Some of the golden glow faded from the evening and Aidan tossed his brush back on to the dressing table. The delight of Lily faded under memories of Melisande, dancing with her, kissing her, falling under her spicy perfumed spell. How young he had been.
And the day he realised she would marry Edward if she could, because Edward was the Duke, had shattered all their lives. He still felt as if he had betrayed his brother in some way, as if he owed him something.
She wanted to change things back now; he remembered the touch of her hand at the Crewe ball, the soft, beseeching light in her blue eyes, as if she could erase all the years. But the past could never come back.
Could it?
How foolish he had once been. He couldn’t afford to be foolish now. He was the Duke, Roderick was on his shoulders and it needed the right Duchess. It was his duty to do what was right.
He could afford no missteps. Not even with a dark-eyed fairy.
* * *
Lily stood very still in front of the full-length looking glass as Doris finished mending the hem of her gown. She hardly dared breathe, let alone move, and it had felt that way ever since she’d stepped foot in that chamber. The Queen’s Chamber in the Elizabethan wing, Mrs Bright, the stern housekeeper, called it, with the implication it was a great honour to be lodged there, especially for some young American girl.
And if Lily imagined something called the Queen’s Chamber in a novel it would be much like this. A vast bed set high on a dais, draped in sea-green brocade with gold cords, matching the green silk wallpaper dotted with pastoral paintings. More green silk looped around the dressing table, iced with frills of creamy lace, and the fireplace was carved white stone with a deep mantel lined with cavorting porcelain shepherdesses and spaniels. The carpet was green and yellow and pink, looped with pink ribbons, and the tall windows looked out on to the rose garden.
After a lukewarm bath by the fireplace in a copper hip bath, she’d rung for Doris, but as the maid surely had miles to traverse before she got to the chamber, Lily had grown restless and nervous. It had started to feel as if those ever-present portraits were staring at her, wondering about her, judging her. And there was that beautiful garden below her window, just bursting with late summer roses.
She’d known she would never find her way out there through the thickets of stairs, so she’d taken a page from Violet’s book. She dressed in her lightest tea gown, prised open a window, and climbed down the thick ivy that covered the red-brick wall.
It had been so long since she’d done something so naughty and, if she was honest with herself, it felt delicious. She smelled the flowers, felt the warm sun on her face and examined the vast chimneys and rooftops and walls of the castle. Her time with Aidan had certainly whetted her interest in the history of the place; she wanted to know about every Duke and Duchess, how every painting and vase and snuffbox came to Roderick, why it was all arranged just as it was. Which Queen had slept in her chamber.
She also wondered what lay beyond its walls, in the farms and woods and fields, the pretty cottage she had seen from the carriage, who worked and lived there. Not that she felt brave enough to explore them all just yet. One wall-climb per day was quite enough. And then Doris found her and brought her back inside. Away from dreams and into the real world. She’d tilted her face up to the pink sky, so heavenly gorgeous with those streaks of gold, and then she saw him, Aidan, staring down at her. Did he think she was a terrible hoyden, no fit guest for the Queen’s Chamber?’
She’d given him a smile and a wave, but she couldn’t see his reaction beyond the shadowed glass. Now she was in that Queen’s Chamber, standing very still as Doris finished the ruffled hem. It was her prettiest new gown, pale green silk trimmed with white lace beaded with tiny pearls and sequins, frothing over the neckline and sleeves. A flock of embroidered butterflies shimmered across the skirt and train and her mother’s pearls gleamed at her throat. Doris had piled her hair high and fastened it with more jewelled butterflies.
She remembered all those Duchess portraits, their stern glances and silken gowns, their lack of flashing jewels when they weren’t in their official robes. Next to them, she felt rather overstuffed, over-bright, too trying.
‘Are you sure I look all right to dine at a ducal table, Doris?’ she asked.
Doris put the final touch on the hem and stood back to examine her work with a smile of satisfaction. ‘I should think so, Miss Lily. You put all those dusty, squinting old Duchesses to shame!’
