Page 27

This Lilly could not dispute. She thought it was rather badly done, and the purpose of it quite transparent.

Balton-Sycke did not wish her to be here alone, and that knowledge rankled as much as it pleased her.

He had no claim over her—not yet—and should not presume to act the part of a betrothed or a husband.

Her stomach spasmed painfully, and for a moment she was on alert. But no—it was merely the after-effects, the tremors which remain as the storm reluctantly relinquishes its grip.

“Must we argue about Balton-Sycke again?” Lilly asked. “Yes, I know—you will never speak to me again if I marry him and as I do intend to accept his offer, our friendship appears to be on its deathbed.”

“I shall still speak to you,” Saye replied. “I shall have to, if I am to make good on my promises.”

She immediately knew what he spoke of. Those promises, those scandalous, almost-frightening, certainly titillating acts he had murmured in her ear at a party at Rumbridge House last month. “I do not know what you are speaking of,” she replied in as dignified a voice as possible.

He turned his head, meeting her gaze squarely as a lazy smile spread across his face. “Oh I think you do, but if you need me to refresh your memory…”

His words from that night rushed into her mind.

No, her memory needed no refreshing, for well did she recall the whispers of such scandalous desires.

He had grinned, just as he did now, while telling her of things which were surely not decent: the many places he intended to kiss her—not just on her lips!

—and touch her and…and… Good lord, why had he stirred the fire as he had! It was a veritable oven in here now!

“Your face looks strange,” he said. “Are you going to spew again?”

“No.”

“You are certain?” He reached for the chamber pot. “Because if it is not your stomach, I shall have to presume it is the memory itself which so unsettles you.”

“I ought to have slapped your face,” she told him.

“Probably,” he said amiably. “But I am, above all, an honest man.”

“Oh, you are not.”

“Well, sometimes I am, when it suits me. And I was being completely honest when I told you of my plans. ”

Another lazy smile nearly melted her, but she remained outwardly unaffected, or so she hoped.

“I have great plans for you and me someday. A man could die for a figure like yours, Lilly,” he told her. “Die happy, that is. La petit mort .”

“A little death?”

“Precisely,” he replied. “Do not be looking to Mr Sore Arse down there for any of that, to be sure. Has he spoken yet?”

She was still trying to puzzle out his meaning.

Saye did tend to speak rather cryptically at times, and she could not understand the connexion of petit mort and Balton-Sycke, if that was what he intended.

Thus did it take her a moment before she said, “No, he has not. But I expect he will when we are all back in town.”

“If the gollumpus thinks I shan’t poach on his marriage bed, he has another think coming,” Saye replied blithely. “My gift to you, so instead of lying there thinking of England, you can lie there and think of me.”

“You are terrible,” she told him but the words lacked conviction and she knew it.

They left the subject of Balton-Sycke then, moving on to other conversations.

Saye loved to gossip and had no scruple in tearing apart the characters of his guests.

Darcy, he told her, was being led about on a string by these accursed Bennet folk who were no doubt perverted and strange.

Miss Elizabeth Bennet intrigued him, most notably because she had affixed Darcy so firmly to her apron.

Georgette was one of his favourite cousins, but he could not comprehend her friendship with Mr Anderson.

His idiot of a brother needed to stop reaching for women above his pay grade.

“He has nothing, so he needs to comprehend that the beauties of the ton are likely beyond him,” he told her.

“This Miss Bentley would do well for him, despite her unfortunate fascination with the repugnant.”

But it was not only gossip that passed the hours before dawn. In a most unanticipated moment, Lilly found herself listening as Saye told her, with genuine candour, how much he feared his father’s death. “I saw what Darcy went through,” he told her. “I could not have borne it as he did.”

“But you will be older than he was,” she said gently. “Wiser, no doubt with a wife and family. In any case, there are certainly far stupider people than you who manage it, and I have no doubt you will too.”

And he smiled at her, his eyes warm and his face a bit slackened (for they were both exhausted by then) and looking much less like the arrogant pleasure-seeker she had always known; and it struck her that she was seeing the serious side of Saye, the side that she doubted anyone else knew in the world.

Did his own brother even see this side of him? Did Mr Darcy?

