One Night for Love

He got to his feet then and closed the distance between them. He reached out a hand for hers. Foolish Lily. After last night how could she doubt for a moment? But he had given all the facts too abruptly. He had not prepared her. Deuce take it, he was a clumsy oaf.

Lily did not take his hand. But when she looked up into his eyes, he could see that the dazed look had gone from hers.

'We are not married,' she said. 'Oh, thank God.'

'Thank God?' He felt as if his stomach had performed a somersault inside him.

'Oh, do you not see?' she asked him, and she gripped the arms of her chair and leaned toward him. 'We never should have married, but I was in shock after Papa's death and frightened too, and you were being loyal to him and chivalrous to me. But it was a dreadful mistake on both our parts. Even if we could have spent the rest of our lives with the regiment it would have been a mistake. Even there the gap between an officer and a sergeant's daughter would have been a huge one. I could not easily have been an officer's wife and mixed with the other wives. But here.' With one sweep of an arm she seemed to indicate the whole of Newbury Abbey and everyone who lived within its house and park. 'Here the gap is quite insurmountable. It is an impossible one. I have dreamed of escape, just as you must have done. And now by some miracle it has been granted us. We are not married.'

It had never, even for one moment, occurred to him that she might be glad to hear the truth. He was suddenly overwhelmed by a terror he had had no chance of bracing himself against. He had lost her once, forever he had thought. And then, by some glorious miracle, she had been restored to him. Was he to lose her again even more cruelly than before? Was she going to leave him? No, no, no, she did not understand. He went down on his haunches before her chair and possessed himself of both her hands.

'Lily,' he said, 'there are some things more important than church or state. There is honor, for example. I promised your dying father that I would marry you. At our wedding I vowed before you and before God and witnesses to love and to cherish and keep you until my death. I had your virginity that night. We were together again last night. Even if we never go through the ceremony that will make all legal, I will always consider myself your husband. You are my wife.'

'No.' There was no vestige of color in her face, except for her blue eyes intent on his. She shook her head. 'No, I am not. Not if everyone else says it is not so. And not if it ought not to be so and if we do not wish it to be so.'

'It ought not to be? I have been inside your body, Lily.' He squeezed her hands until she winced. Though it was more than just that—far more. He had been… united with her. Last night they had become one.

She looked back directly into his eyes. Her lips moved stiffly when she spoke. 'So has Manuel,' she said. 'But he is not my husband either.'

He recoiled almost as if she had slapped him. Manuel. Neville shut his eyes tightly and fought a wave of dizziness and nausea. The man now had a name. And she was putting the two of them on the same footing—men who had possessed her but had no marital claim on her. Was there really no difference in her mind? Had last night been nothing to her except sex? Except the exorcism of some of her demons? He would not believe it.

'Lily,' he said, 'after last night you may be with child. Have you thought of that? You must marry me.' But that was not the reason. Not practical details like that. She was his love. He was hers.

'I am barren, sir,' she said, her voice quite flat. 'Have you not wondered how I could have been with Manuel for seven months without conceiving? We must not marry. You must marry someone who can be the Countess of Kilbourne as well as your wife. You will be able to marry Lauren after all. She is the one for you, I think. She is right in every way.'

He squeezed her hands again before getting to his feet and running the fingers of one hand through his hair. This was madness. He must be in the throes of some bizarre nightmare. 'I love you, Lily,' he told her, recognizing the frustrating inadequacy of words even as he spoke. 'I thought you loved me. I thought that was what last night was all about. And our wedding night too.'

She was staring up at him with set, pale face and eyes brimming with tears. 'Love has nothing to do with it,' she said. 'Can you not seel That I could be your mistress but not your wife? Not your countess?' Before he could draw breath to protest his outrage, she spoke again, her voice low and toneless. 'But I will not be your mistress.'

Lord God!

'What would you do?' He was whispering, he realized. He cleared his throat. He could not believe he was actually asking these questions. 'Where would you go?'

Her lips moved without sound for a moment, and he felt a glimmer of hope. She had no alternative but to stay with him. She had no one else, nowhere else. But he had reckoned without Lily's indomitable spirit. Her quiet, sometimes almost childlike demeanor were as illusory now as they had always been.

'I shall go to London,' she said, 'if you will be so good as to lend me the fare for the stagecoach. I believe Mrs. Harris might be willing to help me find employment. Oh, if only I could have returned to Lisbon in time to find my father's pack. There might have been enough money there… But no matter.' She stopped talking for a few moments. 'You must not worry about me. You have been kind and honorable and would continue to be kind if I would allow it. But you are not responsible for me.'

He leaned one arm against the mantel and stared unseeing down into the empty fireplace. 'Don't insult me, Lily,' he said. 'Don't accuse me of acting toward you only out of compassion and honor.' He fought panic. 'You will not marry me, then? You have hardened your heart? There is nothing I can say to persuade you?'

'No, sir,' she said softly.

It was the crudest blow of all. He wondered if she had deliberately addressed him as if he were still an officer and she still a mere enlisted man's daughter. She had called him 'sir.'

'Lily.' He was on the verge of tears. He closed his eyes and waited until he was sure he had control of his voice. 'Lily, promise me that you will not run away. Promise me you will stay here at least for tonight and allow me to send you in my own carriage to someone who may indeed help you. I do not know who yet or how. I had not considered this possibility. Give me until tomorrow morning. Promise me? Please?'

He thought she was going to refuse. There was a lengthy silence. But the tremor in her voice when she spoke proclaimed the reason for it. She was as close to breaking down as he.