Thomas reached the music room, leaning against the doorframe as he peered in, watching Lily play the most beautiful rendition of any song he had ever heard in his life. She poured feeling and heart into it, leaning into the instrument and the notes in a sort of performance she would never have given for company. There was no posture, no composure, no reticence, just a full-bodied performance of a song she could not keep her passion out of.
This was Lily stripped of artifice and walls, raw and untamed, the side of herself that so few people glimpsed in their lifetime. For others, she was all composure and decorum, without flaws or airs, an image of perfection in her own right that was incomparable. The nymph inside her, the wildflower on the moors that did not wilt or bend in the wind yet could be so easily overlooked, was the more perfect part of her in truth.
Still without flaw, in his eyes, and a joy to behold.
She was simply adorned today, her gown the exact color of a bluebell and faintly sprigged with floral lines, a shawl draped loosely about her arms and scooping down her back. Her hair was back to being bundled up in a London style, which pained him to no end, though she was still as beautiful as she ever was.
His fingers already itched to pluck out each one of the pins and let her glorious, luscious, mahogany hair cascade down her shoulders and back.
But he would not. He had his own tendencies that London brought out, and he already felt his reserve slipping back into its place within him.
It couldn’t be so with her. Would not be.
The music faded as the song ended, and Thomas found himself without words as he stared at his wife, her fingers gradually sliding from the keys.
“Is it time to leave?” Lily asked without looking over, somehow knowing he was there.
Thomas swallowed with some difficulty, nodding. “Yes.”
She nodded once, lowering her eyes to her lap. “I cannot bear it. I am afraid to leave this place, to return to anything familiar for us. Does that make me cowardly?”
“No,” Thomas insisted gently, pushing into the room and going to her. “No, sweetheart, I feel the same.” He stood behind her, stooping slightly to wrap his arms around her and press his lips to her hair. She reached up to grip his arms, pulling them tightly around her and leaning back against him.
“We could have always had this,” Lily whispered, the words seeming to catch in her throat. “It could have been like this from the beginning.”
A sharp fire lanced through his chest, filling him with guilt, though there had been no accusation in her words. He held her more tightly, feeling choked by an apology he ought to have given, a lifetime of apologies he ought to have lived.
“I am sorry I never told you how I felt,” she went on, still whispering as though their confessions should be kept secret. “I’m sorry I wasn’t brave enough to try. I’ll never forgive myself.”
“Stop,” he pleaded against her hair, one of his hands sliding up to her cheek and stroking softly. “Please, stop. The fault is mine, my love. I cannot bear hearing you blame yourself. If I had been honest with you, had been true to myself, you’d never feel this way.”
Lily turned on the bench and took his face in her hands, drawing herself close. “I love you. I am not certain I have said so in the exact words, but I do. I love you.”
What a thing to say at such a moment!
Thomas felt his legs give way, and he moved to his knees, drawing his wife fully into his arms and cradling her against him. “Darling,” he breathed, his lips brushing her ear. “If I can promise you nothing else, I promise that I will never shut you out again. Never. I love you, and I will not lose what we have found here.”
She nodded against him, turning her face to press a gentle kiss against his neck, exhaling heavily. “Nor I.” She pushed back a little, cupping his face between her hands, her eyes searching his. “This is who we are. No one else. We must keep this.”
He nodded in her hold, humbled to his core and eager to agree to anything and everything she would say and suggest. “We will. We will.” He leaned forward to kiss her hard and found her emotion matching his.
There was no frenzy in this kiss, no rising passion to carry them away. They were sealing this moment with this kiss. Vowing beyond words what they would hold to. How they would be. Who they would be.
Lily broke the kiss, touching her brow to his and hummed very softly. “There. I am less afraid now.”
Thomas smiled, finding it incredible that he could do so, considering what lay before them. “As am I, my love.” Kissing her softly one more time, he pushed to his feet and took her hands. “Shall we be away to London, Mrs. Granger?”
She returned the smile, her eyes warm. “Yes, Mr. Granger, so long as we do so together.”
“Surely the journey to Cornwall was not as long as the journey back to London was. I think I have pains in parts of my body that don’t actually exist.”
Lily managed a smile, though it was strained, as she too felt pain at various points in her frame. “It did seem interminable, did it not?”
Thomas groaned as he sank into the wingback chair of the drawing room in their London house, craning his neck and eliciting a few cracks. “The next time that your sister returns from a long venture away, might we ask that she celebrate such things at a more convenient location?”
The idea of Rosalind being accommodating was as laughable as the idea that London was an inconvenient location for her celebration. “We were the ones in Cornwall, Thomas. I think you’d find we were the ones lacking a convenient location.”
He only shrugged. “Possibly, but if Riverton knew what Cornwall could offer, I have no doubt he’d jump at the chance to join in it.”
“He may,” Lily allowed, the idea giving her smile more delight. “I cannot be so certain. Is the captain interested in resigning his commission and taking up a life of business?”
“Well, I will certainly be offering him as much of a part as he likes,” Thomas said easily, slouching in the chair and crossing his ankles before the fire. “Provided his mother can be prevailed upon to let him out of her sight at any time ever again.”
