Chapter 19 #2
“Lady Lilian is certainly not asleep, Your Grace,” Maisie explained when his eyes turned to her. “Not two minutes ago, she told Miss Osborne that she was a—”
“That will not be necessary, Maisie,” the governess cut her off, two red spots now visible in her cheeks. “Lady Lilian has addressed us several times, but refuses to open the door, Your Grace.”
“This won’t do at all,” Nathaniel muttered, before rapping firmly on the wood. “Lilian! Open this door, please. I wish to talk to you. Lilian!”
“Go away!” shouted an angry little voice very close to the other side of the door. “You never want to talk to me!”
“But I do,” Nathaniel protested. “I have come up here specifically to talk to you because… because I care about you.”
“No, you don’t,” Lilian yelled back at him. “You don’t care about anyone or anything. You’re a horrid father!”
Nathaniel blinked and raised his hand to knock again. How did he manage to upset his daughter so much every time he was at Greyhaven Park? Lilian had not even seen him yet today and was already furious. She must be just as angry about his absence downstairs this morning as Cecily had been.
He knocked more gently on the door this time and tried not to sound impatient.
“Lilian, I’m sorry that I wasn’t there to meet you earlier. I… overslept, I suppose. I’m here now, though, and we could spend the morning together if you wish.”
“You always sleep until late, and then you leave and go to London without me,” she accused him. “I hate you!”
The force of feeling in those last words struck him like a physical blow. What on earth was he supposed to do now? Breaking down the door would hardly endear him to his child.
“Shall I go downstairs and fetch Mrs. Barnes?” Maisie asked, looking from him to Miss Osborne and back. “She always knows what to do with Lady Lilian.”
“Yes,” Nathaniel agreed, stepping back from the door, defeated for now. “I think you should.”
* * *
“How did it go?” Cecily asked when he returned from his long morning ride.
Had she been waiting for him in the hallway? Her appearance at his side took him by surprise.
“It’s wonderful weather for riding. You ought to come out with me one morning. There’s a fine bay mare that would suit you in the stable, I believe.”
“No, how did it go with Lilian?” she responded impatiently, waving away talk of horses. “I thought you would come back to tell me. I do want to build a good relationship with her, but she will accept me more easily through you, I think.”
Nathaniel sighed and threw his jacket to a waiting footman, then kicked off his boots by the door and walked barefoot through the hallway at her side. There was still an hour until luncheon, and he had hoped to forget his unfortunate encounter with his daughter until then.
“Lilian would not talk to me,” he admitted, letting her draw him into one of the small sitting rooms and close the door. “She had locked herself in her room and would not come out. For all I know, she is still up there, although I dare say she will get hungry eventually.”
“You just left her in there?” Cecily gasped, as though he had just admitted to kicking a puppy or helping himself to shillings from the church’s poor-box.
“Miss Osborne was there, along with two nursemaids,” Nathaniel defended himself. “Lilian wouldn’t let them in either. She told me she hated me so many times that I’m starting to believe it’s true. Perhaps I shouldn’t stay here too long if that is how she feels.”
“Lilian doesn’t hate you,” Cecily insisted, her face a mask of disbelief. “She is only very young and rather shaken up from so much change.”
“But you thought relocating her here would be good for her,” he pointed out. “I thought you made a strong case, and that is why I agreed to it. Are you now saying it was wrong and Lilian ought to go back to the dower house?”
“The change that matters is that you have married again and brought a stepmother here!” Cecily nearly shouted at him, her hands on her hips.
“Don’t you understand how significant it is in a child’s world when the adults around them come and go?
Don’t you see why Lilian needs reassurance?
How can you possibly talk about leaving her and going back to London? ”
Prickled and defensive, Nathaniel felt as though part of him was shuttering inside. He did not want to hear any of this, but he could not escape it, and even trying to escape would be ridiculous for a grown man.
“Why don’t you focus on your relationship with Lilian, and I will focus on mine?” he replied, lacking his usual insouciance. “A little girl needs a mother more than a father anyway.”
Those words did not have the calming effect he had hoped for.
“So, that’s your answer, isn’t it?” Cecily scoffed, her face hardening.
“That’s your plan? You want your daughter to accept me so that you can swan off back to London alone and leave us to it?
Are you still here only because you’re waiting to…
have your way with me? Well, as far as I’m concerned, you can do that tonight and leave in the morning. ”
With that parting shot that felt like a slap in the face, she rushed out of the room, slamming the door shut behind her.