Lily laughed. Some of the portraits might be just the tiniest bit squinty. But the Duchess certainly was not. Nor was the beautiful Lady Rannock. They were all dash and glamour, perfectly at ease in grand surroundings.
Lily bit her lip when she thought of Melisande Rannock in that smiling photograph in the gallery and glorious in satin and diamonds at Lady Crewe’s ball. How could she ever compare to a woman like that, really?
But Melisande Rannock was not here now, Lily reminded herself. She was. In the Queen’s Chamber. It was she that Roderick Castle needed.
Yet did she want it to need her? Did she even know how to begin?
She had been so sure she would marry someone like Lord James Grantley. Kind, easygoing, someone who did not make her stomach flutter just to be around him. But now she was here, in an entirely different world. With Aidan, whose kisses made her toes curl, in his grand home, filled with glorious history. Which way should she turn next?
The final gong sounded and Lily smoothed her skirt one more time. The butterflies on the silk seemed to flutter inside her, too, making her nervous. Was the gown truly right? Or was it too...frivolous?
It was too late to change, though. Doris held out her gloves and her feathered fan.
‘You’ll do very well, Miss Lily,’ Doris said with a kind smile. ‘This house has never seen anyone so lovely and sweet, I’m sure! The footmen downstairs were telling everyone how kind you were.’
‘Really, Doris? How nice of them.’ Lily doubted the Duchess’s maid would ever speak that way to her, like a friend, but Doris’s kind words steadied her. She always had Doris and the twins behind her, no matter what.
She drew on her tight-fitting kid gloves and made her way out of the room towards one of the many staircases. She passed several marble statues in their niches, gods and goddesses who seemed to watch her pass, Chinese porcelain vases on marble plinths, footmen who seemed to only look over her head.
Past the grand hall, all pale shadows in the gathering night, two intricately carved Jacobean doors were swung soundlessly open by more green-liveried footman and she moved into the White Drawing Room, the one Aidan said was reserved only for very important guests. True to its name, the walls were plastered pure snow-white, with raised details of palm fronds, swags of ribbon and cherubs. More portraits of former Dukes and Duchesses stared down at the company with faintly disapproving stares. A particular grand image of a duke on rearing horseback, his full-bottom curled wig and velvet jacket vivid, hung above a red marble fireplace. The chairs and sofas were crimson cut velvet, matching the curtains at the tall windows, the doors that led on to a terrace.
It seemed she was the last one to arrive, for her mother and the twins, the Duchess, Lady Heath and an elderly gentleman in purple bishop’s attire, along with Aidan, were gathered near the vast fireplace, glasses of sherry in hand, the painted eyes of the giant Van Dyck family portrait behind them watching. Aidan was telling them some tale that made them all laugh, gales of merriment like an oasis in that vast, cold room.
Lily glanced over her shoulder, unsure what to do. Stride forward? Wait to be invited near? The doors had closed behind her, blocking off escape. She stood very still in her butterflies and lace, trying not to tremble.
‘Miss Lily Wilkins, Your Grace,’ Donat the butler said, making Lily gasp. She hadn’t even seen him there in the deep shadows of the room.
‘Miss Wilkins!’ the Duc
hess called with a smile. ‘How charming you look. I so envy you American girls and your unmistakable style. It comes out whatever you wear. Remember when we were girls, Eleanor? White dimity with plaid sashes, so boring.’
‘And black velvet in the winter,’ Lady Heath said with a laugh. Her own gown was also plaid now, dark purple edged in green velvet, her only ornament a green velvet ribbon around her neck. Next to her, Lily’s mother’s blue and fuchsia brocade glared. But Lily had hoped that in taking ‘English’ style advice from Lady Heath, she would not stand out so very much. It seemed she would look ‘American’ no matter what. ‘How those lace collars itched!’
‘Do have a sherry and join us. You and Lady Heath are already great friends, I know, and this is Bishop Talbot, who christened Aidan and Edward so long ago,’ the Duchess said, gesturing to a footman with a silver tray bearing small crystal glasses. ‘Aidan was just telling us such a tale of some snowbound Canadian cabin, with only bear meat to eat. I am not quite sure I believe him.’
