The Secret Heart, page 21
And somehow, she was sitting in the fireside chair, and he knelt at her feet, holding her hands, which he kissed.
She swallowed, blinking away the tears. “My parents told me about my birth, that they adopted me from Mrs. Bradwell when her betrothed died.”
He nodded. “I hoped they would. I got the whole from Mrs. Bradwell at Pennington Place, but for the sake of her husband and sons, she will not let me speak.”
“It makes no real difference,” she said gently. “Being some gentlewoman’s natural daughter does not make me a gentlewoman.”
“No, but if your father’s family acknowledged you, it would.”
A frown tugged at her brow. “My father is dead.”
“Yes, but his brother, the Earl of Carborough, is very much alive. He behaved badly to you, through grief and confusion, but he will make amends. He has already acknowledged you as his niece, with a suitable dowry, and if you will do me the honor, you can be Lady Hay tomorrow.”
Her mouth fell open. “No. It cannot be that simple.”
“It will not be regarded as a great match by people like my mother, but no one will cut you. You will be invited everywhere and may sit at any table you choose. Including Lady Verne’s.”
“But they know me as Lily Villin! Half of your friends already know me as Lily Darrow, and now I am what? Lily Carborough?”
“Lily Horsham, but we shall marry quickly to avoid any awkwardness around so many name changes. The Darrow connection may be easily explained—there is always some connection between aristocratic families. It will only serve to prove you were brought up a lady and that Carborough’s acknowledgment was a little later than it should have been. As for the local families of quality, like the Vernes and the Mayburys, I believe we may count on their discretion.”
“Then…then I would your wife? The Marchioness of Hay? And I would be the lady of that huge house?”
“Which we will make our home, full of love and children, friends, and laughter.”
Her breath caught. “Oh, Randolph.” Her voice cracked, and she clung to his hands as he kissed them again. “It sounds so right, so wonderful. I can’t believe it can be real. Oh, but my parents—my parents here…I cannot leave them!”
“Well, you’ll have to,” he said reasonably, “unless you want them to live with us, which I doubt they’ll agree to. But there is no reason why we cannot both come and stay here whenever we wish. You know I would not try to keep you from them. That fruit tart alone is reason enough to haunt your mother.”
Laughter caught in her throat, and she leaned forward to kiss his lips. “Is it possible?” she whispered.
“More than possible,” he said and wrapped his arms around her.
Sometime later, as she sat in his lap in the fireside chair, her head on his shoulder, she said suddenly, “How did Jack know you would shoot in the air?”
“When I told him I was coming straight here while he fetched the doctor, he warned me how Pennington might react to my presence. He wanted me to wait for him, but I could not leave you to face Pennington alone. Even an hour or so seemed of vital importance. I promised that I would not hurt Pennington unless he threatened you or your family.”
She shifted her head, staring at him indignantly. “But what of Pennington hurting you?”
Randolph shrugged. “I would have talked him out of it eventually. Seeming to go along with it merely took away any reason for temper. Believe me, I had lots more to say, and between that and your natural effect on people, I was sure he would never shoot me. And then I heard Jack arrive, fortunately ahead of schedule, and trusted in his efforts.”
“Is he mad? Pennington, I mean.”
“Not really sure what mad is,” Randolph confessed. “He certainly has spells of…irrational behavior and illogical thought. I think stress brings it on, and he has been under a great deal of stress recently, repairing the house to his mother’s exacting standards, dealing with his own debts, and his brother’s. And then his solution, the selling of secrets to the French, must have put enormous strain on him, for he understood perfectly well the consequences of what he was doing.”
“So, traveling will take his stress away?”
“Hopefully. And Jack will stop gambling for good.”
“Will Jack go with him? Doesn’t he have to work?”
“In the circumstances, a sabbatical will be arranged for him.”
“It’s a lot of trouble to go to,” she observed, “over one traitor that you don’t even like.”
“I want him out of my hair so I can marry you.”
That seemed perfectly reasonable to Lily, so she smiled and laid her head on his chest. Which was such a delightful place to be that she didn’t even notice when she fell asleep.
Chapter Twenty-One
“Lily!”
Her mother’s outraged voice dragged her from sleep. She raised her cheek from a warm crushed shirt and the hard yet ultimately appealing pillow of Randolph’s chest. The pale light of early morning flooded the room as her mother pulled back the curtains and the shutters.
Randolph’s arms closed more closely around her as he stood and deposited her in the chair with a light kiss on her head.
“I am surprised at you, my lord,” her mother said bitterly. “I thought you would have more care for my daughter’s reputation than to compromise her in this way.”
“We fell asleep, Mother,” Lily said hastily.
“After which you just happened to fall into the same chair?” her mother said with heavy sarcasm.
“You know exactly why we were in the same chair,” Randolph observed. “And you also know that your daughter is as pure this morning as she was yesterday. It was unwise, perhaps, but makes no odds since we will be married today.”
Lily blinked. “We will?”
Her mother’s mouth dropped open, but the sound of an approaching carriage in the yard distracted her. Her father called. “Customers!”
Lily’s mother glared. “Get washed and dressed at once. I’ll need you.”
