Chapter 3
Using a silver fork to stab herself in the leg was poor manners, but Lily supposed it was better than stabbing her husband.
Because at that moment, seated at the obscenely grand dining room table and surrounded by her family, that pinprick of pain was the only thing keeping her from either running from the room or dissolving into a puddle of tears under the tablecloth.
Archie and Marigold flanked her boys across the table, Archie helping the younger lad cut his roast into manageable pieces.
Whatever Aunt Margaret was talking to Callum about had clearly bored him, because he stared mournfully at his empty glass of Scotch whisky while Violet looked on with amusement painted on her delicate features.
Rose and her twin, Fern, giggled as they spoke in low voices while Ben slung a protective arm on the back of Rose’s chair, pausing only to welcome Alex back to the group when he returned from checking on the baby in the nursery.
The fireplace crackled behind them, and the woodsy fragrance of the evergreen garlands decorating the mantle spiced the air.
The table was littered with half-empty serving platters and plates, and candlelight sparkled against the silver flatware left haphazardly across them.
Lily’s fingers itched with the desire to clear them, to make herself useful and escape the person sitting next to her.
Her husband.
Philip picked at his food, his gaze flicking to Lily every few moments, but she pointedly ignored him each time.
The viscountess, seated on Lily’s other side, patted her hand. “It’s a wonder, isn’t it?” she said. “I never thought I’d have all of you around my table again, let alone so happily in love.”
Lily’s gut twisted. She hated lying to her mother, especially at Christmas, but she forced a smile.
Lady Redbourne dabbed her napkin to the corners of her eyes as she went on. “Our first holiday with Callum and Archie, and now Lily has her beloved here. The only thing that would make me happier would be having my garden in bloom.”
The viscount kept his attention on slicing his asparagus into perfectly equal pieces. “Hothouse flowers are expensive, my love.”
“I’m just as thrilled to be here, my lady,” Whit said from Lily’s side.
She snapped her gaze back to her beef, imagining picking it up and flinging it at her husband.
A tear—not the first of the evening—broke free and spilled down her mother’s cheek. “But with Whit—oh dear, Philip here… It’s perfect.”
Lily dug the fork into her thigh a little harder, then took a healthy swig of the deep scarlet wine in her goblet.
She mustn’t think of her husband as anything but Whit, or Whitby, or the Earl, because Philip was the name of the young man she fell in love with, the man she’d believed would love and cherish her, as he’d vowed to do on that Christmas Day years ago.
The bloody liar. Curse him for ruining Christmas.
“If you’re my uncle,” Matthew said, “why have we never met?”
Marigold placed a quieting hand on her son’s arm, but Whit gave him a kind smile. “That’s a long story, Matthew.”
“Shhh,” Aunt Margaret hissed, waving her hand at the already-silent Callum. “My hearing is terrible, and I want to hear this.”
A tense silence fell over the room, and Lily pressed her fingertip against the tine of the fork.
Whit laid his utensils on his plate, giving his full attention to her nephew. “I’ve been away from England for some time. I was ill, and I needed to go to Europe to get better.”
Reggie lifted his eyes from where he’d been corralling his peas into a neat row with his knife. “England is in Europe.”
Whit chuckled. “You’re correct, and I’ll clarify. It took a long time and quite a bit of travel to find the doctors and… medicine I needed to recover.”
“Was it an earache?” Matthew asked. “I had one of those this summer, and it was bloody awful.”
“Matthew, language,” Marigold chided.
“It wasn’t an earache, but those are awful.”
Aunt Margaret leaned in. “Then what was it?”
The humor drained from Whit’s face, and this time, when he met Lily’s gaze, she didn’t look away. “Supper isn’t the right time to discuss my situation.”
The question slid from her lips before she could restrain it. “Were there complications from the accident?”
His mouth curled up at the edges, as though her bare amount of civility thrilled him, but Reggie spoke before he could respond. “Accident? Were you in an accident?”
“Oh,” Lady Redbourne cut in, “let’s not discuss such a sad time.”
“If you don’t mind, my lady,” Whit said, “I feel I owe some explanation, as it explains my absence, in part. The story begins with my father’s death. He fell ill while I was courting Lily.”
