10. Chapter 10-Lily #2
How was Lord Hayes here? Lily had been so careful. To think that her miles-long sojourn through half the mud of northern England hadn’t been worth it in the end! It had only delayed the inevitable—moved the calamitous moment of discovery from the fields of Northumberland to a London ballroom.
In all their time together, through all those stoic, formal dinners during which he’d questioned her relentlessly, he’d given several comments that made it quite clear that he detested the city.
Of course, as a member of the nobility, he was sometimes forced to visit, but Lily was under the impression that he left most of his duties to stewards and a proxy at Parliament.
“You hate the city,” she blurted.
Lord Hayes had been scanning the crowd—it was the duty of the man to ensure they didn’t run into other couples—but at her words, his eyes met hers again. She cursed herself for uttering a sound. For a moment, she’d forgotten that she was prey in this scenario—and prey, as a rule, should be silent.
“Yes,” he admitted. “I do.”
Lily felt the roiling waves of her fear ebb slightly for the first time since Lord Hayes had said her name.
If the man hated the city as much as he’d claimed, then surely he would leave shortly.
Whatever this was, it would at least be over soon.
Lily found the thought comforting. She would rather have a sharp dagger between the ribs than a long, wasting illness.
And there was to be a death here, that she was certain of. All that remained to be seen was whether her sisters would share her fate.
Lily was suddenly, irrationally angry. It had been months! Why was he here now? Why had he waited until she was in public? He could have come to the house yesterday and announced himself. That would have been far more private and convenient.
But perhaps that was the entire point, she thought.
As quickly as the anger came, it faded, replaced instead by concern for her sisters.
“What do you want from me? I beg of you, if you’ve come to expose me, please. Think of my sisters.” She could barely force the last, cracked word from her mouth.
He frowned down at her. “I have no desire to harm them, I assure you.”
Lily took a shuddering breath; Lord Hayes’s hand spasmed against her waist.
“Then why are you here?” She blinked up at him, a sudden, hopeful inspiration alighting. “Have you come to London on an errand?”
Lord Hayes scoffed at the idiocy of her statement. “I came here for you.”
Lily did her best to hide her wince. “But why?”
The initial shock of Lord Hayes’s appearance had fled, instantly chased by the reality of being held in his arms. It was as if waves of incredulity battered her in turn. She recovered from one just to be pummeled by another.
He’s truly here. He’s dancing with me. He says he has no desire to harm my sisters.
But that didn’t mean he wouldn’t.
“Lord Hayes,” she started again, desperately.
“I insist you call me Bradford,” he said with a dangerous smile. “I intend upon calling you Lily, after all.”
“Very well. Bradford.” She nearly choked on the name.
It felt wrong to feign the intimacy of friendship when they were closer to adversaries at the moment.
“Please don’t reveal anything that would harm my sisters’ chances.
They’ve done no wrong here. They didn’t have anything to do with it—they didn’t even know I was going to go until after I’d left. ”
“Your sisters and I have that in common, then,” he fairly growled.
Lily winced but didn’t dare point out that his assessment wasn’t precisely fair. She had, in fact, told him that she was resigning. She’d offered him an explanation—a very reasonable one.
Lily had even gone so far as to tell Lord Hayes—Bradford—the truth of the matter, instead of the carefully crafted lie William had suggested. She didn’t feel right telling him that her childhood love had returned from sea and asked for her hand in marriage.
Lily had thought that after all her lies, Bradford deserved some of the truth. It had been easier to lie to an unknown, faceless man who needed a governess. It was far more difficult to lie to Lord Hayes, whom she knew. Whom she respected.
But the scant information she’d given him had obviously been a mistake. It had proven her a liar, for one thing—Miss Hughes had no brothers. It had somehow—though Lily hardly knew how—given Lord Hayes enough information to find her, here.
And now her sisters were to suffer the consequences.
Lily swallowed deeply and tried again. “Lord Hayes, my sisters?—”
“It’s Bradford, and your infernal sisters can go to—” He broke off his words and gave a tight-lipped shake of his head. “Lily, you must give me a moment. Although you’ve recovered quite quickly from the shock of our meeting, I have not.”
The next several minutes were passed in awkward silence—as awkward and silent as any can be when one is dancing surrounded by other people’s laughter and the stringed music of the Season’s first ball.
Several times, Lily swallowed down questions, the foremost and most pressing being the obvious: What on earth was Lord Hayes doing in London? And not just London, though that would have been bad enough, but what was he doing here, in this very ballroom?
The fact that he should be here now made her head swim worse than that awful six hours at sea from Dover to Calais. Lord Hayes had admitted he’d come to London for her, though that hardly answered any of her questions. Was there a magistrate waiting just outside the ballroom?