Chapter Seven #2
"The hall looks very well," Daniel managed. His voice sounded strange to his own ears; too formal, too controlled. "Miss Whitcombe. Welcome."
"Your Grace." Lillian curtsied with her usual grace. "Thank you for including me this evening. I know the harvest dinner is traditionally a family affair."
"You are Rosanne's guest. That makes you family, for all practical purposes."
The words came out before he could consider them, and he saw something flicker across Lillian's face; surprise, perhaps, or pleasure. It was gone too quickly to identify, replaced by her customary serene expression.
"That is very kind of you to say."
"It is merely accurate."
They stood there for a moment, caught in a silence that felt heavier than it should. Rosanne glanced between them with an expression of barely suppressed delight.
"Shall we go through?" She suggested. "I believe the other guests are waiting."
Daniel offered his arm to his sister, the proper gesture, the expected gesture, and they proceeded into the great hall. He did not offer his arm to Miss Whitcombe as that would have been inappropriate, given their respective positions.
But he was acutely aware of her walking behind them, and when they reached the dining table, he found his gaze drawn inexorably to the seat she would occupy.
One place removed from my right hand, he thought.
But he had not moved her, after all.
***
Dinner proceeded with all the ceremony and ritual that such occasions demanded.
The first course was served, then the second, then the third, each accompanied by the appropriate wines and the gentle hum of conversation.
Daniel fulfilled his duties as host with mechanical precision; directing the servants, proposing toasts, drawing out the more reticent guests with practised questions about their families and their farms.
And all the while, he watched Lillian.
He watched her laugh at something the vicar said—a genuine laugh, warm and unguarded, that made the vicar beam with pleasure.
He watched her lean close to Mrs. Hobbs, listening with apparent fascination to what was surely a tedious account of someone's ailments or someone else's scandal.
He watched her turn to old Mr. Garrett and speak to him in a voice pitched perfectly to penetrate his failing hearing, drawing from him stories of Wynthorpe's history that Daniel himself had never heard.
She moved through the evening like water through a stream; adapting to each companion, finding the approach that would set them at ease, leaving each person she spoke with feeling somehow more valued than they had felt before.
It was a gift. A rare and genuine gift. And Daniel found himself increasingly fascinated by it.
"She is quite something, is she not?"
The vicar's voice came from Daniel's left, pitched low enough that it would not carry to other guests. Daniel forced himself to look away from Lillian, though the effort was considerable.
"I beg your pardon?"
"Miss Whitcombe." The vicar smiled, his round face creased with benevolent observation. "She has a way of making everyone feel important. It is a talent one does not often encounter."
"She is a friend of my sister's."
"So I understand. Lady Rosanne seems quite devoted to her. It is good to see your sister with such a companion. She has always seemed rather alone, if you will forgive my saying so."
Daniel stiffened slightly. "Rosanne has many acquaintances."
"Acquaintances, yes. But friends? True friends, who value her for herself rather than for her connection to you?" The vicar shook his head gently. "Miss Whitcombe appears to be the genuine article. Lady Rosanne is fortunate to have found her."
"Indeed," Daniel said quietly. "She is."
"And you, Your Grace?" The vicar's tone was light, casual—too casual. "Have you also found Miss Whitcombe's company agreeable?"
Daniel's jaw tightened. "She is a pleasant enough young woman."
"Pleasant." The vicar's eyebrows rose slightly. "Yes, I suppose that is one word for it."
"What word would you use?"
"I?" The vicar smiled with an innocence that Daniel did not believe for a moment. "I would use the word 'remarkable.' But then, I have always been given to excessive enthusiasm. It is a failing of the clerical temperament, I am told."
Before Daniel could formulate a response, and he was not at all certain what that response might have been, the vicar's wife claimed her husband's attention with a question about Sunday's sermon, and Daniel was left to his own thoughts.
Remarkable.
