He watched the carriage pull away and stood on Bond Street with his hands in his pockets and the afternoon sun warm on his face, and the memory of Lily in sapphire blue burning behind his ribs like a coal that would not cool.
Wilfrey, he reminded himself.She wants Wilfrey.
The reminder tasted like ash.
CHAPTER 14
“The banns have been read.” Lady Brimsey set down her teacup and folded her hands in her lap with the quiet gravity of a woman delivering news she had been turning over in her mind all morning.
The breakfast room at Brimsey House was bright with June sunlight, and the scent of toast and marmalade hung in the warm air.
Lily looked up from her plate. “I beg your pardon?”
“The banns. Three Sundays now. The rector at St. George’s read them again yesterday.” Lady Brimsey’s gaze held something complicated. Hope and worry and the tenderness of a mother watching her daughter walk a path she could not follow. “The congregation expects a wedding, Lily.”
The toast in Lily’s hand suddenly felt like it weighed several pounds. She set it down.
Three Sundays. The banns had been read three times, which meant that in the eyes of the Church of England and everyone who attended St. George’s, Hanover Square, the Duke of Thornwaite and Lady Lily Readthorpe were authorized to marry. The fiction had gained the weight of sacrament, and Lily was not sure when that had happened or how she had failed to notice.
“The banns are part of the arrangement, Mama. They had to be read to make the engagement appear genuine.”
“I understand that.” Lady Brimsey reached across the table and covered Lily’s hand with her own. “I simply want you to know that your father and I will support whatever decision you make. Whether the engagement ends as planned, or whether it becomes something else.”
“It will end as planned.”
Lady Brimsey squeezed her hand and said nothing further, which was, in its way, a response.
Lord Brimsey appeared in the doorway with his newspaper tucked under his arm and a piece of toast already in his mouth. He surveyed the scene with the practiced instinct of a man who had learned to identify emotional conversations from across a room and to navigate them with the careful neutrality of a diplomat crossing hostile territory.
“Good morning,” he said through the toast.
“Good morning, Papa.”
He kissed the top of Lily’s head, squeezed his wife’s shoulder, and settled into his chair with the newspaper raised like a fortification.
Two days later, a parcel arrived at Brimsey House.
Lily found it on her bed when she returned from an afternoon walk with Aunt Margaret, who had spent the entire outing cataloging the shortcomings of every gentleman they passed on the street and comparing each one unfavorably to the late Marquess of Oldbarrow, who had apparently been the last man in England worth marrying.
The parcel was wrapped in cream paper and tied with a dark blue ribbon. Inside, nestled in layers of tissue, lay three gowns. The first was a rich burgundy velvet with a fitted bodice and sleeves that left the shoulders bare. The second was ivory muslin, deceptively simple in its cut, with a neckline that dipped lower than anything Lily currently owned. The third was a deep plum silk with a sash that cinched at the natural waist and fell in a waterfall of fabric that would move with every step.
A folded note rested on top.
For the house party. Wear them with your hair looser than you usually do. Let a few locks fall free around your face. Youhave a habit of pinning everything back as though you are preparing for battle.
Let the armor down. Just this once.
P.S. You have lovely collarbones. It would be a crime to keep hiding them.
— H.
Lily read the note three times. Her cheeks burned with each pass.
She held the burgundy velvet up to her reflection in the mirror. The color was striking against her skin, warm and rich, and the cut would follow the lines of her body in ways that made her stomach tighten. She reached up and pulled a pin from her hair. A curl fell against her cheek.
She stared at the woman in the mirror. She looked like someone she did not entirely recognize. Someone softer. Someone who might let a man see her collarbones and not feel as though she had surrendered something vital.
She tucked the curl behind her ear, set the gown down, and folded the note into the back of her journal where no one would find it.
