One Night for Love

tell him so a dozen times during the course of the day—and she did so—but he could not understand.

She had never told him that to her dying day she would consider him to be her husband no matter what the church and the state had to say to the contrary—that she had never wavered in her fidelity to their marriage.

He caught her wrist in a hot, bruising grip late in the morning. 'I should have kept her with me at the head of the line, should I not?' he asked her, his eyes bright with fever. 'I should not have entrusted her safety to other men at the center. I should never have done that. I should have died protecting her.'

'You did your very best, Neville,' she told him, leaning close to him. 'That is all anyone can ever do.'

'I might have saved her,' he said, 'from—Is it true that it is a fate worse than death, do you suppose? I wish I could have died to save her from that.'

'Nothing is worse than death,' she said. 'There is always hope this side of the grave. As long as I was alive, I could dream of coining back to you. I loved you. I have always loved you.'

'You must not say that, Lauren,' he said. 'Please do not say that, dear.'

Elizabeth finally persuaded her late in the afternoon to return to her own room—with the promise that she would not argue about Lily's keeping the night watch again. Dolly was waiting for Lily, she said, and was threatening to come and drag her mistress away by force. There was a hot bath awaiting her and a bed.

'I will have you woken if there is any change,' she promised. 'He is tough, Lily. He will come through this.'

Lily would have known very well that Elizabeth spoke the truth if he had been anyone but Neville. But she was too desperate for him to live to believe that he would.

She surprised herself by sleeping deeply and dreamlessly for four hours. When she rang for Dolly, her maid informed her that his grace, the Duke of Portfrey, begged a few minutes of her time in the drawing room before she returned to the sickroom.

Lily had very firmly pushed from her mind all thoughts of what had happened at Vauxhall. It was easier said than done, of course, but she had refused to dwell upon the terrifying mystery. She could not afford to do so now. She needed all her emotional strength for Neville. But the terror came rushing back when she learned that the duke was belowstairs—and with it the memory that he had suddenly appeared at Vauxhall between the time she and the others had left for their walk and the time of their return. And he had been wearing a long black opera cloak.

She went down to the drawing room anyway.

He came hurrying across the room toward her, both his hands outstretched. 'Lily, my dear,' he said. His handsome face was all frowning concern.

Lily leaned back against the door and clutched the doorknob with both hands behind her.

He dropped his hands and stopped a few feet away from her. 'We were unable to catch him,' he said. 'I am so sorry. Did you see him, Lily? Did you have a good look at him? Can you remember anything in addition to the dark cloak and the pistol?'

'Was it you?' She was whispering.

He stared at her in seeming incomprehension. 'What?' he said.

'Was it you who shot Neville?' She was speaking aloud now.

He said nothing for what seemed a long while. 'Why would you think it was me?' he asked her.

'It was you on the rhodondendron walk,' she said. 'Was it you in the woods? And you who pushed the stone over the cliff and tried to kill me on the rocks below? Was it you who tried to run me down with your horse in Hyde Park? I know I was the target at Vauxhall, not Neville. Was it you?' Curiously she felt very calm. His face, she noticed, was drained of all color.

'Someone tried to kill you at Newbury?' he asked her. 'And in Hyde Park?'

'I saw a figure on the rhododendron walk,' she said, 'standing still and looking for me—I was in a tree. And then I came down the path and there you were. Why do you want me dead?'

His hand was over his eyes, which he had closed. 'There is only one explanation,' he muttered. He opened his eyes and looked at her. 'But how the devil am I going to prove it?' He blinked and looked at her with more awareness in his eyes. 'Lily, it was not I. I swear it. I do not wish you any harm. On the contrary. If you but knew…' He shook his head. 'I have no proof… of anything. Please believe that it was not I.'

And suddenly her suspicions seemed ridiculous to her. She could not imagine why she had ever entertained them. But then the idea that someone wanted her dead was ridiculous too. And one could hardly expect a prospective murderer to confess to the victim he had stalked for well over a month.

'For your own peace of mind,' he said, 'please believe me. Oh, Lily, if you just knew how I love you.'

She recoiled in horror and pressed herself against the door so that the knob to which she clung dug painfully into her back. What did he mean? He loved her? In what way? But there was only one way, surely. Yet he was old enough to be her father. And he was dangling after Elizabeth—was he not?

His grace ran the fingers of one hand through his silvering hair and blew out his breath from puffed cheeks. 'Forgive me,' he said. 'I have never been so inept. Go up to Kilbourne, Lily, and ask Elizabeth to join me here, if you will. And do me the honor of trusting me, I beg you.'

She did not answer him. She turned and opened the door and fled through it. She had every reason to distrust him—now more than ever. What had he meant by saying that he loved her? And yet, when he had asked her to trust him, she had felt inclined to do just that.

***

The room was dark when he opened his eyes. He was not sure if it was the same night as the one during which a bullet had been dug out of his shoulder. He rather thought it was not. He was feeling weak—and his shoulder was stiff and as sore as hell. He turned his head and winced from the pain. She was lying beside him, her head turned toward him, her eyes open.

'If I am dreaming,' he said, smiling at her, 'don't tell me.'

'Your fever broke two hours ago,' she said. 'You have been sleeping. But you are awake now. Are you