Wild Lily (Those Notorious Americans Book 1)(43)

He broke away, his hand to her cheek. The need to have her here on this bench was a violent fire that spread to his blood. “I must stop. Tonight, you’ll meet me?”

“At the stable doors?” The rapture he saw on her face told him she would come to him anywhere, any time. How wonderful. How dangerous. “Yes.”

He stood, pushing her hands to her lap. “After dinner. When all are abed.”

“I’ll teach you how to play poker some other day then?” Hope and disappointment mingled in her features.

“Many other days. I promise. Forgive me, but I must leave you.”

“Propriety calls, does it?” she teased him.

“That,” he said with a sad smile, “and I have urgent family matters.”





Dinner was a nightmare. Carbury was an animated host, his attention on Elanna nigh unto oppressive. Julian’s father was either surly or pleasant beyond bearing. His mother seemed radiant. Elanna who had once more refused to see Julian that afternoon played the part of a featherbrained debutante and flirted with the three eligible men. The two eligible women cast disapproving eyes at her, to no avail. The three men appeared to love the attention. Killian Hanniford and his niece Marianne Roland attempted their part with lively introductions of subjects, which fell to Lily and him to take up. Meanwhile, Carbury’s older female guests chatted on, filling in the numerous holes of the conversation.

Julian frowned at his soup.

His plans for the day had become mincemeat. No talk with Elanna about Carbury or any other matter. A warning that Father was getting itchy. Hours pondering his own finances to divine if he might afford…yes, a wife. A wife. This wife for himself.

He sat back, his appetite gone.

He knew the answer. Of course, he did. He didn’t have to put ink to paper. He’d examined his ledgers over and over again. He’d already cut staff at Willowreach. Months ago, he’d reined in his spending on tailors and wines. He’d given up his small house in Paris last autumn, the need for it gone along with the dismissal of his kind but unexciting French mistress. With frugality, and even without acquiring any dowry from Lily, he could afford to feed her. But clothe her? Hire a maid for her? Allow her parties and at homes? No. There would be no cash for any of that. And he loathed the idea that she’d do without all those niceties she so obviously enjoyed.

How could he ask her to marry him and do without the comforts she deserved?

He’d be a cad. Perhaps not as bad as Randolph Churchill, the duke of Marlborough’s younger son, who had met, fallen in love and proposed marriage to the American heiress Jenny Jerome within two weeks, only to find that her small dowry of two thousand pounds per year would be all he’d have to live on. The difference between Churchill and him was that he wished not to take any of Killian Hanniford’s money. None at all. He would not be beholden to him. And not so connected that Hanniford might wish to use him as a negotiator with his father, the duke. Certainly Lily’s father would grant her a dowry. Any father of title or wealth had done so in England for centuries. But poor and needy as he was, it belittled Julian to take it. If he married an English girl, she’d come with money. Chances were she’d come with even less than Lily, but before he’d ever set eyes on Lily, he’d intended no marriage for many years, anyway. Not until he’d improved his lot, shored up his pride with some achievement and solvency. And he’d never expected a woman to fund his life, either. He’d expected her to provide an heir and organization of his house, period.

He wanted just Lily. Unencumbered with her wealth or her father’s influence. Only one matter stood like a wall between them.

He did not wish to be purchased. Not by her. Not by her father. He’d lived his whole life holding his head above the crowd because his parents were notorious gamblers and libertines, caught in their cups more than once.

He’d told himself he’d never allow himself to become a laughing stock, too. There was deplorable behavior among his parents, but he’d remained discreet. Not a drinker or a known gambler or a debaucher, he’d been an unremarkable aristo. But married to a wealthy American girl who’d come lugging her dollars in a carpetbag? ‘The Dollar Girls’, the scandal sheets called them. Could he bear the slurs without cringing?

Still he had to reconcile his fear with his need and his desire. His conundrum was that he wanted her more than he despised what she represented.

Across the expanse of the table, she caught his gaze and solace warmed in her clear blue eyes. Was her sweet regard not worth more than money or scandal or shame?

“I have a toast to make,” his father said and raised his wineglass. “It is with pride that I announce the engagement of my daughter, Elanna, to our good friend and neighbor, Lord Carbury.”

Gasps of suitable delight went up from the assembled guests. Congratulations followed with much consumption of wine. Carbury beamed as he grasped Elanna’s hand and squeezed it so that her blood drained the skin white.

What in hell?

“Elanna accepted him this afternoon,” the duchess declared.

This is why Elanna had avoided him earlier. The earl had proposed and she, trapped by time and looming poverty, had accepted.

She’d been sold.

He fisted his hands. That would destroy any woman or man’s composure. The worst had happened to her. She’d taken a man she did not want.