Lily (22 page)

“Are you with me, love?” Devon asked in a ragged mutter, face buried in her hair.

“Yes, yes,” she answered, although she didn’t quite know what he meant.

He slid his hand between them, to caress her just above their intimate joining. Lily’s head went back and her mouth opened on a long, soft cry. Mistaking her, he plunged deep and hard again and again, holding her in a fierce, possessive grip. His climax was silent and wrenching, a wild unraveling. He lost himself, forgot who he was, staggered by the intensity of the pleasure, and in the aftermath he felt weak and new. Free.

Frightened.

He withdrew abruptly and rolled away. But he took her hand and held it to his lips, not looking at her.

Lily threw her free arm across her forehead and stared up at the candlelight flickering on the ceiling. After a minute her breathing slowed and her pounding heart returned to normal. But her nerves still tingled, her body still felt stripped—
skinned
—vulnerable. What was this throbbing expectancy? Something had eluded her; that was all she knew. Still, she treasured the closeness, the unspeakable intimacy they’d shared. Had it meant as much to him? She stole a glance at his profile and saw that his eyes were closed. Impossible—he couldn’t be sleeping! All her senses were alert and alive and she was desperate to talk to him, reestablish the contact she could tell they were losing. He still held her hand, but she was afraid he was falling asleep—leaving her alone. “Dev?” she whispered. Saying his name excited her. “That was good, wasn’t it?”

A moment passed in silence. She was about to repeat the question, unable to let it lie, when he answered, without a smile and without looking at her, “Yes.” And that was all.

She felt a treacherous prickling of tears behind her eyes. She lay still for many minutes, listening to his quiet breathing. If he wasn’t asleep, it was clear he didn’t want to talk. Her presence in his bed began to seem more and more unnatural. She waited a little longer, praying he would speak, or move, or do something.

“Well,” she said at last. She sat up, her back to him. “I have to go now.”

Devon opened one eye and laughed, low in his throat, while his hand shot out and grabbed hold of her wrist. He gave a tug and she fell back to the mattress with a little cry. Facing her, securing her in the crook of his arm, he ran a lazy hand across her breasts, back and forth, establishing a soft, abrasive friction. Lily shifted restlessly. As he had before, he wet his fingers, then one of her nipples with them, and afterward he blew on the hard little peak. The icy, shivery sensation took her breath away and made her stiffen. Pleased, he made a circle around her navel with his forefinger, then dug gently into the delicate whorl, tickling her, making her back arch.

She turned her head to look at him. Their lips were almost touching, but he didn’t kiss her. He watched her eyelids widen and then flutter closed when his slow hand dipped lower. He used his leg to pull hers apart and keep them open. He cupped her with his hand, and curled a long forefinger inside her. She arched up again and cried out, something loud and unintelligible. He sleeked his finger in and out, softly, ever so slowly, watching the play of emotions on her damp, flushed face. All at once she set her teeth and stopped breathing at the top of a deep inhale. He took his hand away.

The disbelief, the look of cheated indignation on her face almost made him laugh again. “Ah, Lily, you are so beautiful,” he breathed against her lips, “and I want to be inside you when I make you come.”

Her voice was thready, a little hoarse. “When you what?”

Spreading himself over her, he parted her legs wider and made her put them around his waist. “When I pleasure you,” he explained, his voice not altogether steady either. He drove into her gently, embracing her, feeling the wild thud of her heart against his. Tenderness, new and unused and awkward, rippled through him. He drank in the achingly sweet taste of her mouth, and the wisp of a thought crossed his mind that he never kissed when he made love to women. Lily sighed against his lips, and her breath was warm and moist on his skin, gentle as a blessing. “Dev,” she whispered, so amazed. The straining weight of his body on hers felt perfect. She pulled him closer. They kissed with fierce, greedy passion until the last second. Then they just held on to each other, stunned and humbled, while time stopped and they suffered together the tumultuous recoil of an identical explosion. Lily thought she was lost, that it would never end, and the minuscule piece of herself that was still intact knew a second of panic—no more. But the storm subsided, and time started again, and Devon kissed the tears on her cheeks with such tenderness that her heart cracked open and she loved him.

She started to tell him, but the words that came out were “Thank you.” His face was beautiful. How she loved him! They turned on their sides together and held each other.

They might have slept. It astounded her that they could make love again, but they did, and again after that. Every time it happened her wonder grew. This was, quite simply, too good to be true. Mere humans could not experience pleasure this profound, this
often.
This was a kind of happiness she’d thought heaven promised, not lowly earth.

