Chapter 27
“Auntie Lily, Jane spit on me.” Oliver stood in the entrance hall of Heatherwell House with a damp patch on his shoulder and the indignant expression of a boy who considered himself far too old to be subjected to infant bodily functions.
“She is a baby, Oliver. Spitting is how she communicates.”
“She communicates very rudely.”
Lily crouched and brushed the damp spot with her handkerchief. “I’m afraid that is all that babies can do.”
“I suppose you’re right.” Oliver grinned, the affront already forgotten. He grabbed Lily’s hand and pulled her toward the drawing room. “Come see what Leo built. He made a tower out of spoons, and it is going to fall.”
The drawing room was warm, sunlit, and smelled of beeswax and the sweetness of small children. Leo sat on a rug surrounded by a precarious structure of silver spoons balanced in a pyramid that defied both gravity and common sense. He looked up at Lily with enormous dark eyes and pointed.
“Tower,” he announced.
“It is magnificent, Leo.”
“It will fall in a bit.”
“Then we had better admire it while we can.”
Sophia appeared from the corridor with Jane on her hip, and a muslin cloth draped over her shoulder that bore the evidence of the spitting Oliver had reported.
She kissed Lily’s cheek and held her at arm’s length, scanning her face with the quick, thorough assessment of an older sister who could identify a crisis at forty paces.
“You look tired,” Sophia said.
“I am fine.”
“You look tired and you said fine, which means you are not fine.”
“Sophia.”
“Lily.”
They held each other’s gaze. Leo’s spoon tower collapsed with a spectacular clatter. Oliver cheered. Jane startled awake and cried. Sophia bounced the baby against her shoulder and did not break eye contact.
“I need to speak with Edward,” Lily said. “Alone, if I may.”
Sophia’s brow creased. “Is everything all right?”
“Everything is fine. I promise. I simply need his perspective on something.”
Sophia studied her for a moment longer. Whatever she found in Lily’s expression must have satisfied her, because she nodded and gestured toward the corridor.
“He is in his study.”
Lily squeezed her sister’s arm and left the drawing room.
The corridor was quiet, the afternoon light slanting through the tall windows, and she walked toward Edward’s study with the measured steps of a woman who had rehearsed this conversation in her head six times and was not yet satisfied with any version of it.
She knocked.
“Come in.”
Edward sat behind his desk in shirtsleeves, a stack of correspondence before him and a cup of tea growing cold at his elbow. He looked up when she entered, and something shifted in his expression. Not surprise. Attention.
“Lily. Please, sit down.”
She settled into the chair opposite his desk. The study smelled of leather and ink and the faint trace of brandy from the decanter on the side table.
“Before you ring for tea,” she said, “might I have something stronger?”
Edward’s brow lifted. He did not comment. He rose, crossed to the decanter, and poured two glasses. He set one before her and returned to his chair with the other.
Lily took a long sip. The brandy burned a path down her throat and settled in her stomach, warm and steady.
“I want to ask you about Hugo.”
Edward set his glass down. He leaned back in his chair and regarded her with patient, unhurried attention.
“Perhaps you should speak with Hugo himself, if you wish to know him.”
“I know that. And I will.” She turned the glass between her fingers.
“But you are the person who has known him the longest, Edward. You are my brother-in-law, and I respect you. I trust your judgment. I need your insight before I stand beside him in a church in three days and promise him the rest of my life.”
The words landed between them with a weight that surprised her. She had not planned to say it quite that way. But the brandy had loosened something, and the truth of it sat in the room now, exposed and undeniable.
Edward was quiet for a long moment. He picked up his glass, took a sip, and set it down again.
“Hugo Beaumont is a good man.” He said it simply, without flourish. “We met at Eton when we were twelve. We became friends, and we have remained friends since.”
He paused. Lily waited.
“We have been through things together that I would not share without his permission. But I will tell you this: I have seen Hugo in the worst moments of his life. Moments that would have broken lesser men. And he did not break. He bent. He rebuilt. He constructed a version of himself that the world would accept, and he wore it so well that most people believe it is all there is.”
