Chapter Thirty-Two
A fter breakfast, Finn asked Lily to walk with him in the garden. With April upon them, new life was pushing up from the cold earth. Soon the gardens would be full of color and sweet scents. Lily considered how different her life was this spring than last.
Her life here in Scotland was wonderful. She had a doting husband who was the very best father. Each day she thanked her stars for him.
“I’m sure you are aware, the Season has started,” Finn said out of the blue. Or it seemed to be out of the blue. From the way he looked away and would not meet her eye, she guessed this was the main reason for his invitation to walk with him.
“And what matter is the Season to us all the way up here?”
“As a duke, I’m expected to attend sessions in the House of Lords.”
“But you left early in the Season last year, and I will forever be grateful for it.”
“Aye. And I wouldn’t bother with it this year either except there is a bill being passed that affects us Scots. Shay and Reese have asked for my support and, of course, I wish to lend my voice with my vote.”
“Do you plan to go alone?” she asked, thinking of how much she would miss him if he planned to leave her behind. Though she couldn’t say she had any desire to go to London either.
“I was hoping you would come with me. And Willie, of course, because we won’t want to be far from him.” He smiled and she saw nothing but sincerity in his eyes.
Finn wanted his family to be with him. She couldn’t say no.
“Very well. I shall inform Oliver and Mrs. MacDougal we plan to leave Gealach .”
He smiled and leaned down to kiss her.
“I think we should attend a few society events while we’re in London, so everyone can meet my lovely new duchess.”
Lily’s excitement dimmed at the idea of being out in society, but she made sure not to show her concerns. It had been nearly a year since her misstep with Reggie. Surely no one would bother to remember she’d vanished last season, let alone mention it.
Everything would be fine.
After all, she was a duchess. Who would speak ill of a duchess?
With all their things packed, and Finn’s valet and her lady’s maid in the second carriage with the nurse, they were ready to depart. Lily stood holding a sleeping Willie and waited for the duke to come out.
She didn’t see his horse brought around, and she knew well enough he hadn’t ridden home from London last year for he’d offered her a ride in his carriage on that fateful evening.
Still, she wasn’t sure where everyone would be sitting.
Finn came out of the house and slowed as he saw her waiting.
“Is something amiss with the traveling coach?” he asked.
“No. It’s only, I wasn’t certain where you wanted us. I’d like to stay with Willie, but if he will be a distraction we could ride in the other coach.”
He smiled and took Willie from her.
“This is the family coach, Lily. The family rides in it. All of them.” He winked and shifted her sleeping son so he could offer his hand to assist her into the conveyance. Once she was settled, he passed Willie to her and climbed in.
“Besides,” he said once the carriage was set to motion. “How absurd it would be for one person to ride in this large coach while everyone else crowds into the second one?”
She knew well enough he had ridden alone in this coach when he came from London last May. At least for most of the trip. She had accompanied him for the last portion.
She looked around the carriage and smiled. She’d not had need to ride in it since that night. They’d always used the smaller carriage when going to the village or to dinners at the vicar’s home.
“I had no idea how much my life was about to change when I first rode in this coach. It seems strange. I’d thought my life was over. I thought I’d end up in a convent or even a brothel.”
“A brothel? Did you even know—ah, yes, your brothers.” He shook his head. With a naughty grin he said, “What a waste it would have been for you to be hidden away in a convent.”
“I thank you for saving me from either fate. I wouldn’t have been happy with either.” She looked down at the sleeping babe in her arms and then to her handsome husband. “I am happier than I ever thought to be.”
“I wish you would stop thanking me. It’s as if I didn’t get the best end of the bargain. A family of my own. I’m no longer alone.”
For the most part William was an excellent traveler. Mostly because he slept the better part of the way. But when he was awake and fed, he was content to sit on their knee and look out the window.
“Did you know I was blond as a baby?” Lily said as Finn looped a finger in Willie’s curls. She didn’t know what made her say such a thing. She’d been worried Finn would think Willie’s hair color came from his father.
Without looking up, he said, “I was blond until my twelfth summer.”
“Oh. That makes sense. It is still a lighter brown with streaks that would probably still be blond if touched by the sun.”
“Aye. When I used to run about the hills like a Highlander in the summers, it would go to light.”
Lily nodded and looked out the window until Finn’s voice drew her attention back to him again.
“It is of no matter if our Willie looks like the man who created him. I am his father.”
“Yes, you are.”
For now, Willie looked like a baby. Lily didn’t spend time looking for specific traits that might have come from Reggie. As Finn said, it didn’t matter.
But she did worry what would happen years from now when William grew into a man. That was when boys were want to take after their fathers.
Would anyone notice? Would William ask? If so, what would they tell him?
It was one thing to lie to all of the ton, yet another to lie to their child.
“How old was your sister when she learned her mother, your mother, was not her birth mother?”
He let out a long sigh and stretched his legs.
“She would have been fourteen, I believe.”
“Was there a reason they told her?”
“She started to have nightmares. Though I wonder if she’d always had them and just told us what they were about then. She was a horrible sleeper.” He shook his head. “At any rate, she remembered being hungry and dirty. She was somewhere with chickens about and she was afraid of them. She said a man would yell at her if she tried to keep the chickens away. That was all she remembered. But my mother and father told her the origin of the dream as a way to help her overcome her nightmares. It seemed June’s mother went to stay with her brother for a time when she was sick. He had chickens in the small yard. My father saw them when he found out about June and went to get her.”
Willie would have no such memories. His whole life would be spent with Finn as his father. He’d have no reason to ask. No reason for them to be forced to tell him the truth.
“Are you thinking we should tell Willie the truth some day?” he asked after a bit of silence.
“What are your thoughts on it?”
“I can only think what I would want to know. That is, what would be important. I loved my father. If I’d found out later he wasn’t the man who’d sired me, it wouldn’t have made a difference for William Lockhart was my father in every way that mattered. If I’m a good father to our William, I would hope he would feel the same. And if that’s the case, it wouldn’t matter if we told him or not. I will make sure he never has a reason to wish he’d been raised by someone else.”
She nodded slowly.
“I agree. He will be loved. There would be no reason for him to know any different than the family he has.”
Finn nodded as if the matter was settled, and Lily thought maybe it was.
But there was an unknown still lurking about in London. Reggie Flockton would know the truth as well.