by Julia London
Lily smiled and applauded the performance; she responded as she ought to Mrs. Langley’s conversation. But privately, she was stewing. Tobin Scott had ingratiated himself to the village, and when he completely ruined her, she had no doubt they would all believe she had somehow brought it on herself. They would never say an unkind word against a wealthy, unmarried, titled gentleman.
How on earth was she to prevent her complete ruin with no one to help her?
The situation was made all the worse when Mrs. Ogle finally deigned to speak to Lily.
Mrs. Ogle had been particularly stung by Keira’s deceit and had scarcely spoken a handful of words to Lily since her arrival. For the most part, she avoided Lily beyond the obligatory greeting and inquiring after her health. After lunch, however, Mrs. Ogle seemed more at ease and began to hold court with the others.
“A gentleman such as Count Eberlin will no doubt wish to marry soon,” she said. “I rather suspect that is the reason for the ball, so that he might see all that Hadley Green has to offer.”
“He didn’t mention that was the reason,” Miss Babcock said.
“Really, Daria, do you think he would say such a thing? Of course he would not.” Mrs. Ogle eyed Miss Babcock closely. “I am reminded of the demise of the late Mrs. Crawley. Mr. Crawley mourns her so. He told me that in the beginning, he hadn’t much interest in her. He said, very truthfully, that he was interested in her dowry. But Mrs. Crawley was quite determined in him, and she wooed him to her with felicitous patience.”
“I do not think it proper for a lady to woo a gentleman,” Miss Babcock sniffed. “It should be the other way around.”
“One day you may see things in a different light, Miss Babcock,” Mrs. Langley said kindly.
“Perhaps I should say that Mrs. Crawley endeared herself to her husband,” Mrs. Ogle continued. “She did those things that men come to adore in a wife, and he, in turn, adored her beyond compare.”
“You will have to tell us all what that is, Mrs. Ogle,” Mrs. Morton said laughingly, “for I have not yet endeared myself to Mr. Morton despite twenty years of marital bliss.”
“I mean that she enticed him to love her,” Mrs. Ogle said. “Now, Daria, if you wish the count to love you—”
“Her!” Mrs. Morton said. “I rather thought Lady Ashwood.”
“Heavens, no, Felicity!” Mrs. Ogle said, appalled. “He will never be accepted in the society in which our Lady Ashwood moves. And besides, Lady Horncastle has told me herself that there is a rumble of interest from her son—”
Lily was so stunned by Mrs. Ogle’s dismissal of Tobin that she almost missed the remark about Lord Horncastle. “No, no,” she said, throwing up her hand.
“Well of course not, Lady Ashwood,” Mrs. Ogle said, as if annoyed that Lily would think she’d implied anything. “There are much better opportunities coming for you.”
“Oh?”
“Yes, my dear.” When no one spoke, Mrs. Ogle rolled her eyes. “The Darlingtons. There are two unmarried sons.”
“By all accounts, the youngest one is a bounder,” Mrs. Morton said.
“But Lord Christopher is not,” Mrs. Ogle retorted. “He is quite well respected, and he is very rich. And I hear that he may join his brother at Kitridge Lodge.”
The ladies suddenly all cooed and fluttered about like a covey of doves and exclaimed politely at what a wonderful opportunity that would be for Lily.
There was a time in her life when Lily would have agreed. She’d heard of Lord Christopher, and certainly she knew the Darlington name—they were a powerful family in England. Lord Christopher was precisely the sort of titled man that Mr. Fish had in mind for her: the sort that could solve all her problems.
Oddly, Lily couldn’t seem to summon much interest.
TEN
Tobin had taken to chopping down hedgerows.
It was the only thing that made him feel as if he had some control over his own body.
He’d needed to do something physical to prove to himself he wasn’t going mad. His malady was entirely emasculating and, alarmingly, had occurred in Lily’s presence. Not with the Babcocks, nor with his gentlemen guests. Only her.
And that Lily Boudine, of all people, would see him at his weakest was not to be borne.
