4. Chapter 4- Lily #3
Lily’s chin started to wobble. Heaven help her, she was so tired.
And all this time she’d believed that if she could just make it here, to the Cask and Crowne, that everything would be all right, that her trial would be concluded.
But the thought that they might not let her in, that she might have to take refuge in a doorway until sunrise—it was nearly too much to bear.
“Miss Hughes?” an accented voice said from behind the couple. “Miss Sarah Hughes?”
The innkeepers turned, revealing a tall, slender man with deep golden-brown skin standing behind them. He wore a burgundy dressing gown, richly embroidered in gold threading, with matching slippers. His dark eyebrow was winged in question.
“Yes,” Lily croaked. “I am Miss Sarah Hughes.”
The man smiled gently and pressed a hand to his chest, giving a little bow. “And I am Abeer. Your brother sent me. Come in, my dear. You are very welcome here.”
“That hasn’t been decided yet,” Mildred snapped.
“Mrs. Cross,” Abeer said, frowning deeply at the innkeeper. “Do you have any idea who is standing on your doorstep? Apparently not, or you wouldn’t keep the sister of the wealthiest man in England waiting out in the cold. Do come in, my lady,” he added, nodding toward Lily.
Mildred half choked and ducked behind her husband.
Lily felt lightheaded with relief when she crossed the threshold and was enveloped in warmth. The room was a long rectangle filled with circular tables, each ringed with wooden chairs. Coals still glowed from behind a tightly latticed fire screen.
“I will wake her ladyship’s maid. Please arrange your finest room, a bath and a meal,” Abeer said to the innkeepers, even as he gestured Lily toward the nearest chair.
“Good mercy, Henry!” Mildred squawked. “Don’t just stand there—do as the man says!”
“Heaven save me from your continued good health,” her husband grumbled beneath his breath.
“What did you say?” she snapped.
“Nothing, Mildred.”
She followed at his heels through a door to the side of the great room. “Stop mumbling and heat the water for her ladyship’s bath!”
“Miss Hughes,” Abeer murmured once they were gone. “I am so very pleased to meet you.”
“My name isn’t really?—”
He glanced sharply toward the far door. “Your brother requested that we use your convenient moniker for the time being. Until we get out of Northumberland, at the very least.”
She nodded numbly and did her best not to cry from sheer relief and exhaustion. She was truly here. She had made it.
For a few moments, there was only the distant clanking of pots in the kitchen and a low crackling from the fireplace. Then Abeer said, “Forgive me, my lady, but I had expected you in the morning. Is everything all right?”
Lily gazed up into his kind eyes and wondered whether she dared tell him the truth. The compassion in his gaze finally won her over, and she shook her head. “My employer…he wasn’t going to let me leave without telling him who I was, so I had to run.”
Abeer sucked in a sharp breath. “You took a horse?”
Lily shook her head, grateful that her conscience was clear on that front, at least. “I walked.”
“Are you quite all right? Did anything…Were you injured at all on your journey?”
“No, I’m fine. I’m just so relieved to finally be here.”
“You did very well, my lady. Your brother will be very proud.”
Later, Lily sank into a hot, scented bath in her private room, with Mabel, the maid William had sent for her, in attendance. Lily couldn’t help but wonder whether her brother would be proud, or if William would be embarrassed that she’d put herself in such an untenable situation in the first place.
Though hindsight certainly offered clarity, there had been no possible way for the Lily of four months ago to know that her brother was soon to return, and with a fortune, to boot.
During those years of poverty, Lily had watched her seven sisters fade like portraits left in the sun.
She’d waited as long as she could; she’d had to do something.
Still, Lily wouldn’t begrudge William some anger that she’d put herself—and her sisters—in such a precarious position. Even if she had managed to extract herself from it.
Very painfully, she thought, lifting her right foot from the water to inspect the ragged shreds of popped blisters along her heel.
From reading the long letters that Claire and her brother William had sent along with Abeer, such pain was soon to be a thing of the past. Apparently, William had rented an entire, palatial house in Paris for her and her sisters to inhabit while he stayed behind and saw to the restoration of their family home in London.
The Preston ladies were to be accompanied by a bevy of chaperones and lady’s maids—enough that the entire entourage would take all the cabins in one of his own ships.
Lily shook her head, her incredulous exhale sending steam wafting across the surface of the water. Her brother owned ships. A whole fleet of them, apparently.
She leaned back in the water, sighing as the warm water relaxed the tension from her back and shoulders.
Paris.
She’d always longed to go, but now the travel plans were doubly attractive—she was keen on putting as much distance between her and Lord Hayes as possible.