‘Lily, might I have a word with you for a moment?’
‘Of course, Catherine.’
‘Don’t hover in the doorway, Catherine!’ Lady Ravenscar snapped from the great winged armchair placed near the Rose Room’s fireplace but angled so she could survey her domain. ‘There is no call for secrets. If this is about your brother, you may share your information with the rest of us.’
Since Lady Ravenscar was the only other occupant of the room, her words were less a polite invitation than a command. Poor Catherine wavered and Lily stood, moving towards her.
‘Is Nicky faring any better this morning, Catherine?’
Catherine met her eyes with a clear expression of gratitude.
‘Her fever has diminished a little, but she is still restless. That is what I wanted to ask you. I have a basket to take to Nanny Brisbane, but I don’t wish to leave Nicky with only a maid. Would you mind sitting with her until my return?’
‘Of course,’ Lily replied, ushering Catherine out of the room before Lady Ravenscar could react. Poor Catherine had no stomach for opposition to her imperious grandmother and it was not merely because she and her twelve-year-old daughter were financially dependent on Lady Ravenscar. Lily wondered if Catherine had always been this way or whether marriage to an impecunious parson, widowhood and now almost a decade under her grandmother’s thumb had leached her will away. Looking at her reminded Lily why she had returned to England after her father’s death in the first place.
Like the intrepid traveller Lady Hester Stanhope, Lily had discovered that life as her wealthy father’s hostess was vastly different now that he was gone, but she had no ambition to end her life an indebted recluse like Lady Hester. She had spent her year of mourning in the house of an aged and distant cousin, which had been even more stultifying than the weeks since her arrival in England. Even after she had come out of mourning, she had discovered there was no role to be played by a young woman of marriageable age unless she handed herself over body and soul to some respectable duenna while society tutted over her advancing years. She didn’t even have the freedom to manage her own inheritance—the lawyers managing the trust, who had obeyed her every word while her father lived, now balked and held her to the rigid letter of the trust. Her father’s death had been a shock on so many levels Lily was still reeling from the loss of everything she valued.
‘It has been three days since Mr Marston has been to visit you. Is he travelling?’ Catherine asked as they climbed the curving staircase.
‘Yes, on business to Birmingham and then he is bringing his daughter back to Bristol to prepare for her debut in the spring.’ The words were stiff and she tried to smile.
‘Are you worried whether she will like you?’
Lily almost wished she had not been tempted to share some of her story with Catherine. It made it so much more inescapable.
‘Mr Marston said she is as lovely as an angel, but that is the least of my worries. I know his offer makes good sense. I had no idea how restrictive life could be when my father passed and it is even worse now I am out of mourning. Everything the Kingston gossipmongers didn’t say while he was alive, they happily whispered over his grave. The only thing that kept them from saying it to my face was the hope I will marry one of their sons. I cannot even carry on with my business concerns because Papa tied it up in a ridiculous trust when I was born and never thought to change it, because he believed he was indestructible. Right now the only thing I have any control over is Hollywell House, or at least I will after probate. I must marry or I shall go mad. Sometimes I wish Papa had left me on Isla Padrones in Brazil when my mother died instead of bringing me to Jamaica and forcing me to enter society. At least on the island I had become accustomed to being alone and having few expectations.’
‘You could always stay here with us if you don’t wish to marry. I know my grandmother isn’t an easy person, but she is not quite as bad as she seems. When Nicola returns to school, it is just the two of us and it can be rather...lonely. I am certain she will agree.’
They stopped at the top of the stairs.
‘That is very generous of you, but I already feel I have encroached too much on our very distant relation. It is only because Mr Marston’s home is in Bristol...’
She touched the little gold pendant at her throat. She knew this feeling. The same one that would catch at her breath every time her father sailed away, leaving her and her mother on tiny Isla Padrones. The world closing on her, shutting her in, but also a sense of safety, of the world reduced to the familiar once more. The move to Jamaica when she had been fourteen had taken away that safety without really opening the world any wider. Her school and then Kingston society had been even more oppressive than the isolation of the island where she had run wild. She had not known how rare the freedom of being alone was until she had lost it.
‘Perhaps I should remove to Hollywell House...’
Catherine’s blue eyes widened.
‘But, Lily, you could not live there on your own!’
‘I could find someone to lend me countenance. My pin money is still generous enough to support a companion. Surely there must be an impecunious relative somewhere on the family tree who would be willing to...’ She pulled herself to a halt at her selfishness. She might be scared of her future, but there were many women whose fates were indescribably worse than hers, or even than Catherine’s.
She had seen that only too clearly the day she had walked into the brothel near the Kingston docks that her lawyers had tried to prevent her from visiting after her father’s death. Any one of those eight women would have traded places with her at the bat of an eyelid. The worst was that the lawyers had made it clear that though she could evict the women from the structure her father had bought, under the trust she could not sign over the house to them. She had done the only thing she could think of—at least her mother’s jewellery was hers outright and she had sold the most expensive necklace and given an equal share to each of the women, much to the lawyers’ shock and dismay.
‘You would do better to marry him, you know,’ Catherine said in her quiet voice. ‘He is handsome and intelligent and I can see you are fond of him and he is very fond of you and he respects you, which is just as important. Otherwise he would not be so very patient and accommodating. Believe me, waiting for a...for a perfect solution usually means waiting for ever.’
‘I know. I probably shall. You should go to Nanny Brisbane before it begins raining again.
Catherine smiled. ‘Grandmama was right, you know. I do want to take a basket to Nanny, but it is true I received a note from my brother. He is coming to visit Nanny and I would like to see him, but I didn’t want to tell Grandmama.’
‘Well, since she is the one who mentioned Mrs Brisbane’s ill health to him at Hollywell House in the first place, she wouldn’t be surprised.’
‘Did she? Still, talking about him makes her so crotchety I really would rather not.’
‘I am not surprised. The way he called her Lady Jezebel sounded like he hated her.’
‘That is what Grandfather called her, never Jezebel or Lady Ravenscar. She was an earl’s daughter, so Lady Jezebel was her courtesy title and my great-grandmama, the Dowager Marchioness, insisted Grandfather continue to call her that when they wed because she didn’t want two Lady Ravenscars at the Hall. Then when we