21. Chapter 21- Lily
Several mornings later, Lily yanked at the sleeves of her emerald-green pelisse as she strode through the park. She was late for her walk with Bradford, and she was well irritated, besides.
It was just one of those mornings where a dozen little harmless things piled up and made one want to flounce, facedown, back into bed.
Lily had stubbed her toe first thing, then spilled a bottle of perfume down her front and had to change.
The dress was most likely ruined, and it was the only one she’d wanted to wear that day, as she thought it brought out the blue of her eyes.
None of her other dresses had pleased her after that, though they were all fine enough.
Then her hair wouldn’t curl the way she wished it to—no matter what Mabel did with the tongs, Lily wasn’t satisfied with her reflection.
Not that it was her maid’s fault. It was Lily’s own hair that was being uncooperative.
She frowned when she thought of the day ahead.
Other than her walk with Bradford, there was little to look forward to.
Perhaps other young ladies enjoyed being courted, but Lily was tired of asking gentlemen the same bland questions about the weather, their interests, and whether their family was well.
Add to that the fact that Lord Rigsby had visited these three days past, staying nearly as long as Bradford, and she thought she had good reason to dread the afternoon hours.
Though in the last ballroom he’d split his attention between her and Beatrice, Lord Rigsby only sat on Lily’s side of the room in the parlor.
He took whatever seat was open when he arrived, then looked for every opportunity to move closer and closer.
His ever-encroaching approach made her feel an impending sort of doom low in her stomach. It wouldn’t have been so bad if he had just been an unwanted guest—she had several other of those and had become quite accustomed to being polite even when she had no interest.
However, Lord Rigsby not only stared at her without blinking—he was also the loudest eater Lily had ever been in proximity to. She winced at the thought, even as she rounded the corner and saw Bradford waiting in the distance.
Lord Rigsby didn’t sip his tea, he slurped it. He didn’t eat the biscuits, he nibbled them like a rabbit, then rapidly shaped them into some sort of paté in his mouth before swallowing them down. And he did it all with his mouth open so that she could hear the entire sticky, smacking process.
By the time she reached Bradford, Lily was frowning.
“Good morning, Lily.” Bradford cocked his head. “Is something the matter?”
She yanked at one of her gloves. Why did nothing feel like it fit correctly today? Her entire ensemble constricted and itched. “I fear I’m quite out of sorts this morning.”
“If you’d rather, we could sit. Or we could get a hackney and go to the Clarendon for tea and biscuits.” Lily fairly glowered at him at the mention of biscuits; he held up his hands in surrender and laughed. “Apologies, even though I’m not certain what I must apologize for.”
“It’s just—tea and biscuits.” She shook her head.
“I didn’t know that was a delicate subject.”
“It isn’t.” She frowned down at the gravel for a moment. “Apologies. I’m in a sour mood. Perhaps I shouldn’t have come.”
“On the contrary, I think it an indicator of the closeness of our friendship that you didn’t cancel. I’m honored to partake of your sour mood.”
Lily knew he was only teasing to cheer her, but she frowned up at him. “Are we?” she said. “Are we close friends?”
“I certainly think so.”
Lily knew she was being ridiculous, but she couldn’t seem to help herself. She said, “You say that you didn’t come to London to blackmail me, yet you pressured me to use your first name in front of people because we had a prior friendship.”
“You’re right. Perhaps that was wrong of me.”
Lily hardly heard him; she plowed forward. “And can it even be truly called a friendship, if one of the parties was initially paid to participate in all those conversations?”
“I don’t know. I suppose it depends.” He smiled and Lily saw the vulnerability in it. “It certainly felt like friendship to me, though you’re right—I shouldn’t presume to say what it meant to you. Our situations were vastly different at the time.”
Lily frowned at the ground and resisted the urge to scuff the toe of her elegant boot into the gravel.
Bradford studied her, then asked, “Do you consider us friends, Lily?”
Her anger fled her all at once and she gusted a sigh. “Of course we are.” She fiddled with the end of the ribbons trailing from her bonnet. “I’m simply confused, is all.”
“About what, precisely?”
“Why you’re truly here. I’ve answered all of your questions.”
“As I’ve told you the last few times you’ve asked, I’m here for you, Lily.”
Lily clenched her hand into a fist and barely refrained from stamping her foot.“That’s no answer at all! What do you mean, you’re here for me? I believe that you’re not here to blackmail me, but does part of you still wish to punish me for what I did?”
“No, Lily.” Bradford turned to her fully, his dark eyes intense upon hers. “I’m here for you.”
“You say that as if I should know what it means, but I don’t understand.”
Bradford shook his head and laughed ruefully, tipping his head back so that the sun shone on his face.
“When you arrived in my home, I thought your very presence was a punishment of sorts. Why on earth would the only qualified governess who’d responded to my advertisement look as you did, when decorum and honor dictate that I keep my distance?
Of course, I quickly convinced myself that your beauty must have come at a cost to your other qualities, for there was no possibility that one who looked like you could be everything I wanted my daughter to be near. ”
Lily’s nose scrunched; she opened her mouth to protest or question, but he held up a hand.
“I was determined to find out your faults,” he said, “so that I might send you away before Rebecca grew too attached. I had Mrs. Clark instruct you to join me for dinner every evening, pretending that it wasn’t a special, last-minute measure I put in place after I met you.”