As it happened, there was an old hedgerow of English yew that ran for a mile along the road to Tiber Park. It was six feet high and three feet deep, and Tobin disliked it immensely. He could see nothing on the other side of it, and he liked to look out at his vast property as he traveled that road. So he’d suggested to his head groundskeeper, Mr. Greenhaven, that it ought to come down.
He had not intended to do it himself, but the morning after his evening with Lily, there he’d been, chopping away at it, swinging the ax with as much force as he’d been able to muster, feeling each strike against the trunk reverberate through his body.
It was absurd that he should have done it, given the number of men he employed to do such things. And it was bloody inconvenient, for he had several far more important matters that needed his attention. Yet it had felt so rewarding that Tobin had come back the next day, and the next, clearing a few feet each day while a crew of gardeners had watched nervously from a distance, scurrying forward at intervals to clear away the debris. Mr. Greenhaven had been beside himself. He’d hovered about, assuring Tobin as he’d worked that he and his men could remove the hedge. Still, Tobin had refused to put down the ax. He’d walked out to that bloody hedgerow every day, removed his coat, his neckcloth, and his waistcoat, rolled up his sleeves, and picked up the ax.
It felt good. It made him feel alive and powerful. It was the only thing that seemed to give him some ease.
On the day MacKenzie and Bolge had ridden out to London to inspect the rerigging of one of his ships, they’d paused at the hedgerow where Tobin had been working. Bolge had laughed, but MacKenzie had calmly examined Tobin’s work, then looked curiously at his old friend. “I’ve never seen ye out of your wits, lad,” he’d said.
“I have all my wits about me,” Tobin had assured him. “Work is good for the body humors. You might try it yourself one day.”
“If this is what a woman brings a man to do, I’ll keep to me scalawag habits, thank you.”
“This has nothing to do with a woman,” Tobin had snorted, ignoring the tiny twinge of conscience that said it did.
“No, of course no’,” MacKenzie had said, his eyes twinkling. “We’ll leave you to it, then.”
Bolge had touched the brim of his hat. “May you be delivered from the grip of this madness, Scottie.” He’d laughed and spurred his horse on after MacKenzie.
The madness was much deeper than those two suspected, Tobin had thought grimly, and it went far beyond a hedgerow.
Today, he’d cleared an extra six feet, having come from his daily visit to his mill.
He’d instructed his foreman, Mr. Hollis, that he wanted the mill operational by the summer harvest, and he generally rode down in the afternoons to see the progress of the construction.
When he’d gone up to the mill yesterday, he’d been surprised by the sight of Lily and her young ward on the Ashwood side of the river. A number of days had passed since he’d seen her; days in which he had forced her out of his thoughts and buried her in the black ooze in him.
But then he’d seen Lily and Miss Taft frolicking. There was no other word to describe it, really. He’d been reminded of puppies, for the two of them had had a ball, which they’d kicked and tossed back and forth to one another, running after it, then dissolving into laughter when it escaped them. Tobin hadn’t known what to make of it. He hadn’t been able to imagine what had brought them down to the river, directly across from his mill, other than some sort of scheme against him.
He’d stood on the edge of the platform built out over the river, his hands on his hips, watching them, waiting. Yet they’d done nothing but wave in his direction, pick up their ball, then race up the hill with their cloaks billowing behind them t
o where an old, swaybacked horse had been grazing.
After he had seen the day’s progress on the mill, Tobin had ridden home, his head full of the image of Lily and Lucy playing in the golden grasses on the riverbank.
This afternoon when he’d arrived at the mill, he’d seen Lily and Lucy again. They’d been sitting under an old oak tree, pretty as a picture in the afternoon sun of shimmering gold, as fine as autumn weather as one could hope to see.
Mr. Hollis had been there to greet him, as always. Tobin had nodded to Lily and her charge. “How long have they been there?”
Mr. Hollis had followed his gaze. “Oh, an hour or so. Not long.”
Tobin had squinted. “Why?”
“I wouldn’t know, milord. A bit of harmless fun, eh?”
