Gentlemen Prefer Mischief (24 page)

“So, my son,” Brother Pablo said, which made Hal smile. No one had called him son in decades. His own father hadn’t been much for affectionate expressions—or for any kind of affection at all. None of them—Everard, Hal, John, or Eloise—had had an example of the kind of love that cared nothing for achievements or appearances, the kind of selfless love Lily had shown for her family. A kind of love he’d come to understand a little. He made a note to make certain to write to Eloise and let her know he was thinking of her, and to write John as well.

“How goes your quiet time?”

“Well enough,” Hal said as they sat down on a stone bench. Near his feet, yellow crocuses bloomed with their orange stigmas, which the monks gathered and sold at the market as saffron.

“And how are you doing with distractions?”

Hal considered his life in recent years. The constant travel, the army, the parties—all of it had been on some level a way of creating diversions so that he wouldn’t have the quiet to hear himself. Whenever things had become boring or dull, he’d turned away from them so he could find new things with which to entertain himself. Lily, of course, had started out as a magnificent diversion. But then everything had changed.

He nudged the edge of the stone bench with the tip of his boot. “I have only one distraction now.”

“Ah.”

For a man who spent his days in silence, Brother Pablo was very good at getting others to talk. “I think it’s time you told me why you came.”

“I wanted the quiet.”

“You wanted escape. You crave escape.”

He did. And he’d wanted to escape from Lily and the woods and the people of Highcross, from everything that could remind him that she would never truly give him her heart. “I wanted to marry a woman who wouldn’t have me.”

“And you hoped to find answers here.”

“Perhaps.”

“Here is an answer then: you are wrong for each other.”

Hal felt his jaw tightening, but he “invited” it to relax, as Brother Pablo had taught him to do. “How can you know that? You don’t even know her.”

“Tell me about her, then.”

He thought about Lily, who was likely sitting somewhere quiet at that moment, knitting for a purpose she believed in. “She wants to improve the world. She is hard on herself, and sometimes on the people around her. She is also a delight to be around, but she doesn’t believe that it’s important to laugh and waste time.”

“I see. So you wanted to waste her time.”

“No. I mean—yes, I did. Not waste, really. More like she needs to be extravagant with it, to not always be focused on doing something productive.”

“Does she need this? Or is it merely that you can’t bear for her to tell you no? You are rich and important, and your every wish is fulfilled the instant you express it. Yours is a life of ease and pleasure.”

“It doesn’t have to be. Not
only
that. There can be balance between her way and mine.”

“That seems unlikely. You will both be happiest if you give her up.”

What the devil sort of talk was this from a monk?

“Excuse me?”

“She is simply one more distraction for you.”

“That’s not true! I love her. I want the best for her.”

“Then leave her to her life of virtue.”

Hal thought of Lily and how she inspired him. “But I’m not certain that
is
what’s best for her. And I know she’s made me understand things I didn’t know before. What if we are just the right sort of challenge for each other?”

A smile played about the corners of the monk’s eyes. “Then you don’t need to be here. Why aren’t you with her?”

And Hal realized that there was something he’d been avoiding: the hope that remained though it pained him to keep it alive. He’d rather ride into battle than face rejection from Lily one more time, but he realized in that moment that he believed in what he and Lily had shared more than he’d ever believed in anything, and he couldn’t let it go without a fight.

The Teagardens had come to London. As their carriage brought them through the crowded Town streets on a cloudy late October afternoon, Delia stared out the window in awe.

“Finally,” she breathed adoringly. “We’re finally here.”

Lily smiled. “We finally are.” The whole way to London, Delia had chattered excitedly about the hotel where they’d stay, and about how fine the shops would be, and what it would be like to stroll in Hyde Park. Rob, too, had been uncharacteristically ebullient; Marianne Preston and her family were already in Town, and Lily was fairly certain that the two would soon be engaged.

Delia smiled. “I thought for certain that you’d insist on staying at Thistlethwaite to work while we were gone.”

