiled at all.
To her dismay, Violet suspected she had smiled more on the streets and in the workhouse than Lily did in her opulent prison. It was difficult to enjoy even the small moments when one had never been taught that life was a thing to be treasured, to be enjoyed. That each day was what you made of it, for good or for bad.
The same could be said about Lily’s father. Violet couldn’t resist a quick glance at Alistair. He needed joy, too. And Violet intended to make a difference in both their lives.
With one of Lily’s hands clasped in her father’s and the other small hand tucked into Violet’s, they tramped single file into the catacombs. Candles and muffled giggles chased the shadows from the tunnels, and before she knew it, they were at the front door.
He paused with his hand on the doorknob. “Are you certain you’re ready?”
Lily squealed, shoving at him in her excitement. “Open the door!”
Violet shook her head as Alistair flung open the door and Lily burst forth to test her boots upon the grass. Her smile was beatific. Violet and Alistair shared a grin as their eyes met over the top of Lily’s head. Tonight, they were sharing a precious gift, and forever changing Lily’s life for the better.
One had only to gaze at the rapture upon the child’s face to see the truth.
“Oh,Papa.” Lily turned a slow circle, lifting her arms in wonder. “Smell the air! It smells like—it smells like—oh, look at the flowers! They’re not roses, they’re... Don’t tell me, they’re in my book, I’veseenthem. Marigolds! And look howbrightthey are! Pen-and-ink drawings are lovely, but I had no idea they might be—Eek!What was that? Did you see it? It moved!”
Laughing, they led her toward the center of the lawn in order to give her a wider view of her surroundings.
Violet knelt beside her. “That, Miss Tiger Lily, was the very ferocious British squirrel. And if you look over there... up higher, see where I’m pointing? That is a tawny owl.”
“An owl!” Lily crowed delightedly, as if Violet had not led her to a shadowed tree but rather to the treasure beneath a rainbow. “Can you paint one for me tomorrow?”
