Elizabeth was dressed and in the breakfast room before Lily—an unusual occurrence. She got to her feet, took Lily's hands in hers, and kissed her on both cheeks before looking searchingly into her face.
'Lily,' she said, 'how
'Awake,' Lily said. 'Fully awake.'
'You will receive him this morning?' Elizabeth sounded rather anxious. 'You need not if you do not feel quite ready to do so.'
'I will receive him,' Lily said.
He came an hour later, when they were sitting in the drawing room, working at their embroidery—or at least pretending to. He came striding into the room close on the butler's heels, made his bow, and then hovered close to the door as if he had suddenly lost all his confidence.
'Gracious, Lyndon,' Elizabeth said, hurrying toward him, 'whatever happened?'
'An unfortunate encounter with a door?' he said, phrasing the words as a question, as if asking if they would be willing to accept a patently ridiculous lie. His face was shiny with bruises. His left eye was bloodshot and purplish at the outer corner.
'You have been fighting Mr. Dorsey,' Lily said quietly.
He came a few paces closer to her. 'You have not been in grave danger from him for some time, Lily,' he said. 'Kilbourne, I gather, has had a close watch put on you, and I have had a close watch put on Dorsey. I knew it was he, you see, but did not have proof of it until last evening. He will not be bothering you ever again.'
Lily supposed that she had known last night why the duke and Neville left the party so early. But her mind had not been able to cope with the knowledge, or with anything else for that matter.
'He is dead?' she asked.
He inclined his head.
'You killed him?'
He hesitated. 'I knocked him insensible,' he said, 'in a fist fight. Kilbourne and I had agreed with considerable regret that we could not reconcile it with our consciences to kill him in cold blood or even in a duel to the death, but we did agree that we would punish him severely before turning him over to a constable and a magistrate for trial. But we were careless. He snatched up a gun before he could be taken away and would have killed me if Kilbourne had not first shot him.'
Elizabeth had both hands to her mouth. Lily merely looked calmly into the duke's eyes and knew that she had heard everything that he was prepared to tell. She knew that although Mr. Dorsey had probably killed her mother and Mr. William Doyle, that although he had tried three separate times to kill her and had almost killed Neville, it might have been difficult to prove any one of those murders or attempted murders in a court of law. She was not sure if it was carelessness that had left a gun within Mr.
Dorsey's reach. Perhaps they had wanted him to have that gun. Perhaps they had wanted him to try to use it so that there would be a perfectly good excuse to shoot him in self-defense.
The duke himself would never say, of course. Neither would Neville. And she would never ask. She did not really wish to know.
'I am glad he is dead,' she said, almost shocked to realize that she spoke the truth. 'Thank you.'
'And that is all we need say on the topic of Calvin Dorsey,' he said. 'You are safe, Lily. Free.'
She nodded.
'Well,' Elizabeth said briskly, 'I am due to meet with my housekeeper. It is our day for going over the accounts. You will excuse me for half an hour, Lyndon? Lily?'
Lily nodded and the duke bowed.
He looked wary when he turned back from seeing Elizabeth out of the room, but Lily smiled at him.
'Will you have a seat, your grace?' she asked.
He took a chair quite close to hers and looked at her silently for several moments.
'I will understand,' he said at last, sounding as if he were delivering a well-rehearsed speech, 'if you feel yourself unable to acknowledge the relationship, Lily. Kilbourne told me a good deal last night about Sergeant Thomas Doyle. I can understand your pride in him and your affection for him. But I beg you—please!—to allow me to settle a considerable portion of my fortune on you so that you may live in comfortable independence for the rest of your life. At the very least allow me to do that for you.'
'What would you wish to do,' she asked him, 'if I said I was willing to accept more than the very least?'
He leaned back in his chair and drew a deep breath, looking at her consideringly as he did so. 'I would acknowledge you publicly,' he said. 'I would take you home to Rutland Park in Warwickshire and spend every available minute of every day getting to know you and allowing you to get to know me. I would clothe you and deck you with jewels. I would encourage you to continue with your education. I would take you to Nuttall Grange in Leicestershire to meet your grandfather. I would… What is left? I would try in every way available to me to make up for the lost years.' He smiled slowly. 'And I would have you tell me every single thing you can remember about Thomas and Beatrice Doyle and your growing years. That is what I would wish to do, Lily.'
'You must do it, then, your grace,' she said.
They stared at each other for a long time, it seemed, before he got to his feet, came closer to her, and extended a hand for hers. She stood up, gave him her hand, and watched as he raised it to his lips.
'Lily,' he said. 'Oh, my dear. My very, very dear.'
She withdrew her hand, set her arms about his waist, and rested her cheek against his shoulder. 'He will always be my papa,' she said. 'But from this day on you will be my father. Shall I call you that? Father?'
