drawn back? Ruined by his reputation, ruined by his lack of place here, ruined by the fact that he had never truly fitted in anywhere save the wilds of Virginia with its hard honest labour and its miles of empty space.
Lord, he had lost one wife to the arms of another man because he had never understood just exactly what it meant to be married. Commitment. To stay in one place. Time. To nurture a relationship and sustain it even in the hours when nothing was easy. The example of his own parents’ marriage was hardly one to follow and his uncle had never taken a wife at all.
He had never understood the truth of what it was that made people stay together through thick and thin, through the good times and the bad. Indeed, incomprehension was still the overriding emotion that remained from the five years of his marriage.
A noise made him turn and three men dressed in black stood behind him. His arm shot out to connect with the face of the first one, but it was too late. A heavy wooden baton hit him on the temple and he crumpled, any strength in his body leached into weakness.
As he fell he noticed a carriage waiting at the end of the alley, and he knew it to be the Davenport conveyance. For a second he was heartened that perhaps they were here to save him, but his hopes were dashed as a heavy canvas sack was placed over his head.
‘The woman said to take him to the docks and that a man would meet us there.’
As the dizzy spinning unreality thickened he welcomed the dark whirl of nothingness, for it took away the bursting pain in his head.
Lucas Clairmont did not come as Lillian thought that he would. He did not come the first morning or the second and now it was all of five days past and every effort her father had made to find him had been fruitless. A man who had walked from the ballroom and out into the world, leaving all that was broken behind him.
He was not in his rooms in London and neither Lord Hawkhurst nor the St Auburns had any idea as to where he had gone. She knew because her father had spent the hour before dinner in her room explaining every ineffective endeavour he had made in locating the American.
‘It is my fault all this has happened,’ he said solemnly, running his fingers through what little was left of his hair. ‘I pushed you into something untenable and your mind has lost its way.’
This melodramatic outburst was the first thing that had made Lillian smile since they had left the Billinghurst ball.
‘I think it is more likely my reputation that is lost, Father.’
Ernest Davenport stood, the weight of the world so plainly on his shoulders and the heavy lines on his face etched in worry.
‘I don’t think Wilcox-Rice will forgive you. Even his sister is making her views about your transience well known.’
‘I did not wish to hurt them.’
‘But you did.’
No careful denial to make her feel better. She imagined the Wilcox-Rice family’s perception of her with a grimace.
‘And the worst of it is that you did it all for nothing. I do not now know, daughter, that you will ever be married. I do not think that avenue of action is open to you after this.’
‘But you will support me…’ Fear snaked into the empty sound of her voice.
‘Jean says that I should not. She says that you are very like your mother and that your lustful nature has been revealed.’
‘No. That’s not true, Father.’
‘Everyone is speaking of us. Everyone is remembering Rebecca in a way that I had thought forgotten. We are now universally pitied, daughter. A family cursed in relationships and fallen from a lofty height.’
‘All for a kiss on the back of my hand?’
‘Ah, much more than that, I think. At least here in this room between us I would appreciate it if you did not lie.’
She remained silent and he inclined his head in thanks, honesty a slight panacea against all that had been lost.
‘I think a sojourn in the north might be in order.’
‘To Fairley Manor?’ The same place as her mother had been banished to.
Her father’s face crumpled and he drew his hands up to cover the grief that he did not wish her to see, and in that one gesture Lillian realised indeed the awful extent of her ruination and the folly of it.
‘If you could find Lucas Clairmont, I am certain-’
Ernest dropped his hands and let irritation fly. ‘Certain of what? Certain that he will marry you? Certain that this will be forgotten? Certain that society will forgive the lapse in judgement of someone whom they looked up to as an example of how a young woman should behave? You do not understand, do you? If it had been some other less- admired daughter, then perhaps this might have blown over, might have dissipated into the forgotten. But for all your adult life you have been lauded for manners and comportment. Lillian Davenport says this! Lillian Davenport does that! Such a stance has made you enemies in those who have not been so admired and they are talking now, Daughter, and talking loudly.’
She stayed silent.
‘Nay, we will pack up the townhouse and retire to Fairley. At least there we can regroup. Jean, Patrick and Daniel will of course accompany us with the Christmas season almost here.’
Lillian’s heart sank anew.
‘And then we will see what the lay of the land is and make our new plans. Perhaps we could have a trip somewhere.’
So he would not abandon her after all. She laid her fingers across his.
‘Thank you, Father.’
He drew her hand up to his mouth and kissed the back of it, a gesture she had not seen him perform since before her mother had left and the small loyalty of it pierced her heart.
When he was gone she pulled out a drawer in her writing desk and found a sheet of paper. She could not just leave such a silence between her and John and Eleanor Wilcox-Rice. With a shaking hand she began to apologise for all the hurt that she had caused them; when she had finished she placed the elegant gold-and-diamond ring in its box next to the note, pushing back relief. She would have it delivered in the morning. At least in the vortex of all that was wrong she was free of this one pretence.
Lucas Clairmont was gone. Back to America, perhaps, on a ship now heading for home? He had not contacted her, had not in any way tried to make right the situation between them.
The mantra tripped around and around in her head, a solemn and constant reminder of how narrow the confines of propriety were, and how completely one was punished should no heed be taken of convention.
Lord, she could barely believe that this was now the situation she would be in…for ever? Even the maid bustling into the room failed to meet her eyes, stiff criticism apparent in each movement.
Lunch that afternoon was a silent drawn-out affair, each person skirting around the disaster with particular carefulness.
Her youngest cousin Patrick was unexpectedly the one who remained the kindest, setting out all his
‘It is an unfair world, Lillian, when women are disadvantaged for the actions of a cad. If Luc Clairmont should walk through this door right now, I would bash his head in.’
‘Please, Patrick.’ Jean’s protests fell on deaf ears.
‘And then I would demand retribution, though God knows in what form that might take, given his light purse-’
‘I think your mother would prefer to hear no more.’ Her father’s voice was authoritative and Patrick stopped, the loud tick of the clock in the corner the one sound in the room.
‘The Countess of Horsham’s good opinion that no American is to be trusted has come to pass,’ her aunt
