Mary Balogh - One Night for Love

"Oh, dear," Lily said. "I do not read very well yet. I may not be able to decipher every word." She bent her head and saw with some relief that the first sentence was not very long; neither did it appear to contain many long words.

" 'As I walked through the wild-er-ness of this world,' " she read in a halting monotone, " 'I l-lighted on a cer-tain place where was a den, and I laid me down in that place to sleep; and, as I slept, I drrr-eamed a dream.' " She looked up with a triumphant smile and lowered the book.

The gentlemen applauded and the marquess whistled.

"Bravo, Lily," he said. "Perhaps you are bound for heaven after all. My humblest, most abject apologies." He took the book from her hands and closed it with a flourish.

Lily glanced toward the Duke of Portfrey, who had taken a couple of steps closer to her. But her smile died. He was staring at her, all color drained from his face. Everyone seemed to notice at the same time. An unnatural hush fell on the room.

"Lily," he said in a strange half whisper, "where did you get that locket?"

Her hand lifted to it and covered it protectively. "It is mine," she said. "My mother and father gave it to me."

"When?" he asked.

"I have always had it," she told him, "for as long as I can remember. It is mine." She was frightened again. She curled her fingers around the locket.

"Let me see it," he commanded her. He had come within arm's length of her.

She tightened her hold of the locket.

"Lyndon—" Elizabeth began.

"Let me see it!"

Lily took her hand away and he stared at the locket, his face paler if that were possible—he looked as if he might well faint.

"It has the entwined F and L," he said. "Open it for me. What is inside?"

"Lyndon, what is this?" Elizabeth sounded annoyed.

" Open it !" His grace had taken no notice of her.

Lily shook her head, sick with terror even though there were four other people in the room besides the two of them. The Duke of Portfrey seemed unaware of them—until he withdrew his eyes from the locket suddenly and passed one hand over his face. Then while they all watched silently he loosened his neckcloth sufficiently that he could reach inside his shirt to pull out a gold chain that bore a locket identical to the one Lily wore.

"There were only two of them," he said. "I had them specially made. Is there anything inside yours, Lily?"

She was shaking her head. "My papa gave it to me," she said. "He was not a thief."

"No, no," he said. "No, I am quite sure he was not. Is there anything inside?"

She shook her head again and took one step back from him. "It is empty," she said. "The locket is mine. You are not going to take it from me. I will not let you."

Elizabeth had come to stand beside her. "Lyndon," she said, "you are frightening Lily. But what is the meaning of this? You had two such identical lockets specially made?"

"The L stands for Lyndon," he said. "The F is for Frances. My wife. Your mother, Lily."

Lily stared at him blankly.

"You are Lily Montague," he said, gazing back at her. "My daughter."

Lily shook her head. There was a buzzing in her ears.

"Lyndon." It was Elizabeth's voice. "You cannot just assume that. Perhaps—"

"I have known it," he said, "since the moment I set eyes on her in the church at Newbury. Apart from the blue eyes, Lily bears a quite uncanny resemblance to Frances—to her mother."

"I say! Look to Miss Doyle," one of the gentlemen was saying, but his words were unnecessary. The Duke of Portfrey had lunged for her and caught her up in his arms.

Lily, only half conscious, was aware of her locket—no, his —swinging from his neck just before her eyes.

He set her down on a sofa and chafed her hands while Elizabeth placed a cushion behind her head.

"I had no proof, Lily," his grace said, "until now. I knew you must exist, though I had little evidence for that either. But I could not find you. I have never quite stopped searching for you. I have never been quite able to proceed with my life. And then you stepped into that church."

Lily was turning her head from side to side on the cushion. She was trying not to listen.

"Lyndon," Elizabeth said quietly, "go slowly. I am well-nigh fainting myself. Imagine how Lily must be feeling."

He looked up at Elizabeth then and about the room.

"Yes," she said, "the other gentlemen have tactfully withdrawn. Lily, my dear, do not fear. No one is going to take anything—or anyone—away from you."

"Mama and Papa are my mother and father," Lily whispered.

Elizabeth kissed her forehead.

"What is going on in here?" a new voice asked briskly from the doorway. "Joseph told me as I was walking through the door that I had better get in here fast. Lily?"

She gave a little cry and stumbled to her feet. She was in his arms before she could take even one step away from the sofa—tightly enfolded in them, her face against his neckcloth.

"I am the one who has upset her, Kilbourne," the Duke of Portfrey said. "I have just told her that she is my daughter."

Lily burrowed closer into warmth and safety.

"Ah, yes," Neville said quietly. "Yes, she is."

***

"The letter was addressed to Lady Frances Lilian Montague," Neville said. "But someone had written beneath it in a different hand—or so the vicar assured me—'Lily Doyle.' "

He was sitting on the sofa beside Lily, her hand in his, her shoulder leaning against his arm. She was gazing down at her other hand in her lap. She was showing no apparent interest in the conversation. The Duke of Portfrey had crossed the room and come back with a glass of brandy, which he had held out silently to her. She had shaken her head. He had set it down and pulled up a chair so that he could sit facing her. He was gazing at her now, his eyes devouring her. Elizabeth was pacing the room.

"If only we could know what was in the letter," his grace said wistfully.

"But we do." Neville drew the duke's eyes from Lily for a moment. "The letter was addressed to Lily Doyle. William Doyle was her next of kin though he had not known of her existence. The vicar opened the letter and read it to him."

"And the vicar remembers its contents?" his grace asked sharply.

"Better yet," Neville said. "He made a copy of the letter. After reading it, he advised William Doyle to take it over to Nuttall Grange, to Baron Onslow, Lily's grandfather. But he believed that William had a right to a copy of it too. He seemed to feel that the Doyles might wish to claim some sort of compensation for the years of care Thomas Doyle had given Lily."

Lily was pleating the expensive lace of her overdress between her fingers. She was like a child sitting quietly and listlessly while the adults talked.

"You have this copy?" the duke asked, his voice tight.

Neville drew it out of a pocket and handed it over without a word. His grace read silently.

"Lady Lyndon Montague informed her father that she was going to stay with an ailing school friend for a couple of months," Neville said after a few minutes. Elizabeth had come to sit close by. "In reality she went to stay with her former maid and the girl's new husband—Beatrice and Private Thomas Doyle—in order to give birth to a child."

Lily smoothed out the creases she had created and then proceeded to pleat the lace again.

"Her marriage to Lord Lyndon Montague had been a secret one," Neville said, "and both had pledged not to reveal it until his return from his posting to the Netherlands. But he was sent on to the West Indies with his regiment and she discovered she was with child. She was afraid of her own father's wrath as well as his. Worse, she was afraid of her cousin, who was pressing her to marry him so that he would inherit the fortune and the estate as well as the title after Onslow's death. She was afraid of what he would do to her—and the child—if he discovered the truth."