One Whisper Away (26 page)

“I couldn’t sleep.”

Since this was her sister, since it was undoubtedly obvious she wore nothing under her dressing gown, and since it also seemed that they’d been heard—Cecily tried to ignore the heat in her face and didn’t bother to try to brazen it out. “I would never call him prudent,” she said with a small, rueful laugh. “But yes, he arrived and departed in a relatively anonymous manner. Or at least I thought so. I certainly hope you’re the only one who knows he was here.”

“If I hadn’t been unable to sleep and come to your door to apologize for being so brusque earlier, I would never have heard anything.” Eleanor folded her hands in her lap and seemed fascinated with her intertwined fingers. “It was quite . . . enlightening, really.”

Could
this get more embarrassing? “How much did you hear exactly?”

“Not
that
,” her sister said, her face also taking on a peculiar shade of pink. “I meant that I truly do believe you prefer Lord Augustine to Lord Drury. You might have refused an engagement with the latter for my sake, but you never would have bedded the former without deeper feeling on your part.”

The confession at last. Knees weak, Cecily sank down on the bed. She opened her mouth to explain that she hadn’t bedded so much as she’d
been
bedded, but she decided the fine distinction was unimportant and nodded. “True.”

“It made me feel considerably better,” her sister told her, looking much like someone who might be in front of a tribunal of the Inquisition. Then, being typically Elle, she glanced up and said frankly, “Because I know you know.”

“About your feelings for Lord Drury?” Cecily nodded. “Yes. Or I suspected anyway.”

How nice it would be to get this out in the open.

Her sister toyed with a bit of green trim at the edge of her sleeve, and then sighed with obvious resignation. “Goodness, Ci, when did this get all so complicated?”

“Love just seems to be.”

“Yes, I agree. When I met Elijah Winters last season, he showed no sign of looking for a wife. As it turned out, I hardly attracted a host of suitors anyway, so when the season was over and we returned to the country, I wasn’t all that disheartened over my lack of popularity. His friendship with Roddy meant he visited us now and then, so it wasn’t as if I didn’t get to see him.” Eleanor lifted her chin, her gaze level. “I was even misguided enough to think maybe he’d came to Eddington Hall so often because of me. Then the minute you make your debut, he’s passionately on his knees.”

“Figuratively on his knees,” Cecily corrected. “And it has occurred to me that he might be more interested in you than even
he
realizes. All I know is he makes more attempts to get you alone than he ever has done with me.”

“To talk about you.”

“To talk
with
you,” she countered. “What if I am just the excuse? I’ve never sensed a real interest. He certainly did not invite me on a morning ride when at Eddington.”

“Ci, we happened to be at the stables at the same time. I am sure that as a gentleman, he felt he had no choice but to suggest we ride together. And that aside, if what you are saying is in the least true, why wouldn’t he just approach
me
?” her sister asked in a very small voice.

It was a bit difficult to articulate her theory, but then again, she’d been thinking about it for quite a while. “Perhaps you intimidate his lordship. I don’t think you’d deny, Elle, that you are not the average retiring miss. Last season you won a reputation for being excruciatingly sharp-tongued, and since he is a gentleman of some reserve, maybe it made him wary. Still, perhaps he couldn’t keep from thinking about you. Talking about his courtship of me was a good excuse.” Cecily paused and smiled wryly. “It wasn’t much of a courtship, actually. Aside from the flowers he has sent, he has probably waltzed with you more than he has with me. One of the reasons I was opposed to an engagement is that I don’t really know him. That means, of course, he doesn’t know me either, so what he thought he wanted might not be the wanton young woman who is now irrevocably compromised.”

Eleanor replied stoutly, “Compromised? Nonsense. If you don’t want Augustine, no one needs to know it ever happened. I would never tell anyone.”

Her sister’s loyalty was moving, but she
did
want him. She wanted nothing more. Cecily murmured, “I think matters are settled between Jonathan and me, so do not worry on that point, but what I am saying is that you and Lord Drury are much more in accord than he and I would ever have been. Goodness, Elle, he turns to you for advice. That shows a level of respect a man rarely gives a woman.”

