Except…
“Hazzah!” Lily rolled to her side and stretched her hand under the tattered velvet armchair. “I found it!”
“I’m not sure how you could find anything with the way you have torn—”
“Nonsense. I said I would find it, and I have.” Lily snatched the folded newspaper from underneath the chair along with a stray bottle of Scotch. She rose to her elbows, then to her hands, trying to gain enough balance to stand, but the frills on her dress had the advantage, and she fought to gain balance.
Kate rushed over to help her up, bracing her legs wide, so the dress wouldn’t claim them both and drag them down to the dusty carpet underfoot. “Your stepmother outdid herself with this monstrosity. There are enough frills here that Felton would have been searching for weeks on how to undress you.”
Lily would have liked that, perhaps. She’d had two men propose to her, and neither had even dared to steal a kiss. Was it so wrong to wish to share passion with a man? Was she truly so repulsive?
“No matter.” She turned abruptly, snapping open the newsprint with a dramatic flair. “I won’t be wearing it again.”
A fine, lady-like hand folded over the top of the newsprint. Lily was met with Kate’s striking gray eyes. “You should wait for a note. Maybe nerves got the better of him. The chapel was quite packed.”
“Quite.” Lily swallowed back that nervous feeling that had been clawing at her all morning. She folded the paper down and clutched it to her middle.
The crowded chapel was a fact she had not been able to forget, nor probably ever would. What a fool, what a beautiful fool she had been, waiting for Felton to arrive. All eyes had been upon her, and all she could do was stare at the stone floor of the chapel and beg her father to help.
“What am I saying?” Kate said, smoothing out Lily’s hair. “The man is an arse for treating you as he did this morning, and I hope he is run over by a carriage.”
Lily chuckled, focusing on the freckles smattered across her friend’s cheekbones instead of making eye contact. She would not cry. “Or becomes infected with a terrible disease.”
“Something much more wicked than the plague, I think. Anything less wouldn’t be sufficient.”
“No...” She swallowed and shifted her feet. The heeled slippers were not only impractical but uncomfortable. She glanced at her empty ring finger as she brought the newspaper back up into view. “Well, disease or carriage accident notwithstanding, I am not holding my breath to be rescued. I have a solution to the mess.”
Kate pursed her lips, sidestepping Lily to make her way to the sofa. Lily had always been quite envious of her friend. Kate was her opposite in most things: tall where Lily was short, cheery where Lily was introspective, self-assured where Lily was prone to falter.
That was why she must carry on with this plan. After the disaster of her wedding morning, Lily must not falter. She did not want to give him the satisfaction of causing her downfall in society. She did not want the pity or speculation as to why she had lost yet another bridegroom. She certainly did not warrant the gossip that was sure to start.
“My dearest Lilybell,” Kate hedged. “Your plans—”
“I know, I know. But if you would hear me out.”
With a graceful flick of her wrist, Kate sat on the sofa, or rather the sofa cushion nearly swallowed her up after years of far too much of use. “Go ahead.”
Lily’s heart thrummed in her chest as she thumbed through the newsprint until she found the inky column that held her future. “Here.” She smacked her hand against the inky words. Newton had famously stated two objects in motion would attract. Surely, the same went for the marriage market.
“Come closer.” Kate fanned her hands impatiently for Lily to approach.
She stumbled as she attempted to traverse the narrow, cleared path between the desk, ottoman, and chair, so Kate stood up and snatched the paper out of her hand.
“Sit,” she ordered, waving at the ottoman.
Lily was happy to be off her feet, but her nerves, on the other hand, were unhappy. Everything depended on this idea, and more importantly, it hinged on Kate believing Lily was capable of such a task.
“Wanted by an esteemed gentleman just beginning housekeeping,” Kate started, clearing her throat for dramatic effect, “a refined lady between eighteen and twenty-four years of age, with a proper education, and a fortune not less than five thousand pounds...”
Kate dropped the newsprint to her lap, her mouth agape. “You cannot mean—”
“Oh, yes,” Lily said with a wide grin. “If I cannot attract a husband, then I shall fetch one who needs me.”
The rooster’s crow was worse than the boatswain’s whistle.
Rafe groaned, grabbing his pillow and stuffing it over his head before burying himself down into the old, musty bed mattress at Cliffstone Manor. The bed frame wobbled, knocking against the small bedside table. He heard the whisky he had poured only hours before sloshing over the chipped glass’s edge and spilling onto the threadbare and decrepit carpet.
“Damn it, Pete!”
Pete, the rooster, that is.
There were perks to spending years away at sea. At twenty-nine, he had spent nearly eighteen of
those years on a ship.
But then again, he wished to be back in London rather than at the crumbling estate his older brother Henry had recently inherited unexpectedly from their father’s cousin.
Henry was now Earl Devlin, and Rafe was a naval lieutenant currently without a ship. Rafe’s bad behavior had landed him here, on the Isle of Wight, in the least exciting spot on Earth. Of that, he was certain.
Which probably accounted for why he felt as if he were losing his mind. He was cut adrift, each day more or less the same, holding on to some faint glimmer of a boyhood dream. That promise. But it was growing dimmer, and he wasn’t sure if he saw a future for himself. But that often came after a night of drinking. A habit he had tried to avoid for the past few months after being tossed in the gaol one time too many in London.
But one could never strive for utter perfection.
Rafe sat up, drained the last bit of whisky from the glass, and glanced toward the opened letter on the table.
There were whispers Rafe was to be promoted to captain and not a moment too soon. But the letter he received from his friend Liam Hawkins yesterday was a far more interesting proposition. One that would change life as he knew it.