Lily wasn’t quite as excited as Delia about coming to Town, but she’d realized a change of scene would be good for her. With Helen back, there was no reason Lily shouldn’t have a brief holiday. For once, she wanted one.

“Nonsense,” Lily said. “I wouldn’t have dreamed of missing London.”

“And think of the balls!” Delia gave Lily a stern look. “You’re not going to stand in the corner talking to the dowagers, I hope.”

“Certainly not,” Lily said with the ghost of a mischievous smile. “I shall dance with every gentleman who asks me.”

Delia laughed. “Then you shall end up very winded.”

And in fact Lily was rather worn out by the end of their first week, having danced almost constantly at the two balls they attended. After each ball, flowers had come for both ladies, and Delia had teased Lily that she’d received the most. Ian had helpfully pointed out that was merely because Lily had danced with every man who asked her, and so she’d improved her odds. Lily had laughed but knew she welcomed the change that the social whirl provided. She would forget Hal, she told herself several times a day. Or more reasonably, she would move past what they’d shared.

Tonight the Teagardens were attending a dinner party hosted by the Prestons. Mrs. Preston had taken care to invite several of the gentlemen who’d shown marked attention to Lily and Delia. Lily was in a side room talking with one of them—Mr. Grant, the second son of a baronet and an avid Latin scholar—when she saw a familiar brown-haired young lady enter the room.

“Eloise!” Delia cried, rushing over to her. No one had said that Eloise would be invited, or anyone else from her family, and Lily’s heart began to beat in great thuds. Donwell came in behind Eloise.

And then through the doorway that was suddenly so fascinating came Hal.

Since she was across the room and a little hidden behind Mr. Grant, he hadn’t seen her yet. She watched as he bowed with great warmth to Delia, and let herself fully enjoy how handsome he was, feeling that nothing was so beautiful and special as what we love. His skin was tan and his hair sun-kissed, the look of someone who’d just been to a southern clime.

Would he, knowing Delia was there, look for her? He didn’t seem anxious to do so—he was already caught up in conversation with Delia, and Ian had come over as well. Hal seemed entirely content to talk to her siblings, and she knew she had no right to be unhappy about that after the things she’d said to him, but she was. Her chest felt tight.

She wanted to go over to him, but she suddenly felt terrified that he might not want to speak with her. Or, almost worse, that her presence would have no effect on him at all.

She tried to focus on Mr. Grant, who was discussing his recent trip to Rome, but it was impossible because all she could think was that there were a good dozen people in the room, and she might not even have a chance to speak to Hal. And what would she say if she did?

Finally, long minutes later, she felt Hal’s eyes on her from across the room. She looked at him, and he inclined his head at her in greeting, his expression oddly sober. And then a gentleman came up and spoke to him, claiming his attention.

Was that to be their only contact? After everything that had happened? And yet she couldn’t seem to make herself approach him.

Dinner was announced shortly thereafter, and they were seated at opposite ends of the long table. Lily had no idea what she conversed about with her dinner companions as the meal progressed. Eloise, aglow next to Donwell, caught her eye and smiled hugely, and Lily could only guess Hal had said nothing to her of what had happened between them. Of course he hadn’t—what could he have said that wouldn’t have been far too much?

She was feeling very low. Hal was not going to seek her out, and she couldn’t blame him. How could he want her company after what she’d said to him the last time? The party now seemed loud and jangling, and she only wanted to go back to their hotel and be alone, but she could hardly leave on her own.

Giving herself a stern talking-to, she sat up straighter in her chair and forced herself to be interested in Mrs. Acton, who was discussing the opera.

And then it was time for the gentlemen to depart for their port, and Lily still hadn’t come near Hal, and now she was starting to be impatient with both of them. They were neighbors after all, and they ought to be civil to each other. She would seek him out when the men returned and greet him properly.