“Respect is nice but not especially romantic.” Her sister rose, paced over to the window, and put a palm against the glass, staring outside at the dreary day. “Do you think there is actually a chance? What should I do?”

Eleanor, as an older sibling, was much more likely to deliver advice than ask for it. Cecily weighed her words. “I think there is a very good chance. He is looking for a wife and he admires you. Three waltzes in one evening, walks in the garden . . . I’m not the only one to notice. If he’s blind to it, you need to awaken him to the fact it is you he wants, not me.”

“How on earth do I do that?”

Emboldened by her newfound experience, Cecily let her mouth curve into a smile as she surveyed her sister’s lush beauty in her becoming gown. “I haven’t much direct advice, but I suspect you’ll find a way.”

H
e rode Seneca out every day, rain or shine, and this particular morning had neither. The rain had cleared off, but the leaden skies remained, though they didn’t alter Jonathan’s good mood—which had nothing to do with the weather and everything to do with a certain golden-haired young woman he’d left sleeping peacefully just before dawn.

But he had to admit his fine spirits were tempered by curiosity. Lily had been waiting for him right after breakfast, looking young and pretty in a light blue riding habit, and to his surprise she had actually suggested they ride together.

How could he refuse such a proverbial olive branch? Besides, he needed to discuss his engagement with her anyway, as he suspected Carole and Betsy had already at the least heard the rumors.

But he discovered as they walked their horses sedately through the park, the leaves of the trees still dripping and the path sodden, it wasn’t his upcoming marriage she wanted to discuss, but her aborted betrothal.

His sister, her gloved hands lightly holding the reins of her mare, said quietly, “Lord Sebring came to see me last night.”

Seneca splashed through a puddle. Jonathan processed that revelation. “I wasn’t home. I hope you didn’t receive him without a chaperone present.”

For that he received a stony look. “He already ruined me, remember? Why should I refuse?”

A valid point. “I do remember,” he said coolly. “Though, as you are about to reenter society, perhaps you should be more discreet. I believe you were the one to inform me that I should do nothing that might reflect badly on our family at this crucial time for Betsy and Carole.”

“I was somewhat startled,” she admitted after a moment, looking straight ahead, her expression somber. “It was quite late. I doubt anyone saw him arrive. I assume that he was careful, since otherwise his wife might hear of the visit.”

Jonathan had also paid an unorthodox visit last evening, so it would be hypocritical to criticize Lord Sebring, but at least he didn’t already have a wife and he had every intention of marrying Cecily. “Let’s hope he was.”

They rode in silence for a few minutes and he waited, for he now understood that the ride had a purpose, and while Lillian could be prickly and disapproving, he did wish for more understanding between them.

When the clouds parted for a moment and a brief ray of sunshine came down, she said, “His marriage is pretty wretched for him.”

“As I understand it, he’s to blame for his choice.” The words were neutral. He didn’t know Sebring and he didn’t care too much about his miserable marriage, not if the man had been the source of such pain for Lillian.

“From how
I
understand it . . . not entirely.”

“If you refer to what James claims to be Sebring’s aspirations to advancement in English politics, I am sorry, Lily. That still is his choice. By marrying to further himself, he needs to pay the price if she is not the woman he really wanted.” He consciously loosened his jaw. “He left you to suffer the consequences of the failed elopement in a very public way that has hurt you. I find it inordinately hard to forgive.”

“He did it because in his own way, he loves me.”

That admittedly made no sense whatsoever to him. Jonathan leveled a hard stare in his sister’s direction, their horses moving along the path, the slight splash of their passage nearly the only sound on this damp morning. “Female logic tends to escape me. I’m finding that more and more. How does a man show his love for a woman by persuading her to run off with him, spending the night at an inn and thereby destroying her reputation, and then blithely refusing to marry her?”

