One Night for Love

'Perhaps it is as well that I did not go to school, then,' Lily replied.

He winked at her.

'Indeed, Lily,' Elizabeth said, 'there is a school of experience in which those with intelligence and open, questioning minds and acute powers of observation may learn valuable lessons. It seems to me that you have been a diligent pupil.'

Lily beamed at her. For a few minutes she had forgotten her ignorance and her inferiority to all these grand people. She had forgotten that she was frightened.

'But we have kept you talking too long and have caused your tea to grow cold,' Elizabeth said. 'Come. Let me empty out what remains and pour you a fresh cup.'

One of the young ladies—the one with the red hair—was asked then to play the pianoforte in the adjoining music room, and several people followed her in there, leaving the double doors open. Neville took the seat beside Lily that had just been vacated.

'Bravo!' he said softly. 'You have done very well.'

But Lily was listening to the music. It enthralled her. How could so much rich and harmonious sound come from one instrument and be produced with just ten human fingers? How wonderful it must feel to be able to do that. She would give almost anything in the world, she thought suddenly, to be able to play the pianoforte—and to be able to read and to discuss bonnets and tragedy and to know the difference between Mozart and Beethoven.

She was so terribly, dreadfully ignorant.

Chapter 7

Neville stood on the marble steps outside the house watching Lily stroll in the direction of the rock garden with Elizabeth and the Duke of Portfrey. He made no attempt to join them. Somehow, he realized, if Lily was to function as his countess, she was going to have to do so without his hovering over her at every moment, ready to rescue her whenever she seemed in distress—as he had been about to do at tea when she had admitted to being illiterate. He had felt everyone's shock and her embarrassment and had been instantly intent on taking her out of the way of more humiliation. But Elizabeth had come magnificently to her rescue with her questions about India, and Lily had been suddenly transformed into a warm and relaxed and knowledgeable student of the world. She had shocked a few of his aunts and cousins with her candid references to breeches and stays and such, it was true. But more than one or two of his relatives had seemed charmed by her.

Unfortunately his mother was not one of them. She had waited for Lily to leave and for all but an intimate few of the family to withdraw after tea.

'Neville,' she had said, 'I cannot imagine what you were thinking of. She is quite impossible. She has no conversation, no education, no accomplishments, no—no presence. And does she have nothing more suitable to wear for afternoon tea than that sad muslin garment?' But his mother was not one to wallow in a sense of defeat. She straightened her shoulders and changed her tone. 'But there is little to be gained by lamenting the impossibility, is there? She must simply be made possible.'

'I think her deuced pretty, Nev,' Hal Wollston, his cousin, had said.

'You would, Hal.' Lady Wilma Fawcitt, the Duke of Anburey's red-haired daughter, had sounded scornful. 'As if pretty looks have anything to say to anything. I agree with Aunt Clara. She is impossible!'

'Perhaps,' Neville had said with quiet emphasis, 'you would care to remember, Wilma, that you are speaking of my wife.'

She had tutted, but she had said no more.

His mother had got to her feet to leave the room. 'I must return to the dower house and see what is to be done for poor Lauren,' she had said. 'But tomorrow I shall move back into the abbey, Neville. It is going to need a mistress, and clearly Lily will be quite unable to assume that role for some time to come. I shall undertake her training.'

'We will discuss the matter some other time, Mama,' he had said, 'though I agree it would be best if you moved back here. I will not have Lily made unhappy, however. This is all very difficult for her. Far more difficult than for any of us.'

He had left the room before anyone could say anything more and had come to stand on the steps. There were some days, he reflected, that were so unremarkable that a week afterward one could not recall a single thing that had happened in them. And then there were days that seemed packed full of a lifetime of experiences. This was definitely one such day.

He had written several letters after returning from the dower house and then checking on Lily, who had been fast asleep. He had sent the letters on their way. It would not be easy to be patient in awaiting the replies.

The fact was that for all his solicitude, for all his apparent calm, he simply was not sure Lily really was his wife.

They had married without a license and without the customary banns. The regimental chaplain had assured him that the wedding was quite legal, and he had drawn up the proper papers to which Neville had put his signature and Lily her mark and which had been witnessed by Harris and Rieder. But Parker-Rowe had been killed in that ambush the following day. Harris had reported that the belongings of the dead had been left with them in the pass.

That would seem to mean that the marriage had never been registered. Was it therefore not a marriage at all? Was it void? Neville supposed that his mind must have touched upon the possibility before today. But he had never pursued the question. It had been unimportant. Lily had been dead.

But now she was alive and at Newbury Abbey. He had acknowledged her as his wife and his countess. Lauren had been made to suffer. All their lives had been turned upside down. But perhaps there was no legality to the marriage. He had written to Harris—now Captain Harris, it seemed—and to several civil and ecclesiastical authorities to try to find out.

What if he and Lily were not legally married after all?

Should he mention his doubts to her now before he knew the answer? Should he mention them to anyone else? The question had been weighing on his mind ever since it had struck him as he stood on the beach with her, gazing out across the sea. But he had decided to keep his doubts to himself until he had the answer. He was not sure it