Once an Heiress (27 page)

She hesitated with her hand on the knob. Lily had not set foot inside Ethan’s study since the first day she’d met him as a prospective house buyer. Remembering her disdain for the handsome, ill-mannered “butler” still brought heat to her cheeks.

She made her way to the window and pulled the drapes. Her heart sank when she turned and beheld a mess seemingly unchanged since her last visit to the room. The Bachman servants had dusted the floor and furniture, she observed, but the study was still overwhelmed by the desk buried in disorderly piles of paper.

“Oh, well,” she grumbled. “A scavenger hunt, then.” She sat down in Ethan’s chair and began sifting through the papers.

Later today, she would go to her father and ask him to release her dowry. Ethan would inevitably have it eventually, and it would be a gesture of trust on her part that he was sincere in his desire to make theirs a happy union. It would take some time, however, for the papers to be drawn up, signed, and the money transferred.

In the meantime, Lily could immediately make Ethan’s life a little easier by paying off some of his debts right now, this morning. She had a nice sum of pin money she’d been squirreling away for years, hidden in a hatbox. Now, though, that money would get some of these bills off his desk and the creditors off his back.

Lily was soon overwhelmed by the sheer volume of letters requiring payment. Numerous tradesmen demanded remittance. And the gambling debts! What had seemed to Lily like a fortune in her hatbox would evaporate entirely if she paid off just two or three of the gentlemen to whom her husband owed money. Little wonder Ethan seemed so distraught when Lily spent anything — if these were her debts, she should lock herself in her room and cry for a week. What a burden her husband carried.

Fortunately, the debts all seemed to predate their marriage. If they paid off what he owed, and if he would stop gaming for such outrageous sums —

Lily’s brow puckered as she moved aside a paper and found a creamy sheet of stationery beneath it. This was not an invoice, and the script had a feminine appearance. Had Ethan been gambling with ladies as well as gentlemen? An embossed V stood in florid relief against the thick paper, and a floral aroma teased her nostrils. Lily’s stomach clenched at the scent. Her fingers trembled as she began to read.

Thorburn,

Days have passed since our last meeting. I cannot say how many, for time itself loses meaning when I am not with you. Every hour is an agony, each day an eternity. Deliver me from my misery, I implore you, and come to me.

My mind torments me with visions of you in the arms of another. It cannot be avoided, I know, but the heart does not willingly receive the sound advice of reason. Memory takes me to the eve of your wedding, when we wept together for the inevitable change in our dealings. For a while, I contented myself that though you were with her, your preference still lay with me. But now, as days drag by and you do not approach, my love, I cannot still the disquietude in my breast. Are her charms more attractive to you than my own? Has she usurped my place in your heart? Oh, the wretchedness of my station! Would that I could repent of every man before you — and yes, you as well, my dearest! — if so doing made me worthy of now holding the lawful position at your side inhabited by another.

Were it not for the certainty that God long ago abandoned me for the sin of our arrangement, I would pray for deliverance from the agony of our separation. Mayhap there will be forgiveness for me in the eternities, but I confess it difficult to trust in Providence when all the world is indifferent to one such as I, but for the passing novelty of my company. No, love, my salvation lies only with you, and yet you keep yourself from me. I shall try to endure a little longer, but show mercy upon she who has loved you well these years and end my suffering.

Only yours,

Vanessa

The letter slipped from Lily’s hand and fluttered to the floor. For a moment, a strange numbness pervaded her senses. She could only blink in confusion while her heart futilely attempted to keep at bay the truth her mind had grasped.

He had a mistress. Her Ethan loved another.

Pain unlike any she’d ever known tore through her middle. Leaping to her feet, she clutched the lapels of her dressing gown to her throat. Her eyes flew wildly around the room but saw nothing of the unkempt study. No, she saw Ethan again in the park, tucking away a letter topped with a V — this very same stationery. Even as he’d sat beside her on a bench while she nattered on about headmistresses, he’d been on his way to see this woman, this Vanessa.

