‘I’m not quite so fragile, Miss Rutherford. My time in the army taught me to deal with deprivation.’ He fingered one red petal, pulling it down a touch before letting it go to bob back into place. ‘Cold, hunger and musket balls don’t care whether a man is a viscount’s son or butcher’s brother.’
‘Was it very painful being shot?’ She near groaned at her stupid question as his mouth turned down at the corners. She should have limited the conversation to the plants instead of alighting on such a dreadful topic, one which demanded a certain intimacy she was reluctant to engage in. This kind of leading question had been her downfall with him before.
He stared past her out the far window at the garden covered in snow and she knew he saw more desolation than the bare trees encased in ice and the small winter birds hopping among the few bushes poking up through the snow. ‘Not as bad as laying in a barn for three days until another officer found me.’
Lily’s hands flew to her mouth in horror. ‘How awful.’
‘Yes, but at least it kept the surgeons from taking the leg and allowed the wound to heal without corruption.’ He brushed his thigh with his fingers and she knew at once where he’d been struck. ‘I was one of the lucky ones. Most of my men died in the mud or on the surgeon’s table.’
He pressed his fingers against the table top and leaned hard on his shoulders. His jaw moved as if he wanted to say more but couldn’t. She waited patiently for him to continue, as ready to listen now as she’d been four years ago, her grievances paling in comparison to his. As many times as she’d cursed him, she wasn’t cruel enough to wish something so terrible on him, or to think it just deserts for what he’d done to her.
At last he straightened, tossing her the kind of small smile meant to convince her his experience didn’t still haunt him, but it was plain it did. ‘Please excuse my melancholy turn.’
‘I’m very sorry you had to suffer so,’ she offered with genuine concern.
‘It wasn’t all hardship.’ He tapped the table in thought. ‘Before my wound, my men and I used to play like those boys in the snow at our winter quarters.’
‘It’s difficult to imagine grown men frolicking.’
‘But we did,’ he added, the sadness of mourning tainting the happy memory. It was clear he’d lost friends in France, people he cared deeply about and now missed. ‘I enjoyed the camaraderie of army life. It wasn’t something I’d ever experienced before my father purchased my commission, not even at school. It was almost as if we were a kind of family, albeit a strange one.’
‘Yes, I know something about strange families.’ She motioned to the window through which they could see Laurus and Daisy hauling the laughing twins back up the rise.
‘I enjoy your family. Mine isn’t quite as—’
‘Eccentric?’
‘Welcoming,’ he finished. ‘It’s impossible to cultivate many acquaintances when your father believes himself higher than everyone but the greatest dukes and marquesses. The fact our family is descended from a king’s mistress troubled him less than when people didn’t pay him the respect he believed his birthright.’
She was just about to agree with his assessment of the Marbrook family, but for once managed to catch her tongue before it made a fool of her. ‘Laurus told me your father didn’t approve of your friendship with him.’
‘He didn’t approve of any friendship, not even between me and my brother, who was too much like him to care for me. We never played together like those two boys.’ He picked a brown leaf off one of the stems and flung it away, the loneliness she remembered draping him in the ballroom hallway haunting his words. Then he raised his eyes to hers, the green filled with a regret Lily could almost touch. ‘I tried to emulate my father once, in order to garner his approval. It didn’t work and all I did was treat poorly someone who deserved kindness.’
Lily sucked in the humid air, his expression as bracing as the cold outside. Surely he wasn’t referring to his behaviour at the ball? It must be another situation with a fellow officer or soldier, some comrade-in-arms he’d disappointed, not her. He’d been so mean and aloof after she’d tripped it was difficult to imagine he might regret his behaviour, and yet…
‘About what happened at your sister’s celebration—’ He glanced down to where Pygmalion stood beside him, flecks of snow dotting his black nose.
‘You needn’t bring it up. I’ve quite forgotten it.’ Heaven help her for lying on Christmas Eve, but she didn’t want him to suspect how much that night had affected her or changed her life. ‘It was a long time ago.’
‘It was, but, well, you see…’ His voice faded like the wind through the open glass vent at the top of the hothouse.
‘Yes?’ she urged. If an apology was coming, she wanted to hear it, simply because she couldn’t believe it. Everyone knew the Marbrooks were not people to make apologies, but to demand them, even from those they’d wronged.
‘I—well—’
‘We have you cornered.’ The twins burst into the hothouse and Lily and Lord Marbrook raised their arms to protect themselves from a hail of snowballs.
‘Not in here. Father will kill you if you hurt his plants.’ She rushed after them into the biting cold, stopping outside the hothouse door to snatch up a handful of snow and fling it at the mischievous imps. They easily ducked her projectile and she was about to reach for more snow when cold hit the back of her neck and slid inside the collar of her coat.
‘I got you,’ Daisy proclaimed while Lily packed another snowball.
‘You won’t stay dry for long.’ Lily hurled the snow at her sister, but it flew past her curls to hit Laurus’s jacket.
Soon, he, too, was throwing snow or ducking behind trees and statues to avoid being hit. Only Lord Marbrook didn’t join the fight. He stood outside the greenhouse, arms crossed over his chest as he leaned against the glass and watched, a grin decorating his lips.
She glanced at him as she hid behind an urn to pack another ball, irked to see him standing outside the fun after claiming he’d enjoyed such frivolity in France. He was probably horrified to see two adults acting like children and laughing at the expense of those around him, not in solidarity with them. Let him judge, she wouldn’t allow him to dampen her mood, even if it meant another story for him to share with those in London who continued to sneer at her lack of grace.
With snowballs flying this way and that, fresh snow began to grow scarce. Lily spied some piled against the low stone wall surrounding the rosebushes. She had rushed to gather it up before the others reached it when her boot hit a patch of ice. She pitched forwards, tightening as she fell towards the thorny branches when a firm hand about her waist caught her.
She whirled in Lord Marbrook’s embrace to face him. His hot breath warmed the cold tip of her nose as his tall body arched over hers. She clasped his shoulders to steady herself, her heart pounding in her chest more from his nearness than her near miss of the sharp bush. His lips parted and for the briefest of moments she thought he might lean down to kiss her. Their faces were so near, all it would take was one small movement to close the distance, and to her shame, she wanted him to.
Instead, he straightened and turned to set her on the centre of the path. He didn’t part from her, but remained close with his hand on the small of her back. The weight of it made her entire body tingle and she locked her knees to stop from sinking against his chest and stomach. For a moment it was just the two of them together, as it’d been in the alcove in London when she’d been naïve enough to comfort him. She removed her hands from his arms and stepped out of his embrace, his former slight dampening her appreciation of today’s courtesy.
‘Oh, you were so chivalrous.’ Daisy rushed forwards, beaming at Lord Marbrook like