His Lordship's True Lady (True Gentlemen #4)(91)

Lily curtseyed. “I thought you were dead.”

Hessian could feel the upset welling in her, feel the fury. “Lily, may I make known to you your brother-in-law, Lawrence Delmar. Delmar, Miss Lily Ferguson, as she has come to be known. Perhaps the ladies would like to have a seat?”

“Fine idea,” Delmar said. “Fine, fine idea. Lovely morning, isn’t it?”

Nobody answered him. The women subsided onto the bench, gazes fixed on each other. Mrs. Delmar was an inch or two taller than Lily, her figure fuller. Her hair was the same shade as Lily’s, her eyes the same gentian blue. She was the plainer of the two, for all her dress was the more fashionable, her bonnet the fancier.

And yet, the sisters inclined toward each other at the same angle, drew back at the same time, and both said, “Well…” at the same instant.

Hessian ached for them, and clearly Delmar was at a loss as well. Where to begin? “Perhaps Mrs. Delmar might explain her supposed death in a carriage accident.”

“Start there,” Lily said. “And don’t think to spare a detail. I would have given anything—anything—to have known my sister was alive and well.”

Mrs. Delmar exchanged a glance with her husband, which Hessian translated easily: This is hard/I have faith in you.

“Uncle was a tyrant,” Mrs. Delmar began. “I was still in the schoolroom, and he had ideas for which spotty heir or gouty old ruralizing earl I should marry.”

Mr. Delmar cleared his throat. Hessian examined the canopy of lush foliage above rather than point out that the Kettering family had no propensity for gout, and the present titleholder was not old.

“Uncle is still a tyrant,” Lily said, “and he all but married me to Oscar just yesterday. You at least had the Ferguson relations taking a hand in your affairs, while I… I had my cat.”

“The Fergusons? They were so angry with Mama for turning the head of their darling baby boy, they took no interest in me at all. I gather the present duke is a decent fellow, but I only met him the once, when he was traveling down from university. He’s your father, you know. The present duke, that is.”

Lily reached up blindly, and Hessian took her hand. Damn the proprieties and damn the present duke.

“He has no idea you exist,” Mrs. Delmar went on. “The affair was doomed. A man, even a duke, cannot marry his brother’s widow. He eventually married some marquess’s sister, but as far as he’s concerned, his brother’s line has died out—brother, sister-in-law, and daughter.”

Lily sat for a moment with her eyes closed. When she opened them, she released Hessian’s hand. “Does Uncle Walter know who my father is?”

“I doubt even Walter would have perpetrated his scheme had he known you’re a duke’s by-blow, and rest assured, substituting you for me was all Uncle’s idea. Mama wanted to tell the Fergusons about you, or at least tell your papa, but Walter talked her into waiting—babies sometimes don’t live very long—and then you became harder and harder to explain.”

“I intend to be very hard to explain,” Lily said. “But perhaps this is why we look so similar. We are maternal half-sisters as well as paternal cousins.”

Mrs. Delmar set her reticule on her lap. “Are we enemies, Lily?”

Hessian gave Lily’s shoulder a squeeze.

“We are not friends,” Lily said. “You kept yourself from me. Now I learn that you kept my father as well. That was badly done of you, Annie.”

Mrs. Delmar blinked hard at her lap. “You are the only person to call me that, now that Mama is gone.”

Lily’s expression remained impassive. “Tell me about your death.”

“I nearly did die,” Mrs. Delmar said. “Uncle and Lawrence had a terrible difference of opinion, and when Lawrence told me he was returning to Scotland, I begged him to take me with him. I could see what Uncle had in store for me, and I suspected he was frittering away my fortune.”

Delmar cleared his throat. “Leggett and I argued about that. He directed me to misappropriate some funds from the trust accounts, and I refused. Our disagreement was conducted at ungentlemanly volume, and Leggett threatened to have me arrested for stealing.”

A breeze stirred the trees such that a beam of sunlight danced across Lily’s face, making her look very young.

And very brave. Hessian fell in love with her for about the fourth time that morning.

“Tippy mentioned something recently,” Lily said, “about Mama being constantly criticized growing up, and Uncle able to do no wrong. He apparently played fast and free with Mama’s money, tossed out threats of criminal prosecution in several directions, and generally comported himself like a brat overdue for a spanking.”

“He certainly threatened Tippy,” Mrs. Delmar said. “Threatened to cut her off without a penny, threatened to lay the whole ruse with you at her feet.”

Lily sat quite tall. “Not a ruse, Annie. An elaborate and fraudulent deception, in which I gather you were complicit.”

“When I learned of it,” Mrs. Delmar said, “which was more than two years after my arrival in Scotland, I remained silent. I’m sorry for it, and I hope someday you can forgive me.”

*



This is not what I want.

The thought ran through Lily’s mind like a Greek chorus, counterpointing the action in a drama Lily wished were over.