"Lily," he said. "God help me, but I don't think I can let you go away from me."
"But your eye needs a compress."
"Damn a compress. My eye pains me less than my heart these past weeks. Explain why. Just tell me why."
His voice was terrible, rough and tortured. She blinked back tears. "I--I left a letter. I told you why. I could not bear to say goodbye."
"I had no intention of saying goodbye to you, silly girl. After the party at the Holts, on the way home to Lilyvale, I had every intention of proposing marriage."
Still his fingers curled around her arm, gripping ever tighter. She began to resist, shocked by his words. "But--but then Lilliana arrived. You sent me away."
"Yes, because it was a damned unpleasant business! I sent you away so you could wait for me safely back in the comfort of our home. Not so you could pack your things and scurry into the underbelly of London without so much as a direction or address."
"I didn't have an address to leave."
"Damned well I know it."
"James, that is three times now you've cursed at me."
"Goddamn it, Lily." He took her other arm and hauled her close. She wasn't sure if he meant to kiss her or shake her.
"My family is gone," she said in the face of his dark mood. "A fire."
"I know. Just after you left, the investigator came and told me. That and a few other things I daresay you don't even know. All this time I've imagined you alone, grieving, homeless."
"Mrs. Ream gave me a home here," Lily whispered, but she did not dispute she had been grieving and alone. James brushed back a lock of her hair.
"I might have comforted you if you hadn't run away. I am so very sorry for your loss. I'm so sorry you left me. My God, I've missed you." He leaned his head to hers and nuzzled her cheek. She reeled at his closeness and breathed in the scent of him, soap and whisky and the sharp tang of blood. "Don't leave me again, not ever," he said against her ear.
"But Lilliana--"
"I have broken with the Holt family. I should have done it long ago. Lilliana can find her own way, and Claire is more resourceful than I gave her credit for. You are the only one I care about, dearest. Your well-being and happiness."
Lily clutched at him, pulling him closer. He groaned softly.
"I might have a bruise there."
"Sit on my bed and let me help you." Lily pushed away from him, masking the tangle of emotions inside her by focusing on practical necessities. "No, I won't be a moment. Take off your coat and shirt and let me see to your needs." Before he could stop her, she ducked through the door and hurried down to the kitchen. Mrs. Ream gave her the strangest look.
"Oh, Mrs. Ream, I promise he is the most proper gentleman, despite appearances. It's ever the longest story and I will tell it to you one day, but for now I've promised to return straightaway."
"I trust you. But if you need any help, let me know."
Lily nodded and climbed back upstairs with a pitcher of warm water and some linens. She entered the room to find him sitting on the edge of her small bed, unclothed to the waist. She tried not to let him see the tremble in her legs. She placed the pitcher on the nightstand and dipped a cloth in the water, then stood before him to hold it gingerly to the smudge on his cheek. The blood washed away neatly. She bathed his whole face, moving tenderly across his swollen left eye. One of his arms came around her, drawing her close.
"Oh," she sighed. She looked into the eyes that regarded her so openly, so directly. "Am I hurting you?"
"At this point, I don't care. Lily, the investigator discovered something about your mother when he checked into your family's death records. Her name was not really Jenny, it was Eugenia. Eugenia Knox. Her father was a duke, the Duke of Blandon. Her sister was named Evangeline." Lily stared at James, his words pure gibberish to her. "You know her as Lady Holt."
Lady Holt. Lilliana's mother was her mother's sister? Her aunt? "James, I'm afraid the man must have been mistaken. My mother's name was Jenny."
"Your father called her Jenny, but that was not her name from birth. Her name was Eugenia, and her father was the Duke of Blandon."
Lily pursed her lips and applied herself to examining the tender spot on James' ribs. She had to light another candle as night was coming on quite strongly. She moved about the room in a haze, her mind revolting against James' shocking revelations.
"Lily." He reached for her hand. "Did you hear what I said?"
"Yes."
