Unknown (39 page)

“Laurie. No one is more aware of those things than I, and you know it. They…” He could hardly believe he was about to utter the words, but they were true. “They no longer matter. I will survive. I shall manage. But survival will be worth nothing… without Lily.”

How would his life look? Simpler, certainly. He could do without the fine lodgings, the fine clothes, the parties and balls. He considered all of them, and realized he wouldn’t miss them in the least. A barrister not subject to the fashion and social requirements of the
ton
could live well enough. He could move in next door to Dodge. He almost smiled at the thought.

But he didn’t need to plan his life now; all he needed was Lily, and his life would find him.

Kilmartin paced a little more, shaking his head thoughtfully now and again. Gideon was distantly amused; he could not recall ever seeing his friend quite so agitated.

And then Kilmartin finally paused, his expression resigned. “She did ask me not to tell you, Gideon ..‘. But she thought she’d take a ship out to Italy in the morning.”

“Italy?”

“You didn’t really expect her to go back to St. Giles, did you?”

“Yes… no… but
Italy
?”

“The weather is very fine there,” Kilmartin said defensively. “It was my idea. Anyhow, there’s an inn by the docks, the Tiger’s Nest. She knew of it.”

Gideon leaped from the settee and seized a shocked Kilmartin in an embrace, lifting him off the ground. And then he dropped him again and bolted for the door.

But Constance was blocking the doorway, one hand perched on her hip.

“We
wondered
where the two of you had got to! We thought we’d try a moonlight walk in my—our—that is, your uncle’s sculpture garden.”

The handmaidens and Lord Jarvis clustered behind her and the whole lot of them crowded into the room. Lady Anne Clapham hovered politely in the rear.

From Gideon’s heart to his mouth, with no pause for filtering, came these words:

“Constance, it’s no good. I’m sorry. I cannot marry you.”

Constance went as stiff as one of those sculptures, and all of the mouths of all of the people standing dropped open into perfect little ovals of astonishment.

Truthfully, Gideon was just as shocked with himself as they were. Really, he could have done it more graciously. Or at the very least, more privately. But the bindings were off of his heart now, and his heart had control of his faculties.

Constance’s confidence, however, was a breathtakingly impenetrable thing. “Don’t be silly, Gideon,” she replied evenly, composure regained. “Of
course
you can marry me. I don’t mind a bit that you don’t have a title, so you needn’t worry on
that
account. You will have a perfectly splendid career in politics, Papa said, and I’ve money enough for anything we could possibly desire, and we’ll have Aster Park. Now let’s go for a walk in the moonlight, all of us, shall we?”

Gideon smiled at her, a smile so brilliant with his sense of liberation. “No, Constance. You don’t understand. I’m not in love with you.”

Constance’s smile slowly distorted into a grimace of irritation. “Oh, Gideon. That hardly matters, does it? Please abandon this nonsense.”

That hardly matters
? Her words sounded like so much blasphemy. And just a few short weeks ago he probably would have agreed with her.

“Constance.” The bloody woman was forcing him to use his barrister voice. “Constance, it’s all been a game, don’t you see? You’ve been playing at it, and I’ve been playing at it… and you don’t really want
me
. You want to
win
. Perhaps I’ve been despicable, but if you think about it, you’ll see that I’m right and—well, as I said, it’s no good.”

“But Gideon… it’s how it’s
done
.” Constance was genuinely bewildered. “I don’t understand. We’re going to have a lovely large wedding.
Everyone
will be there.”

Gideon felt something akin to pity. He wasn’t exactly proud of himself at the moment, but he’d just learned that pride was a frivolous thing when love was at stake.

“I’m terribly sorry, Constance. But you’re not in love with me, and as for me—I’m in love with someone else entirely. And I’ve no idea whether she loves me, too, but I’m about to find out. If she does, I fully intend to marry
her
. Again, I’m terribly sorry.”

“Miss Masters?” Constance sounded incredulous. “She
cannot
have won.”

“Oh, Miss Masters did not win.”

Constance’s face began to ease back into some semblance of self-satisfaction.

