Wild Lily (Those Notorious Americans Book 1)(83)

Leland inclined his head. “It was. But conditions have changed and three is what the estate can afford you.”

She faced Julian. “I demand more.”

“There is no more to give you. Father did not invest your jointure in stocks that bore sufficient interest. Even three thousand a year is a huge amount to divest from the family assets.”

Her mother-in-law cast her gaze about the salon, her dark eyes a venomous snap. Beneath her black veil, she indicated her sorrow with a quivering chin and an appropriately crushed handkerchief in one hand. “I cannot live on three. I will not.”

“I’m sorry.” With a polite incline of his head and finality to his tone, Leland let that be the end of this topic.

“The servants’ stipend?” The dowager duchess would not let go her ire, pinning the lawyer to his spot. “Where did that money come from?”

Lelanddid not seem to breathe. “Your son, the duke, gave it to the estate.”

“Really?” She spun toward Julian with violence in her gaze. “From where?”

Lily could bear this woman no longer. Her bitterness, her false dignity, her sense of entitlement were appalling. Lily could not wait for the day she moved to the dower house.

“Where?” the woman insisted with a stomp of her foot. “Ah. The American’s dowry.”

One brow arching high, Julian considered her with a disparaging eye. “No.”

“Where then?”

“You are being unruly, madam,” Julian warned her.

“I insist.”

“Do it all you like,” he said and made for the doors. “I will not remain to listen.”

“I am your mother.”

He whirled to face her. “Yes. And I wish, only once, you might have acted like it. But for more years than I care to recall, I have seen you teach me by word and example, that more than my mother, you have become a selfish, rude, ruthless creature.”

Lily stood, she knew not how. Never had she heard anyone in her family have such an exchange. Never had she deemed it possible. But at once she saw clearly one reason why Julian might never love her. Might not even be capable.

He’d been nurtured by people who knew not how to care for others. Not selflessly. Not completely.

One glance at Elanna told Lily she was horribly right.

The young woman was smiling, the expression triumphant. Sardonic.

Marriage had transformed Elanna. How, why, what Carbury and she did together, how they got on, would never be known to Lily. Nor did she wish to learn.

But to look at Elanna told her one more fact. Elanna had withdrawn from her husband along with all others in her family. Her reasons were her own. She’d had examples set before her of parents who tormented each other. If her own marriage was not happy, she could think that the norm.

Did her brother bear the same tendencies?

Could Julian turn on Lily the way his mother had turned on his father? Would he love? Or did he only lust?





Chapter Sixteen


In their dressing room, her husband reclined in the huge porcelain bathtub which barely contained his long, strong form. His head back along the rim, he had closed his eyes. His sensual mouth formed a slash, grim. And as Lily watched his facial muscles move from frown to scowl, she guessed he relived the reading of the will earlier this afternoon.

He’d dismissed his valet, and she had waved off Nora. They could retire for the evening. The guests in the house were invited to partake of a cold buffet in the dining room at their leisure. Lily had suggested that and her mother-in-law had not, for once, countermanded her order. Breathing a sigh of relief, Lily had closed the door upon their two personal servants. She wished to be alone with Julian to draw him out on the day’s troubles.

“Would you like me to wash your back?”

At her words, he peeped open one eye and grinned at her. “The best suggestion I’ve heard today.”

“Is the water warm enough?”

“I hate to overtax the plumbing system.”

“You are the owner of this plumbing, dear sir, and if it doesn’t suit you, who will it please?” She strode to the cistern and put a hand to the heater. Warm. She turned the spigot. The water gurgled through the pipe and emerged in a solid stream to Julian’s tub. “How’s that?”

He tested the flow. “Excellent.”

She got a wash cloth from the linen cupboard and went to her knees. She dunked the cloth in his water. “Lean forward.”

He complied.

She began a slow circular massage of his broad back. “I think Phillip did a marvelous job today.”

Julian made a sound that he agreed.

“Val was happy with his mother’s portrait,” Lily said, recalling the way the man admired the painting of the striking blonde woman.

“She was lovely. And Winterhalter did her justice. I remember her.”

“She was your father’s sister?”

“She was. Ran away with Val’s father. Supposed to be a scamp, but a rich one. Still my father and his did not approve. She was cut from the family inheritance, even her portrait had to remain here. Did her well, it seems, not to be in touch with us. She was, you see, very happy with her husband. Unlike those of us in this family.”

It chilled Lily to hear him include himself in the family curse. Swallowing back any negativity, Lily ran her hand down Julian’s spine, the nap of the cloth tingling the skin of her palms. “She was very lovely.”