Love According To Lily (27 page)

He met her gaze, looking surprised. “Sorry for what?”

“For what I said to you before I got sick. When I said I liked you better when you were dying.”

He kissed her again, then withdrew and fastened his trousers. She let her wrinkled skirts drop from around her waist to the floor.

She was surprised when he took her hand and led her to his desk chair, sat down and pulled her onto his lap, because she thought he might want to get back to his work.

But he held her face in his hands and kissed her a few more times. “I’m sorry, too,” he said. “And I’m glad you’re feeling better.”

“I’ll try not to get sick again.”

Whitby looked into Lily’s striking blue eyes and tried to comprehend the intensity of his emotions just now when she’d apologized to him so sweetly, after he’d made love to her wildly up against a hard, plaster wall.

He had made love in that fashion many times over the years with numerous beautiful women whose names he did not recall. This type of swift sexual encounter was almost always about sex for sex alone.

He had felt at first that this encounter with Lily was a similar thing. He had recognized the heated look in her eyes and had understood what she’d wanted, and he’d wanted to give her the pleasure she yearned for—for a lady’s pleasure was always a foremost concern for Whitby. It was part of the allure of making love.

But today had been nothing like those casual encounters in the back rooms of country teahouses. Today he had been astonished by the roar of his emotions and the pure, unmitigated joy over the fact that his wife had come back to him. That she had forgotten some of her disappointment in him. And she was well and strong.

But then he recalled weeping for her three months ago on that nightmarish morning when he had prepared himself for the certain loss of her. He had consciously become a widower in his mind that day. He had given up the idea of making any effort to love his wife. More than ever, he had
not
wanted to love her—this fragrant flower of a woman who had blossomed so beautifully into womanhood over the long, sterile years of his existence.

And he was still afraid—because in five or so months, she would be crying out in pain on the birthing bed, at the mercy of God or fate or whatever one wished to call it.

Lily smiled warmly at him and ran her fingers through his hair. He leaned forward and kissed her neck, holding her tight against him.

“Lily, I…”

When he did not finish, she took his face in her hands. “Yes, Whitby? What is it?”

He stared intently at her, remembering the conversation he’d had with Annabelle a few months ago.

“I worry about you,” he said at last. “I worry about you having this baby.”

Lily’s lips parted. “There’s nothing to worry about,” she told him. “I’ll be fine. It will all go well, you’ll see.”

But he did not see.

He
could
not see.

“You know that my mother died in childbirth,” he reminded her.

“I know. But mine didn’t.” She smiled reassuringly. “Babies are born healthy every day, Whitby. You must remember that. You mustn’t worry.”

He nodded because he had to. He couldn’t disagree with her. He didn’t want to make her anxious.

“Come to my room tonight?” she asked tentatively.

He sat back and ran his hand over her thigh. “Yes,” he replied, more than ready to make love to her again, for he had always been able to separate sex from love, and he would continue to do so. He simply had to. “We have some catching up to do, don’t we?”

She smiled enticingly. “Yes, I believe we do.”

With that, she kissed him on the mouth and left him to finish his work.

Chapter 30

Almost immediately, Lily and Whitby rekindled their sexual relationship, and all was well between the sheets of Lady Whitby’s bed. But whenever Lily brought up what her husband had said to her in his study—regarding his worries about the upcoming birth—he told her he didn’t want to talk about it, nor did he wish to discuss his mother. He would either change the subject, as if there was something much more interesting he wished to talk about, or he would express annoyance.

Consequently, Lily ceased mentioning it, because she did not want to lose him again.

But as a result of those awkward, uncomfortable conversations, she had begun to accept the possibility that she was not the true mate of her husband’s soul, for there was still some distant part of him she could not reach.

Many times she had felt sad for him—to think that he had never found the great love of his life and that he had married her because he’d believed he was out of time and he’d needed a wife and heir.

Other times she worried that if
she
was not the great love of his life, somewhere out there, another woman was. Perhaps there was someone else he would be able to talk to about things that caused him pain. And perhaps one day he would find that woman and need to be with her, and Lily would have to quietly stand back like other wives did when their husbands took mistresses.

She was not sure she could do that. It would devastate her.

Yet despite everything, she loved him deeply and hopelessly, and for her, there would never be another. She had no choice but to cling to the dream that after the baby was born—after he saw that childbirth was not always tragic—he would let go of some of his worries and let himself love her.

She was sitting in her room pondering all these things while she sealed a letter to Sophia and James, when a knock sounded at her door. “Come in!” she called out.

The door opened and her husband entered. He wore a white shirt and chocolate-brown waistcoat, and she found herself staring at him, speechless, caught in the glorious splendor of his masculine good looks.

He smiled questioningly at her, then closed the door behind him, locked it, and sauntered in. He leaned a shoulder against the solid oak bedpost and said, “Busy?”

She smiled knowingly in return, set the letter on a tray to go out with the rest of the mail, and rose from her chair. She walked to where her husband stood and began to unbutton his waistcoat. “It’s the middle of the day, Lord Whitby. Don’t you have work to do?”

“I do indeed have a number of things I wish to do this afternoon… to you.” He slid a hand around the back of her neck and pulled her close for a deep, wet kiss.

When he finally let her go, she felt wonderfully woozy, and a hot ache was skulking through her body.

