Lily (46 page)

‘”Inasmuch as Mr. Trehearne applied for and was granted exclusive rights to make and sell the device known as Trehearne’s Saccharometer,’”—just saying the words made her smile—“‘such rights secured by letters patent under Patent No. 1049, enrolled 29 January 1790; and inasmuch as the Solicitor General has determined that Mr. Trehearne’s alcohol proof-measuring device is substantially and intrinsically different from and superior in accuracy to similar devices in use preceding its invention—‘ so on and so on—this is the good part—‘all stipends, fees, and royalties earned from said patent now entail to his heirs and assigns’—that’s me—‘according to the terms of his Will.’ Listen to
this.
‘As of current date, first payment of such royalties, to be compounded henceforward on 1 June per annum, amounts to the sum of four diousand, seven hundred fifty-four pounds, eight shillings!’ “

She shook her head in amazement. “A Saccharometer! Oh, Papa,” she exclaimed, then laughed softly. “It measures ‘specific gravity,’ whatever that is. Charlie, your grandfather invented something that—what was it?” She went back to the letter. “ ‘Proof spirit at 60°. contains 49.24% absolute alcohol by weight; the degrees over or under proof ascertained by Trehearne’s Saccharometer are percentages by volume of a standard spirit, which is the proof spirit.’ Well, anyway, it measures how strong the whiskey is!”

Still smiling, she folded the letter and her father’s will and returned them to the envelope. She lay back on the bed and stared up at the shadowy ceiling. Ever so slowly her smile faded, and with it her elation. Nothing had changed, not really. She would leave Darkstone wealthy instead of poor, but she would still leave. She didn’t even know where she would go. Lyme, probably, at least at first, because she had one friend there. The irritatingly banal though surfaced that money, which she had needed for so long, couldn’t buy the one thing she really wanted.

She flung herself onto her side. “You’re all I really want,” she corrected herself, rubbing a soft hand over her stomach. “You, Charlie, you’re the one and only thing. And that’s the truth.” It had to be, for Charlie was all she could have.

“Oh, baby,” she whispered, feeling the damned, useless tears start again. “We’ll take care of each other and we’ll be all right. We’ll live in a big house. We’ll make friends and we won’t be lonely.” She closed her eyes and listened to the sad, far-off rumble of the surf. “Maybe we’ll live in a house by the sea,” she murmured tiredly, and slipped into a dream.

She opened her eyes to the sound of knocking, and saw that the candle had begun to gutter. It wasn’t terribly late; Lowdy must have come back.

But it wasn’t Lowdy—it was Devon.

“May I come in?”

“Why?”

His face was shadowed, invisible; it was the sound of his voice when he said, “Please,” that compelled her to open the door wide and step back.

He stood in the dim center of the room, hands at his sides. She had never let him into the cottage before. “It looks different. Cobb wouldn’t know the place.”

She followed his gaze. It looked the same to her. She’d brought in flowers, moved the furniture a little, nothing more. To fill the new silence, she said, “I see Mr. Cobb occasionally on the grounds. He never speaks, never acknowledges me. I can imagine what he must think of me. I shouldn’t have taken his house.”

“But that’s what you wanted. Anyway, I’ve told you, Cobb doesn’t care where he lives; he’s content in the room next to his office.”

More silence. Lily went to the table and trimmed the flickering candle. When she turned back, Devon hadn’t moved. “It’s late,” she murmured. “What do you want with me, Dev?”

Instead of answering, he moved toward her. She stepped back automatically, but he pulled the only chair out from the table and sat down. The light fluttered on his handsome face; she fancied she saw pain in his eyes. She opened her mouth to tell him to go.

“I was twenty-three when I met my wife,” he said, watching her, his forearms on the table.

Lily backed up until she felt the closed door against her shoulders. “If you tell me this, it won’t matter,” she said tightly. “It won’t make any difference.”

“I was visiting my sister in Somerset,” he went on asif she hadn’t spoken. “Maura was the oldest child’s governess. She was half-French, half-Irish. Long black hair, black as midnight, and black eyes. She came from Dorset; her father was a tenant farmer. She got her education from the local parson, some kind soul who saw a spark of intelligence in her and helped her to find a way out. She never looked back.”

“I tell you I don’t want to hear this.”

