“Yes,” she murmured.
“At least there’s that. At least it wasn’talllies.”
His voice held a condemnation too heavy for her to bear. She blinked rapidly though her eyes were dry. Lily tried to call to mind the hurt and anger she’d felt when Lord Hayes had threatened to arrest her.
She found she couldn’t feel anything past the heart-pounding terror of being caught. Lily thought she was in real danger of being sick upon the floor.
Lord Hayes frowned down at her and snapped, “Breathe, Lily. Swooning won’t get you out of this; it will only prolong the episode and prove embarrassing to both of us.”
He surveyed the room around them with an imperious gaze, as if everyone in attendance were complicit in Lily’s deception and he planned on holding them all to account.
“What a lovely name, Lily,” he said. “Much better than Sarah. You look far more like a Lily than you ever did a Sarah.”
Lily found that, in her shock, she was focusing on all the wrong things. Lord Hayes was quite a good dancer. And she kept getting distracted by the small cut on the smooth skin right before his earlobe. Had he nicked himself shaving? Had he been nervous about his plan to accost her this evening?
For there had been no surprise on Lord Hayes’s part—no shock coloring his voice that insinuated theirs had been a chance meeting. No—he had planned this, waited until the most public time to stride up to her and ask her to dance.
Her breath caught in her throat. What did that mean, that he had thought about this moment,designedit?
“Drat it all, Lily, I swear that if youdoswoon, I’ll tip the punch bowl over your head to wake you,” he growled.
The idea made her gasp a little. The air served her well—her vision cleared, the black spots blinking out of existence as quickly as they’d come.
“You planned this,” she accused.
“What?” he chuffed in mock outrage. “Do you mean to say thatIcoerced you into stealing the identity of one Miss Sarah Hughes? She’s Mrs. Colmby now, by the way, but I’m sure you already knew that.”
Lilly jerked. She hadn’t, in fact, though some part of her had wondered. Some part of her feared that Miss Sarah Hughes might also be applying for governess’s positions across England.How terrible it would have been, if they’d both showed up to interview for the same one!
Lord Hayes nodded, his fathomless brown eyes scouring her face. “She lives in Swindon with her husband and six children.”
Lily couldn’t bring herself to answer him. She’d always found his gaze piercing, had the fanciful belief that if she met his eyes long enough, he might suss out her every secret without her so much as speaking them. And that had only been back at all of those dinners they’d shared—the ones where he’d launched question after question at her, about her prior experience as a governess, about her plans for Rebecca’s rearing and lessons, aboutLilyin general.
Now, it was a thousand times worse. His jaw ticked at the corners. When he smiled it wasn’t anything close to sincere—it was a baring of his teeth. And those brown eyes of his trailed over her face relentlessly.
It was as if Lord Hayes were one of Mr. Belfour’s blasted hounds—he’d finally tracked down his quarry and was intent upon gnawing every morsel from its bones. Lily wanted to thrust him away with a cry of alarm and run from the room. Her body momentarily tensed as if to do precisely that, but his hand gripped her waist more securely.
His eyes narrowed. “Neither of us want a scene.”
Oh, how she hoped he meant it. For there was Claire, dancing with Lord Rutheridge. Beatrice was on the dance floor too, looking distinctly uninterested in a waifish lord who held her as far back as his spindly arms would allow. And Margaret still stared at Lily from the edge of the crowd.
How was Lord Hayeshere? Lily had been so careful. To think that her miles-long sojourn through half the mud of northern England hadn’t been worth it in the end! It had only delayed the inevitable—moved the calamitous moment of discovery from the fields of Northumberland to a London ballroom.
In all their time together, through all those stoic, formal dinners during which he’d questioned her relentlessly, he’d given several comments that made it quite clear that he detested the city. Of course, as a member of the nobility, he was sometimes forced to visit, but Lily was under the impression that he left most of his duties to stewards and a proxy at Parliament.
“Youhatethe city,” she blurted.
Lord Hayes had been scanning the crowd—it was the duty of the man to ensure they didn’t run into other couples—but at her words, his eyes met hers again. She cursed herself for uttering a sound. For a moment, she’d forgotten that she was prey in this scenario—and prey, as a rule, should be silent.
“Yes,” he admitted. “I do.”
Lily felt the roiling waves of her fear ebb slightly for the first time since Lord Hayes had said her name. If the man hated the city as much as he’d claimed, then surely he would leave shortly. Whatever this was, it would at least be over soon. Lily found the thought comforting. She would rather have a sharp dagger between the ribs than a long, wasting illness.
And there was to be a death here,thatshe was certain of. All that remained to be seen was whether her sisters would share her fate.
Lily was suddenly, irrationally angry. It had been months! Why was he here now? Why had he waited until she was in public? He could have come to the house yesterday and announced himself. That would have been far more private and convenient.
But perhaps that was the entire point, she thought.
