Wild Lily (Those Notorious Americans Book 1)(80)

‘They live in squalor and you mustn’t go near.’ She’d told Lily that night before last during dinner when Julian had brought up the tenants’ maladies. Three of the tenants’ wives were bed-ridden with coughs. Many of the children, most of them very young at three and four, were down, too.

Lily had sighed. ‘But if they are incapacitated, I can help.’

Her mother-in-law had not heard of it. ‘You are strong. Stay that way.’

‘But I was a nurse in a hospital in—’

‘Julian!’ With a clatter, the woman had dropped her fork to her plate. ‘For the love of heaven, forbid her this, will you?’

‘No. He cannot.’

He had put up a hand to stop their argument. ‘Mother, Lily, please—’

The woman had stared at Lily. ‘Your job is to remain strong. Bear an heir. A spare. You are not to go traipsing off and become ill yourself. You might already be increasing.’

Lily had considered her hands in her lap. She would not give her mother-in-law any insight into the passion that bound Julian and her together more than once every night.

She had lifted her face and met the lady’s gaze. ‘I hear your rationale.’

‘Good. That’s settled then.’

She had let the woman think what she wished.

She would, anyway.





Hours later, Lily trudged her way back to the stables. The walk to the village had been longer than she expected. The work to nurse the sick there had been more than she’d predicted, but rewarding. She needed another medical kit filled with instruments. She’d order it tomorrow and keep one kit here, one at Willowreach. Today, she’d learned how necessary such items could be. She’d taught two women how to build croup tents and tend kettles for constant hot steam. Tomorrow, she’d return to them. But when she did, she’d ride instead of walk.

Inside the stable block, Lily saw no one. At four in the afternoon, they should have been heading back. But then she wasn’t familiar with English farming ways. Perhaps they let their animals out for more of the day. The searing Texas heat demanded ranchers send their animals out at dawn and bring them in by noon or one before the sun fried them to a crisp.

Resigned to returning to the house, she took a few steps.

Someone was here. She heard them. Two men with bass voices. In the far stall.

Her feet fell on tampered earth and scattered hay so she made no sound as she strode toward them.

But she stopped and cocked her head to listen.

One of the men was Julian.

“The sale of that land in Tipperary was profitable.”

She smiled to herself. I know it was.

“Indeed,” Phillip Leland agreed.

Discreet about it, too. As I asked him to be.

“A stroke of luck, I’d say, to find a buyer so quickly.”

Not very.

“I’d like to thank them for their purchase,” Julian said.

“Not a good idea, Seton. Anonymity is what the buyer asked for.”

“That’s the one bit of good news I’ve had in weeks, Leland. But I must press upon you that tomorrow, I don’t want you to reveal the sale. More than that, I do not want the will read aloud. I wish to heaven you could change this. Overlook it.”

“I’m bound by ethics as His Late Grace’s executor. I must do as instructed in the written will.”

“Why do that? You must see that to read these clauses aloud will only irritate my mother.”

Lily stopped breathing. More trouble from her mother-in-law? Was she not causing enough already?

Leland remained silent.

“I see. Of course.” Julian again, frustrated. “My father wanted the will read aloud. Of course, he wished that. Even after death, they never stop impaling one another!”

She shrank backward.

“Are we certain everyone will attend? I understand you have contagion in the village.”

“We do and yes, they have agreed to come. My estate manager is quite ill. But he will make the effort and arrive to hear the final terms.”

“Lady Carbury, too?”

“Oh, yes,” Julian said, weariness in his words. “My sister brings along the earl. As if he’d let her out of his sight.”

“She’s very unhappy,” Leland said. “I scarcely knew her when I visited last week. She is beside herself. A different person.”

“Yes. From the night he decided to court her, Elanna turned. At the Paris Opera, we were.” Julian cursed beneath his breath. “I wish she hadn’t agreed to wed him. Nothing for it now.”

“Carbury required no dowry. Shocking that.”

“Ugh. Not really, Leland. Carbury wanted only her in his bed.”

“That much desire is not healthy when it’s one-sided.”

Julian sighed. “The crux of their problem.”

“One good thing about tomorrow. Lord Burnett agreed to attend.”

“Ah, my cousin Valentine will be ecstatic if my father has given him that painting of his mother. He’s been after us for years for that. With more money than a choir of angels, he needs only those things he desires. He’ll be over the moon with the gift.”

“And what of the gratuities to the servants?” Leland’s voice was low and troubled. “Can you pay them?”