One Night for Love

She was partway down the hill when she heard the voices and laughter. At first she did not know exactly where they came from. But as she descended farther—more slowly and cautiously than before—she realized that they came from the pool at the foot of the waterfall. And then she saw them—Neville and Lily—bathing there. If her shocked eyes had not deceived her, she thought as she fled upward after the merest glimpse of them immersed in the water, they were both naked. They were laughing together like carefree children—or like lovers. She could still hear them, even though the sound of her own labored breathing almost drowned out the sound. And she could still see in her mind's eye the door of the cottage standing wide open, as if they had spent the night there.

They were husband and wife, she told herself as her panicked footsteps took her hurrying back along the wood path toward the main gates and the dower house. Of course they were lovers. And of course they had every right…

But Lauren realized something suddenly that froze her heart and almost froze her mind. She would never have been able to do that. She would never have been able to be—to be naked with him. And frolicking without any embarrassment. She would never have been able even to laugh with him like that—with all the carefreeness of two people whose happiness was enclosed in the moment spent together. They had laughed when they were children, of course, she and Gwen and Neville. They had surely laughed since then. But not like that.

She would not have been able to satisfy him in the way Lily was clearly doing.

It was a terrifying realization. The idea that she and Neville belonged together, that they were perfect for each other, that they loved each other, had been so much a part of the ordered conception of her world to which she had clung all her life that she was not sure she could live with any sanity if she had to relinquish the idea.

She would not relinquish it. She did love him. More than Lily did. Lily could love him in that raw, physical way, perhaps, but Lily could not read or write or talk with him on topics that mattered to him. She could not run the abbey for him or entertain his friends or perform the hundred and one duties of his countess. She could not make him proud of her. She could not know him through and through as someone who had grown up with him could do or know unerringly what to do to secure his comfort and happiness.

Lily could never be his soulmate.

But Lily was Neville's wife.

Lauren stopped abruptly on the path and drew her dark cloak tightly about herself for warmth. She was shivering despite her long walk.

It was not fair.

It was not right.

How she hated Lily. And how frightened she was of the violence of her own emotions. As a lady she had practiced restraint and kindness and courtesy all her life. If she was good, she had thought as a child, everyone would love her. If she was a perfect lady, she had thought as she grew older, everyone would accept her and depend upon her and love her.

Neville would depend upon her and love her. Finally she would truly belong.

But he had gone away and married Lily. Lily! The exact antithesis of what she, Lauren, had always thought would win him in the end.

She wished Lily was dead. She wished she was dead.

She wished she would die.

Lauren stood on the path for a long time, huddled inside her cloak, shivering with the unaccustomed vehemence of her own hatred.

***

Lily returned to the abbey buoyed by fresh hope. She was not naive enough to imagine that all her problems would magically evaporate, but she felt that she had the strength, and that Neville had the patience, to face and overcome them one at a time.

Dolly was in her dressing room waiting for her when she stepped into it. She looked her mistress over from head to toe and shook her head.

'You will catch your death yet, my lady,' she scolded. 'Your hair is wet. And your feet are bare. I do not know what I will tell his lordship when you catch a chill.'

Lily laughed. 'I have been with him, Dolly,' she said.

'Oh, my,' Dolly said, momentarily confounded. 'Here, let me help you out of your dress, my lady.' She was always slightly shocked when she observed Lily doing something that she thought of as a maid's preserve—like taking off or putting on a garment.

Lily chuckled again. 'And his hair is wet too, Dolly.' she said, 'though I daresay his valet will not have the problem that you will have getting a comb through this bush. We were swimming.'

'Swimming?' Dolly's eyes widened in horror. 'At this time of day? In May! You and his lordship? I always thought he was—' She remembered to whom she was speaking and turned to pick up the morning gown she had set out for her mistress.

'Sensible?' Lily laughed once more. 'He probably was, Dolly, until I came here to corrupt him. We have been swimming together in the pool—last night and again this morning. It was wonderful.' She allowed Dolly to slip the dress over her head and turned obediently to have it buttoned up the back. 'I believe I am going to swim every day of my life from now on. What do you think the dowager countess will say?'

Dolly met her eyes in the looking glass as Lily sat down to have her hair dressed and they dissolved into laughter.

Dolly thought of something else after she had picked up Lily's brush and considered where to start the daunting task of taming her hair. 'Why is it that your underthings were not wet, my lady?' she asked.

But she understood the answer even as she spoke and blushed rosily. They both laughed merrily again.

'All I can say,' Dolly said, brushing vigorously, 'is that it is a very good thing no one came along to see the two of you.'

They both snorted with glee.