‘Please.’ Giles gave a terse inclination of his head. He suffered more than a little inner restlessness as he felt the chains of responsibility for Castonbury Park tighten even more painfully about his throat. Chains which Lily Seagrove no doubt prayed might choke him!
‘Perhaps now that you are home, I might broach the subject of this year’s well-dressing, and the possibility of the celebrations afterwards returning to Castonbury Park?’ Mr Seagrove prompted hopefully. The Duke of Rothermere, having been in a turmoil of emotions the previous year, had requested that the garden party after the well-dressing take place on the village green rather than in the grounds of the estate as was the custom.
Although, as everyone knew, ‘garden party’ did not quite describe the celebrations that took place after the villagers had attended the church service and seen the three adorned wells in the village blessed. Much food was eaten, many barrels of beer consumed, with several stalls for bartering vegetables and livestock, and there was a Gypsy fortune-teller in a garishly adorned tent, and of course there would be music and dancing as the day turned to evening.
Giles was slow to turn his attention back to the older man, so intently was he watching Lily’s slender, gloved hands as they deftly managed the tilting of the teapot. Good heavens, sitting there so primly, her movements gracefully elegant, it was almost possible to imagine that Lily might, after all, have made Edward a passably suitable wife!
Almost.
For one only had to look at that black and curling hair, the ivory-white of her complexion, those lively green eyes and her full and berry-red lips to be reminded that Lily Seagrove’s true parentage was of much more exotic stock than the homely Mr and Mrs Seagrove.
No, as Giles had said only yesterday, it simply would not have done. Lily Seagrove was the type of young lady that gentlemen like the Montagues took to mistress, not to wife. An opinion, if Giles remembered correctly—and he had no doubts that he did!—to which his brother Edward had taken great exception a year ago. And which, when Giles had made those same remarks to Lily Seagrove, had resulted in her landing a resounding slap upon his cheek!
Giles’s mouth tightened at that memory even as he turned his attention back to Mr Seagrove. ‘What exactly would that entail?’
‘Oh, there is nothing for you to do personally except give your permission, my lord,’ that cheerful gentleman assured him eagerly. ‘Lily and Mrs Stratton usually work together on the organisation of the celebrations.’ He beamed brightly.
‘Indeed?’ Giles’s gaze was unreadable as Lily Seagrove stood up to hand him his cup of tea.
Lily kept her lashes lowered demurely as she avoided all contact with Giles’s long and elegant fingers as she handed over the cup of tea into which she had placed four helpings of sugar, despite having no idea whether or not that gentleman even liked sugar in his tea. Perhaps he would understand that she believed his demeanour could do with sweetening also.
She had felt a slight uplift in her spirits as she saw Giles Montague’s discomfort at mention of the neglect currently obvious about the estate, only to have her heart sink upon hearing her father put forward the idea of the celebrations after the well-dressing once again taking place at Castonbury Park. She knew that if Giles Montague were to agree, it would necessitate her spending far more time here than she would ever have wished, now that he was back in residence.
Lily moved across the room with her father’s tea. ‘I am sure it is not necessary to bother either His Grace or Lord Montague with something so trivial, Father,’ she dismissed evenly. ‘The venue of the village green proved perfectly adequate for our purposes last year.’
‘But, my dear, the garden party after the well-dressing ceremony has, by tradition, always been held at Castonbury Park—’
‘Mrs Stratton informed me only yesterday that His Grace is far more comfortable when he does not have too much rush and bustle about him.’ Lily could literally feel Giles Montague’s gaze upon her as she resumed her seat on the chaise before taking up her own cup of tea.
‘I had not thought of that …’ Mr Seagrove murmured regretfully.
Lily felt a pang of guilt as she saw her father’s disappointment. ‘I am sure that everyone enjoyed themselves just as much last year as they have any of the years previously,’ she encouraged gently.
‘Yes, but—’
‘Perhaps I might be allowed to offer an opinion …?’ Giles Montague interjected softly.
Lily’s gloved fingers tightened about the delicate handle on her teacup as she heard the deceptive mildness of his tone, to such a degree that she had to force herself to relax her grip for fear she might actually disengage the handle completely from the cup. She drew in two deep and calming breaths before turning to look at Giles Montague with polite but distant enquiry.
He was seated comfortably in an armchair, the pale blue of the material a perfect foil for the heavy darkness of his fashionably styled hair. He wore a black superfine over a pale blue waistcoat and snowy white linen, buff-coloured pantaloons tailored to long and powerful legs and black Hessians moulding the length of his calves. He looked, in fact, the epitome of the fashionable dandy about Town.
Not that Lily had ever been to Town, Mr and Mrs Seagrove never having found reason to travel so far as London. But she had often been privileged to see copies of the magazines Lady Phaedra, the younger of the two Montague sisters, had sent over, and the fashionable gentlemen depicted in the sketches inside those magazines had all looked much as Giles Montague did today.
She gave a dismissive shake of her head, as much for her own benefit as anyone else’s. She simply refused to see Giles Montague as anything other than the cold and unpleasant man he had always been to her, but especially so this past year. ‘I trust the tea is to your liking, my lord?’ she prompted as she saw the involuntary wince he gave after taking a sip of the hot and highly sweetened brew.
Narrowed grey eyes met her more innocent gaze. ‘Perfectly, thank you,’ he murmured as he rested the cup back on its saucer before carefully placing both on the table.
Lily’s cheeks warmed guiltily as she realised he was not going to expose her pettiness to her father. ‘I believe you were about to offer us your opinion concerning the well-dressing celebrations, my lord?’ she prompted huskily.
Giles, the taste of that unpleasantly syrupy tea still coating the roof of his mouth, did not believe that Miss Lily Seagrove would care to hear his ‘opinion’ of her at this particular moment! Instead he gave her a smile that did little more than bare his teeth in challenge, and was rewarded by a deepening of the blush colouring those ivory cheeks. ‘I have very fond memories of the celebrations being held here when I was a boy.’
‘Of course you must.’ The vicar eagerly took up the conversation. ‘I recall Mrs Seagrove telling me of how, before you were old enough to go to Town for the Season with the rest of the family, you and your brothers would help to put out the tables and chairs and hang up the bunting.’
Giles and his brothers … Of which there was now only one. And Harry, in his role as diplomat, currently resided in Town when not out of the country on other business.
If anyone had asked Giles if he really wanted the garden party to be held at Castonbury Park this year, his honest answer would have been no. But having now seen his father, witnessed the way in which his grief had caused him to become withdrawn, not just from his family but from the estate and village as well, and the way in which that estate had been allowed to fall into a state of gentile decay, Giles was of the opinion, no matter what his personal feelings on the matter, that the return of the annual celebrations in the grounds of Castonbury Park was exactly what was needed to bring about a return of confidence in the Montague family’s interest in both the tenants and the village.
An interest which, it was becoming all too frustratingly apparent,