Lilly Read online

  First, Joshua courting her for years, whispering suggestions of a future together, implying an engagement. She’d waited years for him to formally propose and when he visited Bath she never expected him to return married. Joshua’s deception had hurt beyond anything Lilly let people see.

  Now, the wound of false hope was reopened. Mooning over counterfeit letters, dreaming of marriage again and most painful, seeing the handsome and attractive liar, his appearance, voice, and style everything Lilly admired. If he was a good man, she would be over the moon with joy and delight to share a future with him. Disillusionment took a piece of hope from Lilly’s heart, leaving a dark hole of loss.

  Aunt Mary would not personally know the true earl, but her Aunt Ellen from town surely knew. Was her aunt so desperate for a favorable match she hid the truth about Lord Randall, just to have a rich lord in the family?

  Sick at heart Lilly climbed the stairs only to see that same fine coach pulling into their lane. So the cad decided to stop and finish his ‘unpleasant business.’ No use going to his estate first and taking a bath from his journey. Why bother for a brown mouse, growled Lilly, for now the whole episode was ridiculous and she would get rid of him once and for all.

  Lilly heard the downstairs maid answer the door. She moved to the top of the stairs and watched him enter their simple manor house. For just a second her heart fluttered and she felt the loss stab her. Lilly gathered her courage and went to the banister railing. She did not descend, afraid to be near him, fearful she would sob into his fine coat and plead for him to love her.

  “You can stop right there,” Lilly called down, pressing strength into her tone.

  His dark head looked up quickly, as if recognizing her voice and he had the nerve to grin.

  “I’ve found you again,” Reece joked.

  From this viewpoint she was even more magnificent. Looking up a floor to her long legs, the rise of her bosom, her hair hanging down on her shoulder, Reece felt his pulse race.

  How amusing it was for him to play with other people’s emotions, she thought. Lilly delivered her grandest smile, the one that made the Donaldson brothers drool and replied.

  “No sir, you did not find anything worth having here, for you only located a plain, brown country mouse, your unpleasant business, Lilly Castleford in the flesh. Tell your clerk he writes amusing letters, more so than the forged signature of the supposed writer, for I find him a nasty villain.”

  Surprise registered on his handsome face, pulling his mouth tight, and Lilly laughed.

  “Sorry for your wasted journey. I will always thank my lucky star for the day I met you on the road and not in a drawing room where you might have continued to deceive. Goodbye Lord Randall, may you rot.”

  Lilly added the last with a hiss and turning, she walked back to her room and slammed the bedchamber door with a wood breaking sound.

  “I’ll be damned,” Reece cursed.

  ……….

  Lilly neither knew how long he stood there nor cared. She went to her mirror and noticed the high color on her cheeks, her flashing eyes, and a long curl of hair that had come down with her hat. She’d never looked better. Her blood was running hot, but her emotions were broken. Lilly was sorry Lord Randall was a blackguard. He was so handsome and she felt as if she’d missed her only chance at finding someone worthy. The thought made her eyes go bleak. All that time wasted thinking of letters written by a clerk. Lilly felt like a fool. She took the stack of neatly tied letters from under her pillow and threw them into the fireplace. She lit a candle and touched the flame to the parchment. Watching the bright golden flame, the grey smoke drift high, Lilly watched another dream die.

  She changed into a delicate light yellow muslin and added the pearl hair clips her Aunt Ellen had given her. She touched up her hair and after waiting an hour, went downstairs.

  She heard voices from her father’s workroom and assumed one of his many military friends had come to call. She went into the library and opened her ledger books. There was negative balances in every column and Lilly sighed and ran her hands around her neck.

  “Problems?” a deep voice asked from the doorway.

  Lilly looked up in surprise to see Major Sheridan standing there. He came to visit with her father every month, she’d forgotten today was his day.

  “Always,” Lilly replied, smiling sadly and standing to take his hands.

  “Anything I can help you solve?” He asked.