Nothing about Lily Boudine was harmless. She was up to mischief, and Tobin would know precisely what. He’d walked down to the river’s edge and stood directly across from the two, watching them. Sitting serenely beneath the tree, they hadn’t noticed him at first, the sound of their voices drifting down to him like the chatter of morning birds.
But then Miss Taft had spotted him and waved with great enthusiasm. Lily had lifted her hand and nodded politely, then looked down again to what appeared to be a book.
Before he’d known it, Tobin had stepped into the river and waded across, then climbed the hill to where they sat, a spread of tarts between them.
“We have a visitor, Lucy!” Lily had said, smiling as if it had been perfectly natural for her to be sitting under an oak tree, with tarts, across from the mill she despised.
“Good afternoon!” Lucy had hopped up to present him with a proper curtsy.
“Thank you,” he’d said to Lucy, and to Lily, “What are you about?”
“Simply basking in a glorious day!” she’d sung cheerfully.
“Why are you here?”
“We are reading.” She’d folded her hands delicately across the book in her lap. “Do you enjoy poetry?”
“We read about a mouse,” Lucy had said. “He is a beastie and he has a panic in his breastie.”
Lily had laughed, her countenance sunny. “She is referring to the Robert Burns poem ‘To a Mouse.’ Have you read Mr. Burns?”
Tobin hadn’t read a proper book since he’d boarded the Flying Saxon all those years ago. “No. May I inquire—is there a reason you are reading poetry here?”
Lily and Lucy had looked at each other and giggled.
Tobin’s scalp had tingled, and he’d been reminded of the way he felt in Charity’s and Catherine’s company. Warm. Happy. It had been disconcerting to feel that way in the company of his enemy.
“I beg your pardon,” Lily had said pleasantly, “but Lucy and I are on a silly little mission.”
“It’s not silly,” Lucy had protested. “When I am gone to Ireland, you will be glad we have done it.”
“I will, won’t I? And I shall think of you every time I see the trees.”
They’d been talking nonsense. Tobin had gone down on his haunches so he could see Lily’s lovely face beneath the wide brim of her sunhat. “What game are you playing? What do you think to accomplish?”
Lily’s eyes had sparkled with a gaiety that had made Tobin feel strangely soft inside, and he’d wondered, was it possible for a man to look at eyes like that and not feel some softness somewhere? Was that not the purpose of eyes such as hers, in a world such as this? To soften the hard edges of men?
“I’ve not given a single thought to what I might accomplish today other than to read all the way to the end of this poem so that Lucy will hear every splendid word,” she’d said with the cheerful insouciance of a lady of privilege. She’d leaned forward. “Why? Do you think I ought to accomplish something?”
Her smile, her eyes, her demeanor, had shone through Tobin. He’d unthinkingly curled his fingers into a fist lest the spell come over him, for that was the sort of malady he had—one that would descend on him when a beautiful woman smiled at him.
“Oh, yes! I remember now,” she’d said, holding up a finger. “We have accomplished something, have we not, Lucy? We found the perfect rock.”
“Almost perfect,” Lucy had corrected her.
“Mmmm,” Lily had said thoughtfully and settled back against the tree, crossing her feet at the ankles. “We’ve had such fine weather these last few days that Lucy and I were determined to find the best tree for reading poetry. When one reads poetry in nature, one better appreciates the beauty of our natural world and poems, wouldn’t you agree?”
“I have never given it a moment’s thought,” he’d said dubiously. “Yet I wonder at you finding the best part of natural world here,” he’d added, pointing at the mill.
“Oh, not here. We found the nearly perfect rock at the ruins.”
“It is perfectly round,” Miss Taft had reported.
“But its surface was not entirely smooth,” Lily had added. “And then we recalled this lovely old tree.” She’d patted the trunk as if it were a dog.
“It’s quite old,” Lucy had informed him. “Mr. Bevers told me that one might judge the age of a tree by its trunk and its arms. But I prefer the one the countess climbed when she was a girl. That one is far better for climbing, for its arms—”
“Limbs, darling—”
“Its limbs stretch out like this.” Lucy had stood up, stretching her arms as wide as she could. “They are quite long and go almost as high as the sky. One might climb a very long time on those limbs.”