“She did not win,” Gideon clarified, “because in truth, there never really was a contest. It was
always
Lily.”

Constance seemed to
inflate
then; she drew herself up to her entire regal height and glared at Gideon, in the way, he was sure, that kings and queens throughout the ages had done just before they ordered the execution of a rebellious peasant.

“Gideon, if you do not cease this nonsense at once, I shall never,
ever
forgive you. And Papa shall most
definitely
hear about it. You will be ruined.”

“I would not expect you to forgive me, Constance,” he said gently. “But I find, strangely, that I do not care whether you do or not. And please do give your papa my regards.”

Constance stared at him, and truthfully—and this did wound his pride, if only just a little—she looked more
thwarted
than heartbroken. She was clearly having difficulty absorbing the fact that, for the first time in her life, she would not be getting exactly what she wanted.

“If you will excuse me?” Gideon moved forward, toward all those horrified faces perched atop bodies stiff with outrage; they parted to let him pass.

And then he broke into a run and ran like a wild thing, with abandon, through the hallways out the door of the house, snatching his coat from a beaming Gregson on his way.

To Lily.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Once the innkeeper had deposited her trunk in the room, Lily barred the door and pushed the trunk in front of it. Just in case one or two of the customers downstairs were unafraid of a large husband with an unreliable gun.

Alice tested the bed first thing. “It’s not at all comfortable, Lily.”

Wonderful
. Her sister had become a connoisseur of beds.

“In our lifetimes, Alice, we will likely know a great many kinds of rooms and beds.” She kept her tone bright for Alice’s sake. But now that she’d stopped moving, doubt caught up to her and washed over her in great cold paralyzing waves.

Had leaving Aster Park truly been the right thing to do for Alice? For
herself
?

“Will Mr. Cole be coming along for it?” Alice looked hopeful. “For our adventure?”

Alice might as well have taken a knife to her heart. “No, I am afraid not, dearest.”

Lily looked into Alice’s face, and guilt and misery twisted in her. It was she who had put that stoic and closed expression on her sister’s face; Alice was trying to pretend this newest loss didn’t matter at all, when in fact it bewildered her and cut deeply.

Lily pulled her sister into a swift hard hug then; anything more lingering and tender would have had both of them sobbing like ninnies. And of the many things Lily and Alice could be considered, “ninnies” was not one of them.

“Alice, I want you to know that, no matter what,
I
will
never
leave you.” Tears clogged Lily’s throat. She absolutely refused to indulge them even a little. She threw her shoulders back.
She
was the mistress of her destiny.

She reached down to feel Alice’s forehead again, and Alice dodged away. “I
told
you…”

Lily sighed. “You’ve still a bit of a cough, Alice. I’ll fetch something hot from the kitchen downstairs in a few minutes.”

“Cakes?” But it was a halfhearted suggestion. As though Alice had already accepted there would be no more cakes.

“Tea. Why don’t you climb into bed and I’ll tell you a story, and then I’ll fetch some tea? And perhaps some soup, or stew. They are cooking something lovely in the kitchen, I can smell it.” Actually, “lovely” was an overstatement, but such was the power of Lily’s persuasion that Alice looked mollified.

Lily tried to think of a story. But they’d already lived their favorite story: the one with the great house, the peacocks, the food.

And the prince.

How could she ever invent a new story to rival it? Exhaustion finally robbed her of speech.
Why on earth am I running
?

Because she
was
running. Running
away
. And the truth was: because she was afraid.

Well, it was fear
and
pride, really. And now that the feverish impulse to flee had ebbed, she felt deeply foolish. For who was she, to hold fate to her own exacting standards? She’d been given an opportunity to love a beautiful, astonishing man, to make him smile, to hear his thoughts, to revel in his body. To experience astounding pleasure beneath his hands. Gideon Cole made her feel exquisite and protected and loved for the first time in her life. It was more than
anyone
deserved, she thought, let alone a pickpocket from St. Giles. And she knew, no matter what happened, no matter what turn his life took, Gideon would make certain that both she and Alice were safe and comfortable.

And yet she’d run from him. Just because circumstances weren’t precisely as she wanted them. Because she hadn’t the courage, truthfully, to trust him. To surrender her independence to him, and trust she would not feel trapped… only loved.