She bit her lower lip, white teeth digging into the tender flesh, and then she returned his look in fair measure. “Your word this is between us.”

That sounded serious enough. In exasperation, he said, “As if I would ever reveal a confidence, Lily. We may not have a lifetime of acquaintance, but surely you know that much about me. Of course.”

“I’m not worried for myself. I am worried for Arthur’s sake.”

Haltingly, she continued. “It wasn’t blithely at all that he changed his mind and brought me back to London. We intended to marry . . . but he had second thoughts. In the end, he didn’t marry me because our friendship was deep enough he couldn’t do that to me.”

This was about as clear as a thick London morning fog. Jonathan asked bluntly, “Do what to you? What is worse than ruining and then jilting you?”

There was a slight pause and the expression on her face was strained. “That night at the inn . . . he told me finally . . . he confessed he doesn’t really like women . . .
that
way.”

Jonathan was hardly unworldly, and he understood at last what she meant. There were men who preferred men. It wasn’t as unusual as most people pretended, but certainly not a usual topic of conversation, and he just didn’t know what to say to his younger sister. Picturing such a disillusioning disclosure when she had sacrificed so much was difficult. Whatever he’d expected, it wasn’t quite that particular explanation. “I’m sorry,” he finally murmured.

“So was I,” she responded, her voice muted, “especially after I’d agreed to elope with him. I think he believed that because we’d become such good friends, it could perhaps work. The belated fit of conscience, however, is still appreciated and probably only happened because we genuinely liked each other. What if I’d married him—which I would have—and found out later about his . . . inclinations? I’d rather be ruined.”

“Which,” Jonathan said slowly, “you are not in a literal sense, I take it, in light of this new information.”

“No. He didn’t touch me. From the way I understand it, he didn’t even want to.”

Surely a devastating realization for a young woman in love. Jonathan felt a fresh surge of anger wash over him at the bleak tone of her voice. “You’ve taken the brunt of this.”

“No.” She shook her head, her expression drawn but not angry. “Jonathan, think about it. He could have never told me and married me. Yes, it took some courage to face that my life had changed forever, but not nearly as much as it took for him to tell me the truth before it was too late. He gave me a choice. I chose infamy rather than living with a man who would never love or desire me except as a friend.”

He tried to imagine marrying a woman who did not want his attentions, and a bit of his anger eased as he saw her point. Still, his voice was terse. “He married anyway.”

“A completely different arrangement. She coveted his title.”

“That excuses it?” He guided Seneca around a dripping oak.

“I’m not sure.” Lillian’s mouth tightened. “How can I judge either of them? But this I do know—he
thought
he was giving her what she wanted. I desired something far different from him than just becoming Lady Sebring. I wanted a husband who loved me in a romantic way, and he knew I would be devastated when I sensed the truth.”

Now that the picture had gone from blurry into crystal clear focus, Jonathan did think he understood her decision and her insistence that they keep the family name off the forked tongues of the gossips. Not to mention her reluctance to rejoin society.

She didn’t trust men.

He didn’t blame her. First her would-be fiancé had betrayed her, and then her father had died and left her future in the hands of a half brother she barely knew who lived an ocean away. “You must have told Father the truth.”

“Yes.” The answer was very quiet. “I had no choice, for he insisted that I marry Arthur and I had to give the reason for my refusal. In the end, he agreed with me. I suppose to a certain extent it was because he’d been so very in love with your mother and then experienced a much less happy existence with my mother, who married him for much the same reason Arthur’s wife became Lady Sebring.”

Unfortunately, that was true as far as Jonathan knew. His stepmother had been beautiful, sophisticated, and extremely accepting of her husband’s long absences when he visited America. His father had never said much, but Jonathan always had the impression that except for his three daughters, his father regretted his loveless second marriage.

This was the point—as her guardian, Jonathan should reassure Lillian that all would be well and that she would fall passionately in love again, but both of those were out of his control. What he could do is promise to do his best to see to her future.