He couldn’t explain what happened on that sofa between him and Lilith. He had been weak. No matter how wild, alluring, and infuriating, she was his trustee and responsibility.
Maybe the months of the Stamp Duty Extension Bill going back and forth between the houses in conference and the pressure from Disraeli to make the bill pass had worn him down. George was a Tory from the egg, as his Maryle ancestors had been before him, and like any dutiful political warrior, he fought his party’s wars without question.
Maybe the upcoming house party frayed his nerves. A major yet subtle battle would be waged at it in the midst of waltzes and croquet. The party was a treacherous affair of political and romantic maneuvering as ambitious leaders tried to foist their ideas—or their daughters—upon George. He rolled his burning brandy on his tongue and thought of his young female guests.
Maybe it was finally time to get married. Perhaps the lack of consistent female attention lay at the root of his problem with Lilith. After all, he hadn’t had the best of luck with his last mistresses. They were all lovely ladies and the first weeks with each had been spectacular, but his restlessness soon returned after the initial lust had burned out. He kept craving more, wanting something they couldn’t provide and he couldn’t articulate. Maybe he should concede that this restlessness would always be a part of him, stop expecting a woman to sate it, and marry.
Maybe.
However, he knew one thing with certainty. He had to apologize to Lilith. He was a gentleman, and would not cower from his obligations, no matter how odious. Of course, she would lord it over him for months and use it as leverage to wheedle more money. But it couldn’t be helped. He had been in the wrong.
In the morning, he would send out his secretary for flowers that said “I’m sorry. I assure you that it won’t happen ever again. However, I still don’t approve of your wild ways.” Was that hyacinth and Venus flytraps? He would personally deliver them to Half Moon Street after his meeting with his man of business and be done with the bad business before Parliament.
But for now, he didn’t want to think anymore. He reached for an old issue of McAllister’s Magazine to let the story of Colette wash over his troubled mind. He opened to the very first chapter in the series. Colette learns of the encroachment of the sultan and his army on her Greek village. The sultan desires her ailing father’s discovery, the components of the fabled Greek Fire—a fire born of water and difficult to extinguish. The sultan has suppressed the surrounding regions through a regime of cruelty and terror. Colette knows that the secret of Greek Fire would make him unconquerable. She attempts to escape to the safety of Northern Greece with her dying father.
If only Colette existed in bodily form: loving, true, compassionate, and intelligent. She would be his wife.
Three
Lilith burst into the dining room that morning, her mind whirling from drinking cup after cup of unadulterated oolong tea through the night. She wore her lucky lavender gown for the upcoming meeting with her publisher. To fit in it required lying facedown on the floor as their only maid shoved her foot into the small of Lilith’s back and tugged mercilessly at her corset laces. In the crook of her arm, Lilith carried her new, clean chapter, devoid of references to Marylewick.
Frances slumped over a plate of untouched toast and a cupful of steaming tea. Her pallid forehead rested in her hand. Across the table, her husband, Edgar, assumed a matching pose of overindulged, paying-the-piper agony.
Lilith was too hopped up on tea to be brought down. She gazed around to make sure the servant girl wasn’t lurking about and then raised her pages. “My darling cousins, I present you with a masterpiece of sensational fiction. You see, when you threaten your muse, lovely things can happen.” Lilith spoke in that fast, charging clip brought on by caffeine-induced euphoria. “My publisher will adore this chapter and certainly shell out more money. Just listen—‘Colette hold the veil to her scared, tremble head and crouching down in tiny cave made by a collapsed tree. Over her head, she could hear the sultan barking orders rudely at his reticule and’—oh God!” Her face heated. “I wrote this rubbish! The verbs are wrong and the words…this is terrible. Did I really say he barked orders at a lady’s valise? I can’t show this drivel to anyone!”
“No!” Frances bolted up and then swayed for moment, muttering something about never drinking punch again before saying, “I felt your words deep inside me. They stirred my soul.”
Lilith looked at her askew. “Poor grammar stirs your soul?”
