Lily put her fingers to her white temples.
“George is adamant. He talked of taking me away to the country and then he decided that was not convenient because I have to chaperone his niece. Yes, I am to be punished for our happiness. George will see to that.”
She threw out her arms with a sudden theatrical gesture and the bitterness in her voice deepened as she exclaimed,
“Think of it – a chaperone at thirty-four!”
Lily was actually thirty-eight as they knew, it but this was not a moment for argument.
“I didn’t know George had a niece,” the Duke said.
“I knew of it, but I had never dreamt of her coming here,” Lily replied. “She is Bertie’s daughter. You remember Bertie, George’s younger brother? Or perhaps you don’t. You are too young. He was always a tiresome irresponsible creature although he had great charm. He was an inveterate gambler and no one could stop him. George paid up time and time again until eventually he was sent off to Ireland to breed horses.”
He paused for moment before continuing,
“He married Edith Withington-Blythe, her father was the Marquis of Langholme. Her family were furious, but she ran away with him and there was nothing they could do about it. I never saw either of them after they left England. About two years ago they were both killed in a carriage accident. George went over to the funeral and he told me that there was a child and he had arranged for her to stay on with Edith’s cousin who had lived with them as a sort of housekeeper.”
“And now I suppose the cousin has died,” the Duke said.
He was listening to Lily’s story only out of politeness. It seemed more important to him to watch her face, to note the gestures of her hands and the movement of her head. Soon all these things would be taken from him, he would only be able to see her at a distance in her box at the Opera, moving up the stairs at Londonderry House and curtseying at Buckingham Palace.
She would be aloof and dignified, outwardly as cool and unemotional as her name and he only would know how she could be awakened to a passion as fiery and tumultuous as his own.
But now George Bedlington stood between them, with a drawn sword in his hand.
“Yes, the cousin has died,” Lily went on. “And what do you think? It now appears that the girl has been left a fortune, an enormous incredible fortune. No one knew anything about it, but she had an American Godmother, a friend of Edith’s. It appears that, when the child was born, this American woman put aside for her some shares in an oil well and then forgot all about them. It is one of those wells that has been exploited these past few years and the girl has been informed by lawyers that she is wealthy beyond the dreams of avarice.”
“Good Heavens! What an extraordinary story!”
The Duke’s attention was arrested now in spite of himself.
“It is fantastic, isn’t it? Of course George should have been informed about this a year ago, but the old cousin was ill and did not bother and only now she is dead has it all come to light. George has arranged for the girl to come to England and I am to chaperone her for what is left of the Season.”
“You will be in London, we can see each other, we must!”
There was a sudden light in the Duke’s eyes and a lightness in his voice.
“It’s no use, Drogo. We dare not meet after today. George said I might see you once to tell you what he had decided and then it must be goodbye. He doesn’t want any scandal of course. He agreed that we should meet in the ordinary way at other people’s houses and that you should be invited here on formal occasions but, if he hears that we have met at other times, alone or in secret, he will insist on my retiring to the country. I just could not bear it, I could not! I hate the country. You know it bores me. To sit in Bedlington Castle, year in and year out, with only a lot of ghastly fox-hunting Squires to talk to would drive me insane.”
“But I cannot let you go like this!”
“You have to. There is nothing else for it,” Lily replied. “We will see each other across crowded rooms. You will be dancing with the debutantes while I am sitting up on the dais, a Dowager! Oh, Drogo!”
It was a cry of utter desolation and now blindly Lily put out her arms toward him. For some minutes they clung together like children lost in the dark and then her lips were turned to his and his arms tightened around her. His kiss grew fiercer, more possessive and after a moment Lily’s arms went around his neck.
“I love you! Oh, God, how I love you!”
The Duke’s voice was hoarse as he looked down at her. Her lips, rosy from the violence of his kisses, were parted a little and her breath was coming quickly. Her eyes were half-closed, dark lashes sweeping against her slightly flushed cheeks.
“I won’t give you up, I won’t!” he cried. “I am going to take you away with me now at once.”
For a moment, with her golden head resting against his shoulder, Lily let herself believe that it was possible. She thought of the lean athletic beauty of his body, of his hands reaching out towards her and of his mouth hungry for hers.
She thought of the times that they had been together, weekends in country house parties, secret meetings in London at Kew Gardens, the National Gallery, the British Museum and when George was away!
Her breath quickened as she remembered creeping up the stairs, the sleeping darkness of the house, the wild terror of a creaking board, the fright of a squeaking door! Then Drogo’s arms around her and the mad irresistible rapture of her surrender to his compelling strength.
She would go away with him and they would be together for ever! Then a vision of them wandering exiled and restless around the world, avoiding people, afraid of making new acquaintances, haunted always by the scandal in their past, dashed her elation from her as if she had been douched with cold water.
Lily gave an audible sigh and moved away from the Duke’s arms. She turned to look at herself in the heavy gilt mirror standing over the mantelpiece and gave a little exclamation of horror at the damage that had been wrought to her elaborate coiffure.
She raised her arms to her hair, pinning and patting the curls into place and was aware as she did so how the gesture revealed the exquisite curves of her bust, the tininess of her waist and the lovely flowing lines of her hips.
She loved Drogo, she thought to herself, loved him with all her heart, more than she had ever loved anyone before, but not enough to hide her beauty under a shadow, to live secretly in a hole-and-corner way and to know that everyone was talking about her not in admiration but with bated breath because of her impropriety.
Then, as she slipped a curl into place, an idea came to her that made her swing round suddenly to face the Duke as he stood behind her, sulky and disconsolate.
“Drogo, I have thought of something!”
“What?”
The monosyllable was abrupt, almost disinterested. The Duke was realising that he had failed, that Lily was lost to him and that nothing he could say or do could make her his.
“I have thought of something that will enable us to see each other and to be together as we have never been before.”
“What is it?”
Drogo did not sound hopeful. He knew now that Lily would never come away with him, no matter how much he pleaded. He had to face the truth that the Social world was more important to her than her love for him.
It was a blow to his self-esteem, even while at the back of his brain he had not expected her to make any other decision.
“I cannot imagine why I did not think of it before!” Lily exclaimed, her voice light and suddenly gay. “It is the obvious solution for both of us. You must marry this girl!”