Matthew cocked his head. “Did you meet her at a party, like Archie did with Mama?”
Marigold snorted into her glass of wine, and Archie’s cheeks flushed a dark pink. “That’s also not a good story for supper, lad,” he murmured.
“No,” Whit said. “She was admiring my horse.”
Aunt Margaret’s brow raised. “Is that a euphemism of some sort?”
Whit chuckled. “Lily has a remarkable gift for assessing horseflesh. The first thing she did when I told her I’d recently purchased my new stallion was to inform me I’d been swindled.”
“Swindled?” Her father scoffed. “Dreadful.”
“I agree.” Whit held Lily’s gaze, and she couldn’t look away. “I was more than irritated at first, but her fire mesmerized me. Her knowledge and willingness to tell a stranger that he’d been a fool…” The corner of his lip pulled up. “I was smitten.”
Her mother sighed dreamily. “She was smitten, too. For the first time in her life, she was talking about something other than horses.”
“Mama,” Lily protested, but her father spoke over her.
“It was no surprise to me when he asked me for your hand.” The man’s lips flattened for a moment. “If I hadn’t said yes, she would have run off with Whitby, anyway.”
She likely would have. The Philip who courted her had been charming, roguish, with a crooked grin that made Lily ache between her thighs.
His teasing left her feeling clever instead of silly, asking questions and listening to her responses, and remembering what she’d said weeks later.
Soon she was staring out the window of their townhouse, hoping he’d come to call, collecting his cards and letters, then tracing her fingers over the words until she’d memorized them.
Much like she’d done with his most recent letter.
“As I said, shortly after she accepted my proposal, my father fell ill.” His expression darkened.
The viscount leaned back in his chair. “I’d forgotten we’d had to postpone your wedding for so long.” He shook his head. “I hated to see the old earl suffer.”
“As did I.” Philip cleared his throat before continuing, the rough sound echoing through the eerily silent dining room.
“After he passed, I was away from Lily for months to manage the transfer of the estate and support my mother. But we could set the wedding date as soon as the year of mourning ended, which was—”
“Christmas Day.” Lily’s words fell between them, shattering like broken glass and spilling across the table.
Every eye stared at her, but she could only see Philip, the pain as he remembered losing his father, the fear that he would never be the man the prior earl had been. The joy in his letter when he wrote to her about planning their wedding on the family estate in Lancashire.
He toyed with the stem of his wineglass, staring at a point in the distance as though lost in his memories.
His empty wine glass. Lily cocked her head. Philip was never without a drink, typically whisky or brandy. This glass wasn’t merely empty, but clean, never filled.
When Philip spoke again, his words were rough. “Yes. We set the date as Christmas, so we could celebrate with everyone we loved best in the world.”
His voice echoed in her mind, the memory pulled from a place so deep she never thought she’d access it again.
I bought this ornament for you. Next year, we’ll hang it on our own tree, with our family…
She slammed her eyes shut against the memories and cleared her throat. “But you wanted to take a ride in your new curricle.”
“And there was an accident,” Matthew whispered, the reverence in his tone settling over the table.
“There was.” Philip pressed his lips into a flat line. “I nearly lost my leg, and the recovery was abysmal. But your aunt Lily was there to help me recover.”
I can’t survive without you by my side, Lily…
“You needed your doctors and medicine to control your pain. Not me.” Her help hadn’t been enough. He’d still been limping on their wedding day, his eyes glassy as they recited their vows.
His face blanched. “That’s not true.”
I swear I’ll never leave you, not after everything you’ve done for me…
“What kept you away?” The entire table startled at Ben’s words, and the man’s dark eyes were narrowed at his brother-in-law. Rose put her hand on his arm to still him, but he continued undeterred. “No one has seen you in months.”
Years. Lily glanced at her mother; the woman’s brows were tightly knit, and Lily wondered how long it would be before the woman saw through the lies she’d told.
Philip shifted in his seat. “It was a complicated situation.” There was tension in his voice now, like he’d been forced to improvise after having memorized a speech.