“Perhaps,” Randolph said, reaching for his coat, “it would be a good time to send for the girl you employed before? And perhaps a couple of other helpers, to free your own and your husband’s time.”
“For what?” Lily’s mother demanded.
“Lily’s wedding, of course.”
Lily laughed. “You can’t be married so quickly.”
Randolph took a document from his coat. “You can with a special license.”
Lily’s eyes widened. “Today?” she asked shakily.
“Now.”
“Who is in the carriage?” Lily’s mother asked, sounding so frightened that Lily went and put her arms around her.
“I believe, Lily’s mother and uncle,” Randolph replied.
Her mother’s grip tightened. “Then…then what you said before, you’ve made it happen?”
He nodded, and her mother’s eyes squeezed shut.
“Mother,” Lily said urgently, but her mother pulled away.
“We have guests.”
Lily shook out her crumpled dress, picked pins up off the floor, and hastily rolled up and pinned her hair.
“Lily,” Randolph said, taking her hand. “Will you marry me?”
“Oh, you know I will,” she whispered, pausing only to smile at him before pulling him toward the door. “But I have to be with her when she meets them.”
“Of course.”
He held back as Lily went to join her mother, who curtseyed stiffly to the lady who had just come in. Mrs. Bradwell. Behind her came a stout, well-dressed gentleman, looking dubiously about him, as though wondering if he had made a terrible mistake.
Mrs. Bradwell paused. “Mrs. Villin,” she said, and her voice not quite steady. “I never thought I would see you again.” She came forward, holding out both hands, which Lily’s mother was too stunned to ignore. She took them in something of a daze. “You were so good to me, and you have made her such a wonderful…” She broke off, dashing her hand across her eyes.
“We didn’t make her anything,” Lily’s mother said gruffly. “She just is.”
“She had help. I can see that.” Mrs. Bradwell turned to Lily, offering her hand again. Her gaze was pleading. “Can you forgive me?”
“Easily, ma’am.” Lily took her hand. “There was nothing else you could do. And I have always been content in my life.”
“I think you will always be content. It is a gift you did not get from me.” Her fingers and her gaze both clung to Lily. Then, as if forcing herself, she released her and turned to the stout gentleman behind. “I would like to introduce you to Lord Carborough, your uncle.”
Lily curtseyed. Carborough’s gaze slid away, then came back to her with determination. “I should have done more. Didn’t behave well, not even to my beloved brother’s child. I intend to make it up if I can. But you should know your father was a great man, a hero.”
Lily read it all in his eyes, the shame, the hope, the uncertainty, the love for his dead brother. And she smiled before a shadow made her glance around to the taproom door, where the man she had always called father stood, stricken.
She went to him, taking his large hand in hers. “Then, I have two heroes to thank for my life.”
“I’m no hero, girl,” her father whispered.
“But you are. You don’t just stand up against wrong—thieves, traitors, bullies, swindlers—you do something about it. I’ve learned there are many kinds of heroes.” She pulled her father’s rough hand to her cheek and met Randolph’s gaze. Her own hero, the hero of a whole country that would probably never know.
He said, “Perhaps you should change for the wedding.”
“Perhaps you should, too.”
He ran one hand over his jaw and chin and laughed. “Most definitely.”
Lily glanced at her mother. “Mother? Help me?”
And her mother smiled with relief to be asked. Only at the foot of the stairs did she pause and turn determinedly back to face the others. “Mrs. Bradwell, will you join us?”
Unshed tears still stood out in Mrs. Bradwell’s eyes. She smiled but shook her head. “No. I am just glad to be able to see her married, and to such a good man.”
*
Randolph, dressing and shaving while dealing with unexpected nerves, had cause to regret the absence of his valet. Surprisingly, it was easier when Verne came up to jolly him along. All the most important events of his life had been faced alone, by choice, so it came as something of a surprise to discover he had a friend. And, soon, a wife.
Wife. He paused, his hand hovering over his cravat. “She won’t take fright and cry off, will she?”
“Lily?” Verne said in disbelief. “Don’t be ridiculous. It’s time to go. The cut on your chin has stopped bleeding, you look beautiful, and Walsh is here.”
Walsh was the local vicar, who had been summoned to perform the ceremony.
“Beautiful?” Randolph complained. “I wish to be taken seriously on my wedding day.”
Verne eyed him sideways as they walked to the door. “It has been a long time since I regarded you in any other way. You play a good part, but Lily always saw the truth.”
“I can’t hide anymore,” Randolph observed. “What I do has been too exposed by the Pennington affair.”
“Will you stop?”
He shook his head. “No. I will just have to change the way I work. Be more apparently open. It will be better for Lily, too, to be married to someone who is not a figure of fun.”
“You were never that.”
Randolph scowled. “Damn it, I worked hard to be thought so!”
Verne laughed and pushed him out the door.
The parlor was full of people, though neither Lily nor Mrs. Villin were present. Villin was there in his Sunday suit, standing self-consciously by the door. Carborough was making conversation with him about the state of the roads. On the sofa, Cecily Verne and Mrs. Bradwell had their heads close together in low conversation.