“She was eighteen when I met her and—unbeknownst to me, of course—sexually experienced far beyond her years. It was her beauty that attracted me at first, but later it was the resdessness in her and the—energy, a kind of impatience that I’d already recognized in myself. She was pale and fragile, Lily, a tiny thing, incandescent,
burning
inside with needs and wants I thought I understood. I though we were alike.”

He unclenched his hands and put them on his knees. “So I married her. When it was over, my naïveté stunned me. I’d bought a farm in Dorset, thinking she’d like living close to home. But the very quality that had drawn me to her was restlessness—how could I have been stupid enough to think she would enjoy a life that was just like the one she’d tried so hard to escape?

“In moments not quite so full of self-disgust, I understood that part of it was her fault. She agreed to every suggestion I made, seemed pleased and flattered by every ‘condescension,’ as she called it. Not once did she give me a hint that anything was amiss. Until the night she left me a note on the kitchen table and took herself off with my bailiff and all the money she could find in the house. ‘I can’t live this life, I’m leaving you,’ she wrote. She didn’t bother to sign her name.”

Lily pressed her fists to her chin, hating what he could make her feel. But helpless tears slid down her cheeks, and there was nothing she could do about it.

“I never think about her now. I found the letters I’d written to her—needless to say, she didn’t take them with her. Reading them again was the only way I could call back what it was I’d felt for her. I wanted to understand the passion, the—insanity. But they’re only words. There’s no feeling at all anymore. Nothing.”

He stared into space. A moment later he put his elbows on his thighs and buried his face in his hands. Drawn against her will, Lily moved toward him soundlessly. She knew as surely as if he’d spoken where his thoughts had led.

“But I never stop thinking about Edward,” he said in a muffled voice. “She took him. Oh, Christ. He was eight months old. He could smile and laugh. When I held him he never cried.” She crept closer and put her hands on his shoulders, standing behind him. “Sometimes his little body seems so real to me, Lily, I can almost feel him. He had black hair, soft as flax. And he was fat. And very … happy. I think he was happy.” His shoulders hunched; he took a breath and sat up abruptly, the back of his head pressed against her bosom. “But sometimes I can’t get out of my mind how he looked, his—corpse. Two days dead and still unburied. He looked so small. His skin was blue—his beautiful face—” He couldn’t finish. A sob rose in his chest and shook his whole body. Lily embraced him and held tight, unable to console, helpless in the face of his despair. Their tears mingled and fell on her crossed arms. She murmured to him, her cheek pressed to his temple. He took a shuddering breath and drew his handkerchief from his pocket.

She stepped back. She was shaking because of what she had to tell him, what she had to tell herself—that her heart had closed up. It contained one person now, the child in her womb, and could admit no one else.

“Devon.” He turned to look at her. She was relieved to see that he had himself in control again. “I’m sorry for your pain. It hurts me—so much. More than I can bear. But this child”—she stopped and swallowed, and now she could only whisper—“this child is mine, and you can’t have it.”

He stared at her without speaking for so long that finally she couldn’t stand it. It felt as if she’d thrust a knife into his heart, then into hers. Not knowing what he would do, she went to him again and put her arms around him. His body felt heavy, limp. She put her face in his hair and kissed him—a silent, secret kiss.

Then her arms fell away. She moved back, across the shadowy room toward the bed, and sat down on its edge. “I’m so tired. Please go now, I have to go to sleep.”

He didn’t move. Minutes passed, and she thought she heard him say, “Ah, Lily. You are my joy and my dark penance.” He stood and came to her, pulled her gently up from the bed by her hands. The light was dim here; they could hardly see each other. He touched his fingertips to the dark smudges of fatigue under her eyes. “Let me help you,” he said, stroking the back of her neck with his warm hand. “Let me do this for you.”

His touch was soft—and she needed it so much. And he needed it, too. She closed her eyes. She would allow herself just a moment’s pleasure, because it had been so long. So long.

Gradually she realized he was unfastening her gown in back. She turned around, away from him, but he slid one arm beneath her breasts to hold her. “Let me, Lily.” Something in the touch of his hands reassured her; she stood quietly, her head bowed.

He eased the dress off her shoulders and let it slip to the floor. “Where’s your nightgown?” She pointed to the foot of the bed. He started to unfasten her chemise.

“Don’t. No, don’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because—I don’t want you to see me.”

