One Night for Love

'Whatever can Mrs. Holyoake want with me today?' she asked. 'I certainly did not summon her.'

'I beg your pardon, my lady,' Mr. Forbes said with a discreet clearing of his throat, 'but I understand his lordship did—for his wife. I have put them in the blue salon.'

Lily felt dreadfully embarrassed at the quickly suppressed look of chagrin on the face of her mother-in-law, who had clearly forgotten that she, Lily, was now the Countess of Kilbourne. This was all going to be quite impossible, Lily thought for the umpteenth time—except that it could not be allowed to be. Somehow she was going to have to live with this situation. They were all going to have to live with it.

Lady Elizabeth came hurrying toward her, both hands extended, as she left the morning room.

'Lily,' she said, taking her hands and kissing her cheek. 'Good morning, my dear. It is quite all right, Forbes. I shall conduct her ladyship to the Holyoake ladies. They are the village dressmakers, Lily. Neville spoke to me about them earlier and asked if I would see to it that they measure you for as many pretty clothes as they have time to undertake.'

It was an enticing prospect, Lily had to admit. The two dresses she possessed were certainly not adequate to the needs of her new life. But more bewilderment was awaiting her in the blue salon. After she had been presented to Mrs. Holyoake and her daughter, black-haired, black-eyed ladies, who looked remarkably alike, and after they had curtsied deeply to her and called her 'my lady,' she could see that they had brought with them so many bolts of fabric and so many patterns and other tools of their trade that it must have taken several servants to carry everything inside.

'Would it not have been more convenient for me to come to you?' she asked.

Both ladies looked shocked, and Elizabeth laughed.

'Not when you are the Countess of Kilbourne from Newbury Abbey, Lily,' she said.

It seemed that she was not to have just two or three new dresses, which would have seemed an impossible luxury to Lily, but a dozen or more. When she protested, she discovered that she was going to need morning dresses and tea dresses and evening dresses—some for family evenings, some for dinner parties, some for balls— and walking dresses and carriage dresses. And a riding habit too, when it was discovered that she could ride— though perhaps she ought not to have said she could since she had certainly never ridden a great deal.

Different functions of dress called for different fabrics and different designs, she discovered. There were many colors to choose among, but one might not simply choose just what one thought pretty. Apparently there were colors that suited certain people but not others. There were colors that looked good in daylight and others that looked better in candlelight. And there were all sorts of trimmings—suited to different fabrics and functions and occasions. There were trimmings identical in color to the fabrics they were to adorn. There were others that complemented the fabrics—or did not. There were styles that were fashionable and others that were too avant garde or too passe. There were styles suited to a young girl and others better suited to a young matron or to an older lady. There were measurements to be taken. There were…

For all the kindness of Elizabeth and the respect shown by the two dressmakers, Lily soon felt like a passive doll that lifted its arms when someone pulled the right string and pirouetted when someone pulled another, and smiled constantly with a painted smile. All the joy of having new clothes fled early. She knew nothing and was forced to leave all decisions to those who did. And all the time there was the foolish worry—could he possibly afford all this? And she had forgotten to ask him if he would send the money she had borrowed from Captain Harris. How could she have neglected that?

Elizabeth took her arm when the ordeal was finally over and they had left the dressmakers to pack up their things—they had declined Lily's offer of help, looking startled and agitated as they did so.

'Poor Lily,' she said. 'This is very difficult for you, is it not? Come and have luncheon and relax.' She laughed ruefully. 'But even a meal is not relaxing for you, is it? It will all get easier as time goes on, I promise you.'

Lily would have liked to believe her. But she was not sure she did. If only she could go back, she thought, even just a few days… But what else could she have done but come here? Even if she could go back and decide to wait for Captain Harris to write a letter, she would merely be postponing the inevitable. She could not simply have stayed away. She was Neville's wife. He had a right to know that she was still alive.

What she really wished was that she could go all the way back to that day when her father had been killed. She wished she could go back and hear more clearly, more responsibly, what Major Newbury had said to her afterward so that she could summon the courage to say no where she had said yes.

Was that really what she wished? That she had never married him? That there had never been that night? If there had not been that night, that dream of love and perfection, she did not know if she would have been able to survive what had happened to her afterward. Not with her sanity intact, at least.

***

Lily did not go outside again. Neville watched her with deep concern as she was swept up and borne along by his relatives, most of whom at least were ready enough to do what was proper and accept her into their midst. And she did her best to look cheerful, to learn names and relationships, to answer questions that were put to her, to follow his lead and his mother's and Elizabeth's in matters of etiquette. But the color that had been in her cheeks when she had returned from her morning outing and the brightness in her eyes and the pertness in her manner—all the signs of the old Lily—faded again as the day progressed.

He took her on a tour of the house, and she was interested and seemed impressed. She gazed long and attentively at the family portraits in the long gallery.

'How wonderful it must be,' she said when they were halfway down the long room, 'to know so much about your ancestors and even to have pictures of them. You look very like your grandfather in this portrait of him. Neither Mama nor Papa ever talked about their families, about my ancestors. Until Papa died, I did not realize how very alone I was. If I had wanted to find his relatives, or Mama's when I came back to England, I would not even have known where to look. I daresay Leicestershire is a large place.'

'You were not alone,' he told her, his heart aching for her. 'You had me and my family.' But the day after their wedding he had accepted the unconfirmed evidence of his eyes and the hastily observed evidence of Harris's and had not gone in search of her to bring her home to safety.

She moved on to the next painting.

'Did you not have portraits of your mother and father in your locket, Lily?' he asked her. She had always worn it, he remembered, though she did not do so now.