Chapter 4 #3
After leaving Lady Slight the afternoon before, she had been scrambling for a solution to Mr. Ridley’s plight. Somehow, knowing where he had been the night of the murder made her feel personally responsible for his well-being, along with that of his sister, the duchess.
Lady Slight would not do the right thing, and perhaps visiting the widow to beseech her to intervene should have assuaged Lily’s conscience.
Yet … she still felt accountable. Lily knew she should step forward and state what she had witnessed to the authorities, but Lady Slight had thwarted this path.
The widow would simply deny it, and then it would be Lily’s word against hers.
The statement of a widow would hold far more weight than that of an unwed young woman, especially when that widow was a viscountess.
Lily stopped and stomped her feet in frustration, the soft thud muffled against the worn rug, before stalking to her dressing table and glaring down at the news sheet lying upon it. The inky columns trembled ever so slightly in her hands.
Reports of the baron’s death were now in circulation, along with lurid mentions of the estrangement between him and his heir. They had not spoken in seven years, according to the article, a detail Lily had not known.
The temerity of the widow still grated on her nerves.
The woman had admitted to having Mr. Ridley stop in front of Lily’s own home as a decoy for his true destination.
Clearly, the viper had no concern for the potential scandal, no hesitation about tainting her or Mama’s reputation should a passerby have seen him outside the Abbott townhouse. The utter brazenness of it!
What if …
Lily raised her head and stared at herself in the looking glass.
Brown eyes—eyes she always hoped were the color of chocolate, like Aidan’s and Mama’s—met her gaze with a flicker of determination.
An inkling of an idea formed, but her stomach tightened in dismay.
Surely, Mr. Ridley would find a way to address the matter?
He had the help of both a duke and an earl at his side.
Except …
The duchess’s quiet sniffles during their recent tête-à-tête echoed through Lily’s memory. She had seemed genuinely distressed.
Surely, they will come up with a plan to deal with it …
Lily tried to dismiss the recollection, but another memory intruded—Sophia recounting the tale of the Earl of Ferrers, that infamous nobleman imprisoned at the Tower, tried at Westminster, and hanged. Gooseflesh prickled along her arms.
There must be another way …
But what if there was not? What if an innocent man were tried and condemned—hanged—because she lacked the courage to act?
It will ruin me …
Would preserving her reputation be worth the cost of her self-respect? Mr. Ridley was a good man, from an excellent family, and without an alibi, he stood defenseless. Lily believed Lady Slight when she said she would not come forward.
And what of falling in love? Of being wed and having children and gaining the freedoms granted to a married woman?
But what would any of that matter if, in the pursuit of safety, she sacrificed the very part of herself that believed in justice?
No, this was something she could not ask of anyone else. No counsel would do. This was hers to decide.
It was the essence of being an adult.
To do what was right.
To stand on her own two feet.
Lily fell to her knees, the weight of responsibility too much to bear. And she wept, her shoulders shuddering with her despair as she faced the burden of growing up.
For the longest time, she had wished to be an adult, to be treated with respect and behave with maturity. Lily had imagined marrying a man who loved her, as Sophia had done. Bringing her first child into the world, as Sophia had just done.
Now Lily wished she could return to her childhood, where heavy decisions did not weigh upon her. The innocence of those days felt distant, like sunlight glimpsed through a pane of rippled glass.
If she discussed the matter with anyone, even Sophia, she knew she would be dissuaded from doing the right thing. She would hear arguments about how her reputation was paramount. How she must make a successful match. How it was someone else’s problem to deal with.
But if she did not do the right thing and protect Mr. Ridley, despite the knowledge she had of his innocence, it would haunt her with guilt.
If she buried the guilt somewhere in the deep recesses of her soul, she would become a heartless hussy like the one who lived across the street, one who welcomed a parade of men through her home, yet possessed no integrity, no humanity, and no true joy.
A beautiful but empty shell, seated in an exquisite room where no breath of vitality stirred the air.
Her optimism would die a slow and painful death, and she would no longer be … Lily—a spirited young woman who may not quite fit in, but who carried cheer in her heart and brightness in her words.
I must do what I know in my heart is right.
She wept for the end of her hopes and dreams and for the beginning of a frightening path into the unknown. Her reputation would be destroyed, she knew. And yet, she could only hope that Mr. Ridley might, in turn, find some way to save her.
Finally, once the tempest of emotion had passed, Lily slowly rose to her feet. She dried her face with trembling fingers and moved to ring the bell.
It was time to leave, before Mama and Papa rose for the day.