That was true. That was a word for her. Miss Lillian Whitcombe was remarkable; in her intelligence, in her composure, in the quiet way she had inserted herself into the fabric of Wynthorpe life until her absence would leave a noticeable gap.
He watched her now, across the length of the table, as she listened to Rosanne describe something with animated gestures. Lillian's expression was attentive, interested, touched with a warmth that made Daniel's chest feel suddenly too tight.
She caught him watching.
Their eyes met across the table, a moment only, a fraction of a heartbeat, but in that instant, Daniel felt as though the rest of the room had simply ceased to exist. There was only Lillian, with her steady gaze and her slight, questioning smile, and the unbearable awareness that he was in very great trouble indeed.
He looked away first.
He had to. If he had continued to hold her gaze, he would have…….He did not know what he would have done. But it would have been noticed. It would have been remarked upon. The entire county would have been buzzing with gossip by morning.
She is your sister's friend, he reminded himself fiercely. She is a country neighbour of modest means. She is entirely unsuitable for anything more than casual acquaintance.
But his eyes kept finding their way back to her, again and again, until he was forced to acknowledge the truth he had been avoiding.
He was not in trouble.
He was already lost.
***
The ladies withdrew after dinner, leaving the gentlemen to their wine and their cigars. Daniel fulfilled his duties as host, leading the conversation through the safe territories of farming and politics and the eternal question of road repairs, but his mind was elsewhere.
In the drawing room. With her.
"Miss Whitcombe is a charming addition to the neighbourhood." The vicar's voice broke through his distraction once more. "I understand she has become quite a fixture at the Hall."
"She visits Rosanne frequently, yes."
"Only Rosanne?"
The question was pointed enough to demand a pointed response. Daniel set down his glass with careful precision.
"She is my sister's friend. Nothing more."
The words came out sharper than he had intended; too sharp, too vehement, betraying more than they concealed. The vicar blinked, clearly surprised by the force of the denial. Around the table, the other men exchanged glances that Daniel pretended not to see.
"Of course, Your Grace," the vicar said mildly. "I meant no implication."
But the damage was done. Daniel could see it in their faces—the speculation, the curiosity, the barely suppressed interest that his reaction had ignited. He had meant to quash the rumors before they could begin; instead, he had fanned them into flame.
He stood abruptly, his chair scraping against the floor.
"Shall we join the ladies? I believe they mentioned something about music after dinner."
The transition was too quick, an obvious retreat, but Daniel could not bring himself to care. He needed to escape this room, these knowing looks, the suffocating awareness that he had revealed far more than he had intended.
The gentlemen followed him to the drawing room, and Daniel paused in the doorway to compose himself before entering.
Lillian was standing by the window.
She was alone, slightly apart from the other ladies, her silhouette outlined against the dark glass.
The candlelight caught the curve of her cheek, the line of her neck, the soft gleam of her hair.
She was looking out at the night, or perhaps at her own reflection, with an expression he could not read.
As though sensing his gaze, she turned and their eyes met.
The room seemed to contract around them; the chatter of the other guests fading to a distant murmur, the space between them shrinking until Daniel could feel the weight of her attention like a physical touch.
She did not smile and she did not look away.
She simply waited, as though expecting something from him that he did not know how to give.
"Daniel!" Rosanne's voice cut through the moment like a bell. "Come and settle a debate. Mrs. Garrett insists that the late duchess preferred Handel, but I am quite certain she favoured Mozart. You must tell us which is correct."
He forced himself to turn away from Lillian, to respond to his sister with appropriate attention, to rejoin the social performance that the evening demanded.
But even as he answered Rosanne's question, Mozart, definitely Mozart, their mother had found Handel tedious, he could feel Lillian's gaze on the back of his neck.
She had seen it. The unguarded moment. The naked wanting that he had been so careful to conceal.
She had seen it, and she had not looked away.
