Lily (20 page)

“Tell Mrs. Howe I’m sick, Lowdy. Tell her I can’t eat anything. Say I’ll come back down in an hour to help clean up.” She went out without waiting for Lowdy’s answer.

The headland path, treacherous on dark nights, was almost as bright as day tonight. Silver moonlight spilled over the sea in a glittering triangle whose tip pierced the horizon and whose sides widened toward shore until the light broke on the rocks below in a radiant spray. Lady Alice Fairfax’s voice was cool and pleasant over the grumble of the waves, her conversation easy and undemanding. Still, Devon had to struggle to keep his mind on it. They had paused to stand directly above the spot where, a few hours ago, he’d come so close to seducing Lily Troublefield.

He made an effort to shut his mind to the bright, erotic memories, but they kept flooding through him, leaving him edgy and his concentration in fragments. Hardest of all was trying not to imagine a very different ending to their short-lived tête-à-tête. She’d been on the verge, the very edge of giving in, and it had only been his valet’s execrable timing that had stopped her. In the midst of his frustration, the thought gave him a rush of pleasure.

“Devon? Are you listening to me at all?”

“Alice, forgive me, I—was thinking about the mine, some problems we’ve been having,” he muttered arbitrarily. He took her hand and got them walking again.

They hadn’t gone far when she stopped again and asked earnestly, “How are you, Dev? Are you getting along? Have you been happy at all?”

He flashed a sardonic smile. Twice he’d been asked that question today. “I don’t think in those terms anymore, Allie.”

“You haven’t called me that in ten years,” she said softly, touching his arm. “I miss you, Devon. I wish you would come to White Oaks more often, the way you used to. It would make your mother so happy. And—of course, my family would love to see you at Fairfax House.”

“You sound like Clay, always trying to get me out of Cornwall.”

“It’s because we miss you.”

“You miss me because you don’t see much of me. If you did, my company would wear thin very quickly.”

“That isn’t true.”

He glanced down at her, and was relieved when he could see nothing more than affection and concern in her pretty hazel eyes. But Alice was an old friend; he would not risk hurting her because he was too preoccupied to make things clear between them. “My mother has us all but married in her mind, you know,” he said lightly.

“Yes, I’m aware of it.”

“You’ve always been a good friend, Alice. I hope you always will be.”

A minute passed; then she slipped her arm through his. He searched her cool profile for a hint of her mood. She was smiling, but there was a slightly fixed look about it. “Dear Dev,” she said, patting his hand. “I hope you’ll always be my friend, too.”

“You can count on that.”

They walked on a ways without speaking. “Tell me all about Clay,” Alice urged suddenly. “The stories I hear are positively shocking. Is it true he’s the captain of a pirate ship called
The Ravager,
and that he’s rescuing French émigrés and ferrying them to the Netherlands?”

Devon threw back his head and laughed. “Now, that’s one I hadn’t heard.” They walked on, their faces close together, holding hands. Lily watched them out of sight from her bench on the moon-bright terrace. The sound of Devon’s laughter rang in her ears for long minutes after they disappeared. How fortunate that Alice Fairfax had arrived in such a timely way, she mused, for the other woman had helped her to see her squalid encounter with the master this afternoon in the proper light. It seemed unrelievedly sordid now, and she flinched when she thought of the contempt he must feel for her. But it was a good lesson, and long overdue. She held it close, like a bouquet of thorns to her breast.

Although it was the stifling heat that had driven her out of her attic room, Lily shivered. A bitter-cold resolve congealed inside her. Very soon, penniless or not, she had to find a way to leave Darkstone.

“’E
RE,
L
ILY, TAKE THIS.”

“What is it?”

“What’s it look like, an? Master’s sheets?” Enid Gross let out a raucous cackle as she pushed a basket of clean linen into Lily’s arms; her friend Ruth joined in appreciatively, arms thrust to the elbows in a great tub of soapy water. “Master’s clean nightrail?” More laughter, both girls doubled up with it, while Lily stood frozen, waiting. “Naw, tes Cobb’s,” Enid explained when she could speak, “and you’re t’ take ‘em with ee to ‘is house and clean it, Owe d’ say.”

“I’m to clean Mr. Cobb’s cottage? Now?”

“Ais.”

“But she told me to help Dorcas with the churning when I finish here, and then to scrub down the back stairs!”