Trembling fingers covered her face, still scented with the paper’s perfume. Roses. Last night, Ethan had smelt of roses. He had answered the summons of this missive but yesterday. Lily had lain with him, given her body and heart to him — while the scent of his mistress still clung to his skin.

The pain of betrayal ripped Lily in two; nausea surged through her middle. A keening wail escaped her throat as she sank to the floor beside the love letter. She buried her face against her knees, sobbing for the long and lonely life that stretched before her as the wife of a man who had given his heart to another woman.

“No!” she strangled out. “No, no, no!” Struggling against the waves of self-loathing that beat upon her like a squall on the shore, she pushed to sit upright on her heels, and swiped at her cheeks. She was a fool. Deep down, she knew he only wanted her money, but Lily had chosen to believe his seductive lies. She cast a scornful look at the horrible letter; her lip curled up in a sneer. “Of course he needs my money. A mistress is very expensive.” A bitter laugh shook her belly before the tears fell once more.

• • •

Ethan awoke in an unfamiliar location, with an unfamiliar sensation residing in the environs of his chest and abdomen. A moment’s observation allowed him to recall the location — Lily’s bedchamber with its dollhouse furnishings.

The sensation took longer to puzzle out. There was something familiar about it, though it oddly reminded him of sailing with his grandfather, which was not at all the situation in which he now found himself — burrowed as he was in a nest of feminine bedding with the faint, lingering ache of last night’s exercise burning his thighs.

His eyes drifted closed again and a smile flitted across his lips while he replayed some of the previous evening’s more spectacular moments. Lily possessed a commanding quality that would come off as indecorous at best in another female, hoydenish or domineering more likely. But in her … he groaned with the happy recollection how she’d taken control of their lovemaking, striving to please him with every trick in her as yet sparsely stocked arsenal — and please him she had. Abundantly. And what a joy it had been to then focus on her needs, a pleasure all its own.

At that moment, Ethan was able to put a name to the still-abiding sensation: peace. There were no knots of anxiety in his gut, no dread at facing the coming day. This peace had not come about through a cessation of his financial worries; no, those were as present today as they were yesterday. It had come because of Lily.

Last night, in the throes of passion, she had cried out the three-word declaration of extreme sentiment that had, up to now, been his cue to depart from the company of the female uttering the words. But when Lily said, “I love you,” Ethan had not felt the urge to run. To the contrary, he felt even more strongly the need to make things right with her, to ensure the happiness of their marriage.

As he recalled that startling moment, a twinge of conscience reminded him he had not responded in kind. He had not acknowledged it in any way, in fact; but Lily seemed not to have noticed. Ethan rolled onto his side and punched up the pillow beneath his head. His eyes fell to the indentation in the mattress where his wife had spent the night beside him. It occurred to him that she might not remember — or even mean — the words that had passed her lips.

In his experience, women became creatures possessed at the moment of orgasm, letting loose all manner of verbiage they might otherwise never pronounce. Cries to the Almighty were common, though Ethan himself did not care to invite the notice of deity whilst engaging in acts generally frowned upon by those who claimed to speak for the higher power. Mild ladies with the most inoffensive vocabularies imaginable could turn into firebrands with mouths to make a sailor blush. And then there were the women — like Lily, he supposed — who proclaimed themselves in love at the critical moment.

The thing was, he mused, frowning at the empty place in the bed, he quite liked the idea of Lily loving him. Before they married, there had been moments when she’d seemed inclined to think well of his character, to admire him as a man. How novel it would be to truly deserve her love and approbation. Maybe she hadn’t meant it last night — but maybe she had. “Wouldn’t that be something?” he whispered.

He shoved up to sitting, the sheet falling down his bare torso to collect across his lap. Where the devil had his wife gotten off to, anyway? He pulled on last night’s breeches before going to his own room to don fresh clothing.

For the first time in ages, Ethan looked forward to his day. Lily might love him. And he just might love her, too. The woman had enough intelligence and personality to keep him interested for a few centuries, at least. Her generosity knew no bounds; truly, Ethan had never seen its like. He knew no other female who had single-handedly taken on a task of the scope of King’s Cross Vocational. And he was completely enraptured by her lush body. A surge of desire pulsed through his pelvis. Ethan abandoned the rest of his toilette, stepping into the hallway in only clean breeches and shirt.

