One Night for Love

Sylvia, and a young son, Patrick. My mother is Nev's Aunt Julia, his father's sister. My father—'

'Devil take it, James.' The fourth gentleman tossed his glance at the sky. 'Lily's eyes are crossing and her head is spinning on her shoulders. Why do you not add for her edification that Nev's other paternal aunts are Mary and Elizabeth and that his uncle is the famous black sheep, the lost sheep, who embarked on a wedding journey more than twenty years ago and never returned? I am Ralph, Lily. Yes, another cousin. If you cannot recall my name the next time we meet, you are welcome to call me 'you.' '

'Thank you,' she said, laughing. It was definitely easier this morning. Maybe everything would be easier. But then she had always been comfortable in the company of men, perhaps because she had grown up surrounded by so many of them.

'The exercise has whipped the most lovely roses into your cheeks, Lily,' the marquess said. 'But however have you managed to walk so far in bare feet?' He was observing them through his quizzing glass.

'Oh.' She glanced down at them. 'It is so much more comfortable than walking in shoes. If you were to take off your boots and walk in the grass, Joseph, you would discover that I am right.'

'Dear me,' he commented.

'But you will not do it,' she said, smiling sunnily at him. 'I know. There were some men in the Peninsula who never removed their boots—ever. I swear they went to bed with them on. Sometimes I wondered if they had feet at all, or if their legs ended just below the knee. They would not wish to admit to such a deformity, of course. Just imagine how short they would have been—and men set great store by their height. They hate to have to look up to other men and feel perfectly shamed to have to look up to a woman.'

The gentlemen were all laughing. Lily joined them.

'Good Lord,' Joseph said, using his quizzing glass now to look down at his own boots, 'my secret is out. When I stopped growing at four foot ten, Lily, I had Hoby make me boots—tall boots. So that I could look down on the world from a lofty height.'

'He even dances in them, Lily,' Ralph said. 'You would not wish to risk your toes by tripping a measure with Joe.'

'If you knock on them,' James added, 'they ring hollow.'

'This conversation,' Lily declared gleefully, 'has become absurd. But despite your teasing, I have felt the grass and the dew beneath my feet this morning and the sand between my toes. And I have seen the sun rise over the sea. England is a lovely country, as my papa always said it was.'

Neville smiled at her. 'You are right, Lily,' he said. He offered her his arm. 'Let me escort you to your room and summon Dolly to help you tidy up. My mother has come up from the dower house and is awaiting you in the morning room with several of the other ladies.'

He did not sound in any way annoyed. He did not utter one word of reproach either then or after they had left the company of his cousins. And yet Lily had not missed the detail about several of the ladies.

'Are the others out enjoying the morning?' she asked.

'They are still in bed or in their boudoirs. Ladies generally do not, ah, enjoy the morning until their maids have dressed and coiffed them and they have breakfasted, Lily.' He smiled down at her as they climbed the grand staircase.

'Oh,' she said. Maids—she had not thought of ringing for Dolly when she got up. Besides, she would not have wished to wake the girl so early. And she had no dress suitable for Newbury Abbey except her green muslin, and she had doubts even about that. She might at least, she supposed, have tied back her hair and worn her shoes. 'I did not think. I ought not to have gone out as I am, ought I? How embarrassed you must have been when I came back and all your cousins were out there to see me. I am so sorry.'

'No, no.' He covered her hand on his arm with his free one. 'That was not my meaning. I was not scolding, for heaven's sake. This is your home, Lily. You must do here whatever you wish.'

Lily fell silent, remembering how very elegantly Lauren had been dressed. She had been wearing a bonnet and even gloves. She would not have gone dancing off in bare feet and with her hair down her back to watch the sun rise over the sea. She would not have embarrassed him out on the terrace.

***

Neville took Lily down to the morning room after she had washed and put on stockings and her old shoes and Dolly had dressed her hair in a simple knot at the back of her head with two neat braids wound about it. Dolly had advised against wearing the green muslin as her ladyship would need something into which to change for the afternoon, and so the old cotton would have to do.

Neville stayed with her in the morning room for a short while though there was no other gentleman present, but then he was summoned away to speak with his steward.

The ladies all greeted her pleasantly. The dowager countess even got to her feet to kiss Lily's cheek and seated her beside herself on a love seat. But there was nothing comfortable about the conversation, as there had been out on the terrace. They talked about London and Almack's and lending libraries and rose gardens and the management of servants, none of which topics were within Lily's experience. And when the war was mentioned and the French spoken of as monsters of evil and depravity and Lily spoke up with the opinion that they were people just like the British and shared their capacity for tenderness and loyalty and love and all the finer feelings, the red-haired lady, who Lily remembered was Wilma—Joseph's sister?—declared herself very close to fainting, and someone else scolded young Miranda for introducing such an ungenteel subject into the conversation of ladies.

Lily smiled sympathetically at the young girl, whose numerous ringlets made her appear slightly top heavy, but she was blushing and biting a wobbling lip and gazing downward.

Aunt Sadie tried to turn the awkward moment by asking Lily if she would like some embroidery to work on. Lily had noticed that almost all the ladies were busy with needlework. She was forced to admit that she had never been taught to embroider though she was quite skilled at patching and darning. There was an awkward little silence again before her mother-in-law suggested that Miranda go into the music room and leave the door open while she played for them on the pianoforte.

Lily was finally rescued by the appearance of the butler, who announced that Mrs. and Miss Holyoake had arrived to wait upon the Countess of Kilbourne.

Lily looked at the dowager countess as did all the other ladies present, and that lady raised her eyebrows.