She was all “How enchanted to meet you,” “What a stunning gown,” “I attended school with your daughter. Such a kind girl. How is she doing? A new baby? You must be very proud,” and “Why yes, I shall be at the Marylewick house party. How lovely that we should meet again.” All the while, Charles kept a possessive hand on her shoulder, as if having finally met her, he was determined to keep her captive.
When His Grace finally paused a moment to rub his whiskers and contemplate the tariffs on New South Wales, George dove into the conversational hole. “Thank you for suggesting the stroll. I say, listening to the chirping birds truly relaxes the soul. Unfortunately, I have some papers to read over before attending Parliament. I’m afraid I must whisk my cousin away.”
“A high-spirited filly, that one.” The duke gazed to where his son had wrapped Lilith’s hand around his elbow. “But she’ll make a fine lady when she’s tamed.”
Lilith would most certainly be tamed and not by Lord Charles. George would be the one to “bleed her wild heart dry” and “destroy her gentle, yearning soul.”
The duke turned to George. “I look forward to your house party and meeting the charming Miss Dahlgren again.”
George bowed and muttered a nicety to excuse himself, instead of the curse he wanted to utter.
His plans to polish up Lilith over the course of a few months and quietly pop her off had exploded. He plunged into the crowd to fish her out before she could make any more of a mockery of him. It was no easy task. He had to answer as to where he had been hiding her all these years. And yes, she was a dear lady. And so very charming.
“Enough of this little show,” he hissed in her ear when he finally reached her.
He managed to untangle her from Charles and forcibly escort her away until he had put a safe distance between her and her impassioned suitor.
“You did that on purpose,” he accused.
“Did what?” she asked, so innocently. “Martyr myself for your political career? Really, you should be grateful. A tiny ‘thank you’ wouldn’t be out of order.”
“You did no such thing. You’re angry because…” He faltered. Admitting the truth was too damning.
She stopped and faced him. “What reason would I have to be angry? That you’ve ejected me from my home? Or the little annual Marylewick house party to which annually I wasn’t invited? In fact, I hadn’t even heard of it. You said you were my family, but we are not related after all. Stop pretending.”
“Did you not once say—no, shout is the better word—that Tyburn was the tenth circle of hell—that Dante had forgotten one? I hope you are quite satisfied with yourself. And don’t think of displaying yourself as boldly as you did with Lord Charles ever again.”
“Why? Am I too lowly for him? Could you not believe that I, Lilith Dahlgren, supposedly devoid of all proper manners, could win the admiration of a duke’s son?”
“I have no doubt in the powers of your charm when properly directed. But the simple truth is that Lord Charles is neither kind nor loyal, although he may give you an impressive home.”
“Really? What terrible thing has he done?”
She searched his face. He heated under her scrutiny. “He…he made sport of me.”
“In Parliament? Isn’t that what you’re supposed to do?”
“No, at Eton.” He couldn’t explain the humiliation of having books hidden so Charles and the band of school boys who orbited him could delight in knowing George received the paddle, hearing snide little ditties made up about him echoing in the corridors, or wiping dog defecation from his bedcovers. Those episodes really shouldn’t matter almost twenty years later. He shouldn’t still think of them.
“Eton! George, people change from when they were twelve,” she said, as if he were an idiot.
“Truly? Because you’re still as unmanageable and hard-headed!” he fired back out of frustration.
She flinched. “I—I don’t want to talk to you for a while,” she said slowly. “You’ve hurt my feelings.”
She spun on her heel and walked away—her shoulders drooping. Her gown was so tight that it formed tight creases along her back. She appeared frail and sad. He wanted to run to her and assure her that he would make everything well. But he checked himself.
Then she peered over her shoulder at him. The sunlight formed a halo of light around her, like a medieval painting of the Madonna. The beauty flooded his senses and he hastened toward her.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t know why, but when I’m with you, I’m—”
“A consummate arse!”
“I would say unbending and prone to anger in certain situations.”