Aidan gave one of his crooked smiles to Lily, which emboldened her to join them at last, standing near him. She took one of the sherry glasses and tried not to gulp it down.
‘I do assure you, Mama, it is all true,’ he said. ‘Bears and all. It tastes quite like pheasant.’
The Duchess laughed and the sapphire stars in her hair, which Lily recognised from a portrait of a Restoration-era Duchess in the corridor, glittered in the firelight. ‘How extraordinary. And to think my own son was there! Is it like that where you once lived, Mrs Wilkins?’
Lily’s mother frowned. ‘Perhaps long ago, Duchess. But certainly not now. We live quite comfortably.’ She glanced pointedly at a spot of damp on one of the ornate plasterwork rosettes of the ceiling.
‘Dinner is served, Your Grace,’ the butler announced.
‘Thank you, Donat. Aidan, dear, will you take Miss Wilkins in? And I am sure you, Bishop Talbot, can escort Mrs Wilkins? I am afraid our numbers are terribly off, but we are just an informal family party tonight, are we not? So much more fun.’
* * *
Lily strolled to the edge of the terrace, as far as she dared into the night darkness. The tall windows of the White Drawing room were open and she could hear the chatter of her mother and Lady Heath and the Duchess over new fashions in hats, the clink of delicate coffee cups. She knew she would have to go back there very soon, to join them and smile and nod, play cards with the twins, but not just yet. Now she had a few precious moments alone.
She draped the long train of her gown over her arm and climbed up to perch on the wide stone balustrade. It was a warm evening, a gentle breeze brushing around her that smelled of grass and roses from the garden. It smelled a bit, in fact, like Aidan himself.
Lily hadn’t realised before, in London, how much he belonged to this place. She’d never felt that she belonged anywhere. Not in New York or Newport. Only with her sisters. What would it be like to have a home, a real home, a family to call her own?
She looked up at the sky, so close that night, like a black velvet ball gown sprinkled with diamond stars, a golden moon shimmering on the stones of the house. Whimsically, she reached up her hand as if she could snatch it down.
‘Glorious, isn’t it?’ someone said, a wonderfully familiar, whisky-rough voice. Startled, Lily almost tumbled off the balustrade. Aidan’s arm came around her waist, catching her, leaving her breathless. She caught his shoulders, feeling the powerful strength of him under his fashionably cut coat.
He stared at her, his eyes shining in the night, that wonderful crooked smile on his lips.
‘I’m sorry I startled you,’ he said, that smile even in his voice.
‘I thought you were in the dining room with your port and your sporting chat,’ she managed to whisper.
‘And listen to the bishop list all sixty candidates he considered for the living at Roderick village’s church, before he settled on Mr Bybee? No, thank you,’ he said with a laugh. ‘He can tell my mother about it all. But I wasn’t quite ready for the drawing room, either.’
‘I also needed a quiet moment. I told my mother I needed to mend my hem,’ Lily said. His arms tightened around her waist and he swung her down from the balustrade, as easily as if she were feather. Before he set her down, he twirled her around and around until she laughed helplessly, dizzily. It was as she always felt with Aidan: giddy, free, outside of herself. She even forgot the weight of Roderick Castle bearing down on them and there was only him.
‘That’s more like it. I love to hear your laugh,’ he said, lowering her satin shoes to the flagstone terrace. He still held her close as the world slowly grew steadier, the stars still blurry overhead. ‘I was afraid Roderick had stolen your beautiful smile.’
Lily shook her head, and stepped back to lean against the balustrade before she could do something foolish like kiss him. ‘It’s a beautiful night. I’ve never seen a moon quite so jewel-like before.’
‘Ordered up just for you. Only the best for guests at Roderick Castle.’ He leaned on the stone balustrade beside her, so close she could feel the warmth of him wrap around her. ‘I wish I could snatch down the stars and put them in your hair.’
Lily laughed at his whimsical words. ‘They could never rival your mother’s tiara!’
He shook his head. ‘It would be a thousand times lovelier than any tiara. And the only thing that could be worthy of you, Lily.’