"You are quite a wealthy woman now, so you needn't work here in this little inn any longer."
She pulled her hand away stiffly. "I like this little inn."
"I want you to wed me and come live with me at Lilyvale."
"I see. Now that I am proven an upper-class sort, you decide I am good enough to become your wife after all."
That got a reaction, and not a pleasant one. He took her chin between hard fingers and forced her to look at him. "I wanted to make you my wife months ago, and yes, I was too cowardly to do so. But I had finally decided that circumstances notwithstanding, you and I should wed at once. I was rehearsing the speech in my mind as we drove to the Holt home Christmas morning, before I knew about any of this. You were the one who ran off before I had a chance to speak what was in my heart." He withdrew his fingers with a soft caress of her stubborn chin. "Anyway, what is this anger all about?"
Lily looked at him sideways with a little frown. "It is not anger."
"What is it then?"
"I do not know. Nothing ever makes a dash of sense to me when you're around. I feel a world of feelings, and not one practical or reasonable."
"Do not be practical." He pulled her into his arms, against his broad warm chest, and lowered his face to hers. Lily drew in one short breath and then moaned as his familiar warmth enveloped her. "Never be practical or reasonable again," he whispered against her lips. "And never, ever go away from me."
"No, sir," Lily whispered back.
"Because no one else would put up with someone as ungentlemanly and insatiable as I…" She sighed as he pressed his swollen erection against her leg. She moved her hips forward, a sudden rush of heat coming to life between her thighs.
"At least you are musically talented," Lily said. "I had no idea you could play the piano."
He laughed against her throat, a reckless, masculine sound. "It's true I am a man of many talents." He trailed his hands down over her hips to grasp her buttocks in a lascivious embrace. "But my playing is nothing so…ah…" He lifted his head and seemed to search for a word. "Remarkable as your singing, my dear."
Lily laughed, suddenly giddy with his closeness and the kisses he was dropping all over her face. "No matter, sir. Our talents lie elsewhere."
"Yes, indeed." He slid his hand lower and grabbed her beneath her knees, swinging her up against his chest and then down onto the bed. "Like over here." He came over her, kissing, caressing, loosening the buttons of her bodice with quick, deft movements. He took her breasts in eager hands with a groan, then leaned down to suck one nipple and then the other. Lily closed her eyes and arched into the welcome pleasure, her fingers tangling in his hair. She wanted him, needed him. She reached down to pull at the fastenings on the front of his trousers, her fingers fumbling at the buttons.
"James," she moaned, pressing her hips to his. He made a low growl in his throat and set her hands away, working the buttons himself. Barely a moment passed before he was roughly pushing up her skirts. She loved him like this, maddened by lust and driven by passion. Many times she'd been taken just like this, skirts pushed up in a heap around her waist and her breasts thrusting from the top of her straining bodice. Tonight there was a higher note, a more vivid intensity to their rough grappling. He shifted with a grunt and she felt his hot, hard rod against her. She was wet as an ocean, needing nothing more than to be filled and conquered by him. He paused and looked down at her, a piercing gaze that contained all the love she was sure her eyes reflected. She brought her teeth together, almost b
ared them at him, like an animal in heat. Take me. Prove to me I'm yours.
He came over her like a wave, thrusting deep, his hips undulating against her. Advancing, receding, ever constant. Now, finally, the wave would meet the shore and they would be joined forever with no playacting and no inevitable end. Lily felt like she would burst from the sheer amazement of it. She nearly vibrated as he took her, pulling him closer, closer still. He held her wrists down with his hands and her legs down with his feet, and they fought as much as they made love, each one determined to get closer to the other. When her orgasm came upon her like lightning, sudden and blinding, his hands tightened on her wrists as she jerked and bit into the skin below his ear. He pressed her down into the bed, his answering groan like thunder. He didn't pull away but spilled inside her, shuddering hard and whispering in her ear, words she couldn't decipher but understood all the same.