“Not that complicated. You explained it to the children in less than a quarter hour.”
“There wasn’t a good time.”
“Not a single good time in eight years?”
Lily’s mother recoiled. “Eight years? But you said—”
Lily pushed to her feet, dropping the fork on the table with a clatter. “I beg your pardon,” she choked out, “but I need to—I need—”
She made the mistake of looking at Philip—Whit, then, and something deep in her chest, the place where she’d taken her anger and fear and implacable sadness and locked them away, cracked open, the monsters inside bursting free.
“Where are you going?” her mother called, slightly louder than the rush of concerned, pitying whispers from her sisters and their spouses.
Her legs were moving without her consent, and she flicked the moisture away from her eyes as she fled the dining room. She heard motion behind her, and just as she reached the doorway, a warm hand closed around her wrist.
“Lily, wait.”
She froze in place, letting her eyelids fall shut.
There was no need to look at who held her; his pine and smoke scent hadn’t changed in their years apart.
The hold on her arm, the fingertips pressing against her thrumming pulse, gave her permission to stop, to let someone else tell her what to do.
For so long, she’d pretended to be invincible, that she didn’t mind Philip’s absence.
She needed no one, no help, no guarding, because she was better off alone.
And now, with his grip solid on her arm, she wanted to crumble into his embrace, even when she knew it would destroy her.
She was saved from that utterly humiliating outcome by the ringing of silver against crystal, and she jerked her gaze to the table.
“You’re under the mistletoe!” Aunt Margaret declared. “Kiss her!”
Her stomach swooped, and when she glanced at Philip, his dark gaze held hers before she looked up. How the bundle of dark green leaves and white berries mocked her, the scarlet velvet ribbon holding the greenery together so innocuous.
“I won’t, Lily,” he whispered, his thumb passing in arcs over the pounding pulse in her wrist. “Unless you want me to.”
As soon as she opened her mouth to express her desperate desire not to be kissed, Matthew’s tinkling laughter reached her ears. “Mama,” he hissed, “are they going to kiss?”
“Of course they are,” Reggie replied, not bothering to regulate his volume.
She glanced behind her to where her family leaned forward, as though this wretched moment were a theatrical display instead of abject humiliation.
Her throat tightened at the hopeful look in her mother’s eyes, Aunt Margaret’s wry smile, her nephews’ barely contained glee.
A kiss wouldn’t hurt her any more than Philip had, and she had already inserted far too much tension into what should have been a perfect dinner.
A kiss to keep the Christmas magic alive.
She lifted onto her toes and braced one palm against his chest before bringing her mouth to his.
Such simple contact shouldn’t have sent her insides blazing, his mouth igniting a fuse that blazed through her like a match set to kindling.
He flattened his hand over hers on his chest, and she was grateful for the stability because she wavered on her feet, like a debutante at her first cotillion.
A low gasp, just shy of a moan, slid from her throat, but he heard it.
The caress of his lips deepened as he brought one arm to the small of her back.
In that moment, she had everything she’d wanted but refused to acknowledge for the past eight years. The security of his arms, the knowledge that she had to do nothing but let him care for her, pleasure her, warm her bed when it had been cold and lonely for so damned long.
The hand at her back tensed, his fingertips pressing into her flesh with glorious strength, and she wanted more, craved more, and she—
A low whistle sounded from the dining room, and she pushed away as if she’d been shocked.
She had been shocked. Her hand flew to her lips, as though she could wipe off the pleasure of his touch while hiding her flushed cheeks.
“That was a good kiss,” Aunt Margaret proclaimed, lifting her empty sherry glass in a salute.
“So romantic,” her mother said, and her sisters nodded their agreement, leaning in towards their spouses. She looked to Ben, the only one at the table who had stood by her, but he flattened his lips and turned to his wife.
She was alone. Again.
“Lily,” Philip whispered, and she snapped her attention back to him. His eyes were dark, questioning as they held hers.
She should tell him what she needed, how he’d broken everything between them and could never fix it. How she missed him every day and worried about him even more. She should be brave, the strong woman she always claimed to be.
Instead, she ran from the room as fast as her legs could carry her.