One Night for Love

and changed with hands that gradually grew steady again.

There was a knock on the door and it opened halfway before Dolly's head appeared around it.

'Oh, you are here, my lady,' she said. 'His lordship has been looking for you. He is in the library, my lady.'

'Thank you, Dolly.'

Lily had to use all her willpower not to rush with unladylike haste. He was in the library, waiting for her. She could not reach him fast enough. More than anything in the world she wanted to feel his arms about her. She wanted to press her body to his and feel his warmth and his strength. She wanted to rest her head against his shoulder and hear the steady beating of his heart.

She wanted to climb right inside him.

Chapter 15

The afternoon's post had brought the rest of the replies Neville had awaited. But Lily had been nowhere to be found. She had returned from the village with his mother but had not come down for tea. He was not surprised after he had heard his mother's account of the afternoon. Being stranded at the vicarage for two hours had severely embarrassed her. He did not doubt that Lily had been gently scolded on the way home.

He would have found the thought of her lengthy absence in the lower village amusing if he had not been feeling so agitated. He had stayed in the drawing room for a scant half hour and had been pacing in the library ever since. It was impossible to settle to any task.

At last there was a tap on the door, it opened, and Lily came past the footman in a rush, it seemed, until she came to a sudden stop before him, flushed and smiling. He held out both hands and she set her own in them.

'Lily.' He raised both hands to his lips and then leaned forward to kiss her lips. But he paused as he was lifting his head away and searched her eyes with his own. 'What is the matter?'

She hesitated and her hands gripped his own more tightly. 'Nothing,' she said breathlessly. 'It was just foolishness.'

'More shadows?' he asked. He had hoped last night would have banished them forever. But he must not expect that it would have solved every problem.

She shook her head and smiled. 'You wished to see me?'

'Yes. Come and sit down.' He kept hold of one of her hands and led her to one of the leather chairs that flanked the fireplace. He took the other chair after she had seated herself. 'Did my mother upset you? Is that it? Did she scold you?'

'Oh.' She bit her lip. 'No, not really. She meant to be kind. She believes I should make more of an effort to behave as the Countess of Kilbourne ought, and of course she is right. I kept her waiting for—oh, for a very long time. I suppose it did not occur to her that I could have walked home.'

No, it would not have. 'I would wager,' he said, 'that a couple of my tenants were quite delighted with you this afternoon. You have a gift for delighting people.' Himself included.

She gazed at him but did not reply. He felt suddenly nervous and leaned back in his chair. He had not asked her here to discuss the afternoon's events. He just did not know how to broach what he had to say. He must just say it, he supposed.

'We will be leaving for London in the morning,' he said. 'Just you and I, Lily. I thought at first of going alone, but when I gave the matter more careful consideration, I realized it would be better to take you with me.'

'To London?'

He nodded. 'I need to procure a special license,' he told her. 'I could get it in London and bring it back here and we could marry in the village church. It could all be done within a week, I daresay. But it might cause confusion in minds that do not need to be confused.'

'A special license.' She was looking blankly at him.

'A marriage license. So that we can marry, Lily, without the delay of banns.' He really was not explaining this very well at all, he thought uneasily.

'But we are married.' Blankness was turning to puzzlement.

'Yes.' His hands, he noticed, were gripping the arms of his chair. He relaxed them. 'Yes, we are, Lily, in every way that matters. But the church and the state are very particular about certain really rather unimportant details. The Reverend Parker-Rowe died in that ambush, and his belongings were abandoned with his body. Captain Harris confirmed that fact in a letter I received yesterday. Today I have received answers to several other letters I wrote on the day of your arrival. Our marriage papers were lost, Lily, before they could be properly registered. Our marriage, it seems, does not exist in the eyes of either the church or the state. We must go through the ceremony again.'

'We are not married?' Her blue eyes had widened and were staring, unblinking, back into his own.

'We are, Lily,' he hastened to assure her. 'But we must satisfy the powers-that-be by making it quite unquestionably legal. No one need know except us. We will go to London—perhaps for a week or two to do some shopping, to see some of the sights, even to take in some of the entertainments of the Season. And while we are there, we will marry by special license. I will not allow this to be an embarrassment to you. No one will know.'

He desperately wanted to save her from the shock of feeling utterly alone and abandoned. He was very aware that she had no one but him. He did not want her to believe, even for a single moment, that he would seize upon this small loophole to wriggle out of his obligation to her.

'We are not married.' There was nothing in her eyes that suggested she had listened to anything else. They looked dazed. Her face was pale.

'Lily,' he said distinctly, 'you must not fear. I have no intention of abandoning you. We are married. But there is a formality we must observe.'

'I am Lily Doyle,' she said. 'I am still Lily Doyle.'