“No one mocks the Rivertons,” Lily reminded her husband with a playfully scolding look.
Thomas returned the look with one of his own, and Lily laughed at the sight of it. The universally held tenets of London Society, where the illustrious Riverton family was concerned, clearly had no sway with him. There were several, and they were vast, but from Lily’s experience, the actual Riverton family had a surprisingly easy nature about them, without airs or elevation.
When Rosalind and Captain Riverton had wed quickly before their departure to the West Indies, there had been barely time for a family luncheon, but certainly not any kind of celebration. Yet that very next evening after their ship had departed, an invitation had come from the Rivertons, inviting Lily’s family to dine with them.
What had followed had been a simple, unremarkable, warm family dinner, and it had been the most comfortable evening Lily had passed in her husband’s company in many years.
Until recently, of course.
“Our family connection does not negate the level of respect owed to them,” Lily reminded him, still laughing. “Even if you and Lord Sheffield did rather enjoy each other’s company.”
“You adored Lady Sheffield just as much,” Thomas pointed out. “And Lady Riverton. And the children, I might add. By some views, we now are the Rivertons.”
Lily tossed her head back on a laugh, clapping her hands. “We are not!”
“Rosalind is,” Thomas insisted. “And she is your sister. Therefore, you are a Riverton. I am your husband, and therefore a Riverton.”
“Oh, I give up.” Lily shook her head, sighing heavily. “You are incorrigible.” She headed for a chair opposite him near the fire.
“Where are you going?”
Lily paused, looking at him in bewilderment. “To sit down…?”
He tilted his head, smiling as though she had done some
thing particularly adorable. “Come sit here.”
She eyed his chair dubiously, refusing to acknowledge his suggestion in the words. “There’s hardly room.”
He uncrossed his ankles and opened his arms. “Lily. Come sit here. Please?”
Her knees unlocked at the single word of inquiry, the faintest hint of uncertainty in it, and her reluctance evaporated. It would not be the most comfortable form of taking her ease after a journey, but they had promised each other that they would not go back, that they would keep the love and familiarity they had found in Cornwall.
And in Cornwall, she certainly would have gone to sit with him.
Smiling shyly, heart thudding anxiously within her, she changed direction and went to the chair where he sat. She awkwardly sat on his knees, curling her legs up and leaning her head against him. His arms were quick to come around her and secure her there. Somehow, she slipped her arms around his neck and found herself quite at ease, settling into him as though they had always sat together like this.
Yet they never had.
For a long moment, they sat in silence, holding each other and relaxing by the fire, as a loving couple might have done for years throughout their marriage, perhaps at any level of class in the world. At this moment, they might have been any couple in England or anywhere else, comfortable with each other and without barriers, secrets, or pride. Simply content to be. And to be together.
“I did not expect this to be as comfortable as it is,” Lily admitted softly, growing almost sleepy in his arms.
“Neither did I,” he confessed, his hand sliding along her hip in long, soothing motions. “I’ll admit to having imagined us sitting just like this for several years now, but I expected an amount of accepted sacrifice in doing so.” He stared into the fire, shaking his head slowly. “I’m not feeling any kind of sacrifice at the moment. Are you?”
“No.” She closed her eyes, deepening her breath as though she would sleep there upon him. “No, it is no sacrifice. You are remarkably cozy.”
He chuckled then, the sound rippling through his chest and into her. “Are you telling me that I am not the fittest of men?”
Lily snickered, kissing his shoulder through layers of clothing. “Not at all. Only that I am grateful you are not a gaunt or emaciated figure of a man. It would be remarkably difficult to sit here like this if you were.”
“Hmm.” He hugged her close, his lips finding her brow gently. “I do aim to please you, sweetheart. However I can.”
“I know,” she murmured, surprising herself. With everything they had been through, the pain of their first few years of marriage, of how the marriage had come about in the first place, could she say that she knew he wished to please her?
The moment she considered the question, she knew it was true. Now that they had shared their innermost thoughts and feelings for the other, now that they understood each other in ways they had never managed before, she knew that he thought of her, cared about her, wanted to bring her happiness and joy.
That he loved her. She could never doubt that he loved her. And what else mattered when that was true?
“How long do you want to stay in London?” Thomas asked, his lips leaving her skin as he laid his head against hers.
Lily grunted almost grumpily. “I don’t want to be here at all. But I suppose I must do my duty to my sister and not let her think I am desperate to get away. The Blackmoors are hosting an engagement ball in a few days.”
“Blackmoors?” Thomas repeated, snorting softly. “Why in the world are they hosting? Why not the Rivertons themselves? Or us, for heaven’s sake. I’ve no love for hosting an event, but Roz is your sister. Lord knows, your parents wouldn’t host a thing.”
“They almost didn’t come to the wedding at all,” Lily recalled faintly, her tone turning flat. “Were it not for the fact that Will is a Riverton, they likely would have remained at home. And I believe the Blackmoors are hosting so the typical fuss of a Riverton event might be avoided. Blackmoor is Riverton’s cousin, not a Riverton himself.”