“Then ee d’ best ’urry,” Enid smirked. “She’ve stuck on this chore t’ your list, it d’ seem.”

Lily whirled away before they could see her face, ashamed to show them how close she was to tears. Shutting her ears to their spiteful snickering, she trudged up the washhouse steps and stood still in the hard-packed yard. The afternoon sun was blinding. Shielding her eyes, she took deep, steadying breaths, and in a little while she had her emotions in check. But fatigue was with her all the time these days, like a lingering illness her body couldn’t shake off. She went about her chores in a daze, silent, obedient, and numb.

She took hold of the basket in both arms and set off listlessly down the dusty path. The air was feathery with the billowing seedpods of dandelions at the sides of the path. Two red deer strolled across the drive not twenty yards away, into the bright bracken that waved in the breeze, but Lily didn’t see them, nor did she hear the restless cawing of rooks in the hazelnut trees overhead. The habit of thinking about Devon Darkwell was always with her too, because she couldn’t summon the energy needed to cast his memory from her mind.

Their ladyships had gone off on their holiday, and after a day or two life at Darkstone had resumed its quiet, orderly pace, the brief flurry of excitement fading quickly. Lily’s life had resumed its hard, tedious routine as well, for the idyll was over, the servants’ perception of her as being under the master’s “protection” a thing of the past, and Mrs. Howe had lost no time in reinstating her to under-housemaid status. It seemed now that there was no job too arduous, no task too demeaning for Lily, and she knew it was not her imagination. Mrs. Howe was having her revenge.

Still, things could have been worse. Lily derived a morsel of comfort from the thought that, if nothing else, at least Mrs. Howe and the others were confused, unable to decide exactly where she stood with Mr. Darkwell—for twice in the last four days he’d sent a servant to bid her to wait on him, and twice she had ignored the summons.

She had done it with a feeling of impunity, confident that the Viscount Sandown would never stoop so low as to fetch her himself from her tiny attic room, or seek her out in the midst of some servile piece of drudgery. Her assumption had proven correct, for he had not come. But mixed with her relief was a sense of foreboding: one flouted the master’s wishes at one’s own peril, and Lily had a strong and instinctual fear of Devon’s anger.

But something else frightened her more, and that was the abdication of her own will when she was with him. At their last meeting she had learned the harrowing lesson that he was stronger than she, and that his desire for her was much more potent than her ability to refuse him. As many times as she’d gone over the events of that unforgettable afternoon in her mind, it still seemed incredible,
impossible,
that she had been ready to give herself—there on the beach, in broad daylight!—to a man who cared nothing for her. She wasn’t that kind of woman! Or so she had always thought. But then, she’d never been tested. Devon Darkwell was the only man who had ever touched her—she discounted the fumbling attentions of the landlord’s son in the Portsmouth boardinghouse she’d lived in with her father two years ago. But in her heart she knew she was not a wanton woman; she was decent and principled, and the awful, indisputable fact was that it was only he, Devon, who could make her throw all her scruples away by smiling at her. Or murmuring sweet, intoxicating words in her ear. Or touching her.

She had to stay away from him. To save herself, she had to keep out of his way. It wouldn’t be for long, just until she made a little money and thought of a place to go. In two weeks her debts would be paid and she would begin to earn her wage. Then, soon, she would be able to leave.

She’d gone forty feet past Mr. Cobb’s cottage before she realized it. She turned back tiredly and moved toward the flagstone walk curving to the small, thatched-roof dwelling in the park, set back from the gravel drive. With her arms full of the laundry basket, she managed to unlatch the door with one hand and kick it open the rest of the way. A peculiar odor assailed her, sweet and sour at the same time, and there was something familiar about it. But the cottage looked empty; she could see no one in the shuttered dimness. She found the table and put down her basket. The odor was stronger now. She went to the window; the sash was up but the shutters were closed. She unlatched them and threw them open.

“Leave that!”

She jumped—almost screamed; spinning around, she saw a man huddled on the floor by the hearth in the rear wall, knees drawn up, back pressed against the cold brick. Seconds later she recognized the land steward. “Mr. Cobb, you gave me a fright! I though you weren’t here, I—I’ve come to clean your house.” She trailed off in confusion and peered at him. He hadn’t moved. His arms were wrapped around his knees. His black hair and beard looked wild, and behind them she couldn’t read his expression. She took a step closer. “Are you ill? Do you need help?”