Alongside the awe, the need to tell him everything increased as the long night slipped past. Each time she began, he kissed her into silence, for Devon did not want to talk, or to think. He only wanted to hold her, because she was a woman and it had been a long time for him. She was skin and flesh, warmth and heat and wetness, and he did not want to think about how it felt on the inside—only on the outside. Because she was just a woman. Close to dawn, Lily fell deeply asleep in his arms, and dreamed of him.

She awoke to the sound of rain blowing in gusts against the half-closed windows. The room was pearl-gray and chilly, and she was naked except for a tangle of wrinkled sheet around her ankles. She shivered and sat up. The same sleepy, sweeping glance that told her Devon wasn’t beside her soon spied him across the room, standing by the south, sea-facing window. Fully dressed in brown breeches, coat and waistcoat, white cravat. Watching her.

She smiled. “Dev,” she murmured, wondering how long he had been standing there.

“It’s almost daylight.”

“Yes,” she agreed, puzzled because his voice sounded odd. She wanted him to come to her and touch her.

“It’s time, Lily.”

“Time?”

“For you to go back to your room.”

“Oh.” She stared at him, not thinking of anything. But suddenly she felt ashamed because she was naked. She wrestled the twisted sheet up and covered herself while a deep flush rose to her face. “You want me to—” She stopped and swallowed. “You’re sending me away?”

He raised his straight black brows and smiled slightly. “What did you expect?”

“Nothing. Nothing.” In the flash of an instant she knew the worst, understood it all. She scrambled off the bed, dragging the sheet with her. She spotted her clothes in a puddle by the door, and spoke quickly. “If you will leave me for just a minute, I’ll get dressed.”

“Shy, Lily? What difference does it make now?”

“Very little. But I would be grateful to you all the same.”

He shrugged casually and walked out.

As soon as the door closed, she collapsed on the edge of the bed. She felt strangled with tears; they were in her throat, her chest, everywhere but her eyes, which were quite dry. Stupid. Oh, stupid! The magnitude of her folly was awesome and unendurable. Oh God! But she mustn’t think about it now—if she did, she was afraid she would drown. Later, when she was alone, there would be plenty of time to think. She staggered up and dragged her clothes on with jerky, graceless movements, fingers bloodless and clumsy. She put her cap on last, shoving all her hair under it, trying not to remember what he’d said when he’d taken it off. For a split second she caught a glimpse of herself in the wardrobe mirror, chalk-white and pitiful in her dry-eyed grief. She whirled away, but the remembered image finally brought a flush of anger. She opened the door with her shoulders squared, her head held high.

He was leaning against the opposite wall, hands in his pockets. He looked bored. And she knew he was not even going to bother to pretend, with sweet words or kisses or lying promises. The ashes in her heart fanned to life. In that moment, she hated him.

“We didn’t speak of an amount beforehand,” he mentioned, reaching into his jacket pocket. “Will this be enough?”

He couldn’t have said that; she didn’t believe her ears—or her eyes when she saw the wad of folded bills between his fingers. Her body felt thin and brittle, ready to break. “Devon! You—” Then it hit her. “You think I stole your fourteen pounds.” It was the only explanation she could think of. “But then—
how could you touch me?”

“That part was easy.” His smile didn’t reach his cold turquoise eyes.

Lily recoiled. Two spots of color streaked her pale cheeks like slap marks.
“Bastard,”
came out in a dry hiss.

“Take the money, love. It’s all you’ll get from me.”

“No, not all,” she whispered, backing away. “There’s shame as well. You’ve given me that.” She spun away from the sight of his outstretched hand and ran.

“S
OME HOT.”
L
OWDY PLANTED
her fists on her hips and blew upward at the hank of hair stuck to her sweating forehead. “Whyn’t the ol’ cow make us club rugs in springtime, ‘stead o’ nigh August? Meanness,” she supplied, before Lily could answer. “Meanness pure an’ clean. You d’ know it, and so does all the world. She’m meaner’n a razor, I’d as lief nuzzle a snake as turn my back on ‘er.”

Lily made a sound of agreement, listening with half an ear. The heat was intense; they’d lost their hour of morning shade when the sun had climbed beyond the manor house’s western chimneys, and now it beat down on them in dry waves, unrelieved by the lightest breeze. She sat back on her heels and wiped the perspiration from her face with the back of one hand, while a wave of dizziness made her cheeks pale. Her knees hurt and her arms ached from brushing dry tea leaves into a floral-patterned wool carpet spread out on the grass above the area steps. Nearby, Lowdy was resting from the task of beating a wire paddle against another rug strung up on a line.