As the ladies moved into the drawing room, Eloise came and linked arms with Lily and led her toward a window seat.

“I never properly thanked you for what you did at Mayfield, in bringing me and Donwell together.”

“Oh,” Lily said. “I don’t know that I can take any credit. I seemed only to cause dismay.”

“Nonsense. If it weren’t for you, I never should have realized what a wonderful, dear, irresistible man he is.”

“Then I’m very happy,” Lily said, genuinely pleased.

Eloise leaned closer. “And as you are such a fine matchmaker, perhaps you would consider turning your talents to my brother?” Eloise looked toward the doorway as she said these astonishing words. The gentlemen, apparently not interested in much time with their port, were already rejoining the ladies.

“I know he said he would never marry,” she continued, apparently oblivious to Lily’s blanching face, “but he’s been strangely out of sorts for weeks, and I can only think his advanced age is starting to wear on him. He may even be lonely, poor man.”

“I’ve hung up my matchmaker’s hat, actually,” Lily said, grateful that her voice betrayed none of the emotion she was feeling as she considered the painful idea of Hal courting anyone but her. “But I’m certain your brother wouldn’t have any trouble finding a wife.”

“Oh, look,” Eloise said cheerfully. “He’s coming over.”

Lily’s heart seemed determined to make her feel ill, sending sickening flutters to her stomach. She breathed deeply and considered getting up and walking away with a blithe smile, but she told herself not to be a coward.

Eloise bounced up and said, “There’s Donwell. Do excuse me,” and she was gone.

And then Hal was standing before Lily. Though there were two score people in the room and a young lady had just begun the opening bars of a melody on the pianoforte, the space between the two of them felt as silent as a chapel.

“Lily,” he said. She looked up into his eyes and tried to guess what he was thinking but failed.

“Hal. We meet at last.”

A flash of humor in his eyes. “Are you angry that I didn’t come to you before now?”

“That would be unreasonable of me.”

A ghost of a smile teased the edge of his mouth but didn’t make it to his eyes. “It would. May I sit with you?”

She made room for him on the window seat. A little waft of his familiar, beloved scent came to her as he sat. Their words were mild, conversational, but her pulse was racing at his nearness.
Why
had he come to her? Could it be possible that he still cared for her? She must not feed hope, or she would be crushed when all came to nothing.

“How was Spain?” she asked, so grateful that her tone was mild and polite. Quite an accomplishment when everything in her wanted only for him to gather her into his arms.

“Warm, very pretty.”

“And your time in the monastery? How long did you stay?”

“Three weeks.”

Hal thought perhaps that he wasn’t going to be able to do this, to sit here with her and make small talk while his whole life hung in the balance. She kept asking him polite questions, and perhaps that was because she didn’t want to leave room for him to say something she didn’t want to hear.

“Were you surprised to hear I was at a monastery?” he said. “I suppose you laughed.”

“I did not. I thought it very fine.”

The silence stretched out between them. So much to say, and also nothing.

“How are Parsley and Sage?” he said. “No longer esteemed haunted, I hope.”

She laughed a little. “Yes. You arranged that quite well, the misbehaving young man from another village. Everyone had a good laugh about how we were all tricked.” She’d been looking at the girl playing the pianoforte, but now she turned to look at him. “And the Becketts. That ring made all the difference for them.”

He merely gave a nod. The Becketts had been done out of a connection to the Waverlys when his great-uncle was killed, a connection that, whether his family liked it or not, would have been very advantageous to them.

He knew himself to be hesitating because her dismissal of his proposal had been so painful. But somehow he’d lost a little of the need to avoid emotions that were unpleasant, and this had given him a new perspective.

“You were more than fair with him,” she said, “giving up such a valuable piece of jewelry.”

He would take this chance. “Lily, I was furious that you’d worked against me with Nate, but what I did, I did because of you.”

He thought—he was almost certain—that the edge of her mouth quivered. By God but everything seemed to hang on the most subtle of signals.