  “Has anything of father’s sold, does the Crown plan to buy any inventions?”

  “We’re very interested in his latest pistol design, but it’s not ready yet, needs testing. I heard you are getting married?” Major Sheridan asked.

  “No, I am not,” Lilly stated firmly. “I found out the gentleman is a rotter. There will never be a wedding between us.”

  “Any other young gentlemen after you?” The major asked, winking at her.

  “No,” Lilly blushed. “I plan to be a spinster, or go on a long sea voyage after father no longer needs me, but not marriage.”

  “So adamant?”

  “Yesterday I would had answered differently, but today I got a glimpse of what a bad marriage would be like and I think I’d rather be alone,” Lilly answered with regret.

  “You think all marriages are bad?”

  “I don’t know. Are they?” Lilly asked, knowing Major Sheridan was a widower.

  “No, some are fine, others better and a few can be wonderful,” he grinned and Lilly noticed for the first time how handsome the major was. About forty, rich brown hair, blue eyes, kind and strong.

  “Well, I hope if you decide to marry again, yours will be wonderful,” Lilly smiled and sat back down behind her small desk.

  “I never thought I would marry again, after Joan, but time passes and I’m still alive.”

  Lilly looked up again and agreed. “Yes you are. Are you staying overnight at the village inn? You know you can always stay with us. What would you like for dinner? I can offer you something simple but very good.”

  “Thanks, but your father and I are going to the village pub for a shepherd’s pie and ale. We have things to discuss.”

  Mysterious, for the major always ate with them in the dining room.

  “Perhaps another time then.”

  “Lady Lilly, you are sure this other marriage of yours is off?” Major Sheridan asked, shifting his shiny black boots.

  “It was never really on, no proposal, no ring, no announcement. Just a few letters I found out were not even written by the same gentleman, but a clerk he hired to write me.”

  “Never say it? What an ass he sounds.”

  They laughed together and she smiled, it was comforting to talk about it to the major.

  “Yes, he is,” Lilly admitted.

  “Does your father know it’s off?”

  “No, I haven’t told him or the aunts, but I will today. No sense having them believe something false.”

  “Perhaps there still might be something to celebrate,” he hinted.

  “What?” Lilly asked.

  “I’ll tell you tomorrow, after I talk to your father tonight. See you tomorrow morning then?” He looked deeply into her eyes, his blue stare unsettling.

  “Yes. Alright.”

  Lilly wondered what that was all about. The major was so soothing to talk to, his voice so deep and distinctive. She always imagined it ringing out loudly over a battlefield, giving orders, saving lives. If he was almost forty, that cad Randall was five and thirty, they were not too far apart in age. What a difference in their life’s choices. One married and fought in great battles for his country, while another seduced women and planned mischief.

  ……….

  Lilly met with her aunts at dinner and delivered the disappointing news.

  “He was as bold as brass. Thought I’d meet him in a field for some romantic interlude under a tree! Just think, the idea that a strange lady would so accommodate him when he’d just told her he was in the area to get
married. He is handsome and looks very rich from the quality of his carriage, but he was such a deceiver. The ridiculing names he called me, a country brown mouse, the letters he didn’t write, I wish you had told me Aunt Ellen, for you must have known he was a rogue,” Lilly said, trying to keep the anger and sadness from her voice.

  “I am sorry dear, I’d hoped the stories I heard about him were exaggerated, for they seemed so extreme. Now that you know I can tell you he has two mistresses, besides carrying on several current affairs,” Aunt Ellen confessed.

  “Aunt! And you didn’t think that important?” Lilly shouted, disappointment hitting her like a blow to the stomach.

  “All men do it dear, it’s the town way. He is unmarried and can be given leeway.”

  “Sister, you are ridiculous to think so, that beautiful kind Lilly should live with a man of such behaviors, it’s unforgivable,” Aunt Mary growled.

  As the two sisters bickered, Lilly wondered what else was true about the handsome Lord Randall.