He had to find her.
Lily, Lily, Lily …
He was a hound honing in on her, seeking out his mistress, and he didn’t care. They had a foundation to build upon now. Ethan wanted the peace to remain, to grow. He wanted it to envelop the whole, sad house and drive away the emptiness.

He went down the stairs to the first floor. He peeked into the newly furnished parlor — no Lily. Thinking she must be breaking her fast, he started to descend to the dining room, but the cracked door of his study caught his eye.

Curious, he approached. With his fingers splayed wide, he pushed the door inward. Lily stood at his desk, furiously flipping through the piles of papers on the much-abused surface. She paused just long enough to lick her middle finger and recommence her search.

His eyes flicked to a collection of papers on the floor beside her, scattered as though she had dropped them from where she stood. As he watched, she pulled a sheet from the mess, glanced it over, and released it to fall to the floor with the others. A strangled sob escaped her as she raked through his things.

Unease gripped his lungs, dispelling the all-too-brief peace he’d enjoyed this morning. “Lily,” he ventured, stepping cautiously into the study, “what are you doing?”

Her eyes flew up to meet him, wild and bright with tears. Her cheeks were mottled with red blotches and her mouth twisted into a tight sneer at his appearance. Sleep-tangled tresses spilled over her shoulders. She leaned forward and braced herself on the edge of the desk, allowing the top of her robe to fall open. In other circumstances, the sight might have allured him; now, it terrified Ethan, as it bespoke a complete leave of Lily’s sensibilities.

“What am I doing?” she seethed. “What am I doing?” Her voice rose in pitch, and a white-knuckled fist struck her chest. “No, Ethan! The question is not what am
I
doing, but what are
you
doing?” Her index finger pointed in accusation.

Bewildered, he held placating hands out toward his distraught wife and took a few steps toward her. “You must calm down, Lily, so we can discuss … whatever it is we need to discuss.”

“Stay back!” She pushed a pile of papers onto the floor and fled to the far end of the desk, keeping the oak structure between them. “I don’t want you to touch me ever again. It’ll be the death of me, if you haven’t given me a pox already!”

Ethan’s jaw dropped open, aghast. “What the devil are you talking about, madam?” he demanded. Anger suffused his confusion, lapping at his temples. He rounded the end of the desk where Lily had stood; his bare foot crunched against paper. Glancing down, he noticed the pile his wife had made. At the opposite end of the desk, her breath came in rapid pants, near to hyperventilation.

He stooped to pick up the papers. His hands froze when he caught sight of the first V. A quick appraisal confirmed that every sheet was a letter from Nessa. He was accustomed to receiving letters dictated by the woman’s infirmity, but instantly grasped how they must look to his wife.

“Oh, Lily,” he murmured. With a heavy sigh, he glanced at his fuming spouse. Once she understood —

Years ago, when Nessa’s dementia first began to make itself apparent, he’d sworn never to reveal her ailment to anyone. A woman in her condition was too easy to take advantage of. With the exception of a very few others who knew her situation, she had been his alone, his closely guarded secret to protect. She was now forgotten by most of the world, and he preferred to keep it that way.

Lily isn’t like everyone else,
he reasoned. She could be trusted with Vanessa’s secret. Last night had meant more to Ethan than he would have thought possible. He’d asked Lily to trust him, and she had. Perhaps it was time to return the favor.

“This is not what you think,” he assured her. “I realize these letters must shock you, but if you’d only — ”

She cut him off with a crazed whoop. “Oh no, my lord,” she said, wiping away tears that slipped down her cheeks even as she laughed. “There is nothing you can say or do to shock me. Indeed, I’ve only shocked myself by hoping you might have been something other than what everyone warned me you are.” Her bottom lip quivered. Lily clamped one hand over her mouth and the other arm across her middle.

Ethan let out an exasperated sound. “Lily, please.” A few strides brought him to her side. He made to put an arm around her shoulders, but she twisted away from his grasp.