Chapter Eleven: Home
They stayed at the inn, in the small, dark haven of the simple room until morning. Lily thought Mrs. Ream would be quite scandalized, but there never came a moment when they could draw apart and take their leave. They clung to each other, in their own intimate world, alternately whispering and making love. Lily cried about her family and James apologized for not looking into their welfare sooner. Lily still blamed herself, but James would not allow her to claim the guilt. It had been her father's choice to banish her, after all, he pointed out. They talked about a wedding. James wanted to do it in the morning, but Lily thought it only right that they wed at Lilyvale. Thus plans turned to the quickest way to make their way from London back to their country home.
In the morning, blushing and bleary-eyed from lack of sleep, Lily bade farewell to the kindly Mrs. Ream. Any compunction the woman felt about Lily entertaining a rumpled and bloodied gentleman in her chamber was transformed into effusive congratulations when she learned he was the Earl of Ashbourne and Lily's groom-to-be.
James accepted the innkeeper's well-wishes with a bow and insisted on paying her handsomely to make up for the loss of her chambermaid. Mrs. Ream tried to refuse but James was immovable and gave her a sum that Lily thought could keep her inn well staffed for years. They left the speechless woman and James helped Lily clamber up into the closed carriage he had hired to take them back to Regent Street. When they were settled, she turned to him with shining eyes.
"How wonderful you are. The inn needed improvements, and now Mrs. Ream can have them made without staying up nights worrying how to pay."
"I meant the money to be for her, a reward for keeping you safe. I'll send more for the improvements." His voice sounded a little curt all of a sudden. Lily looked up to find tension on his face.
"James?"
He turned to her with a new and stern expression, one much more akin to the way he'd looked when he first entered her room last night. "So many things might have gone wrong. I worried every day and every night about the ills that might have befallen you. It was very bad behavior to just run off without so much as a goodbye, and to leave me with only my fears and anxiety for company. We searched and searched. Every day I searched for you and waited for word of what might have become of you."
"I never imagined you would come searching or I wouldn't have left as I did. I was simply trying to make things easier."
"Make things easier? Even if you thought we were through, I had made promises to you. A shop and financial support. When you left so precipitously, I had one thought only. We checked--" He stopped, pursing his lips. His hands made fists where they lay on the seat. "We checked every week at the morgues for women of your description."
Lily looked down at her lap. "I am so very sorry," she whispered. "I acted so selfishly, because I just couldn't bear to say goodbye. In the moment, I simply couldn't think straight. Please don't stay angry with me."
"I won't," he sighed. "But I feel some punishment is in order. I can't have you believing such behavior will pass without consequence in the future."
Suddenly Lily realized why he'd hired a closed coach in the bright light of the winter midmorning.
"Come," he said quietly. "Over my lap."
Lily took a deep breath and obeyed, reticent and yet as willing as ever to be disciplined by him. He pulled up her skirts and set about spanking her with a good amount of vigor, spending a month's worth of worry and frustration. Lily bore it as stoically as possible, although she was thankful for the road noise when the blows intensified and she was unable to stop from crying out.
"Please, sir," she begged, kicking her legs. "I'm so sorry!"
"I'm glad to hear that. I shall make you sorrier still. You will be the sorriest girl in Christendom by the time we arrive in Regent Street."
Smack, smack, smack. "Oww…!" All the way to Regent Street! Lily muffled her cries as well as she could against his tailored trousers and prayed the driver would not take a circuitous route. The blows continued to rain down on her bottom--smarting, open-handed cracks that he concentrated on one cheek and then the other so the pain was always building in a torturous arc. "Oh, please!"
"Be still. You've missed a month's worth of spankings, and this one, for once, is well-deserved."
Ah yes, the spanking regimen she had so enjoyed. Somehow she was certain the tradition would recommence without delay now they were together again. But this spanking was not playful or seductive as those many nightly trips over his lap had been. This spanking was about chastisement, and a clear warning about future actions.