  “He called me names to my face. I was thinking, did he do that in town? Talk about me I mean, ridicule me?” Lilly asked, realizing how far his behavior might have stretched.

  “A little,” Aunt Ellen admitted. “I had a letter from a London acquaintance and the earl’s mistresses have told everyone about Lilly Brown Mouse they call you.”

  Lilly looked up in dismay and her eyes flooded with tears, never had she been a target of such vile spite. Lilly was used to being loved and liked by her neighbors and friends. This news of her name being ridiculed in London, for hundreds to hear, made her blush red.

  “You heard that and said nothing?” Aunt Mary cried.

  “Yes, alright I confess I did and worse. It is also said he intends to leave you in the country Lilly, after the wedding, and return to his other women in town,” Aunt Ellen confessed, tears in her own eyes now.

  “Great devil’s teeth aunt. What you would have put me into. Why?” Lilly cried.

  “Because he’s very wealthy dear and your father Franklin is ill and you must be settled.”

  “What do you mean ill?”

  “His heart, for years he’s had pains and they grow worse every year. He’s almost seventy Lilly and you must not be left alone.”

  Both of her aunts started to cry and between their shouting and shrieking, Lilly stood and left the table.

  All at once no one seemed trustworthy or sound. Lilly felt like she’d been thrown off a fast moving ship of the line and left to fight off sharks in cold water. A part of her wanted to just stop swimming and sink slowly and painlessly to the bottom. Go deeper, darker, and colder until she could not see the light, or dream, or desire love again.

  Lilly went outside and walked to the stables. All the laborers were at their supper and she mounted Midnight astride, without a saddle just adding a bridle and rode down the lane inside their small private park.

  ……….

  Reece Randall was on his way over to the Castleford manor when he noticed a lady mounted on a familiar black horse, sitting astride, her yellow gown visible in the evening’s light. He would know her anywhere. Lady Lilly Castleford, his intended.

  “Hold up,” he called.

  Lilly turned and tried not to scream, what a ridiculous day. She closed her eyes and imagined herself wearing a suit of ancient armor, protected, distant; oblivious to hurt and sharpened her voice.

  “Oh you, are you looking for the Bainbridge’s estate, they have three daughters, are you meeting all three? They’re over that last hill and then North.”

  He sighed.

  “No, I was coming to see you.”

  She noticed he was looking at her long bare legs, now showing from sitting astride in a day gown, the fabric bunched above her knees. She let him, who cared. She wasn’t going to be a sixteen year old virgin and pull on her skirts. She sat on her own property. He was the intruder. Let him see what he lost, the cad.

  “Want to toss out more insults about my mousy appearance? I heard from my aunt tonight that you’ve made me the talk of London. I hear I’m a pitiful creature, ugly and dull, who agreed to marry you and stay hidden from mankind, to make your mistresses happy. How noble you made me sound.”

  He had the grace to blush and she let her frustration fly.

  “Go into the village and you’ll hear another view of me. It might surprise you, but I am well liked here. Not at all stupid and some half blind persons dare to call me pretty. Whatever are you back here for?”

  “I still want to marry you,” Reece confessed, knowing how ridiculous it sounded.

  Lilly burst out laughing and couldn’t stop. She wiped tears from her eyes and realized it felt good to laugh again.

  “You do think me dimwitted. Listen, go home, take both of your mistresses to bed and fornicate your rotten life away. I wouldn’t let you touch me,” Lilly growled with strong feeling.

  She lived in the country, heard the men in the fields talk, her father and his military friends; Lilly wasn’t above listening at the doorway, she had some spice to her vocabulary. It was enjoyable to finally use it on such a deserving target.

  Lilly turned her horse and started riding home, he followed her. She stopped and turned around.

  “What?” She asked, with a huff.

  “No one has ever talked to me that way, well perhaps my brother, but no lady. I’m not sure I like it, but I admire your courage,” Reece said, riding closer to her.