She would have to share him with another woman.

Her hands went up to her face in agitation. It was torture to imagine him with Constance. In bed with Constance, touching her…

Oh, God.

Could she do this?

She knew one thing to be true:
The greater part of him will always be mine
. And no one would take that from her. Or from Gideon.

She froze mid-pace, spellbound by her own decision.

“Lily?” Alice’s concerned voice came to her.

Lily turned. “Alice…”

“Yes, Lily?”

Lily inhaled deeply. Once she’d said the words to Alice, she could not take them back. She couldn’t do that to Alice yet again.

So she said them. “We’re going back to Aster Park.” “Hurrah!” Alice bounced on the hard little bed. “For good?”

Inwardly, Lily crossed her fingers. “Perhaps.”

An hour or so later, when Lily went downstairs again for tea, she was greeted by an astonishing sight.

Gideon was standing in the center of the room looking baffled, his head swiveling from side to side.

All of the men in the inn seemed to have disappeared.

And then Lily found them: they were crouching under the tables.

Lily saw the top of the innkeeper’s shiny head poking up from behind the bar, like the moon sinking over the horizon. Slowly, slowly, it rose, and then his eyes appeared, and then his nose. But that seemed to be as far as he intended to rise.

“Ma’am,” his voice quavered politely, “would this be your husband?”

“Oh, yes,” she agreed at once. “This is my husband. The one with the big… gun.”

Gideon turned to her. “Gun?” he queried softly. His eyes upon her were burning significance, but the corners of his mouth were turned up a little in amusement.

It was wonderful to hear his voice in this place.

They gazed and gazed at each other across the inn, while dozens of men cowered under tables, their tankards of ale left unattended.

“Yes. You know…
dear
… your gun,” she said softly, when she could speak again. “Your very big gun with the lock that doesn’t work properly.”

Gideon was fighting a number of emotions, it seemed. Amusement was clearly one of them.

“Of course…
dear
. I’ll see to it one of these days.”

Big, beautiful man
. How she loved him.

“I would like to speak to you privately, Lily,” he said at last. He now sounded very stiff and formal.

“Alice is upstairs.”

“I would like to speak to you… alone. If you please. It won’t take but a minute.”

“I do not want to leave her for long.”

“Outside for just a moment, then?” He’d begun to sound a little desperate.

She nodded once, acquiescing, her heart pounding so hard she could hear the blood whooshing in her ears.
Why is he here
?

Gideon pushed open the door, motioning for Lily to precede him through it.

Heaving a collective sigh of relief, all the men crouching under the tables crawled out from under them and took up their drinks again.

Gideon stared into the water; a fat full moon had turned it black and glossy. He was certain the dank fishy smell of the harbor would permeate his clothing. It was the most romantic smell he could imagine.

Anywhere Lily was would always be romantic.

“There may be cutthroats about,” Lily warned.

“I shall shoot all of them with my big broken gun.”

This made her smile; thank God he could still make her smile.

He felt very awkward suddenly. He longed to touch her; would she shy away from him? No: together they were incendiary; they would forget everything else instantly if they touched each other. He wouldn’t touch her until he learned what he’d come here to learn.

He cleared his throat. “I suppose you’re wondering why I’m here.”

She regarded him thoughtfully for a moment. “Are you wondering why
I’m
here?” she countered softly.

“No,” he answered just as softly. “I know why you’re here.”

The water slapped, slapped, slapped, rhythmically against the pilings. Lily turned away from him; she seemed hypnotized by it momentarily.

“Lily… it’s… well, it’s as I told Constance—in front of everybody, it just slipped out, you know, and a very unpleasant business it was—it’s no good, Lily.”

“No good?” she repeated, frowning a little.

“Yes. I’ve been horrible.”

She looked up at him, confused now. “Gideon, you’ve never been hor—”

“Lily—listen to me please: I’ve been…
such
a fool. I’ve come to tell you…” God, but this was difficult. If his courtroom opponents could see him now… He took a deep bream. “It’s just that… I love you, Lily.”