“Darling, how can you be provocative and inventive when you use language like everyone else?” Frances linked her arm through Lilith’s and began leading her toward the hall. “Passion knows no bounds or rules. Don’t be a slave to grammar. Live and write freely.” She opened the front door and gently nudged Lilith onto the pavement. In the stark sunlight, Lilith could see the network of tiny wrinkles under her cousin’s tired eyes.
“Is something wrong?” Lilith asked. “Aside from the punch, that is.”
Frances gazed down. “I didn’t want to say this in front of Edgar. But he and I had a dreadful row after the party. He’s terribly worried about money.”
“I’m so sorry.” Lilith embraced her dear cousin-in-law. “I’m going to find what quids I can. I promise. What more can I do? Tell me.”
“He and I just need to be alone for a little reconciliation today. Do you mind staying away until after two o’clock? Please.”
“Of course, whatever you require.” Lilith put aside her vision of returning victorious from the publisher and celebrating by curling up in her bed until the evening parties began.
“Now you go sell your chapter, make a wagonload of money, follow your dreams.” Frances kissed her cheek. “Good luck, my darling. I adore you.” She turned away, stepped inside, and quietly shut the door.
Lilith hurried down the walk, muttering under her breath, “Get quids,” then added, “get wagonloads of quids. Mountains of quids. All that matters are quids.” She practiced the words she would say to her editor all the way to Fleet Street. But when she reached the imposing brick building with McAllister written across the top, she felt like a scared child again, arriving at a new school, unsure of what her life would be like. Would she make friends, would the teachers be kind, or if not, could they be easily bamboozled, would the library have many books? She clutched her pages and remembered Frances’s worried expression when she left that morning. Lilith couldn’t allow her fears to paralyze her. She must face the publisher and demand more money for the sake of her cousin’s marriage and the gallery. But still she remained planted on the spot. A tiny voice in her head reminded her: It’s either McAllister or Marylewick. Choose.
She forced herself to take a step forward, and then another, feeling her confidence rise. A determined smile spread her lips by the time she was ushered into Mr. McAllister’s office.
A half hour later, Lilith emerged from Mr. McAllister’s office nine pounds richer and holding a document outlining the terms for another story. She wondered why she had been so afraid to ask for money from the publisher before. He was all too happy to agree to her terms and enthusiastic about her new story ideas.
Sunlight gleamed off the roofs and tops of carriages. Lilith released a long breath. She had money, true money, to give the gallery, not a measly shilling here and there. Money that she didn’t have to beg, tease, plead, or lie about to squeeze from George. A small, fragile root of hope burgeoned in her heart: perhaps one day very soon she might be able to support herself as a writer, as well as help Frances, Edgar, and their gallery. She might not need George after all.
She halted in the current of human traffic, raised her head, and laughed. The idea of independence felt like cool rain on a parched desert. “I sing the body electric.” She cried out Walt Whitman’s line and smiled at the confused stares she garnered.
Of course, her writer’s imagination ran wild. As she wove through the crowds, she daydreamed of reaching Charles Dickens’s and Victor Hugo’s literary status. Having her bestselling novels cram the bookshop windows and demands for her to read passages to packed auditoriums. Without monetary concerns, she could marry a chimney sweep if she pleased and have her name appear in fat bold print on a leather-bound book and no blustering Marquess of Marylewick could stop her. In fact, she would send George copies of her bestselling books, signed “Keep the money (and your stiff man part), Lilith Dahlgren.” What would she do with all her delicious money?
But the more pertinent question at hand was where would she pass the time until Frances and Edgar had thoroughly reconciled?
A silly question, really, she thought as she stepped into a bookshop.
The smell of leather, ink, and pages crowded out her thoughts. She was in paradise. All around her were shelves and shelves of glorious books which whispered read me, escape into my delightful world.
She found a vacant chair, as if waiting for her, by a second floor window. For the next three hours—or was it four?—she was lost in the intrigue of Tolstoy’s Russian aristocracy or giggling at the droll irrationality of Alice’s Wonderland.