A burst of laughter shook her body. “Certain situations?”
“You’re not innocent either. And historically, you have never liked Tyburn—”
“Historically, it’s been made abundantly clear to me that I was never wanted at Tyburn.”
George couldn’t refute the hard truth. So he said nothing. Words didn’t seem to be helping their situation.
“I’m so tired,” she said, finally. She closed her eyes and somehow all her wild, magnetic energy drained away. It was like watching a play end, the audience leave, the usher snuff the lamps, leaving an empty theatre and a bare set. “I want to go home.” She pressed her hand to her forehead. “But I don’t have one anymore.”
Five
Lilith didn’t speak to George for the remainder of the walk to Half Moon Street. She turned over all that had occurred, as if by mental force she might make it unhappen. Frances and Edgar, whom she loved and trusted, had deserted her. Her heart hurt as it had when her mother explained that Lilith couldn’t stay with her any longer because Mama had a new family. Lilith had told George that people changed from when they were twelve, because she wanted to mock him. But inside she still felt like a scared child, only now she was better at concealing her fears and hurt.
At home—or what once was her home—the wagon was gone from the door and the neighbors had returned to their houses. All the large pieces of furniture had been restored, but the candlesticks, silver, gewgaws, and Edgar’s own paintings were missing. No laughter or energy infused the house. The rooms were like cold corpses.
“I had told my groom to return in two hours,” George said. “We have but a few minutes left. I shall have your personal items fetched in the morning. Can I assist you in packing anything you need for this evening?”
“No!”
He raised a brow at the violence of her reply.
She couldn’t allow him in her room with all her beloved books and personal possessions, including the portfolio containing the vile words she had scribed about him. She couldn’t let him see her. The real her. “I, um, need to pack for my feminine ailment.”
“Ailment? Are you ill? Shall I take you to a physician?”
Was the man that obtuse?
“My monthly feminine ailment.”
“Oh.” That properly scared him. His face and neck turned scarlet. “Oh,” he said again. He backed toward the door. “I had no idea—I mean, not that I should have known.” His skin tone continued to creep across the red color spectrum. “I’ll…I’ll wait outside.” He hurried away.
She slowly mounted the stairs. In her chamber, her belongings were back in their proper places, neater than she had left them this morning. Soon they would be packed up again. Another hope dashed and another unknown future looming. She had loved living here. She’d had so much hope that she had finally broken from her past.
She sank into her desk chair, hung her head in her hands, and broke into tears. For tonight, she would go to George’s home. She could sort out her life in the morning and make her escape. She just didn’t have the strength at the moment.
She wept until she heard the carriage draw up and George’s rich voice booming her name and carrying on about needing to attend Parliament. She drew her portmanteau from her trunk—the one that had been with her through four different boarding schools, two finishing schools, and across the channel last summer with Frances and Edgar. She nestled her locked portfolio and Keats’s poems inside. With tear-blurred vision, she pulled two gowns, three chemises, fresh pantalets, and stockings from her clothes press. She folded them together and placed them on top of the book. Then she added her toothbrush, paste, hairbrush, and a tin of hairpins. Despite what George thought, she required very little. She could hear him pacing about below, no doubt growing impatient. She had far exceeded her allocated fifteen-minute appointment.
At her door, she turned back and gazed once more at the chamber where she had spent so many beautiful hours lost in the imaginary world of Colette and Sultan Murada. She whispered the final lines of Tennyson’s poem Break, Break, Break. “‘But the tender grace of a day that is dead / Will never come back to me.’”
Lilith adored walking about the city, rubbing elbows with its inhabitants. The rush of the metropolis exhilarated her. She delighted in mounting the top of the omnibus and gazing up at the buildings as the cumbersome vehicle lumbered through the streets. However, George wheeled about London in a lonely bubble of glass and luxury. Being inside it made her feel even sadder, as if she had been plucked from her colorful life and put in a sealed, hermetic bottle.