Even in the dimness, she though his fierce black eyes glittered. “Tes you that needs help,” he told her in a guttural rasp, completely unlike his usual voice. She suppressed a start when he unwound from his peculiar crouch and got to his feet. “Tes you did ought t’ take care, little miss. A Darkwell bain’t a man for a young girl to rely on.”

Again she almost cried out when he lurched toward her, but he stopped in the middle of the room, swaying. All at once it dawned on her that he was drunk. In all the weeks she’d been at Darkstone, she had never seen Mr. Cobb behave with anything but dour and irreproachable propriety. She understood now why the sour-sweet smell was familiar: it reminded her of her father’s room in the morning after one of his infrequent alcoholic binges.

Lily held out her hand. “Here, let me help you.”

White teeth flashed against the blackness of his beard. “Do ee want to help? Want to take my hand?” He stuck out his left arm, the one that ended in a mutilated stump. With an ugly laugh, he shuffled toward her.

Lily blanched. Her eyes never left his face, but in her peripheral vision she saw clearly the scarred white butt that poked out of his coat sleeve. He stumbled closer, and now she could read a dare in his reckless eyes. Revulsion lay under a multitude of other emotions, but she held her ground and didn’t drop her outstretched hand.

When his arm was only inches away, he jerked it back and shoved it into his coat pocket. His black brows lowered in fury. “Get out of here. Get out!” Immediately Lily turned and ran. He followed her to the door. Leaning on it, he hollered after her, “Get away, you’ll regret it if you don’t! Get away from here!” He kept shouting until she couldn’t hear anymore. Flying along the path, lungs aching, she imagined him standing in his doorway and yelling, yelling, with no one to hear but the jackdaws and the circling gulls.

That night, long after the other servants had said their prayers and gone to bed, Lily remained in the kitchen, standing on a chair to scour the blackened bricks of the fireplace chimney with a hog-bristle brush. It was a punishment for using sand instead of ground oyster shells this morning to polish the pewter. Mrs. Howe said she’d scratched it, but Lily could see no damage. But that was nothing new, and she was growing used to being singled out for scoldings and punishments and the dreariest jobs, for no better reason than that the housekeeper detested her.

“You, get down from there.”

She fumbled and almost dropped the brush. For all her bulk, Mrs. Howe had a way of sneaking up on people as silently as a reptile. Lily scrambled down from the chair and faced her, wondering, dear Lord, what now?

She was holding something in her hand. “Look what I found.”

That tone—silky, satisfied—should have warned her. She went forward hesitatingly, trying to see. When she was four feet away, Mrs. Howe opened her strong, masculine hand. In it was a pile of silver coins. Lily looked up blankly. “What is it?”

Howe’s laugh was only a harsh exhale. “So you’re going to lie, too.”

“Lie about what?”

She dropped the coins in her pocket and folded her arms across her shelf of a chest. “I wasn’t gone out o’ my room more than five minutes. You’re light on your feet, I’ll give you that.”

“What are you talking about?”

“But you should’ve put ‘em somewhere besides your own drawer. That’s the first place I looked.”

Lily gasped as understanding dawned. “You think I stole your money!”

“Housekeeping money. Come with me, now.”

“I didn’t! I swear I didn’t—you
couldn’t
have found it in my drawer.” She moved back in haste when Mrs. Howe took a step toward her. “Listen to me, I tell you I didn’t—no!” The hand that clamped down on her upper arm was as implacable as a metal vise. “Let me go!” The housekeeper gave her a savage jerk, and she suppressed a cry of pain. Worse than the pain was the indignity of being hustled out of the kitchen, down the corridor, and up the stairs to the first floor. With deepening dread, it dawned on her that Mrs. Howe was taking her to see Devon. Humiliation washed over her like scalding water. But when they arrived at the door to the library, his usual haunt between supper and bedtime, she saw that the room was dark and empty—and went weak with relief. She tried to squirm away, but Howe’s bruising grip on her arm only hardened. She seemed to be considering her next move. Seconds later she set off down the hall again, alternately pushing and dragging Lily along beside her. Lily hung back again at the bottom of the wide walnut staircase. “I did not steal your damned money—” she got out through clenched teeth before Howe struck her in the face with the flat of her hand.