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A smile returned to the Cupid’s bow mouth, and the child rose with her new doll. “Very well.” She nodded regally, as a great queen to a lesser lord. “I shall make tea and expect you forthwith.”
He waited while Lillien left and then as Georgina read through the letter in its entirety. When she laid the document in her lap, the look on her face was one of resignation. “You are most generous,” she murmured. “I assume this is your way of resolving the matter between us?”
“There is no matter between us, Lady Sotheby.” What had happened between them was a mistake, one he’d refused to repeat despite her many attempts to do so.
The deliberate use of her married name was not missed. Her chin rose. “Of course not. I will admit I had hoped…” Her mouth tilted in a rueful smile. “I thought perhaps you might consider it after the year had passed, but I believe you’ve already set your sights on another conquest.”
“It has never been a matter of conquest,” he replied. Not for me, he added silently. He’d only taken what was freely given. “Can we agree it is done?”
She nodded slowly. “The provision you’ve made is more than adequate. I can find no fault with it.”
Relief flooded him such that it was difficult to conceal. “And you will honor the terms set forth therein?” he asked, nodding at the paper she still held.
“I will. She’ll never be told. And I’ll never tell anyone else. Regardless of what you may think of me, I love my children.”
“Madam, that has never been in question.” Silence stretched into awkwardness. He stood. “I must take my leave. May I fulfill my promise to Miss Lillien before I go?”
“You may.” Her gaze was still fixed on the document in her hands. “Shall I send you her school address so you may write her?”
He shook his head. “No. There can be no continued association without risk. For her own good, I must become a stranger to her.”
“Then this is good-bye.”
“Yes.” It was then he realized she meant more than just good-bye between him and Lillien. Though they had lain together only once, he had been much in her husband’s company over the last ten years and thus by default, hers as well. They were friends, of a sort, he supposed. “For the sake of us all, you know it must be so.”
Again she nodded. “Then…I wish you well,” she said, looking up at last. Her eyes were alarmingly moist. “I wish I had met you first,” she blurted before covering her mouth with a shaking hand.
Damn. There was nothing he could say without digging himself into a hole from which there might be no getting out. Steeling himself, he nodded shortly. “I wish you well, also, madam.”
Bowing, he turned and strode through the door before anything further could be said. Taking the steps up to the nursery, he almost wished he hadn’t promised to visit Lilly again. The sooner he left, the better.
“Uncle Percy!”
He knelt and swept her up into his arms one last time, smiling down into her laughing eyes, eyes so like his own. “I hear you’re going to school next month.”
She nodded as he put her down. “It’s very far away, but Mama says I shall love it there—even though I won’t be a princess like I am here. But there will be other girls for me to play with instead of only mean brothers.” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “I shall miss Mama and Sir Brushbotham, but I’m afraid I shan’t miss my brothers very much at all. Mama says it’s shameful for me to say so, but I don’t really think they shall miss me, either.”
“And what of Sir Brushbotham?” he asked, laughing. “Is he not to go along with you?”
She shook her head, making her curls bounce, and her bottom lip again quivered. “They won’t allow it. I will see him only on holidays when I come to visit. Mama says he is too fat from my tea parties and will have to earn his keep hunting mice while I am away. But I know she is only teasing because Cook already promised to feed him plenty of fish and pet him every day. I shall miss Cook, too.”
Sir Brushbotham at that moment chose to appear and rub his furry bulk against Percy’s shins, leaving behind a swath of white fuzz.
“Sir Brushbotham will become a fine mouser, I’m sure,” he lied. “I must go now, poppet.”
“Will I see you again?”
It was the question he’d dreaded. Ambiguity would leave no room for assumption—or a
broken promise. “I’m sure of it, though it may not be for some time. Until then, you must promise to do your very best in school, mind your teachers, and never forget you are a princess even if it must remain a secret.” He bent and gave her tiny hand a gentle squeeze. “You will know it in your heart, and that is what counts.”
Nodding, she put up her wobbly chin and curtsied. It was a very good curtsy for an almost-six-year-old. “I will. Good-bye, Uncle Percy.”
Bowing as if she were the queen, he smiled and took his leave—quickly. A clean, unemotional break was best. For them both.
He was amazed to feel pain at the parting. He’d not been close to the child, and nor had he any hand in raising her—at least not until today. God willing, she would never know about it, or that she was anything but the beloved and only daughter of Lord and Lady Sotheby.
Fortune smiled on him, and he managed to escape without encountering Lady Sotheby again. As he stepped into the gray rain curtain outside he paused and took a deep breath, heedless of the damp creeping in around his collar. Provided the lady kept her word and honored their agreement, this was one chapter of his life he could count closed.