“If you think Blackmoor will have anything to do with this, you are sadly mistaken,” Thomas said with a laugh, his hand resting against her leg. “He’ll be hiding up in the nursery with their children, mark my words.”
Lily laughed at the idea of the reserved Blackmoor preferring the children to the guests, mostly because it was more true than anyone might suspect. “Just as long as you do not hide up there with him. I’ll require you down in the ballroom with me.”
Thomas grumbled incoherently as though he had intended on doing just that, though Lily suspected he hadn’t planned to do so. Much as Thomas wished for children of their own, he had minimal experience with those of others. He’d likely have been as uncomfortable with the children as he would be with the guests at the ball.
“I think Gemma would let spouses dance together at such an occasion,” Lily said in as absent a manner as she could, focusing her attention on the fire and nestling her head more securely against his shoulder.
As she expected and hoped, her husband stiffened beneath her cheek. “Oh, indeed?”
She nodded, shifting her hands up so her fingers could slowly run through his hair. “An engagement ball for an already married couple should allow for it, or else Rosalind and Will won’t share a dance, and that hardly seems fitting.”
“No, it does not,” Thomas murmured, the stroking of his hand along her hip resuming and becoming more pointed. “I would, of course, be willing to do my duty where you are concerned, should such a partnership be permitted at the ball. We couldn’t let your sister be the only one to dance with her spouse. She would so hate the attention.”
“You are so gallant,” Lily praised, barely able to keep from laughing, even as her leg and hip began to grow almost painfully sensitive and warm under his ministrations. “Very noble and gentlemanly.”
He nodded, his scruff gently scraping against her. “It is the least I can do. Out of respect for Rosalind.”
Lily scoffed before she could stop herself, covering her mouth with his shoulder.
“I beg your pardon, madam,” he protested haughtily, clearing his throat. “What happened to being noble, gentlemanly, and gallant?”
She sighed and raised her head, locking her fingers into his hair and turning his face toward her. “I prefer the man who wandered into the garden after working in the mine. Do you know where I might find him?”
Thomas’s eyes turned dark, his lips curving slyly. “As it happens, I believe I do. He’s waiting for you upstairs. Shall I take you to him?”
Lily’s pulse leapt in her throat, and she nodded. “Yes, please. If it will not be much trouble after so tiring a journey.”
“On the contrary,” Thomas told her, pushing to his feet while still cradling her in his arms, never staggering or straining as he did so. “It would be my sincere privilege, and no trouble at all. It would seem I am not so tired after all.”
“Strange, neither am I.”
Chapter Twenty
“You look remarkably refreshed for a man so recently returned from the country.”
Thomas glanced at Blackmoor in bemusement as the man came to stand beside him. “Is that not why one goes to the country? To find rest and refreshment?”
Blackmoor shrugged, turning to survey the dancing before them. “In the country, yes. Returning from it, hardly. I find arriving in London immediately draws strain into my countenance.”
“You’re not wrong in that,” Thomas grumbled, making a face quickly before returning to the blank façade of public appearance. “I’m never eager to come to London, but I can safely say that I have never felt it more strongly than this time.”
“Ah,” Blackmoor mused, the tone turning surprisingly wry. “Enjoyed your time in Cornwall, did you?”
Thomas sniffed, not seeing the need to enlighten his friend as to what had transpired there. “No thanks to any of the suggestions you, Monty, or Whitlock put forth.”
There was no
apology in Blackmoor’s expression, nor any sign of remorse. “I’m no matchmaker, nor am I in any way expert in the ways of the heart. I can only speak to my own experiences, and if you found something to improve your situation in Cornwall, then I am pleased for you.”
“Yes, you look it.” Thomas snorted softly, shaking his head. “I don’t know that we found something, so to speak, but we did find each other. Now we only have to make sure it lasts.”
“That’s a day to day endeavor,” Blackmoor told him, his brow furrowing slightly. “Making new habits where the old once were. Instead of avoiding her, you go toward her. Instead of keeping your thoughts to yourself, you confide in her. Things of that sort. If you do not replace those things that caused you grief, they will occur again.”
Thomas looked at the viscount in surprise. “I thought you did not know much of the ways of the heart.”
“I don’t,” came the quick retort. “I only know how to regret certain things in the two marriages I have had and have learned how to change accordingly. The first marriage, I changed in the wrong ways. The second… well, there is no comparison for the second. I was not supposed to be this happy, you know. I was certain I could not be. That it was not in my nature or my fate. Yet my life with Gemma has given me joy, and the changes I have made as I have learned how to love her better have ensured that it will last.”
It was a sobering testimonial from the man, considering the rumors that had abounded about him before the marriage to Gemma and his naturally reserved, almost sullen nature. Personal association with him, however, would soon prove him to be witty, intelligent, surprisingly generous, and remarkably observant. Society generally conceded that he had an agreeable wife, and that he was well situated financially, as well as in his connection to the Rivertons. Never any praise for the man himself. Only an abject curiosity.
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