Wild Lily (Those Notorious Americans Book 1)(47)

“Shouldn’t you first seek my permission to marry, my boy?”

With a gasp, Lily spun, whirling back against Julian and facing their intruder.

Julian braced her. Outrage burned through him. “Why are you here, Father?”



The duke strolled toward them and Lily shrank backward into Julian’s embrace. The look on the older man’s face was no less than a sneer.

Her blood froze. Ashamed of her dishabille, shocked at the man’s hauteur in the presence of his son, Lily steeled herself for whatever confrontation the duke so obviously intended.

He removed his hat, ran a hand through his wind-blown silver hair and focused with lascivious brown eyes on her hold of Julian’s coat at her breast. “I told you, Julian, I wouldn’t approve of this match.”

“What?” Julian spat. “You did no such thing,”

The duke wiggled a finger, indicating Lily’s bodice. “Here’s proof why such a union is unsavory.”

“You lying basta—”

“He’s wanted you from the start.” The Duke of Seton was pleased with himself, cutting her with his disdain, strutting as he paced the room. “Did you know?”

She straightened, drawing away from Julian’s comforting body. Julian had been attracted to her, and she’d believed him in spirit and truth.

“Ah. I see you did not. He knows what you’re worth, girl. He needs your dollars.”

She couldn’t move.

“Come with me, Lily. Don’t listen to this creature.” Julian turned her wooden body toward him, his mouth a taut line of anger as he tucked his riding jacket around her more securely. “I’ll escort you back.”

“You need to tell her what we agreed to, boy.”

Her heart fell to her feet. “Julian?”

If looks could kill, Julian would have struck his sire dead. “We had no agreement.”

The duke laughed and walked forward so that he could capture Lily’s gaze. He seared her with his menace. “He lies.”

“I don’t believe you,” she got out. Could Julian have struck a bargain with his father about courting her? She’d become enchanted with him. But did he care for her, truly? “He couldn’t…” Wouldn’t seduce me.

“But he has no money.” The duke extended an arm toward the appointments in the room and hall. “Not enough to support a wife. With his titles and his looks, he could have any woman. Why would he choose a gauche American? The daughter of a dockside brawler and a thief.”

Much she could bear, but insult to her father was not one. She broke from Julian’s grasp, headed for the hall and the servants’ stairs.

“Wait! Lily!” Julian tracked her.

She scrambled down the steps and reached for the kitchen door, a way out of this horror.

Julian caught her around the waist, pressed his body flush to hers, his lips in her hair. “Darling, don’t believe him. You mustn’t.”

“Let me go.”

“Why he plays this game, I can only guess.”

“I won’t.” She rested her forehead to the wooden door. Despair drained her of strength.

“Lily, please. Let me tell you what he really wanted from me and you.”

“He’ll say,” said the duke from the head of the stairs, “that he forbade his son marry a woman of loose morals.”

That slur gave her new vigor. She wrenched out of Julian’s hold and managed to pry the door open.

But she had one foot out and came smack up against the Duchess of Seton.

The woman wore a smirk. “See here,” she said and stepped aside, “your daughter, sir, is truly in an unacceptable condition.”

“Papa,” Lily said as she beheld the forbidding countenance of her father standing behind the duchess. Trapped in a maze of conflicting people and emotions, she stood her ground. But her hope to escape withered.

The duchess folded her hands before her, self-satisfaction in every line of her form. “I’m sure your father is outraged.”

“Madam,” said he to the lady, as he walked around her, “I’ll have none of your interference. Lily, what goes on here?”

“I came riding with Jul— Lord Chelton. He showed me his home.”

Her father lifted his eyes to Julian. No good will greeted that man. “Why take her out in the middle of the night?”

“Sir, I acknowledge it was foolish. This is my fault because I—”

Julian should not take the blame. “He was being kind, Papa. I wanted to ride—”

The duke snorted. “Oh, aye! In more ways than one.”

Killian Hanniford was at his most ferocious when countered by one who wished to take him down in scurrilous ways. He set his jaw, his black eyes flamed.

Inside, Lily cringed.

“Your Grace,” her father said with spite in every enunciated syllable, “my daughter is as fragile a flower as yours. Today, you gave yours to a brute of a man.”

“I say, Hanniford!”

“No bluster, man! I see who you are. I am not blind nor as loose of principle. As for my own daughter, I take pride in her every move. If she wished to ride at night, she has the ability, if not the proper sense to take a maid and a footman instead of your son as her escort.” He offered his arm to her and with a shaking hand, she took it. “I also see by my girl’s attire that there was more to this night than riding and visiting a house.”