“An’ ee can think what you will, Miss Mullygrub Sad-Face, but there bain’t hardly a person in the whole house who thinks ee stole ‘er splatty ol’ housekeeping money. Ask ’em if ee don’t b’lieve me.”

“No, I won’t ask them,” Lily said tiredly. “And you‘re wrong, Lowdy. They don’t know me—they have no reason to think I wouldn’t take the money.”

“Ask ‘em, is what I say. Stringer don’t think ee did it, an’ cook said—”

“It’s best to leave it. It doesn’t matter anyway.”

Lowdy shook her head and said, “Phaw,” in disgust.

The smell of hot wool and tea leaves was overpowering, taking Lily to the brink of nausea. She sat back dully and watched a drop of sweat splatter on the hand that lay limp in her lap. Lowdy chattered on, about Mrs. Howe, about Dorcas’s elevation from scullery to kitchen maid, about Galen MacLeaf and the Methodist revival he’d invited her to attend. Lowdy’s words were punctuated by violent, irregular blows of her paddle against the hanging rug. Lily closed her eyes—then snapped them open a second later to stare at Lowdy, breath suspended, limbs frozen with dread and hope and astonishment.

“I said, ‘Maybe I can and maybe I can’t, Mr. MacLeaf; I’ll ’ave t’ go an’ look at my calendar, like, t’ see if it’s my ’alf-day.’ ” Lowdy chortled merrily and gave the carpet a dusty wallop. “ ‘Look at my calendar t’ see if it’s my ’alf-day,’ ” she repeated, giggling in gales, relishing the joke. A thought occurred to her. “Maybe you d’ care t’ join us, an? Ee could use an airing, Lily, no mistake. Tes next Sunday in Truro at the Coinage Hall.”

Lily’s voice sounded like a croak. “Who did you say the preacher was, Lowdy?”

“Reverend Soames, from Exeter. Twur on a bill in Trewyth, Galen d’ say. ’Ave ee ever been to a Methody revival? No? Gawm, there’m naught like it. Onct—”

“Are you sure it was
Soames
?”

“Ais, Roger Soames. My chum Sara from orph’nage, her as lives in Launceton now, she seen ‘im in Redruth last year and said it fair give ‘er the shakes to ‘ear ‘im. Myself, I’m that fond o’ preachin’, for it puts me in the queerest mind. It’s like God and the divil are flailin’ over my soul, and I can’t decide which of ‘em to let have it. Well, Lily, do ee want to come wi’ us, an?”

“What? No, Lowdy, I can’t.”

“Phaw.” The younger girl grumbled for a minute, then threw her paddle on the ground. “By Jakes, I’m parched. I’m goin’ for water, and I don’t care what ’Owe said. I’ll fetch you a cup.” And off she sauntered, round hips swaying.

He’s alive!
Lily exulted, her mind awhirl.
I didn’t kill him!
A great burden lifted; for the first time in weeks, she felt at peace with herself, at least on one score. Reverend Soames was alive—and
well,
if he was preaching next Sunday in Truro. But what did he think of her? Had he told the authorities that she’d assaulted him and stolen his money? Dear God, could she come out of hiding if he had not?

She had to find out. Not by meeting him in Truro, of course; that would be too dangerous. But now surely she could take the risk of writing to him. She would send a letter to his home in Exeter and ask him to write back in care of Mrs. Troublefield, her old neighbor in Lyme. To that kind lady she would send another letter, asking her to forward any mail for Lily to Darkstone—but on no account to reveal her whereabouts to anyone. She had wanted to keep Mrs. Troublefield out of her dangerous personal problems, but now it seemed she had no choice. And anyway, the possibility of arrest no longer terrified her as it once had. Darkstone Manor, she mused grimly, had become almost as much a prison to her as the Bodmin Gaol.

“Where’s Lowdy?”

Lily was jolted up on her knees, startled by Mrs. Howe’s stealthy, unnaturally silent approach. “Lowdy? She’s—she had to use the privy.” The housekeeper had told them that they mustn’t stop work, even for a drink, until dinnertime.
Oh dear God
—Lily’s heart leapt painfully and she dragged her eyes back to Mrs. Howe’s red, angry countenance, praying her own face hadn’t given away what she’d seen over the woman’s shoulder—Lowdy traipsing toward them, head down, a dripping dipper of water in one hand and a filched apple in the other.