His Lordship's True Lady (True Gentlemen #4)(66)
“You are not her,” Hessian said, “so who are you?”
He was watching her now, and Lily had the sense that her answer would decide everything. Whether Hessian remained in her life, whether she went to jail, whether she had a life.
“I had hoped to be Lady Grampion.” The first sincere hope Lily had expressed in years.
Hessian rose. “You must know that is an impossibility now.”
He was so tall, staring down at Lily. His expression was severe, an angel of judgment. Lily stood, because she would not be looked down upon by any man, least of all one who’d claimed to care for her.
“I have wondered, Hessian, if my tale outrages you on behalf of that fourteen-year-old girl, who was friendless, preyed upon, exhausted, and alone.”
“You are no longer fourteen.”
He seemed to be puzzling that out for himself as he spoke.
Lily was not puzzled, an unexpected and thoroughly satisfying revelation. “I am no longer fourteen, but finally, I am outraged, and you are free to go.”
*
Part of Hessian wanted to leap out the window and fly right back to his acres in the north, back to a life of napping in duck blinds and making up the numbers at the neighbors’ dinner parties.
The rest of him wished that he and Lily—if that was her name—were in the nearby bed, anticipating their vows, which proved only that his plodding, orderly mind had not grasped the complexity of the upset Lily had dumped in his lap.
“Might I remind you,” Hessian said, “if you purport to marry anybody using a name other than the one your mother gave you at birth, the ceremony will be invalid.”
Lily subsided into her chair, her indignation dropping away as a sudden shift in the wind leaves even a seventy-four-gunner adrift.
“Invalid?”
“You are not Lily Ferguson.”
She drew her feet up under her, something a lady would never do when entertaining a caller. “But I am. I was born Lilith Ann Ferguson. My sister was Lillian Ann Ferguson. We were both named for Mama’s favorite aunt, Lilliana. All my life, I have been Lily Ferguson, while my sister went by Annie with me to avoid confusion.”
Which relieved Hessian only a little. “On the registry, on the special license, the full, correct name must be used. If I misstate so much as my baronial title, my marriage can be invalidated, provided the right bishop is bribed. The bride’s name must also be correct in every detail.”
Lily tucked the hem of her dress over her slippers. “I can’t marry anybody? Ever?”
“You certainly can’t marry that strutting donkey’s arse you call a cousin.” Much to Hessian’s relief.
Lily gazed up at him, though Hessian had the sense she wasn’t seeing him or the bedroom where she’d slept for years.
“I can’t marry a peer of the realm either,” she said. “At any point, Walter could take a notion to have the marriage declared invalid, me sent to jail, and my children declared illegitimate.”
Hessian paced over to the window. He’d intended that her children be his children too, more fool he. “I hate messes. I loathe, despise, abhor, detest… This is the mess to end all messes.”
Lily worried a nail. “You hate me.”
Curled by the fire, she looked young and dispirited. Her bun sagged to one side, and she still clutched Hessian’s handkerchief.
“I could never hate you, but this is a muddle.” Like Daisy’s muddle: Good girls ended up beneath the churchyard; bad girls were sent away.
Lily could not marry him, and she could not remain in Walter Leggett’s avaricious grasp.
Hessian took the dress from the bed and rehung it in the wardrobe, along with a plain brown cloak, straw hat, and mended gloves. The smooth white counterpane was a reproach to him, for charging headlong into a courtship despite all sense to the contrary.
He’d hoped to again disport with a woman to whom he was neither engaged nor wed, when in truth, he hadn’t even known her true, legal name. What had he been thinking?
Nothing at all, that’s what. He hadn’t been thinking. He’d been wallowing in wishes and dreams, animal spirits, and selfish pleasures.
“I have seventy-eight pounds,” Lily said. “I can make that last a long time. I am conversant in French, German, and Italian, and my Latin, history, and sums are good. I can be a governess or companion. If nobody will have me in those roles, I’m not above honest labor. I’ve worked in the kitchen, the dairy, the laundry, the stables, and the garden. I’ve been a chambermaid, scullery maid, and everything in between. I know the New Testament as well as any curate, and I l-like children.”
She abruptly bent her head, as if ducking a blow.
Hessian went to her and took her in his arms, despite messes, muddles, and anything resembling rational thought. She’d been worked nearly to death, a household drudge at some busy inn, then taken away from everything and everybody she knew and cast into a scheme not of her making.
At fourteen, Hessian had still considered females an exotic species, of no more import to him than penguins. Females had a natural habitat, a place in the order of creation, but with the exception of one sister, they thrived in environs he did not frequent. That had suited him, for he’d had butterflies to collect and poetry to memorize.
At fourteen, Lily had feared for her virtue and her safety. “I promise you,” he said, “you will not be thrust alone into the world again.”