  “It’s about time someone did. Tell me, the charity boards in London, are you really on any of them?”

  “What? No.”

  “Your trips abroad with your brother, your adventures in Italy, was that your history, or the clerks?”

  “His.”

  “Have you ever done a kind act in your life?”

  “I’m generous, my mistresses have more jewelry than the Crown.”

  “I mean without getting something back, pleasure in return?”

  “I suppose so.”

  Lilly laughed again. He was easy to talk to, she would like him if she didn’t hate him.

  “You have not. You live life as if it’s designed just to please you. You don’t care who you hurt, or what the after effects are, you just go on to new adventures, turn more despotic and cold. You lead a worthless life. Your heart is as empty as my purse.”

  “I could fix that. I can take care of you, your father, and your aunt,” he offered, trying to find something redeeming about himself.

  Lilly looked at him and stared, waiting for him to flinch, but he looked right back into her eyes in earnest regard.

  “Buy me you mean? Why bother? There must be hundreds of poor victims out there waiting for your handsome face to hurt them.”

  “I want you,” Lord Randall said, looking at her leg again.

  He couldn’t be serious.

  “I suspect you are baiting me. Are you trying to get me to react so you can take this new tale home? A story about how the brown mouse would accept you, even knowing what you did? I don’t understand a man like you.”

  “For the first time in my life, I think I’m beginning to understand myself.”

  “A revelation? Halleluiah! ‘Go away and sin no more,’” she paraphrased.

  “You could inspire me to be a better man,” he said, sounding very serious.

  “I could, if I wanted to, but I don’t. Marry one of your mistresses, spend your fortune, and wallow in your shallowness. You enjoy it,” Lilly said, a sting in her tone.

  “If you were a man I’d drag you off that horse,” Reece said in anger.

  “Yes, the truth must hurt in your case. Goodbye again Lord Randall.”

  Suddenly he rode right next to her and grabbed her bridle, Midnight fighting the hold.

  “You wrote me letters, they contained promises. I will sue you for breach of contract!”

  “What a temper. Don’t be silly, you never read my letters. I promised nothing. Unlike you I don’t plan a marriage that coldly, without meeting the other person first
. You think you can sue me? Are you so used to getting your own way? What has made you so angry?” Lilly fired questions at him, genuinely puzzled.

  “I talked to your father after seeing you in the entry today. He’s agreed to the match,” Reece said, watching her reaction. He tried to calm down realizing he was acting like a jackass again. Something about Lilly made him crazy.

  He looked at her glorious figure, her face and hair, gads, those long bare legs and he considered. There was more than just her wonderful appearance. Lilly had spirit, personality, and cleverness. She was different from any lady he’d even known. He wanted her desperately.

  “Is that true? Father agreed that I should marry you? He doesn’t know everything that I do, the mistresses, the letters, the rumors you started about me, your plans, I will tell him,” Lilly threatened.

  “Give me another chance. Get to know me and let me know you. I’m not above changing,” Reece offered, sincerity in his voice.

  Lilly studied his expression. She thought of her rotting manor house and her father being sick, her disappointed heart and sighed. Lilly wondered at the major’s hints, and tried to decide how to drive Lord Randall away.

  “I might have another offer of marriage tomorrow.”

  “Decline it,” the earl ordered.

  “He’s a better man than you.”

  “He doesn’t need you, I do,” Reece confessed, realizing he’d never worked so hard in his life to talk a woman around to liking him.

  “If I think about giving you one week, see where that leads us, would you let go of my horse?” Lilly asked, anything to see him gone.

  The longer she was around him, the more appealing he became, at least his outward appearance. His strong jaw covered in black beard growing in, his dark eyes and rich voice. He could make a lady’s heart pound, until the person inside was revealed, Lilly thought sadly.

  Reece didn’t remember he was even holding her horse, he just knew with a madness inside him that he had to have Lady Lilly Castleford.