“Eloise wants me to make a match for you,” she said. Her voice sounded husky.
Was
it husky?

“There’s only one match I want to make, Lily,” he said, lifting his eyes to hers. He held out his hand, his whole heart and self waiting to know how she would respond.

Her eyes held his. She lifted her hand and put it in his, a wordless yes.

“You came back to me,” she said in a soft voice that made all the tightness in him begin to relax. “I was so unhappy that you left. And so ashamed over how I’d judged you all that time. Can you forgive me?”

“I don’t know that there is anything to forgive. Some of the things you said woke me up, in a way.”

She shook her head. “I was hard. A hardening woman. And you saw things about me that I didn’t want to see.”

He could feel a dizzy smile slipping over his lips. “Perhaps when two people are just right for each other, they see one another other as no one else can.”

“I missed you so terribly,” she said. “Only I didn’t know until then how much I would. I’d come to trust you and care for you, and I hadn’t even realized it.”

Her blue eyes held everything he wanted for his future. For their future. “I think you were right to be leery of me as I was when you met me again. But loving you has changed me. I do love you, dearest Lily.”

She squeezed his hand. “Isn’t it a wonder,” she said, “that after all the wild things that happened between us, the simple feel of your hand in mine could bring me such incredible bliss?”

“
You
are a wonder, Lily Teagarden. You’ve made me know what bliss truly is.”

Her beautiful smile melted the last remaining bit of unhappiness in his heart. “I love you, dearest Hal.”

“For a lifetime,” he said.

“For a lifetime.”

***

It was August again, sunny but not too hot, and Hal and Lily were entertaining family on the terrace.

Lily sat at a stone table on the terrace drinking lemonade with Delia and Eloise, while Hal, Donwell, and Ian bowled on the lawn with Louie and Freddy, Diana and John having gone for a walk.

“Lily, are you quite certain you are comfortable out here?” Hal called to her from the bowling green, where she’d encouraged him to go.

Lily smiled at her husband, who, as she’d moved into the ninth month of her confinement, had become something of a mother hen. Which was why, though she’d been feeling some mild contractions of her muscles since the middle of last night, she’d yet to mention them—she didn’t want to worry him.

Ever since their wedding in November, he hadn’t let a day go by without delighting her anew with his inventive, playful, wonderfully mischievous love. Just last week he’d surprised her with a candlelit dinner on the roof of the west tower, at which he served her himself—and then proceeded to make gentle love to her there, right out in the open under the stars. And to think she’d once considered him shallow and uncaring. She hadn’t yet stopped wondering at her incredible good luck.

“Just lovely, darling,” she called back, then had to take a deep breath as another muscular squeezing tightened across her belly.

Delia and Eloise, who had turned their chairs to watch the bowling, called out encouragement to Louie, whose ball kept rolling in the wrong direction.

“Let’s go into the village later,” Delia said to Eloise. “I want to see how things are looking inside the new school now that all the painting is done. I saw Mary and Anna Cooper yesterday, and they are very excited for the start of classes in September.”

“I want to come visit the school, too,” Lily said.

“Oh Lily,” Delia laughed, still watching the bowlers. “You know that Hal hasn’t let you get in a carriage for the last month, never mind walking that far. Eloise and I can go have a look and report back to you.”

When Lily didn’t make any reply, Delia finally turned to glance at her quiet sister.

“You look a bit hot, or something, Lily,” Delia said from across the table.

“Would you like some lemonade?” Eloise said over her shoulder.

Eloise, who’d been giddy ever since Donwell’s recent return from a six-month voyage to South America, spoke somewhat distractedly as she gazed across the lawn at the men. Lily had suggested to Hal that it might not be long before his sister and Donwell were engaged, and Hal had replied that he only hoped that Eloise would be half so happy in her married life as he was in his. Lily had told him that married life was making him mawkish, and he’d smiled wickedly and showed her just how entertainingly mawkish he could be.