‘Indeed, Mr Clairmont,’ Lillian replied, ‘and although you may not credit it, there are, in truth, other things that are of much more importance.’
‘There are?’ His surprise made it difficult to maintain her sense of decorum.
‘A man’s reputation for one,’ she bit back, ‘is considered by a careful bride to be essential.’
‘And are you a careful bride, Lilly?’
‘Lillian,’ she echoed, ignoring the true intent of his question. ‘And careful in the way of being certain that John has at least never been a suspect in murder.’
‘Because he plays everything as safely as you do?’
She turned, but he caught at her arm, not gently either, the hard bite of his fingers making her flinch. ‘Perhaps you might wait till the findings of the police are made public before naming me guilty.’
‘Why?’ she retaliated. ‘If you keep the company of gamblers and card sharps and are often covered in the bruises and markings of a man who goes from one squabble to the next, why indeed should I give you any leeway?’
‘Because I hope you know by now, Lilly, that I am not quite as black as you would paint me.’ His accent was soft but distinct, the cadence of the new lands on his tongue.
‘Do I, Lucas? Do I know that?’
It was the first time she had called him by his Christian name and the warm glow in his eyes alarmed her. There was something else there too. A vulnerability that she had not seen before, an unprotected and exposed need that tugged at her because it was so unexpected.
‘Marrying one man because of the faults of another is not the wisest of choices.’
‘So what is it then you would suggest?’
He laughed, the sound filling the empty space around them. ‘Come away with me instead.’
The room whirled, a yearning ache in her body that she was completely astonished by. If only he meant it. If only the laughter that the invitation had been accompanied with did not sound quite so offhand. So casual!
‘And spend the rest of my life wondering when a noose would be placed about your neck?’
‘I had nothing to do with the death of Paget, if that is what you are implying.’
‘You were asked to leave Eton.’
‘I was a boy…’
‘Who stole a watch?’
Again he began to laugh. ‘Such a crime…’ But she allowed his amusement no further rein.
‘I am the only heir to Fairley Manor, Mr Clairmont, and in England we protect our assets by marrying wisely.’
He tipped his head and in the light of the room Lillian saw the beginnings of a reddened scar that snaked from his right ear into the collar of his shirt.
‘A long-ago accident,’ he qualified as he saw her uncertainty.
But she was transfixed. This was no simple wound that would take a day or two to mend. She imagined both the pain and the tenacity needed to recover from such an injury and in her conjecture also saw the wide and yawning gap that lay between them. Who had tended him in his hours of need, wiped his brow and brought him water? She had heard it said he had left for America as a boy, but there had been no mention of any family.
‘Did your parents go with you to the Americas?’
He looked puzzled at her change of topic. ‘My parents?’
‘The Earl of St Auburn implied that you were barely above fourteen when you left Eton and that you sailed from England very soon afterwards.’
‘I had an uncle there already.’
‘So you took passage alone?’
‘Worked my way there actually as a deckhand on the
Marvelling at his description, she imagined a child making his way across the world to a different shore, the mantle of being labelled a thief on his shoulders and alone. Why had his parents not gone with him? She sensed he wanted no more questions as he stood there, the candles above setting his hair to a shade of lighter brown amongst the ebony, curling long against his nape.
‘Wilcox-Rice will never make you happy.’ The words seemed dragged from him.
‘Whereas you will?’
He smiled at that. ‘There are things more important than a certain cut of cloth or which fork one uses at a banquet table, Miss Davonport.’
‘You think that is what defines me?’
‘Partly.’
She hated the truth in his words and the answering echo of it in her own mind. ‘The sum of my pieces must be awfully galling to you then, Mr Clairmont, just as the sum of your own is as equally trying to me. I think a passably good kiss in a man who seems to eschew every other moral principle would not sustain a relationship for even as long as a month.’
‘Do you now?’ Ground out. Barely civil.
Lillian stood her ground. ‘Indeed, for it has come to my ears that the whisper of friendship and respect is a most underrated thing in any marriage.’
‘Which unfulfilled brides have told you that nonsense?’
Shock held her rigid. ‘Perhaps it was naive of me to expect that you might consider such a sentiment with an open mind.’
‘An open mind?’ He laughed. ‘When your own has just condemned me as a murderer.’
‘Paget was a man you seemed to have much reason to hate.’
‘I concede. Put like that my case seems hopeless and if a thought is as lethal as a bullet…’
When she allowed a smile to blossom he took the small chance of it quickly.
‘Stay the night with me, Lillian. See what it is you will miss if you marry John Wilcox-Rice.’
The shock of his question was only overrun by the stinging want in her body. ‘I could start with ruination-’
He broke into her banter. ‘I would never hurt you, at least believe that.’
She saw the way he looked about to make certain no person lay in earshot, saw the way too he kept his hands jammed in his jacket pockets and his face carefully bland. They could for all intents and purposes be discussing the weather should a bystander take the time to watch them.
‘If by some misguided logic I should chance to consider such a risky venture, where would you imagine this tryst to take place? I should not wish to shed my inhibitions in a dosshouse, after all.’
‘Someone has told you my address?’
The dimple in his cheek was deep and she tried not to let the beauty of his face daunt her.
‘Come away with me, then. I have a house in Bedfordshire.’
‘I could not possibly…’
‘You could buy a kiss when you barely knew me. Take that one step further.’
John Wilcox-Rice’s voice sounded behind her. ‘Lillian, I have been looking for you.’ His words were wary and distrustful.
‘Mr Clairmont has just extended an invitation to us to call in at his house in the country.’ She watched as amber flared, catching her glance in a hooded warning.
‘I doubt we shall be in the district, Clairmont, and I thought I had heard it said that you were taking passage home very soon.’
‘Unless the police have need to keep me in London.’
John stuttered at such nonchalance. A challenge. A provocation. A carefully worded gauntlet thrown into the ring between adversaries and John with no notion at all as to what he fought for.
The beat of Lillian’s heart thickened in the dawning realisation that she was the prize, a situation that she had not had the experience of since her first year of coming out, and the band of white gold and diamonds on the third finger of her left hand felt tight, a small message of control and limit that constricted everything.
Oh, for the chance of another kiss? No, there wasn’t the possibility for any of it, especially here with her father and aunt close and a fiance who allowed her not a moment’s respite. If only she might lay her fingers in those of