***
The guests departed in stages; first the tenant families, then the vicar and his wife, then the Garretts with their effusive thanks and their thinly veiled observations about the suitability of Miss Whitcombe as a companion for Lady Rosanne.
At last, only Lillian remained.
"I should call for the carriage," she said, rising from the settee where she had been sitting with Rosanne. "The hour grows late, and I do not wish to impose further on your hospitality."
"Nonsense," Rosanne protested. "It is barely ten o'clock. And you promised to help me with my embroidery since you know I am hopeless without supervision."
"Your embroidery can wait until tomorrow. Your brother has been hosting all evening; he must be exhausted."
"I am perfectly well," Daniel heard himself say.
Both women turned to look at him; Rosanne with surprise, Lillian with an expression he could not quite decipher.
"There is no need for Miss Whitcombe to rush off," he continued, aware that he was contradicting everything he had resolved about maintaining appropriate distance. "The carriage can be called whenever she wishes. In the meantime, I believe Mrs. Gerald prepared coffee for the family."
"Coffee would be lovely," Rosanne said, with a sidelong glance at her brother that suggested she knew exactly what he was doing, even if he did not.
They adjourned to the small sitting room that the family used for informal gatherings; a warmer, more intimate space than the big drawing room where the guests had been entertained. A fire crackled in the grate, and the coffee service had been laid out on a table near the hearth.
Daniel poured—a task that did not, strictly speaking, require his attention, but which gave his hands something to do and his eyes something to focus on that was not Lillian Whitcombe.
"It was a lovely evening," Lillian said, accepting her cup with a murmured thanks. "Your tenants clearly hold you in high regard."
"They hold Wynthorpe in high regard. I am merely the current custodian."
"You undervalue yourself, Your Grace. The respect they showed you tonight was personal, not merely institutional."
Daniel looked up, startled by the observation. Lillian was watching him with that steady, seeing gaze that always made him feel as though she could read the thoughts he kept so carefully hidden.
"You are generous in your assessment."
"I am accurate in my assessment. There is a difference."
Rosanne made a small, satisfied sound and rose from her chair with suspicious abruptness. "I have just remembered, I promised to speak with Mrs. Gerald about the linens for Lady Smith's gathering. I shall return in a moment."
"Rosanne..." Daniel began.
But she was already gone, the door closing behind her with a decisive click that left Daniel alone with Lillian in the fire-lit room.
The silence stretched between them, weighted with everything that had passed unspoken throughout the evening.
"Your sister," Lillian said finally, "is not subtle."
"No. She is not."
"She wishes us to talk."
"Apparently."
"And do you? Wish to talk?"
Daniel set down his coffee cup with careful precision. His heart was beating faster than it should; faster than a simple conversation warranted.
"I am not certain what there is to discuss."
"Are you not?" Lillian's voice was soft, but there was something beneath the softness; a thread of something that might have been challenge.
"You watched me all evening, Your Grace.
Every time I looked up, your eyes were on me.
And when I caught you watching, you looked away as though you had been caught doing something shameful. "
Heat crept up the back of Daniel's neck. "I was merely…."
"You were merely fulfilling your duties as host. I understand." Lillian set down her own cup and rose from her chair. "It is late. I should go."
"Wait."
The word escaped him before he could stop it; raw and unguarded, nothing like the controlled speech he had practised all his life. Lillian paused, turning to look at him with an expression that made his chest ache.
"Yes?"
He should say something. Anything. An explanation, an apology, a dismissal that would restore the proper distance between them.
Instead, he simply stood there, looking at her across the fire-lit room, unable to find the words for what he felt.
The clock on the mantel chimed the hour. Somewhere in the house, a door closed.
"Goodnight, Your Grace," Lillian said quietly.
She curtsied and turned toward the door.
Daniel did not stop her.
But when she reached the threshold, she paused and looked back at him; a long, searching look that seemed to see straight through to his soul.
Neither of them spoke.
Neither of them needed to.