23. Chapter 23- Lily
The following day, Lily blinked as Bradford walked through the archway into the parlor.
He was later than his customary arrival time, and the seats closest to her were already taken.
Lily fought the urge to fluff her skirts in aggravation, even though Lord Platt sat to her right, and he was very handsome and charming, indeed.
Instead of bullying one of the gentlemen from their positions after greeting her, as Bradford had done before, he instead took a seat at the far end of the grouping—what one might have considered the worst seat for courting.
The chair rested next to a floor-to-ceiling window and a small table, but nowhere close to her.
As Lily halfheartedly listened to Lord Platt speak of his estate in Berkshire, she watched Bradford take a leather case from his jacket pocket.
From the other, he removed a small wooden dowel, no larger than a pencil.
Then he did perhaps the most shocking thing of all—he reached into his breast pocket, pulled out a pair of spectacles, and placed them on his slightly crooked nose.
Lily hardly saw what he was doing as he fiddled. She could only stare, transfixed, at the sight of Bradford in spectacles. Her stomach turned in the same way it did when a carriage went sweeping down a hill too quickly and her mind felt soft and pliant like barely cooled caramel.
Lord Platt noticed the direction of her stunned gaze and turned. “I say, Lord Hayes, are you whittling?”
Lily blinked. She hadn’t noticed, as she’d been too fixated on the man’s face, but Bradford held a small knife and was making a series of small cuts around the edge of the dowel.
“I beg your pardon, but no one ever told me how time-consuming courtship was,” came his droll reply. “As I’ve arrived too late to claim a prime seat, I thought I might as well complete another task that requires my attention.”
He speared Lily with a single glance over the rim of his spectacles before looking back down at the piece of wood in his hands.
Lily couldn’t have said what expression she wore, though she felt quite dazed.
She’d never, in all her life, seen something that felt half as scandalous as Bradford Fergus McAllister, the Viscount Hayes, wearing spectacles.
As she watched, a small peel of wood curled away from the dowel under the careful application of his knife.
“I was under the impression you were married previously,” another gentleman—Lord Harper—said.
Lily didn’t care for him—he watched closely for Lily’s reaction to everything he said, as if he would be willing to take any statement back in an instant if he felt she didn’t approve.
Even now, he was looking to her. Such behavior was desirable in a puppy one was training, but otherwise, tiresome at best.
“Indeed I was.” Bradford held his carving to the light and examined it for a moment before applying the small blade to it again.
“You have children,” Lord Harper said in an accusing tone.
Lily frowned at Lord Harper. “A daughter. Rebecca. She’s six years old.”
Lord Harper lowered his snout, sensing his mistress’s displeasure.
“Indeed. That’s who this is for.” Bradford inclined his head toward his project.
“Whatever are you carving, Lord Hayes?” Lord Platt asked.
“A diminutive four-poster bed.”
“You make the doll furniture?” Lily blurted.
She blushed, instantly wishing she could take back the inflection. It had been a blunder, that sentence, from beginning to end.
Bradford instantly covered her gaffe, smoothly saying, “Of course. I’ve found that store-bought dollhouse furniture often has sharp edges or inferior sanding that might lead to splinters. Besides, it’s a simple thing I might do to show her I care.”
Lily blinked, unsure why such a casually delivered statement would prove to be so earth-tilting for her. Indeed, it was as if her very solar system was now oriented around a new axis.
Lily suddenly had new appreciation for the cliche—falling in love.
It had been precisely like falling—such a long, steep fall that Lily hadn’t realized how much time she’d spent in the process.
It was as if she’d been walking across a field, her eyes on the horizon, and suddenly stumbled down the world’s deepest dry well.
She hadn’t recognized the feeling, because she’d been falling so long and gradually she hadn’t realized that the earth was no longer beneath her feet. It had been painless, impossible for her to detect, all the way down—right until this moment where she’d crashed into a heap at the bottom.
It was dreadfully inconvenient that said crash occurred in front of nearly half a dozen other suitors, but such was the way of life. Her life, anyway.
Lily swallowed deeply and reached for her teacup and saucer in order to collect herself. She doubted that anyone in the room besides herself had felt the mammoth shift that had just occurred. She doubted anyone sensed the momentary panic roiling within her.
If anything, her time in Northumberland had made her—for better or worse—a better liar. Or at least someone who was capable of holding a serene or disinterested expression when inside they were falling apart.
She thought it strange how such a small detail could be her final undoing. That such a benign conversation could reveal how deep of a well she truly was in. If she were to look up—emotionally speaking—she could barely see a sliver of light at the top, she was so far down.
But Lily knew, better than perhaps anyone, how often Rebecca broke her dollhouse furniture.
The little girl adored the house, which was sturdy enough.
It was the furnishings that were the delicate, expensive part of the proposition.
Lily had thought it the pinnacle of fatherly indulgence that Rebecca was allowed to keep playing with the set even after she’d broken nearly every piece in the house.
Now, Lily viewed it not as a father spoiling his daughter with easily bought replacements. Instead, it was a costly endeavor that showed the depth of his love. Lily had held those pieces herself, marvelling over the details in each one.
When Rebecca accidentally broke something—and it was always an accident—the piece was replaced with an even more beautiful, more detailed version.
Lily had laughed to herself, thinking that the tradesman who made them was becoming better at the task through all the practice afforded him by Rebecca’s childish clumsiness.
No wonder Rebecca told her father every time she broke a piece! And Bradford had replied gently every single time.
Though only perhaps a moment had passed, it was possibly the most cataclysmic moment of Lily’s existence.
No one else could have known. Except that when she glanced over the rim of her teacup, Bradford was studying her, a crease between his eyebrows.
But of course, Bradford knew Lily better than any gentleman there.
Oh dear heavens, someone had put a cover on the well. She was never getting out!
Instead of the momentary, sheer panic she’d felt a second ago, a quiet, calm kind of delight spread through Lily’s limbs. She’d always wondered what love would feel like, and now she knew.
Love felt like certainty, like knowing precisely where one belonged. Like stepping out of a winter’s day into the front door of home and letting that familiar warmth and scent chase the chill away.
Lily finally had her answer. Now all that was left was to get the courage to tell Bradford the truth.
“You are getting shavings on the carpet,” Lord Harper said.
Bradford’s attention shifted from Lily back to his wooden dowel in an instant. “You would make an admirable housekeeper, Lord Harper. If your current goal of snagging a wealthy bride doesn’t work, perhaps you should consider taking a position.”
“Of all the insulting?—”
“More tea, Lord Harper?” Lily interrupted mildly. She held up the teapot in offering. “It’s a fresh pot.”
The man’s face was red, his mouth pinched as he looked back and forth between Bradford and Lily. “No thank you, Miss Preston,” he finally said, stiffly coming to his feet. “I fear I must retire for the day.”
Lily offered him one of her very best false smiles as consolation. “A pity.”