“Confess away to Monsignor Lilith.”
“I’ve also secretly studied astronomy, biology, chemistry, physics, Latin, and Greek. And I know more than my brothers. I could be first in the classes if I could go to college.”
“Did you know that Oxford is accepting women this year?” Lilith said.
“They are!” Beatrice sat straight up and then lowered her head. “But proper ladies shouldn’t attend.”
The plaintive tone in her sister’s voice inspired Lilith. She rose and plucked a humble white wildflower growing between the old stones. She distributed the tiny petals between them.
“What is this?” Penelope asked.
“An ancient ritual that I’ve just made up.” Lilith raised her arms and cried, “Great sun god Helios, I present thee with candidates for the sacrosanct Maryle sisterhood.”
Penelope and Beatrice broke into giggles.
“This is very serious!” Lilith admonished. “Don’t anger the sun god.” She gazed upward. “O great Helios, for you to know that I am your true servant, I shall perform the most sacred dance of the sisterhood.” Lilith began to move with the graceful motion of a ballet dancer, before breaking into a rowdy jig and then bowing to the ladies and casting her up skirts, giving Helios her pantalets-clad backside. Penelope and Beatrice clapped.
“Once you are inducted into the Maryle sisterhood,” Lilith said, “all the transgressions of the past are forgiven and you must promise to love your sisters with all your heart and keep their secrets for the remainder of your life. If you are prepared to enter this hallowed order, take ye toffee in your left hand and repeat the age-honored words which I’m making up: ‘By all the delicious bits in this toffee, I swear my lifelong allegiance to the sisterhood.’” Lilith paused while they repeated the words. “By ingesting this confection, we affirm our desires to join the sisterhood and share in the joys and sorrows of our sisters’ hearts. May our lives be sweet like sugar, filling as cream, and joyous as nuts.”
“You are wildly silly,” Penelope said, after chewing and swallowing her sacred toffee. “And I adore you.”
“Here is my secret and I hope my sisters will share in my joy.” How to say it? The words didn’t seem real. Had she dreamed last night? Yet the dull soreness between her thighs was definitely real. “Lord Marylewick—George—and I, we…” The words stuck in her mouth. “We are…going to be married.”
Penelope and Beatrice only stared. Lilith began again. “I’m going to be the new Marchioness of Marylewick.”
Penelope broke into laughter. “You are darlingly funny. I love your little pranks. You are so kind to me after Mama and Fenmore. Sometimes I feel like I haven’t laughed for years.”
Lilith cringed. “I’m not jesting. George asked me to marry him last night.”
Penelope’s laugh petered out. “You’re serious. He asked you?” She blinked, shaking her head, unable to comprehend what she had heard. “Why?”
Lilith’s feelings were rather hurt. “Because he felt it was proper.”
“Proper?” Penelope’s eyes narrowed with carnal understanding. “Did you seduce my brother?”
Lilith didn’t appreciate the outrage in her cousin’s voice. “Things just happened.”
“You mean, you…you…performed the mating dance with Cousin George?” Beatrice said, wide-eyed.
Lilith grabbed the bottle of wine, took several big gulps, and then wiped her mouth. “I love George. I love him. And I’m going to be a good wife.”
“But Lady Marylewick truly abhors you,” Beatrice protested. “Yesterday she blamed you when she tipped over a fire screen and broke a lamp. And you weren’t even in the room.”
“Never mind that,” Penelope said. “Does George love you?”
Lilith swayed on her feet. “The way he touched me and his eyes…”
“Did he say he loved you?” Penelope emphasized each word as if Lilith were hard of hearing.
“No,” Lilith confessed.
Penelope gazed off. The wind blew her hair under her bonnet. “I cannot approve. I cannot. You knew George would do the proper thing. Why did you do that to him? I know most marriages in society are not based on love, but I wanted something different for him. He deserves more for all he’s suffered.”
