Lily didn’t seem to notice. She smiled, reached up, and touched the tip of her gloved finger to his nose. On any other day, such an act of intimacy would have delighted him. Even now, it threatened to break through his sudden consternation—a glint of sunlight peeking through the roiling stormclouds.
“I’ve always wanted to know how you broke your nose. Was it a folly of your youth?”
“You might say that,” he finally said through gritted teeth.
It was as near to the truth as he could manage. If Lily’s imaginings of his late wife were the warning thunder, then her question of his nose was like the arrival of the freezing sleet that soaked through his coat.
Any hope of getting out from beneath the clouds slipped away. The best he could do was to weather it and not invite Lily to join him in the storm.
Lily finally seemed to realize that something was amiss. She studied him for several moments, then said, “I hope you’re not self-conscious about it. I think it’s an endearing imperfection that adds to the handsomeness of your face. But if I’ve embarrassed you, I apologize.”
“Not at all,” he said stiffly.
“It just occurs to me that’s the first apology I remember offering you. Perhaps I’ve never apologized about lying to you about who I was, but I am sorry.”
Bradford stared down at her. “What, precisely, are you sorry for?”
How very like Lily, to think thatshewas the source of his discomfort. It struck Bradford that, if he succeeded in wooing her, Lily might do that for the rest of his life. If he were unable to tell her the truth of the matter, then every time he sank into that periodic, inevitable despondency, she would feel responsible. She would feel the need to stoop and join him in his melancholy, in order to try to lift him from it.
Lily shook her head again, those beautiful blue eyes swimming with tears. “I’ve tried desperately to be sorry forallof it, but I can’t quite manage it.”
“Whyever not?” he said, barely paying attention to their words any longer. All he heard was the howling of the wind, the warmth of the blood on his face, the taste of iron in his mouth…
“Because of Rebecca. Because of…” Lily trailed off, biting her lower lip and looking across the water again.
Bradford had to focus very hard on not reaching up and releasing that trapped lip from the bite of her teeth and demanding she finish her sentence. He loved her. And he was realizing too late that it was too much to ask of her to love him back.
Lily was all that was fresh and lovely and beautiful. She was a perfect spring day come to life. She had the entirety of glittering London spread at her delicate little feet. When it came time for her to choose a husband, all she had to do was reach out that slender hand and pick the finest one.
She certainly shouldn’t pick a gruff widower who’d glowered at her far more than he’d ever smiled, who’d threatened her with arrest and caused her to flee on foot across the countryside like a vagabond. Who hadn’t been honest with her from the start.
She finally turned to him and all but gasped, “Because ofyou.”
Lily looked up at him with such raw hope in her eyes that Bradford nearly staggered back.
And if she had gazed up at him in such a way in any other moment during the rest of their acquaintance, he hardly knew what he would have done. Kissed her, probably. Or more appropriately, dropped to one knee then and there—damp gravel and goose droppings be damned—and beg for her hand.
But Bradford had just glimpsed his own foul nature. The reek of his actions and subconscious intentions still filled his nostrils. The roll of thunder echoed down through the years, taunting him.
Lily continued, “I can hardly pay attention to any other gentleman when you are in the room. How could I? At first, it was because I was terrified that you would reveal my secret. I told myself that was the reason I couldn’t focus on anyone else, long after you’d promised not to tell anyone.”
Lily had never been quite this honest. Bradford hadn’t known that she’d been frightened of him long past when he’d assured her that he wouldn’t tell anyone her secret. It stabbed at his sense of decency, his sense of honor.
Besides, Lily was just confirming what the detestable Lord Rigsby had accused—that Bradford was a distraction from the suitors who’d come to her parlor with pure intentions.
She smiled and said, “I suppose there is one way to guarantee your silence on the matter forever.”
Though her tone was teasing, Bradford jolted at the implication that her affection was a requirement for his silence. Had he unintentionally coerced Lily into a friendship? Into having romantic feelings for him?
Bile rose in the back of his throat; he fought the sudden urge to gag.
In retrospect, why would Lily believe him when he’d said her secret was safe with him? Heaven help him, he’d sethoundsafter her!
The only reason she’d welcomed Bradford into her parlor was out of subconscious fear of what he might do to her and her sisters’ chances. And at the beginning he’d allowed her to have that thought, encouraged it, even. Because he didn’t want to leave her. Because now that he’d found her, therealher, he was loath to ever let her go. But that simply wasn’t fair.
Bradford would have to release her, once and for all, from the unspoken threat of what he might do with her secret. Anything else was courtship under duress, which was precisely what he’d been doing.
He nearly retched at the realization, at the true glimpse of his own twisted reasoning. Had he thought he’d matured these past seven years? Surely he still had much to learn, if he was willing to keep Lily under his thumb in such a way. His stomach rolled in disgust.