“The charm,” Lily said.
“Yes.” Edward met her gaze. “It is not a lie, exactly. Hugo enjoys life. He enjoys women, wine, and the company of friends. But the persona is a shield, and the man behind it is more complicated, more wounded, and more decent than the ton has ever been permitted to see.”
“You said wounded.”
Edward’s jaw tightened. He looked down at his glass.
“That is his story to tell, Lily. Not mine. But I will say this: the things Hugo carries have shaped him in ways that are not always visible. He protects people because he knows what it feels like to be unprotected. He rescues broken things because he understands damage from the inside.” Edward looked up.
“And the fact that he has not told you these things yet does not mean he does not trust you. It means he is afraid that if you see what is underneath, you will look at him differently.”
Lily’s throat tightened. She took another sip of brandy.
“I should tell you,” Edward continued, “that he dealt with Lady Stapleton. Personally. He went to her house and confronted her, and she will not trouble you or Lady Fairhart again.”
“He did not tell me that.”
“He would not. Hugo does not advertise his virtuous deeds.” The corner of Edward’s mouth lifted. “He also added two thousand pounds to Miss Stapleton’s dowry so that the daughter would not suffer for the mother’s actions.”
Lily stared at him. “Two thousand pounds?”
“He told me afterward. His words were, ‘The girl did nothing wrong. She should not starve because her mother is a villain.’”
Something moved inside Lily. A loosening. A door opening that she had not known was closed.
“There is one more thing you should know.” Edward’s voice was careful now.
“During the engagement, Hugo did not touch another woman. Not once. I know this because I know him, and because he told me, and because Hugo does not lie to me. Whatever his reputation suggests, whatever the ton believes about him, he honored your arrangement completely. From the first day to the last.”
Lily closed her eyes. The brandy sat warm in her stomach, and Edward’s words settled over her, not like a revelation but like a confirmation.
She had known. Some part of her had always known.
She opened her eyes. “Thank you, Edward.”
“You do not need to thank me.”
“I do. You have given me something I needed, and I am grateful.”
Edward studied her for a moment. Then he rose from his chair and came around the desk. He took her hand and held it between both of his.
“You are family, Lily.” His eyes warmed. “I will be here for you, no matter what.”
He released her hand. She stood, and he walked her back to the drawing room, where Sophia waited with Jane asleep on her shoulder, and Oliver and Leo engaged in a heated debate about whether spoons or forks made superior building materials.
Sophia’s gaze cut between Lily and Edward. “Is everything all right?”
“Everything is fine,” Lily said.
“Everything is fine,” Edward confirmed.
Sophia’s eyes narrowed. “You are both saying fine, which concerns me.”
“Sophia, my love.” Edward kissed his wife’s temple. “It is fine.”
Sophia looked at Lily. Lily looked at Sophia. Something passed between them, silent and quick, and Sophia’s expression softened into acceptance.
“Stay for dinner,” Sophia said.
Lily stayed. She played with Oliver and Leo until their nursemaid collected them for bed.
She held Jane until the baby fell asleep against her chest, and her warm, soft weight settled something inside Lily that had been restless for days.
She sat beside Sophia on the settee and talked about nothing important, about fabrics and flowers and whether the wedding breakfast should include salmon, and the ordinariness of it was a balm she had not known she needed.
When the carriage came to take her home, Lily kissed her sister’s cheek and held her close.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
Sophia squeezed her tight. “For what?”
“For being here. For always being here.”
Sophia pulled back and looked at her with the fierce, unwavering love of a woman who had fought to rebuild her family from the ground up and would burn the world before she let anyone take it apart again.
“Always,” Sophia said.
Lily climbed into the carriage. The evening air was cool against her face, and the city moved past the window in a blur of lamplight and shadow.
In three days, she would marry Hugo.
And for the first time since the night he proposed, the thought did not feel like a sentence.
It felt like a beginning.