He moved his hands down to cover her swollen stomach. “But you’re beautiful.”

“I’m not.” She remembered to add, “And I don’t need you to say that I am.”

“No,” he agreed. “But you are anyway. You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever known. You always will be. Do you think that because your belly’s big I don’t want you?”

“I don’t know—I don’t care, I mean—“

“I remember everything about your body.” He went back to unbuttoning her shift in front, his arms reaching around her, fingers light and gentle. “I remember how soft your skin is, how sweet it smells. How warm in my hands. I remember your hair, tickling my face, smelling of soapsuds. The bones of your face under my fingers, your eyelashes touching my cheek, my lips. Your mouth. God, Lily, I remember your mouth.”

“Devon—”

“The taste of you, Lily, the sweet, sweet taste. Touching you was so good. Your breasts are soft and perfect and they filled my hands just right.”

“Please—”

He had her naked now, but didn’t turn her to face him. He spread his hands over her stomach again and took a deep, unsteady breath. Lily leaned back against him and allowed it, her heart full and aching. “I want you. There’s no one else but you. Lily, I’m dying for you.”

She felt his breath fan her neck, her shoulder. The thought of loving him, making love with him now, made her tremble. He moved his hands up to hold her full breasts, and the trembling became a palsied shaking she couldn’t control.

“You’re cold.” He let her go, slowly. His voice sounded strange. He snagged her nightgown from the bed and gave it to her. She pulled it on jerkily, then faced him to sit on the edge of the bed and take off her stockings. She did it without coyness, and the intimate chore—the raising of the hem of her gown past her knees, the quick, efficient peeling of the cotton hose over her long calves—moved him as nothing else had; his whole body tensed with desire so desperate it frightened him.

She finished and lay down, covering herself. The blanket flowed in seductive shadows across the soft mounds of her belly and her breasts. “Let me kiss you,” he said hoarsely.

Her voice was scarcely any lighter. “You mustn’t.”

He sat beside her and put his hands on either side of the pillow. “Don’t you want me to?”

The question confounded her. The answer to it was so obvious she though he must be taunting her. “It won’t mean anything,” she said shakily.

“It won’t mean anything?”

She felt inexplicably ashamed.

“It will mean something to me,” he said. He leaned over and pressed his lips to hers.

She was lost immediately in the warmth and the urgency and the sweetness. She made a sound of longing and defeat, and reached for his wrists. His mouth stayed gentle and undemanding; it was impossible to say who started the provocative caress of tongues or the deep, hot kisses and the hard, trembling, purposeful clutch of hands. Hunger, stronger than anything they’d known before, caught them off guard. Her blood sang a warm, surprised song, remembering everything they’d shared. He held her as tightly as he dared, and the firm, generous curve of her belly against him renewed something that had been dead, that he’d long ago given up any hope of resurrecting. At length, in a panic, Lily pushed back at his shoulders. She was panting, her face full of dismay and wonder.

“That meant something,” he said when he could speak. How close they had come. His body was still in rebellion. “Good night, my heart,” he whispered. One last kiss. Their lips touched.

It started again instantly, all the helpless wanting, as if reason had never made its brief, unwanted interruption.

“I don’t want you to seduce me!” Lily cried, but clutching at him with strong fingers.

“I’m not, Lily, I’m loving you.”

“Don’t say it—”

“I love you. I love you.”

She wept, and let him unfasten the gown she’d put on minutes ago. “Tell me why you changed your mind,” she begged, her mouth pressed to his throat. “About me, and Clay. What made you want me again?”

“Let’s not talk.”

“No, tell me now. Please, Dev, it’s time.”

He shut his eyes tight, feeling his blood cool. “I told you, I came to my senses.” He touched her bare breasts with the tips of his fingers, and her breath hissed through her teeth.

But she wouldn’t let it go. “But why? Tell me why. What were you thinking?”

“I was thinking of you, Lily, of the way you are. I remembered how sweet you are, how gentle.” He’d thought it would be hard to lie to her, but it was the easiest thing in the world—because it wasn’t a lie at all. “You could never have hurt Clay. I don’t understand now how I could have believed it, even for a second. I’ll never stop being sorry. You gave me everything, even though you knew I couldn’t give you anything back. I was afraid I’d killed all that sweetness in you. Love me again, Lily, let me back in. I need you.”