Mary Balogh - One Night for Love

Now, this morning, she no longer knew herself. Who was Frances Lilian Montague? How could that austere, handsome man— with blue eyes like hers —be her father? How could the woman whose initial was twined with his on her locket be her mother?

They had been separated, the duke who was her father and the woman who was her mother, very soon after their marriage. Lily knew what that felt like. She knew the ache of longing and loneliness the woman must have felt. And they had loved each other. Lily had been conceived in love, the duke had told her last evening. They had loved each other and been separated forever. Their child had been left for what had been intended to be a short spell with the people who had become Lily's parents.

Mama and Papa, who had loved her as dearly as any parents could possibly love their child.

The woman, her mother, must have loved her too. Lily pictured to herself how she would have felt if she had had a child of Neville's after their separation. Oh, yes, her mother had loved her. And for over twenty years the duke, her father, had been unable to let go of either his wife or his conviction that somewhere she, Lily, existed.

She did not want to be Lady Frances Lilian Montague. She did not want the Duke of Portfrey to be her father. She wanted her papa to be the man who had begotten her. But it was all true whether she wanted it to be or not. And she could not stop herself from thinking that while for eighteen years she had had the best papa in the world and for the three years since his death had had her memories of him, the Duke of Portfrey for all that time had been without his own child. All those years, so filled with love for her, had been empty for him.

He was her father. She tested the idea in her mind without shying away from it. The Duke of Portfrey was her father. And Papa had always intended that she know it eventually. He and Mama had given her the locket to wear all her life, and Papa had always insisted that she must take his pack to an officer if he should die in battle. She did not know why he had kept the truth from her for so long or why he had not tried to contact the Duke of Portfrey. Oh, yes, she did. She could remember how her mama had doted on her, how her papa had acted as if the sun rose and set on her. They had found themselves unable to give her up and had doubtless found all sorts of good reasons for not doing so. Papa had intended to tell her when she reached adulthood. She was sure he must have intended that.

She would never know for sure what his intentions or motives had been, Lily decided. But she did know two things. Papa had not intended to keep the truth a secret from her forever. And Papa had loved her.

It was not, she thought suddenly, a bad thing to be the daughter of a duke and the granddaughter of a baron. She had dreamed of equality with Neville and had believed that perhaps she would achieve it in everything except birth and fortune.

She smiled rather wanly.

Elizabeth was dressed and in the breakfast room before Lily—an unusual occurrence. She got to her feet, took Lily's hands in hers, and kissed her on both cheeks before looking searchingly into her face.

"Lily," she said, "how are you, my dear?"

"Awake," Lily said. "Fully awake."

"You will receive him this morning?" Elizabeth sounded rather anxious. "You need not if you do not feel quite ready to do so."

"I will receive him," Lily said.

He came an hour later, when they were sitting in the drawing room, working at their embroidery—or at least pretending to. He came striding into the room close on the butler's heels, made his bow, and then hovered close to the door as if he had suddenly lost all his confidence.

"Gracious, Lyndon," Elizabeth said, hurrying toward him, "whatever happened?"

"An unfortunate encounter with a door?" he said, phrasing the words as a question, as if asking if they would be willing to accept a patently ridiculous lie. His face was shiny with bruises. His left eye was bloodshot and purplish at the outer corner.

"You have been fighting Mr. Dorsey," Lily said quietly.

He came a few paces closer to her. "You have not been in grave danger from him for some time, Lily," he said. "Kilbourne, I gather, has had a close watch put on you, and I have had a close watch put on Dorsey. I knew it was he, you see, but did not have proof of it until last evening. He will not be bothering you ever again."

Lily supposed that she had known last night why the duke and Neville left the party so early. But her mind had not been able to cope with the knowledge, or with anything else for that matter.

"He is dead?" she asked.

He inclined his head.

"You killed him?"

He hesitated. "I knocked him insensible," he said, "in a fist fight. Kilbourne and I had agreed with considerable regret that we could not reconcile it with our consciences to kill him in cold blood or even in a duel to the death, but we did agree that we would punish him severely before turning him over to a constable and a magistrate for trial. But we were careless. He snatched up a gun before he could be taken away and would have killed me if Kilbourne had not first shot him."

Elizabeth had both hands to her mouth. Lily merely looked calmly into the duke's eyes and knew that she had heard everything that he was prepared to tell. She knew that although Mr. Dorsey had probably killed her mother and Mr. William Doyle, that although he had tried three separate times to kill her and had almost killed Neville, it might have been difficult to prove any one of those murders or attempted murders in a court of law. She was not sure if it was carelessness that had left a gun within Mr.

Dorsey's reach. Perhaps they had wanted him to have that gun. Perhaps they had wanted him to try to use it so that there would be a perfectly good excuse to shoot him in self-defense.

The duke himself would never say, of course. Neither would Neville. And she would never ask. She did not really wish to know.

"I am glad he is dead," she said, almost shocked to realize that she spoke the truth. "Thank you."

"And that is all we need say on the topic of Calvin Dorsey," he said. "You are safe, Lily. Free."

She nodded.

"Well," Elizabeth said briskly, "I am due to meet with my housekeeper. It is our day for going over the accounts. You will excuse me for half an hour, Lyndon? Lily?"

Lily nodded and the duke bowed.

He looked wary when he turned back from seeing Elizabeth out of the room, but Lily smiled at him.

"Will you have a seat, your grace?" she asked.

He took a chair quite close to hers and looked at her silently for several moments.

"I will understand," he said at last, sounding as if he were delivering a well-rehearsed speech, "if you feel yourself unable to acknowledge the relationship, Lily. Kilbourne told me a good deal last night about Sergeant Thomas Doyle. I can understand your pride in him and your affection for him. But I beg you—please!—to allow me to settle a considerable portion of my fortune on you so that you may live in comfortable independence for the rest of your life. At the very least allow me to do that for you."

"What would you wish to do," she asked him, "if I said I was willing to accept more than the very least?"

He leaned back in his chair and drew a deep breath, looking at her consideringly as he did so. "I would acknowledge you publicly," he said. "I would take you home to Rutland Park in Warwickshire and spend every available minute of every day getting to know you and allowing you to get to know me. I would clothe you and deck you with jewels. I would encourage you to continue with your education. I would take you to Nuttall Grange in Leicestershire to meet your grandfather. I would… What is left? I would try in every way available to me to make up for the lost years." He smiled slowly. "And I would have you tell me every single thing you can remember about Thomas and Beatrice Doyle and your growing years. That is what I would wish to do, Lily."