Of course, the wedding was no surprise to the Vernes. Randolph had told them last night about Lily’s true background and what he meant to do. After their first shock, they had seemed to realize the rightness of the marriage.
“There was always something special about Lily,” Lady Verne had mused. “And apart from her birth, she would always have been the perfect wife for you. Since you have dealt with that one problem, there is no question in my mind that you are doing the right thing. She will make you very happy, my lord. And I am glad.”
He had smiled at her with genuine affection.
“However,” Verne had added sternly, “you had better make her happy, too. I am very fond of Lily.”
“I know of no one who isn’t,” he had replied. “Men of all degrees. And yet she never looked at any of them.”
“Except you,” Lady Verne had said. “She always looked at you.”
“I don’t know why.”
Lady Verne had laughed. “I do.”
He blinked the memory away, walking across the room to shake hands with the vicar and deliver up the special license.
And then the door opened once more, and Lily walked in.
She wore the simple, pale blue walking dress, with Mrs. Bradwell’s necklace, and her hair was dressed simply but softly, piled at the top of her head. Her skin seemed to glow, her eyes sparkled, and she smiled with such pure happiness that Randolph thought his heart would explode. She had never been more lovely. In that moment, although he had always striven for the good of the whole country, she was his entire world.
She took Villin’s arm, and he brought her to stand beside Randolph. She smiled up at him trustingly, catching at his breath.
The ceremony was brief, the words familiar from his sisters’ and other weddings he had attended. But he had never before properly understood the hugeness of the vows or appreciated the joy of making them. And then, Lily was his wife.
It took a few dazed handshakes, a torrent of congratulations, and then the rising happiness seemed to burst inside him, and he wanted to dance and sing and run all at once, with her hand in his.
He couldn’t do any of those things just then, but he stored them up.
Perhaps his own happiness combined with Lily’s to infect everyone else in the room, for the lingering awkwardness seemed to vanish, and by the time they trooped through to the coffee room for a hastily assembled wedding breakfast, everyone was laughing and chattering together, mirroring his own high spirits.
And when she left, Mrs. Bradwell hugged both Lily and Mrs. Villin. Lord Carborough, who was traveling back to London with her, actually shook hands with the innkeeper as well as with Randolph, after which he kissed Lily’s cheek and bowed to Mrs. Villin.
The Vernes left shortly afterward in a flurry of embraces, leaving Lily and Randolph temporarily alone in the inn yard.
He closed his fingers about hers and swung her arm. As she smiled up at him, he said, “Walk with me?” And then at last, clear of the inn’s gates, he ran with her across the meadow toward the woods.
Halfway there, he swung her into his arms and sang words of love in a popular waltz tune and danced with her.
*
Lily had always suspected this rollicking, fun side of his nature. She had caught odd glimpses of it in the past, but never before seen it in action. Now, he swept her along in his mad dance, and she laughed at his hastily made-up words of love, twisted around to fit the rhyme and the rhythm.
Lapsing into silence at last, they stilled for sheer lack of breath, still smiling at each other. As his smile faded and changed, desire flamed in his eyes, causing the butterflies in her stomach to take flight. He bent his head, and her lips parted to receive his kiss. His mouth touched hers and then he drew back, moving again toward the woods, his arm around her waist.
“I suppose this is not the way Lady Hay should behave,” she said lightly.
“I hope it is the way Lady Hay will always behave.”
“Though perhaps not in public?”
He grinned, as though imagining. “Perhaps not,” he agreed. “I have a reputation for propriety to keep up.”
“Randolph?” she said as they entered the woods.
“Yes, my sweet?”
“What if I really had been the innkeeper’s daughter, with no aristocratic blood in my veins at all? Would you still have married me?”
“Of course.” He didn’t even think about it.
“You would have been sneered at for such a marriage. So would I.”
“Under no circumstances. I would simply have lied.”
She stared at him. “Lied? In what way?”
He shrugged. “Like the Darrow connection, only more. And I would have made it work. I will not allow you to be unhappy, and if I cannot change the world to achieve that, then I can change the story we tell the world. And supply ‘proof’ if necessary.”
Perhaps she should have been appalled at this lack of morality, but she saw only the determination and the love.
She halted, gazing up at him. “You would have done that for me?”
He brushed a strand of hair from her face. “I would do anything for you.” He bent his head, and this time, he kissed her properly as she had wanted to be kissed since he had walked into the coffee room to face Pennington yesterday.
Birds sang joyfully overhead, and a soft breeze caressed her cheek. Within, there was only love, the thrill of his touch, and her own sweet, heady desire. And it didn’t stop. One kiss grew into the next, shrouding them in an increasingly sensual veil that hid the rest of the world.
She moaned as he lifted her, still kissing her, and carried her to the hollow by the large oak, where he laid her down on the soft, spongy ground. He took off his coat, folding it under her head for comfort, and then lay close to her, loosening her gown while her heart drummed with excitement. He caressed her more intimately than ever before, making her gasp and arch with pleasure as he kissed her naked breasts and shoulders, stroking her leg and thigh beneath her gown.
