Chapter Thirteen #3
"Improving." Lillian remained in the doorway, suddenly uncertain of how to begin. "Thanks to the physician you sent."
Daniel's expression did not change, but she saw his shoulders stiffen almost imperceptibly.
"I do not know what you mean."
"Mr. Harrington. The specialist from London who appeared at our door, claiming to be 'in the area,' offering his services free of charge." Lillian took a step into the room. "He refused to name his patron, but I am not a fool, Your Grace."
"I never suggested you were."
"The roof is being repaired as we speak. Workmen arrived this morning; an entire crew, with timber and tools and instructions to make the house watertight by week's end. Payment, I am told, was arranged through a solicitor in London."
Daniel said nothing.
"And this morning, my mother received a letter informing her that the debt we have been struggling with for the past year has been settled.
Paid in full by an anonymous benefactor.
" Lillian drew the letters from her pocket, the physician's card, the foreman's receipt, the creditor's letter, and set them on his desk.
"Would you like to tell me that is all coincidence? "
The silence stretched between them, thick with everything unspoken.
"No," Daniel said finally. "I would not insult your intelligence by claiming coincidence."
"Then you admit it. You did all of this."
"I did."
"Why?"
He looked at her and Lillian saw the struggle in his expression. The war between the walls he had built and the feelings that threatened to breach them.
"Because I could not sit and do nothing." His voice was rough, stripped of its usual careful control. "Because your father was injured and your family was in distress, and the thought of you suffering when I had the power to help was... It was intolerable."
"You could have told me. You could have offered openly."
"You would have refused."
"Yes. I would have."
"That is why I did not tell you." He moved around the desk, closing the distance between them with slow, deliberate steps.
"I know you, Lillian. I know your pride, your practicality, your determination to manage everything yourself.
If I had offered openly, you would have sent me away—as you did, in fact, when I tried. "
"So instead you went behind my back. You arranged everything in secret, so I could not refuse."
"Yes."
"That is manipulation."
"Perhaps." He stopped before her, close enough to touch but not touching. "Or perhaps it is simply the only way I know how to love."
The word hung in the air between them, love, spoken aloud for the first time, undeniable and irreversible.
Lillian felt her breath catch. "You love me?"
"I do not know what else to call it." His voice was barely above a whisper.
"I have never felt anything like this before.
I do not know the rules, the patterns, the proper way to proceed.
I only know that when you are in distress, I cannot rest until I have done something to ease it.
That when you smile, something in my chest loosens.
That when I imagine a future without you in it…
." He broke off, his jaw tightening. "I cannot imagine such a future. I do not want to."
Lillian's vision blurred with tears. "Daniel—"
"You do not have to say anything. You do not have to feel the same.
I know the obstacles between us, I know what the world would say, what my position demands, what practicality requires.
" He reached out and took her hand, his fingers wrapping around hers with desperate gentleness.
"But I needed you to know. Whatever happens from here, I needed you to understand why I did what I did. "
Lillian looked at their joined hands. At the man before her; this guarded, wounded, impossible man who had spent his entire life building walls against emotion and was now standing before her with his heart exposed, risking everything on the chance that she might feel the same.
She thought about her father's advice: Be careful. You have always led with your heart.
She thought about her mother's words: Perhaps it is time to want something for yourself.
She thought about the folly, and the kiss, and the way Daniel had said her name like a prayer.
And she made her choice.
"I love you too," she said.
The words came out quiet, almost trembling, but they were the truest words she had ever spoken.
Daniel's expression transformed. The walls crumbled. The mask fell away. And what remained was simply a man, vulnerable and hopeful and terrified, looking at the woman he loved.
"Lillian." Her name was a breath, a benediction, a question and answer all at once.
"I love you," she said again, stronger this time.
"I do not know how it happened, or when.
I only know that somewhere between the muddy hems and the practical observations, I fell in love with a man who does not know how to feel things safely but I do not care.
I do not care about the obstacles or the propriety or what the world will say. I care about you."
He kissed her.
It was not like the kiss in the folly—tentative, questioning, careful.
This kiss was fierce and desperate and full of everything that neither of them had words to express.
His arms came around her, pulling her close, and she went willingly, her hands clenching in the fabric of his coat, her heart pounding so hard she thought it might burst.
When they finally broke apart, breathless and trembling, Daniel rested his forehead against hers. There was worry in his eyes.
"What happens now?" he asked, something foreign in his voice.
Lillian laughed; a shaky, joyful sound. "I have no idea."