“You were trying to…find out where I was lacking? As a governess?” Lily rationally knew that she shouldn’t be offended—after all, she’d had no experience as a governess at all.
“I thought you far too pretty to be anything but daft or vain, and I’m determined that my daughter grow up neither,” he said in a self-deprecating tone.
Lily thought back to those early days, where every dinner had felt as if it were some sort of caustic interview she had to survive. “You…you…”
She didn’t know what to say, she was so… She didn’t even know what she felt. Offended, definitely, but there was also a small thread of hurt worming through her midsection.
Those dinners had come to mean something to her. Theirs had been a relationship very nearly as strong as hers and Rebecca’s, and to find out that those dinners had started as some sort of investigation against her… She shook her head, tears gathering in her eyes.
Bradford continued, “I’m sorry I thought the worst of you. It says far more about me than it does about you, of course.”
“But you were proven right in the end, weren’t you?” Lily’s words sounded bleak, even to her.
“No.” He gently cupped her elbow. “Just the opposite. I found you to be as kind and patient as you are beautiful. I watched you raise Rebecca with all the tender love a mother would offer her—more than her own ever gave. And you dealt with my relentless questioning with admiral forbearance. No one else would have borne with me as you did.”
“But I lied.” She turned from him and pulled her arm from his gentle grasp. “Isn’t that why you’re here?”
“Yes, and no.” His words were gentle and measured as always, and in a rare moment of irritation, she wanted to kick him in the knee to hurry things along.
He must have seen the flash of temper in her eyes, for he chuckled and said, “Please. I’ll explain everything.
You certainly deserve as much. It’s difficult for me to put it into words when I’ve only just started being honest with myself on this topic. ”
Lily took a deep breath and waited.
“I thought it was enough,” he said after a moment.
“I told myself it was enough. To have you at my dinner table, to have the conversations we shared about everything. To have you as good as raising Rebecca. I convinced myself that’s all I wanted from you.
But it was a lie—the worst kind, for it was one that I told myself and believed. ”
His eyes moved over the far landscape. Lily shot a glance over her shoulder, grateful for Mabel’s loyalty and discretion. Her maid stood at a distance where she couldn’t hear them, but close enough to avoid any accusation of impropriety.
Bradford turned to Lily, capturing her attention fully once more. “It wasn’t until you left that I started to learn the truth of my own heart.”
Lily blinked. His heart? Her own leapt and thundered at the mention of his.
“I suspected it even when I was riding along behind Mr. Belfour’s hounds, but I wouldn’t admit it. Not when at the time, I thought you might be a charlatan. Or married.”
“It was natural that you’d think the worst of me. I lied to you.” Lily clamped her lips together.
She didn’t know why she’d felt honor-bound to point that out to him again—not when it seemed as if he was finally going to tell her…something. Not that Lily understood precisely what he was telling her. Though maybe she would learn if she stopped interrupting him.
Bradford smiled at her widely like he’d heard all her thoughts.
“I’m endeavoring to explain that I didn’t even know my true motivations when I first came to London.
All I knew was that I was driven to find you.
I couldn’t let you go. When you told me you were going to leave, I was so angry, but I didn’t understand why.
Now I know that it hurt me to think of you leaving. ”
“Because…because of Rebecca?” Lily’s forehead wrinkled.
“That was part of it. But mostly it was because I’ve come to care for you deeply, Lily.”
Lily was struck dumb by his words. All she could manage was a slight widening of her eyes. Her heart pounded as if she were sprinting through the back field away from Ballam Hall all over again.
“And the truth is—though I didn’t realize it myself at the time—I came to London to find out whether we could have something deeper than friendship.
” Bradford nodded solemnly, watching her closely.
“But I promise you, Lily, if you don’t feel the same, I’ll never speak of it again.
I am happy that we’re friends. And if you’d like me to go, if me being here is distracting or distressing to you, I’ll leave. ”
Lily blinked up at him with wide eyes and told him the truth. “I hardly know what I feel at the moment.”
The possibilities were too wondrous to truly consider. The moment rang through her with a deafening clarity that made her fingertips shake, her toes curl inside her boots. It was as if she were a tuning fork that had just been struck.
Bradford nodded, his expression grave. “Will you please think about it and let me know? If…if my presence here serves no purpose, then I should get home to Rebecca.”
Lily found she hated the dejection in his voice, detested that she’d been the one to put it there.
Yet she’d told him the truth—she didn’t know precisely what she felt, as her thoughts were as scattered and changing as the billowing clouds in a Northumberland storm.
She’d gone from the darkest of ill humors to the heights of hope in a moment.
Lily had long thought Bradford the best man of her acquaintance.
Or perhaps tied for that title with her brother William.
But Lily had never let herself truly consider it.
Every time a small tendril of hope had curled in that direction, she’d taken the sharp shears of reality to it before it could stray too far out of bounds.
They were friends, she’d told herself, over and over, to keep her thoughts in line. Just friends. Now, the possibility of something more swept through her mind like a sudden flood, upending everything. Despite how wonderful it felt, it still was a mental disaster.
Even so, Lily thought she should offer Bradford honesty once more. Even if it terrified her to say the words.
“I don’t want you to go,” she blurted, her eyes wide with the admission. “I don’t…I don’t know precisely what I feel, but I know that much. Will you give me time?”
“Of course, Lily.” He nodded and smiled gently. “I’ll happily wait for you.”