His Lordship's True Lady (True Gentlemen #4)(50)
So Roberta Braithwaite was the serpent in the garden. “Did you believe her claims?”
Lily tugged off her right glove, finger by finger, then her left. “I wish I hadn’t mentioned her name, when at long, long last we have a few minutes’ privacy. Perhaps we can speak of her later.”
Luncheon would be at least thirty minutes in preparation, and the conservatory doors boasted stout locks.
“As always, you make great good sense. So why are we standing three yards apart when I’d rather be kissing you silly?”
Chapter Twelve
* * *
Lily’s emotions were like the conservatory—a crowded tangle of obscured paths and dim shadows shot through with sunbeams of hope and the sweet scent of temptation. She longed to be courted by Hessian Kettering, but deceiving a man she respected took vast reserves of selfishness.
Self-preservation instincts, Lily had, but selfishness? Enough selfishness and calculation to marry him and carry forward a deception already ten years in the making?
And then there was Mrs. Braithwaite adding her complications, and all Lily knew was that now—right now—she wanted whatever she could have with Hessian, because even tomorrow was not hers to promise.
“We stand three yards apart,” Lily said, “because the door is not locked, and luncheon should be delivered any moment.”
The earl held out his right hand, palm up. “My kitchen has learned not to wait a meal on me. I’d rather have my food fresh and hot, after a short wait, than warm and overdone, though promptly served. I’d like to show you something.”
Lily wanted to show him many things: the truth of her upbringing and the rotten scheme Mrs. Braithwaite had hatched foremost among them. The latter she’d certainly divulge, while the former… maybe someday?
She took Grampion’s hand. His grasp was comfortable and confident, much like his kisses. “Where are we going?”
“Daisy is not the only person in this family to have a hiding place,” he said, leading Lily down a path between the ferns. “I come here when I want solitude, or the maids are busy above stairs and I’m in need of a nap.”
He opened another door, to a small rectangular room that might once have been an antechamber, though like the conservatory, the outer wall was glass. That glass was obscured by a smoky tint such as the imagination fashioned in dream worlds. Hazy greenery lay beyond the glass wall, and a pair of clerestory windows were open, scenting the little room with scythed grass and hyacinths.
“You read here,” she said, picking up a copy of Guy Mannering.
Hessian took the book from her, closed it, and set it on a small table. “I dream here.”
The room was barely furnished—a chair in the corner, wall sconces on either side. A table that apparently doubled as a writing desk in the opposite corner and, along the glass wall, a bed made up with worn quilts. No knickknacks or art cluttered any surface, all was orderly and spartan.
“Does something trouble you, Lily?”
Everything troubled her. Uncle Walter, Mrs. Braithwaite, Oscar… but they were not here, and this privacy with Hessian might never come again.
Lily twisted the lock above the door latch. “I’ve missed you. That has troubled me.” She stepped close and put her arms around Hessian. His reciprocal embrace was balm to her tattered nerves. “I can see why you doubt Mrs. Braithwaite’s fitness to raise a child. Her manner is presuming.”
Threatening, more like.
Hessian’s hold on Lily was careful, his thumb whispering across her nape. “Am I presuming?”
She rested her cheek against the soft wool of his jacket, wishing she could give him all of her burdens and all of her trust. Hessian was overstepping polite decorum terribly—by embracing her, by being alone with her—and yet Lily wanted even more from him.
Hessian Kettering was good. He hesitated over white lies, he treasured stolen kisses. He approached life with clear notions of right and wrong, honorable and shameful.
In terms of standing and integrity, he was well above her touch, even above the touch of Walter Leggett’s legitimate niece, but for the money that young lady had inherited. Lily’s conscience shrieked at her to step away, to use this privacy to inform Grampion that his judgment of Mrs. Braithwaite was all too accurate.
“You do not presume, my lord. I wish you would.”
His embrace became subtly more intimate, more cherishing. He kissed her, a different sort of kiss that presaged a different sort of closeness. Long, long ago, Lily had seen tavern maids and grooms when they’d thought themselves unobserved. Their passion had intrigued and troubled her, but she understood now why they’d been so bold.
Make me forget. Let me pretend. Stop time for me.
In the conservatory, water trickled in a peaceful whisper. Hessian’s kisses descended in a lazy cascade over Lily’s cheeks, her lips, her throat, to the swell of her bosom. He drew back and freed a half-dozen buttons marching down the middle of Lily’s bodice—not nearly enough.
I am my mother’s daughter after all. The realization brought Lily relief rather than shame. Loneliness could be a shroud, propriety a grave for a woman’s dreams. Mama had been grieving and alone. She’d failed to produce sons—a great disappointment to the ducal Fergusons, of course—and when she’d lost her husband, she’d faltered.