His Lordship's True Lady (True Gentlemen #4)(67)

She lifted her head from his shoulder, her eyes glittering in the firelight. “I cannot marry you. Walter will learn of it even if we go to Scotland, even if we live in France. You are a peer, and I am a felon.”

Hessian scooped her up and sat in the reading chair. Accusations of criminal wrongdoing could turn a muddle into outright pandemonium. He’d taken his turn serving as magistrate and knew of what he dreaded.

“How are you a felon?”

“Walter says that impersonating a dead person to earn their inheritance is fraud, and he’s read law.”

A man who detested untidiness of any variety excelled at untangling knots and restoring order. Hessian put that part of his brain to work, which was oddly easier when he was holding Lily.

“You are Lily Ferguson. You haven’t impersonated anybody. You are Walter Leggett’s niece, the daughter of his deceased sister.”

“But I’m not the right Lily Ferguson. I’m not Lillian Ann.”

“You never said you were. If Walter represented that you were Lillian, he did so out of your hearing. As for earning an inheritance, you’ve told me you haven’t even pin money, and your sister’s inheritance has been under Walter’s control since her death.”

Lily scooted off Hessian’s lap to sit on the hassock. “You’re saying Walter is committing the fraud? Aren’t I an accessory? I’ve benefitted from his scheme. I’m not emptying chamber pots or scrubbing floors sixteen hours a day.”

Starting at the age of nine, after years in a vicarage, for God’s perishing sake. “Nor shall you do so again.”

Hessian wanted to say more, to assure Lily that he could sort all of this out, but he’d made his last headlong charge where she was concerned. Caution, deliberation, and thorough preparation would be the order of the day henceforth.

Then too, the part of him that had cringed at his reckless courtship of Lily was braced for another quagmire: Did she esteem him honestly, or had she seen him as a way out of Walter Leggett’s household?

Something of both? And what if—heaven forefend—she’d already conceived a child?

Hessian’s penchant for considering every iota of available information offered him a morsel of comfort: Lily had had at least one opportunity to compromise herself with him—with him and Apollo Belvedere—and she’d not taken advantage. She’d freely admitted Walter Leggett’s desire to ingratiate himself with Worth. She’d conveyed this daft scheme to marry her to her cousin at the first opportunity.

Instinct and evidence both prodded Hessian to give Lily the benefit of the doubt. “When is your ostensible birthday?”

“Seventeen days hence.”

How to free Lily from her uncle’s control without exposing Leggett’s scheme to public scrutiny in seventeen short days?

Hessian touched Lily’s earlobe, the one that had never been scarred in the first place. “I could elope with you.” Though an elopement was scandal on the king’s highway and a sure way to provoke all manner of accusations from Leggett. Then too, a trip to Scotland meant hundreds of miles of travel, during which any number of mishaps could occur.

“We can’t get a special license?”

“One typically waits up to a week for the license to be prepared. If a license for Miss Lillian Ferguson and a license for Lilith Ferguson are applied for within days, the coincidence is bound to be noted.”

Though Lily was perched on the hassock not three feet away, Hessian again sensed she was physically present and mentally elsewhere.

Why hadn’t he stayed in Cumberland, where he knew his place and his neighbors, where he’d been the dullest excuse for a widower and resigned to the inevitable approach of middle age? He’d come south mostly out of boredom and to put a stop to Worth’s chiding and hinting.

Worth, of course, would chide endlessly over this situation. “Something bothers me,” Hessian said.

“I’m no end of bothered. I should have told you the truth sooner, but now that I have told you, it hasn’t made anything better. I thought about eloping with you, but that would add intrigue to dishonesty. Then there’s Daisy, who must not be made to suffer any more upset. She’s just finding her feet again, and more drama would set her back considerably.”

Good God, Daisy. “Daisy trusts you.”

Lily peered at him. “Am I to apologize for that?”

Hessian made himself think rather than offer some lordly platitude. “Regardless of your proper name, regardless of your dealings with me, you have been genuinely kind to the child and gone out of your way to help her. You have my thanks for that.”

The realization steadied him. Lily had taken an interest in Daisy when most other women would have patted Hessian’s arm and instructed him to hire more nursery maids. Even the ladies bent on becoming his countess asked about Daisy only in passing.

That Daisy trusted Lily suggested Hessian had been precipitous yielding his heart, but not a complete fool.

“We will not allow this imbroglio to affect Daisy,” he said, “but what bothers me is your sister. When did she die?”

“I’m not sure. I was approaching my fifteenth birthday when Uncle came for me. He’d already put the story about that his niece was off to finishing school in Switzerland. He brought Tippy with him, my sister’s governess. I’d met her on Mama’s last visit. I was so glad to see Tippy again…”