It put her off-balance, to state it mildly. All of her defence against falling in love with him was based on two things: he would not marry, not soon in any case, and his character lacked gravity. If both of those things proved wrong…

“I need to go to bed,” she said abruptly. “You should too, if there is to be any hope of us escaping this night unscathed.”

“Let me help you.” He rose and dusted himself off, then bent.

He took her hand and tugged her to her feet, and they stood a moment, very close together, not touching, scarcely breathing.

She was exquisitely aware of him, his faded cologne and the faint whiff of spirits commingling with his natural maleness to entice her quite neatly.

She wondered if he might try to kiss her, but then remembered how the night had begun and shuddered.

He smells lovely, and I smell of vomit .

He took a step back from her, keeping her hand in his as he bent low over it, respecting her as if they had merely been dancing at Almack’s and not engaged in a clandestine and highly improper nocturnal visit.

He then bid her good night and was gone.

“I have a note for you,” Sarah said eagerly as she entered the room. With a flourish, she deposited it on Lilly’s blanket-covered lap.

Though Lilly had not made all the details of her night known, she did tell her maid that she had been sick in the night.

While she felt perfectly well now, Marleigh was immediately in deep distress for her young mistress, declared her pale and hollow-eyed, and insisted on tucking her into her bed for the day.

The effects on her countenance, Lilly thought, were very likely due to sleeplessness; but, she did not correct Marleigh and allowed herself to be put to bed.

The ladies were almost immediately upon her.

She felt a little guilty, receiving all the fuss and dismayed clucks of her friends, but so it was.

Georgette came in first, rolling her eyes and asking why on earth she had eaten pig, and several of the other ladies came to give her a book, or offer her tea, or fluff her pillows.

Miss Balton-Sycke had been the least interested in Lilly’s ailment.

She had poked her head into the room and offered the hasty explanation that her brother believed van Leeuwenhoek’s theory of animalcules as carriers of disease, and thus had forbidden her from entering sickrooms.

“Of course,” Lilly said with a smile and a nod, but in truth, she did not agree at all. The pig had upset her humours and now she was well. What danger could that be to either Balton-Sycke? And what would they do for her once she was a member of the family?

And now Sarah had handed her a note from Balton-Sycke himself. She opened it while Sarah watched with open curiosity, no doubt anticipating flowery words of romance and despair for a lover’s poor health. In fact, there were neither .

“Balton-Sycke says they will depart today,” she told her. “He wishes me improved health and promises to call once we are in town.”

“Oh.” Sarah seemed to struggle to find some encouragement. “Dare I suppose that once in London…?”

“Likely,” said Lilly with a sigh.

“How exciting!” Sarah’s sweet face was bright with enthusiasm. “When will you marry, do you think? The timing is strange with the Season upon us, but surely you will not wish for a long engagement? Or perhaps you will marry in London?”

Lilly sighed again and turned her head towards the window.

The weather was not promising, steel grey clouds hung over all, the sort that portended snow.

She wondered whether Saye had insisted on Balton-Sycke’s departure and smiled at the notion.

“I have been thinking that perhaps I ought to take my chances on another Season.”

“Pray, do not speak so! Not when you have a fine prospect like Mr Balton-Sycke! He is ever so kind, and I find him quite handsome and hear that his house is very modern and pretty and?—”

“He is a gollumpus who got shot in the rump,” Lilly said flatly. Then she said, “Oh Sarah, forgive me. I am just in a peculiar temper this morning.”

“Because you are unwell,” Sarah said immediately, the concern that had creased her countenance smoothing away. No doubt Lilly had alarmed her greatly. “And I shall leave you so you can get your rest. ”

She leant in then, giving her friend a kiss on the cheek. “No fever!” she reported happily before she left.

Lilly snuggled beneath the coverlet, permitting herself a frown.

The opinions were always that she should marry Balton-Sycke.

Her mother thought it, her sisters thought it, Sarah certainly thought it…

indeed, Lilly herself was the only one who thought the bird in her hand was not at all worth the two—or rather the one—in the bush.

And in truth, she knew not if she could fairly even imagine that Lord Saye was in the bush.

He was, perhaps, circling overhead, but not lounging about in a bush, to be sure. She giggled at her own fancy.