As Lily twisted on his lap, trying to escape the fiery, stinging assault, she thought to herself that she would never, ever leave him again. It was not the threat of bodily discipline that would keep her at his side, but the very essence of what James was. It was his kindness and protectiveness, contrasted with that wild, sensual lover within. It was the way he held her down, the way his fingers curled around her waist to hold her close against his body, while the other mercilessly belabored her sore, burning cheeks. When he finally stopped and pulled her up into his arms, she was crying uncontrollably. Not just from the pain that even then had her fidgeting on his lap, but from the way he looked at her with such authority and care, and longing like blue fire in his unblinking regard.
His fingers pushed her chin up when she would have ducked her face away, and he gently brushed away her tears. "I love you, Lily," he said in a whisper.
"Oh, sir," Lily sighed as he kissed her damp eyelids. "I love you too."
* * * * *
They left for Lilyvale three days afterward, finding they needed a bit more time for rest and…other things. Of course there were many practicalities to deal with as well. James sent a man ahead to his country manor with some of their belongings, and a letter to Hanover so the staff would have everything in readiness for their return. If there was scandal and whispering over the matter of Lilliana's return and James' betrothal to her long-lost cousin, Lily heard no whisper of it within the comforting walls of Regent Street. The well-trained servants did not prattle behind doors or gossip, and only the most trusted of callers were admitted, while those suspected as gawkers were turned away.
James' mother came by every day with hugs and congratulations for Lily and her son, and a promise to travel with them to Lilyvale for the imminent wedding. Lily thought she ought to start planning or making some sort of arrangements, but James told her not to worry about it just yet. A solicitor came by to see to the licenses and the legal matter of Lily's allowance from the coffers of the late Duke of Blandon. Lily saw Lady Holt's signature on the papers, but the sum itself was so unbelievable that Lily asked no questions and was content for James to show her where to sign.
Finally, Lily and James went to the cemetery at Greaves to pay their respects at her family's gravesite. When Lily saw her mother's small headstone replaced with a handsome granite monument with her family's names, she began to weep. She clung to James, whispering heartfelt thanks. John Kendall. Jenny Knox Kendall. Rose, Violet, Iris, and Pansy Kendall, beloved daughters. Grief and gratitude warred ins
ide her as the words on the headstone blurred through her tears. James stood silently and held her, an unwavering pillar to steady her in the ecstatic peaks and mournful valleys of her life.
Through all these duties and the stolen interludes of pleasure up in James' bedroom, the welcome prospect of returning to Lilyvale never left her mind. She could not help but recall the day she'd trudged down that dusty path hoping for nothing more than employment. "Life is amazing," she told James as they lay down together the night before they were to leave.
When she said impulsive, silly things like that she always expected him to laugh at her, but he never did. He only looked at her as if she had uttered the most fascinating statement he'd ever heard. "Why is life amazing?" He stroked a light fingertip up her arm. "I know why I find it amazing, but why do you?"
She gazed into his deep blue eyes, remembering how they had struck her the first time she saw them that long-ago day. "It is less than a year since I was on my way to Lilyvale, desperate and without a home."
He blinked, his eyelids lowering in that way that communicated the emotion he often guarded from his face. He leaned closer to drop a light kiss on her forehead. "I don't like to think about that time before you came. I was as desperate as you, in my own way."
"But what were the chances, honestly, that I would seek the one manor of the man with a missing wife who looked just like me?"
"Why did you choose to come to Lilyvale that day?"
"Because I was named Lily, and I hoped it might be some harbinger of good luck."
James lounged back, stretching with a sigh. "There, you see. Not so long of a chance. Evangeline and Eugenia were sisters. Perhaps they had a favored doll or pet they called Lily as children. Thus, they both named their daughters by the same name. I named Lilyvale for Lilliana, and you came to Lilyvale because you were named alike to Lilliana, so it is not all such a coincidence.
Lily Mine Page 18