“I am going to make a loving home for George,” Lilith cried. “Where it is safe for him to be the sensitive man that he is inside. I thought we could all be together, including my brothers. Penelope, you could get away from Fenmore, and Beatrice, you could…could study at Oxford. We could finally be a true family with love and acceptance.” She knelt again. “We shall be happy. All of us. I will make it so.”
“You can’t be a marchioness,” Penelope said. “It’s not your station. You know nothing of finer society.”
“I love your brother with all my being,” Lilith fired back. “That is my station. I decide what society I move in. I govern my own life.”
The two ladies stared at each other.
“Um, I…I don’t think Lady Marylewick would approve,” Beatrice ventured.
Penelope’s shoulders shook. For a moment, Lilith thought she was crying. “Of course she wouldn’t approve!” Penelope broke into laughter. “Love him well, Lilith. Promise me. Never betray him or speak spitefully of him. Give him all the love he deserves.”
“I promise,” Lilith whispered, not without feeling a tinge of guilt over the horrid sultan business. But she would remedy that. She would make all of Britain know what a wonderful man the sultan was. She raised the bottle. “To the Maryle sisterhood.”
“The sisterhood,” the ladies repeated.
Lilith could hear the hesitancy in their voices.
Twenty
Lilith, Penelope, and Beatrice, all a little tipsy on red wine, sauntered back to Tyburn an hour or so later. They were giggling like schoolgirls when the long window by George’s study opened and he peered out. Lilith’s heart quickened at the sight of him. She was no better than a spoony lovesick thirteen-year-old.
“I feel there is mischief in the air,” he said. “Is that an empty bottle of wine?” He shook his head in mock disapproval. “Naughty ladies. Miss Dahlgren, may I speak with you for a moment on a serious matter? Ladies, can you pardon us?”
Lilith’s smile faded. Was he teasing? She couldn’t tell anymore. Or she was so terrified that everything would fall apart that she searched for a sign of doom in every little word.
“Of course,” she stammered.
“One moment, please.” He disappeared into the chamber.
Penelope kissed Lilith’s cheek and then she and Beatrice continued around the wing. Lilith waited, her belly tight with nerves.
What if he had changed his mind? No, he wouldn’t do that. He would sooner be tied to a medieval torture rack than rescind his word. Why was she so skittish? Where was her confidence?
He stepped through the window and closed it. His features were stony. “I’m very upset with you.”
“You are?”
“Come with me, please,” he said curtly and offered his arm.
She hesitantly latched on. “I can’t stand the suspense. What have I done to upset you? Tell me now.”
“You will see soon enough.”
Surely he was jesting. But what if he wasn’t? Her vivid imagination lit up with every possible horrible scenario.
He led her through the garden. Finches flitted about the boxwood labyrinth and the sun sparkled on the water flowing from the center fountain. He stopped by a stone bench against the back brick wall that was shaded by a conifer tree.
“Tell me,” she whispered, ready to respond to the three dozen or so disasters she had already envisioned.
“I’ve had numerous directives handed to me by the prime minister that I need to attend to. The very financing of the British Empire and her interests hinges on this party. I should be very busy, but instead I spent the morning doing this.” He fished out a sheet of paper from his coat and handed it to her: a sketch of a curious wren, its head cocked and tiny feet clinging to a branch. “This little fellow visited the tree by the study window.”
A smile blossomed on her lips as relief washed over her. “It’s lovely. May I keep it? I’ll treasure it.”
“Then perhaps you will be delighted by this dull decanter? I sketched it instead of seeing to my tenants’ welfare.”
“You’ve been seeing to your tenants’ welfare for years. They won’t miss a few minutes of capturing the beautiful light on the glass. The composition is perfect in its simplicity. How dare you call it dull?”
“Aye, but this one I can’t explain. My fingers just itched. I had to draw. I call this The Common Inkwell.”
“You are a master.” She laughed. “Amazing detail in the ordinary. I shall cherish it as I do you in all your amazing detail.” She didn’t know if it was a trick of the sunlight or the unguarded smile on his face and in his eyes that made him appear years younger.
“When Disraeli asks, I’m going to blame the entire debacle on you,” he said.