you envy others their freedom?’
He shook his head. ‘I was fortunate. With privilege there is responsibility. My mother said it over and over.’
Another silence surrounded them, but didn’t separate. This time, he spoke. ‘I was curious, though. To not have a purpose would have been strange and I didn’t want that. Everyone’s future is mapped for them to some degree, so I didn’t rail against my good fortune of having the best of life. But the common life—the rest of life is so foreign to me. How can I represent the country well without understanding all of it?’
‘So that is why you noticed me. My commonness?’
‘Lily. Don’t put words in my mouth.’
‘I want to know what you really think.’
‘Then don’t jump to conclusions about what I say.’
She let the skirt she still clasped fall from her fingers. ‘You have been so trained to be a duke and lived it so long—that I wonder if what you say is what you really feel or what you have been trained to feel?’
‘Does it matter?’ Each word could stand alone.
‘It might some day. If you are deciding on your marriage now because it is what you are supposed to do.’
This time she heard his inward breath, slow and measured. ‘On my sickbed, I could hear the voices around me, but I didn’t want to speak or even open my eyes. My brother Andrew asked, “Do you think he will die tonight?”
‘I heard my brother Steven answer. He said no, I wouldn’t die that night.’ He continued to face her, but didn’t see her. ‘I didn’t care one way or the other.’
The honeysuckle touched her nose again and this time the sweetness churned her stomach. He’d been so pale and the pupils of his eyes so strange.
‘My family gathered around me, but at a distance. My mother would move close, but only for a second. My burns weren’t contagious; they all had to know that. They all kept their respectful distance. Respectful. Distance.’
‘But they were with you. You could not have wanted them to smother you with closeness.’
‘I didn’t. But my life felt wasted. All the work I’d done didn’t matter.’
‘So now you worry about having an heir?’ She called him back from his memories.
‘No.’ The quiet word slashed the air. ‘I only want to do the best I can with the time I have left. I was trained to be a duke, so I did precisely as I should. Motions. All the right ones. I still believe in them. But I want more from life.’
‘You want a touch of commonness? A wife who has lived on the edge of society, one foot in and one foot out.’
‘Is that wrong?’
‘It could be if you look around in a few years and discover that you are a duke through and through, and these moments are a reaction because you almost died. Then you might wish for a wife who is completely in society and has the same strength in her bloodlines as you do.’
‘I might wish for a wife who’d be willing to hold my hand when I lay dying and who would miss me.’
‘I don’t think marriage necessarily provides those things.’
‘It should.’
‘Yes. But, if anything, marriage seems to move people apart, instead of closer together.’
‘My parents had a good marriage—mostly.’
She shook her head, disagreeing. ‘You can hire someone to hold your hand and you can live a life so that others miss you. Marriage is tiresome. I understand your need to have heirs. And you should find someone who can stand with you in public and create the world you wish to have around you.’
She stepped back. ‘But don’t invest your heart in someone. It’s too risky and the return on the investment is dismal, from what I’ve seen.’
‘I saw you return from the garden.’ Abigail swooped into Lily’s vision when she topped the stairs. A smile glittered in Abigail’s eyes. ‘You were talking with the Duke.’ She bounced on her heels. ‘What were you speaking about? The date for the wedding?’
Lily’s mind almost blanked and she moved past her sister. ‘No. We won’t wed. Just speaking of things. The past. How he studied so hard. Did you have a good time visiting Father’s sister?’
Abigail followed behind. ‘No wonder you had to know whether Edgeworth would court me. You have a fascination with him.’
She stepped to the sitting room. ‘Well, he is fascinating. But distant. You know how distant he is.’ She looked around. ‘Wouldn’t a cup of tea be good?’
‘I do know how he is,’ Abigail said, ignoring the suggestion of refreshment. ‘That’s why I’m relieved he doesn’t want me for a duchess. I’ve always much preferred his cousin. Foxworthy is an adventure. Edgeworth is more like a tutor.’
‘It’s just Edgeworth’s look. He thinks a lot.’
‘He’s like his father. You know how you said the old Duke always looked at you as if you had breakfast on your face. Edgeworth has the same stare.’
‘No. He’s not so superior.’ He couldn’t be if he’d considered asking her to marry him.
‘Well, the old Duke might not have been either. Remember the time he had the coachman leave the carriage out so we could play in it.’
Lily nodded. ‘It was the first time we’d been back after Mother took us.’
Abigail moved to the sofa. Her reticule lay on it, and two parcels, one opened with gloves scattered about.
Lily paused, thinking back to Edgeworth’s face. ‘Edgeworth takes life seriously. His father took himself seriously.’
‘The old Duke didn’t hate us as much as you thought. The time he realised we were at Mother’s when he was meeting his mistress, I thought he was going to choke.’ She held her arm out, showing Lily the purchase. Lily nodded absently.
‘I don’t remember that.’
‘You didn’t see him. He left as soon as he started breathing again. He just glared at us afterwards because he felt guilty. We knew his secret. Maybe he wanted to intimidate us. He surely didn’t like it when the Duchess had us for tea.’ She slipped the glove from her hand and threw it with its mate.
‘He should have been kind to us.’
‘Yes.’ She wrinkled her nose. ‘But you didn’t exactly look well at him once you found out he was not true to the Duchess. You thought him terrible. Terrible. And you were so angry when Mother’s friend visited us and told us about the baby being on the way.’
‘But I couldn’t say a word. Mother would have been...unsettled. It wouldn’t have been worth the upset. Mother actually thought it a grand jest that her friend had had a romp with the old Duke. She encouraged it. Did all she could to push them together.’
Abigail snorted. ‘I know.’
‘She exhausted me.’ And when her parents lived together, their father had been little better where his wife was concerned. He’d acted as if it hurt to have her on his arm. His smile had condescended. His wife was beneath him. He wanted everyone to know he thought her a mistake.
Lily knew her father had once been smitten with her mother. But that hadn’t lasted. A grand love turned into an even grander liability. Lily’s grandmother had filled her granddaughter’s ears with tales of how her son thought himself in love with the first woman who sidled up against him.