Tobin had shifted his gaze to Lily again. The color in her cheeks was high, and she had turned her attention to the tarts, which she was arranging on cheesecloth. “You’ve been to the cottage,” he’d said flatly.
“I haven’t! But Lucy has been a frequent visitor to our old playground.” She’d held out a tart to him. “I made them myself.”
“You made them.” He’d found that rather hard to believe. “Using the ingredients from your depleted larder, I suppose?”
Lily had smiled. “The one and the same.”
God save him, she’d done a complete turnabout and had not glared at him or challenged him. She’d looked for all the world as if she’d simply been a beautiful woman enjoying a fine fall day. It had been the best bit of acting Tobin had seen in some time.
Tobin had taken the tart to be civil, but he had not eaten it. “And how did you find the cottage, Miss Taft?” he’d asked, his gaze on Lily.
“It is rather dirty,” Lucy had reported. “I asked Lady Ashwood if Louis might be sent down to sweep it, but she said he had other things he must do.” She’d walked in a tight little circle at the edge of the blanket. “There is a large hole in one wall. The countess said the wall fell down, but I think someone blew it down. Bad people and dragons do that, you know. They blow down entire doors and walls.”
“Lucy has a vivid imagination,” Lily had said. “She may only go to the cottage in the company of one our groomsmen.” She had smiled and bitten into a tart, then had moaned with delight. “Oh, my, this is delicious! Lucy, you must have one.”
Lucy had plopped down, cross-legged, and accepted a tart. She’d bitten into it, chewed with great concentration, then nodded enthusiastically. “It is good,” she’d said. “I think it better than those you made yesterday.”
“Do you?” Lily had asked, tilting her head thoughtfully. “Mrs. Cuthbert thought yesterday’s batch was better.” And to Tobin, she’d said, “Mrs. Cuthbert believes my culinary skills need a bit of improvement. I do not think her wrong.”
Culinary skills? Tobin had looked at the tart in his hand. That was when he’d known without a doubt that she was up to mischief. He’d never met a lady of privilege who could even hang a kettle over a fire.
“You mustn’t fear it. I am not in need of that much improvement,” she’d teased.
“Indeed,” he’d drawled. “Are you suggesting I may trust you not to poison me?”
Lily had laughed as if he’d meant that as a jest. Which he had not. He’d fel
t a twinge in his chest as those sparkling eyes had shone at him. “What are you doing here, Lily?” he’d demanded once more. “I do not believe you have come to read poetry and eat tarts. How did you know I’d be here?”
She’d colored slightly and casually tied the cloth around the tarts, making a little bundle. “What are you implying, sir? What I told you is the truth. Who knows how long we will enjoy such fine weather? I thought it in Lucy’s best interests to take the air.” She’d come gracefully to her feet. When she’d straightened up, she’d stood very close to Tobin, her face, just below his, beaming up like a little sun. “I should like to send these tarts to your men. They work so very hard on your little mill.”
“My men do not need tarts—”
“No one needs a tart, but surely they will enjoy them.” She’d pressed the cloth into his hand, forcing him to juggle the tart he’d held, and squeezed his palm with her fingers. “I would take them myself, but it seems Lucy and I have overstayed our welcome. And we have not concluded our search for the perfect poetry tree. Lucy, gather our things! We must be off!”
“Where shall we go next?” Lucy had asked excitedly as she’d hurried to gather up the blanket.
“Oh, I think we shall ride along until we find a tree that strikes our fancy,” Lily had said, her gaze still on Tobin.
“Yes, let’s!”
A smile had drifted across Lily’s features.
Tobin had found himself wanting to smile, too. But he hadn’t allowed it.
Lily had touched Tobin’s arm, sending a tiny jolt through him. “Thank you, Tobin, for delivering the tarts to the men.” She’d smiled again, a mischievous twinkle in her eye. As she’d begun to turn from him, he’d caught her hand and pulled her back around.
“I don’t know what you are about, lass,” he’d said softly, “but I will discover it.” He’d lifted her hand to his mouth and kissed her knuckles. “Never doubt it.”
