Chapter 29
“Welcome home, Your Grace.” The housekeeper curtsied in the entrance hall of Thornwaite Hall, and the words struck Lily like a bell.
Your Grace.
She was a Duchess now.
She was the lady of this house, with its vaulted ceilings and its ancestral portraits and its marble floors that she had walked across as a guest only weeks ago, scheming to win the attention of another man.
The irony was not lost on her. None of it was ever lost on her.
Hugo handed his coat to a footman and turned to Lily. He looked tired. The journey from London had taken the better part of a day, and the charming mask he wore so well had thinned around the edges, revealing the quieter man beneath.
“Mrs. Aldridge will show you to your chambers and introduce you to your lady’s maid.” He inclined his head toward the housekeeper. “Take whatever time you need. We can meet before dinner whenever you are ready.”
“Thank you.”
He nodded. Their eyes met for a breath, and then he turned and walked toward the corridor that led to his study. Lily watched him go, then watched the gold band on her finger catch the lamplight.
Mrs. Aldridge guided her up the grand staircase and along the east wing corridor.
The rooms she led Lily to were large and well-appointed, with tall windows overlooking the gardens and a fire already burning in the grate.
The furniture was deep oak and cream silk.
The bed was enormous, dressed in ivory linens that smelled of lavender.
“These are the Duchess’s chambers, Your Grace. His Grace’s rooms are through that door.” Mrs. Aldridge gestured to a connecting door on the far wall. “And this is Nell, your lady’s maid.”
A young woman with dark hair and steady hands stepped forward and curtsied. “Your Grace.”
“Thank you, Nell. And thank you, Mrs. Aldridge. I think I would like a moment alone if you do not mind.”
They withdrew. The door closed, and the room fell quiet.
Lily sat on the edge of the bed and pressed her palms flat against the ivory linens.
She was the Duchess of Thornwaite. She lived in this house. The man on the other side of that connecting door was her husband.
She looked around the room. The wardrobe held gowns that Hugo had purchased for her. The dressing table held silver brushes engraved with the Beaumont crest. The window overlooked gardens she would walk through tomorrow and the day after and every day for the rest of her life.
She had wanted freedom. She had wanted travel and intellectual partnership and a life that did not require her to shrink. And she had gotten all of those things, packaged inside a marriage to a man who gave her everything except the one thing she could not bring herself to name.
She rose from the bed, smoothed her skirts, and went to find her husband.
Hugo’s study was smaller than she expected, and the intimacy of the space surprised her.
Books lined three walls. Maps of Europe and the Mediterranean hung beside botanical illustrations and a single landscape of the Thornwaite grounds. A brandy decanter sat on the desk beside a stack of correspondence.
And on the wall behind his chair, there was a portrait.
A woman. Young, fair-haired, with soft features and a gentle mouth. Her eyes held something sad and warm. She wore a pale gown that caught the painted light the way real silk catches candlelight. She looked like Hugo. The resemblance lived in the jaw, the brow, and the angle of the cheekbone.
His mother.
Lily looked at the portrait for a long moment. Then she looked away.
Hugo stood by the window. He had removed his coat and rolled his shirtsleeves to his elbows. The late afternoon sun caught the gold of his hair. He gestured to a chair.
“Sit. You must be exhausted.”
She sat. He poured brandy and set a glass before her. She took a sip and let the warmth settle.
“Are the chambers comfortable?”
“Very much. Thank you. For everything.”
He nodded. He leaned against the edge of his desk and crossed his arms. “Lily… You must know that… Well, this marriage will not be conventional.”
She set her glass down. “What do you mean?”
“I mean that I will not cage you. You wanted a life with Wilfrey that would give you freedom, travel, and a partnership that did not require you to disappear. I cannot offer you Wilfrey, but I can offer you the rest.”
“What I wanted,” she said, choosing her words with care, “was to travel without worrying about my family’s reputation. To live freely without endangering them. To have a life that was mine.”
“And now you have it.” He held her gaze. “You may travel wherever you wish. Not immediately. We will need to make some appearances together this year to quiet the last of the gossip. After that, you are free.”
“A free bird.”
“If that is what you want.”
She smiled. It was small, and she knew it did not reach her eyes. She had gotten what she wanted. The freedom. The security. The name and the title and the protection of a man powerful enough to silence scandal sheets and fund expeditions to Naples.
