One Night for Love

like, he wondered, suddenly to discover that one's dearly loved parents were not one's real mother and father after all? He tried to imagine discovering it of his own parents. He would feel without roots, without anchor. He would feel… fear.

'I want you to forget about the party,' he told her, 'and go up to your room. Ring for Dolly and then go to bed. Try to sleep. Will you?'

'Yes,' she said.

It hurt him to see her so listless, so willing to obey, just like an obedient child. So unlike Lily. But Portfrey was right. She was in deep shock. He was reminded of the way she had been in the hours following Doyle's death.

'Try not to think too much tonight,' he said. 'Tomorrow you will better be able to adjust to the new realities. I believe you will eventually realize that you have lost nothing. It is one thing, Lily, to care for the child of one's own seed or womb. It is another to love and cherish someone else's child for whom one really has no responsibility at all. That is what your mama and papa did for you. I did not know your mama, but I always marveled that a father could feel such devoted, tender love for his daughter as your papa felt for you. You have not lost them. You have merely gained people who will love and cherish you in the future and not be jealous of the past.'

'I am so very tired,' she said, and she lifted her face to him—her pale, large-eyed face. 'I cannot think straight—or even in crooked lines.'

'I know.' He lowered his head and kissed her, and she sighed and pushed her lips back against his own and raised her arms to twine about his neck.

He had missed her dreadfully during his journey into Leicestershire. And he had been sick with worry for her safety—especially after reading the letter. Feeling her small, shapely body against his own again, feeling her arms about his neck and her lips cleaving to his awoke hungers that threatened to overwhelm him. But she was in no condition for passion. Besides, there was a matter of grave importance to be attended to tonight—and Portfrey would be waiting for him.

'Go to bed now, my love,' he said, lifting his head and framing her face with both hands. 'I will see you tomorrow.'

'Yes,' she said. 'Tomorrow. Maybe my brain will work tomorrow.'

Chapter 24

Lily awoke from a deep sleep when the early-morning sun was already shining in at her window. She threw back the covers and leaped out of bed as she often did, and stretched. What a strange dream she had been having! She could not even remember it yet, but she knew it had been bizarre.

She stopped midstretch.

And remembered. It had not been a dream.

She was not Lily Doyle. Papa had not been her father. She was not even Lily Wyatt, Countess of Kilbourne. She was Lady Frances Lilian Montague, a total stranger. She was the daughter of the Duke of Portfrey. Her grandfather was Baron Onslow.

For one moment her mind threatened to take refuge in last evening's daze again, but there was nothing to be served by doing that. She fought panic.

Who was she?

All through those seven months in Spain she had fought to retain her identity. It had not been easy. Everything had been taken from her—her own clothes, her locket, her freedom, her very body. And yet she had clung to the basic knowledge of who she was—she had refused to give up that.

Now, this morning, she no longer knew herself. Who was Frances Lilian Montague? How could that austere, handsome man—with blue eyes like hers—be her father? How could the woman whose initial was twined with his on her locket be her mother?

They had been separated, the duke who was her father and the woman who was her mother, very soon after their marriage. Lily knew what that felt like. She knew the ache of longing and loneliness the woman must have felt. And they had loved each other. Lily had been conceived in love, the duke had told her last evening. They had loved each other and been separated forever. Their child had been left for what had been intended to be a short spell with the people who had become Lily's parents.

Mama and Papa, who had loved her as dearly as any parents could possibly love their child.

The woman, her mother, must have loved her too. Lily pictured to herself how she would have felt if she had had a child of Neville's after their separation. Oh, yes, her mother had loved her. And for over twenty years the duke, her father, had been unable to let go of either his wife or his conviction that somewhere she, Lily, existed.

She did not want to be Lady Frances Lilian Montague. She did not want the Duke of Portfrey to be her father. She wanted her papa to be the man who had begotten her. But it was all true whether she wanted it to be or not. And she could not stop herself from thinking that while for eighteen years she had had the best papa in the world and for the three years since his death had had her memories of him, the Duke of Portfrey for all that time had been without his own child. All those years, so filled with love for her, had been empty for him.

He was her father. She tested the idea in her mind without shying away from it. The Duke of Portfrey was her father. And Papa had always intended that she know it eventually. He and Mama had given her the locket to wear all her life, and Papa had always insisted that she must take his pack to an officer if he should die in battle. She did not know why he had kept the truth from her for so long or why he had not tried to contact the Duke of Portfrey. Oh, yes, she did. She could remember how her mama had doted on her, how her papa had acted as if the sun rose and set on her. They had found themselves unable to give her up and had doubtless found all sorts of good reasons for not doing so. Papa had intended to tell her when she reached adulthood. She was sure he must have intended that.

She would never know for sure what his intentions or motives had been, Lily decided. But she did know two things. Papa had not intended to keep the truth a secret from her forever. And Papa had loved her.

It was not, she thought suddenly, a bad thing to be the daughter of a duke and the granddaughter of a baron. She had dreamed of equality with Neville and had believed that perhaps she would achieve it in everything except birth and fortune.

She smiled rather wanly.