She was quiet with him for a long moment, shivering at the thought that maybe his words could be true. Maybe he did care about her, as she longed to be cared for. As she cared for him. Dared she hope? ‘What were the stars like in your deserts?’
He was also silent for a moment, as if deep in thought and memory. He took out a slim silver case and opened it to remove a dark cheroot, the kind she had sometimes seen the sailors in Newport smoke. ‘Do you mind?’ he asked and she shook her head.
He lit the tip, a brief flare of orange in the night, and exhaled a silvery plume.
‘They were like nothing I could ever have imagined,’ he said at last, staring out at the garden. ‘So much vast emptiness, shimmering sands like jewels under the moon. And the silence. Deeper than anything I’ve known.’
‘I do envy you your adventures, Aidan.’
‘But you must have seen such things, too,’ he said. ‘In Idaho, was it? Or Colorado?’
Lily laughed. ‘Oh, my mother and her tales! I was only young then, before my father made his fortune. I remember so little. I wish I did remember more. But I’m surprised my mother mentioned those years at all and to a duchess no less. She never talks about it. For her, there is only her old South Carolina family and when she came to New York. And ours to Europe. It whetted her appetite to find a life for my sisters and me here.’
‘And what about you? How do you see your life?’
Lily glanced back at the house, so grand and silent in the moonlight, so secretive about all it must have seen. ‘I never was allowed to make my own plans. It’s all been laid out before me.’
‘So was my life, when I was a boy.’ He took another long drag on his cheroot, watching the glowing end with a frown. ‘I suppose that’s why I ran away. To see if I could find Aidan out there in the wide world.’
Lily wished she could find him, too, see him clearly. Know him. ‘And did you?’
‘I think so. I realised I could rely on my own strength when I needed to. That I wasn’t just the spare. But there’s something in Roderick, some invisible cord, that I suppose I always knew would pull me back eventually.’
‘I can see why.’
He looked at her closely, his eyes narrowed. ‘Do you?’
‘Oh, yes. The history in every corner, the ties to your own family in every portrait. It’s beautiful, built up by so many people over so many years. All the stories in every chair and vase. Not like my home. That place is no older than me and our paintings and porce
lains come from other families.’ She suddenly realised what she had said, the bare patches on Roderick’s walls, the empty niches. ‘I don’t mean...’
‘No, no, Lily. It’s not your fault my father was profligate and yours prudent.’ He ground out his cheroot in the flower urn beside him. ‘I’m glad you like Roderick.’
‘I do,’ she said. ‘Very much.’
He gave her his beautiful smile, something teasing at its edges. ‘Would you like to see something?’
Lily glanced back at the windows where she could see figures moving and shifting behind the wavy old glass. ‘Should we not go back?’ But she did not want to. She wanted to stay just like this, alone with him.
‘They won’t miss us for a few more minutes. It’s one of my favourite spots here.’
‘Then of course I want to see it,’ she said. She felt very daring as she took his hand.
They made their way down the steps to the lawn that rolled away from the house to the rose garden and the woods beyond. Somehow they didn’t seem as ominous as they had before, even in the darkness, but like something magical and enchanted. Aidan held her hand to lead her over the grass and they dashed away together, laughing like truant schoolchildren.
Lily’s heeled shoes caught in a hole and she fell against him, still laughing. ‘Aidan, I can’t keep up!’
His arms came close around her and held her steady. ‘It’s just up there.’
Their arms still around each other, they climbed a low hill to the summer house, that fanciful octagonal stone folly. A statue of Diana, her bow tipped with gilding in the moonlight, stared down at them from the peak of the roof. To Lily’s astonishment, it was lit up, strung with red and blue lanterns that cast shifting, stained-glass patterns over the classical columns, the domed roof and Diana’s statue. The lake beyond was striped with moonlight on its rippling waves.
‘It’s wonderful.’ She sighed. She hurried up the sloping ramp to the sheltered walkway that ran all around the little structure. She twirled in a patch of blue light.
His Unlikely Duchess Page 14