Yet somehow, sitting in his study with brandy in her hand and his mother’s portrait watching from the wall, it did not feel quite right.
“What about you?” she asked. “What will you do?”
Hugo’s mouth curved. “I am not husband material, Lily. I know that. But I will do my best to make this marriage enjoyable for you. You will not be bored. That much I can promise.”
She was not sure what that meant. She nodded.
He set down his glass. “Walk with me? The grounds are worth seeing in this light.”
They left the house through the garden entrance and crossed the south lawn, where the grass was warm beneath the late sun, and the air smelled of cut hay and roses. They walked side by side, not touching, and the distance between them felt both deliberate and fragile.
“How is Dorado?” Lily asked.
Hugo’s mouth lifted at one corner. “I checked on him while you were settling in. He ate an apple out of my hand and bit my sleeve. He is in excellent spirits.”
“He bit your sleeve?”
“He has opinions about punctuality. I was late.”
She laughed. The sound carried across the empty lawn, and Hugo glanced at her, and the guarded expression he had been wearing since the church softened into something warmer.
“You made a beautiful bride,” he said.
“Thank you.”
“I should have told you at the church. I meant to. But when you walked down the aisle, I forgot how to form sentences.”
Her cheeks warmed. She kept her eyes on the path. “You seemed perfectly composed.”
“I am an excellent performer.”
They reached the lake. The water stretched before them, silver and gold in the lowering sun, and the trees along the far bank cast long shadows across the surface.
Hugo stopped walking. His hands moved to his cravat.
“What are you doing?” Lily asked.
“Going for a swim.” He pulled the cravat free and draped it over a branch. His fingers moved to the buttons of his waistcoat.
“Hugo, it is our wedding day.”
“An excellent day for a swim.” The waistcoat joined the cravat. He pulled his shirt over his head, and Lily’s gaze betrayed her before her discipline could intervene. His chest was broad and sculpted, his stomach flat and ridged, and the late sun gilded his skin gold.
She turned around. Her face burned.
Hugo chuckled behind her. “We are married, Lily. You are permitted to look.”
“I was not looking.”
“You were looking, and then you turned the color of a strawberry. Which, for the record, suits you.”
She pressed her hands to her cheeks. Behind her, she heard the rustle of fabric, the thud of boots on grass, and then the splash of a body hitting water.
“Come in.” Hugo’s voice carried from the lake. “The water is refreshing.”
“I have not brought anything appropriate.”
“Have you never swum without clothes?”
“What? Of course not!”
“Then this is an excellent time to start.”
She turned. Hugo treaded water twenty feet from the bank.
His fair hair was dark and slicked back.
His shoulders were bare and glistening above the surface.
He grinned at her, and the grin was not the practiced, charming weapon he deployed at balls and dinner parties. It was open, boyish, and reckless.
“Turn around,” she said.
“I have seen quite a bit of you already.”
“Turn around, Hugo.”
He raised his hands in surrender and turned his back.
Lily looked at the lake. She looked at her gown. She looked at the empty grounds stretching in every direction. Not a soul was in sight, and something broke loose inside her chest, something that had been clenched and careful for weeks.
She undressed. She folded her clothes on the bank beside his and walked into the lake.
The water was cold enough to steal her breath and warm enough to keep her moving. She gasped as it reached her waist, and then she plunged forward, and the shock of it gave way to something else entirely.
Freedom.
The kind she had not felt since swimming in the Aegean with Aunt Margaret five years ago, weightless, and unbounded.
“You can turn around now,” she called.
Hugo turned. His gaze found her across the water, and whatever he had been about to say died on his lips. He stared at her.
“You are staring,” she said.
“You are naked in my lake. Staring is appropriate.”
“It is impolite.”
“Many of the best things are.” He swam toward her. The water parted around his shoulders, and the late sun caught the drops on his skin. He stopped about an arm’s length away from her. “You are full of surprises, Duchess.”
“Do not call me Duchess.”
“Why not? You are one.”
“Because you say it the way you say everything. Like it belongs in your mouth.”
His eyes darkened. He closed the remaining distance between them, and his hand found her waist beneath the water. The contact of his palm against her bare skin sent a shudder through her.
“Everything about you belongs in my mouth,” he murmured.
She opened her lips to protest, and he kissed her.