Lily realized her eyes were still closed, her face upturned. She struggled to lift her heavy lids. “You are most welcome to do everything you wish to do to me today, as long as you promise to help me get my shoes back on afterward. I can no longer seem to see my feet.”

Whitby chuckled and unbuttoned her bodice for her, then led her around the bed and eased her onto her back. “Soon I won’t be able to be on top anymore.”

“We’ll have to do it one of the other ways,” she casually replied.

“I suppose it won’t be so difficult.” He slid a warm hand up under her chemise and across her swollen belly. His touch was featherlike over her skin. “We’ve certainly been rehearsing lots of alternatives lately.”

He kissed her again, parting her lips with his own and touching his tongue to hers.

“You are so good at that,” she whispered breathlessly as he laid a trail of kisses down her neck.

“Let me show you what else I’m good at.”

Lily laughed out loud when he tossed her skirts up over her face and took his mouth on a trip in a southerly direction.

A short time later, she was sighing with the unparalleled satisfaction of a perfect climax—a most intense and long lasting one—and her husband was easing his splendidly stiff self into her. He made love to her very gently that afternoon, and she began to believe she was the luckiest woman in the world. She might not have everything, but she certainly had more than she’d ever had before.

And later, when their bodies were sated and they were both pleasurably drained of strength and energy, Lily reveled in his arms while he held her close on the bed.

“I should let you finish your letters,” he said, kissing her on the forehead.

“No, don’t go yet. Besides, I’m already finished. I wrote a long letter to Sophia and James and told them about the new painting I’m starting with Annabelle.”

He was quiet for a moment. “Have you written to your mother at all?”

Lily ran her fingertips along his smooth, bare chest. “No, but she hasn’t written to me, either.”

“Do you think you should? Now that the baby is coming?”

She leaned up on one elbow, gazing into his eyes. She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter anymore. I’ve started a new life. I don’t need her approval, and perhaps I’ve finally realized that she never earned
mine
. I don’t feel hurt anymore. I don’t feel anything about her.”

And it was all true. All of it. “I’m not sure why I feel this way,” she added. “I hadn’t thought it would ever be possible.”

He pushed a lock of hair behind her ear. “You’re stronger now. You defied her and you survived, and it has all worked out. At least I hope it has.”

He was searching for something, she realized. He wanted to know that everything she had said that horrible night when they’d argued was no longer true. He wanted to know if she was happy.

“Yes, it has worked out,” she replied, keeping her lingering reservations to herself, for this moment was the best they’d had yet in their strange, brief marriage. Whitby had spoken to her of something important. Something personal. She dared not spoil it.
 

With her son, Liam, resting on her hip, Sophia entered the drawing room at Wentworth Castle.

Marion—who was sitting across from James by the fire keeping warm—looked up from her needlepoint.

Sophia set Liam down, and he dashed off to the window, climbing up onto an upholstered chair to look outside. “It’s snowing, Mum!” he said, touching his chubby finger to the frosty pane.

“Why look at that!” Sophia replied, watching him with a beaming smile. “You’re right, Liam!” Then she turned to James and handed over a letter. “It’s from Lily.” She glanced at Marion. “She says all is well, and she and Annabelle have each started a new painting.”

“Ah, my sister the
artiste
.” James smiled as he accepted the letter and began reading.

Marion felt Sophia watching her, and she knew her daughter-in-law was hoping she would ask to read it, too, but of course she would not. Though she did wonder if Lily was still suffering from her morning illness. Marion remembered what it was like. She’d been very ill with James.

She returned her full attention to her needlepoint, but was startled by a loud
bang
that made her heart leap to her throat.

“Liam!” Sophia cried, and she and James were both darting across the room before Marion had even comprehended what had occurred—that Liam had climbed up onto the back of the chair and it had tipped over.

Marion rose from her chair, dropping her needlepoint to the floor. She felt rooted to the ground, locked in the panic of a memory—James doing the same thing in this very room, when he was not much older than Liam. His tooth had gone through his lip.

Marion remembered it as if it were happening now—her husband hearing the crash and crossing the room to pick James up and stand him on his little feet. As soon as he saw the blood, he’d slapped him across the face.

Marion sucked in a shuddering, stinging breath. She watched James go to Liam and pick him up and stand him on his feet. She swallowed anxiously, her body clenching with dread. Liam was screaming.

“Are you all right?” James shouted, staring into his son’s distraught face.

“I fell over!” Liam wailed.

James pulled his son into his arms, and held him tight.

Marion felt shaken. Relieved, but nauseous.

A sudden rush of scattered memories flooded her thoughts, and she remembered a multitude of moments just like this one, when her husband had been cruel to both her and their children.

She had married him because her parents had told her to.

Her parents. Where were
they
now? she wondered. They were gone, and she had no memory of them. They had never held her like that. What did her duty to
them
matter now?

She put a hand on her chest, and for the first time in her life, uttered the words, “
I made a mistake. I made a terrible mistake
.”

The shock of the admission held her immobile as she stared blankly down at the floor. Then her gaze lifted, and she found herself looking at Lily’s letter on the chair in front of her. A letter from her brave daughter, who only wanted happiness with the man she believed she loved, despite all his flaws.

A raw and primitive grief beset Marion, as she slowly bent forward and reached for the letter.