“It’s been worse for Lilly than she’ll admit. She has suffered enormously, carrying this burden as she has. People who were her former friends won’t speak to her. Staff who respected her call her names behind her back. The only reason we have hotel guests is that they don’t know what she’s done. It’s still possible to salvage something, if you can restrain yourself.”
“She won’t understand my absence. She extracted a promise from me that I would visit. I told her I would try to come.”
“There is a better way. Get your business done. Don’t tempt the gossips by cooing over this baby, by not having the strength to keep your arms from embracing Lilly. Some damned cook or maid will see you, and that’ll be it for you. Then the story that will follow you all will be worse, far worse. It will grow and grow, and your own past--your poor wife, your annulment, your affair while your wife suffered--all of it will follow the three of you. You’ll make it worse by coming around now. Right now my great-grandson has some phantom father unknown to the world. The rumors of how he got his start, during your marriage, before your petition, could follow him all his life.”
“Lilly is not one for lies, Lady Nesbitt. She likes the truth even when it’s hard.”
“She’s beginning to discover the merits of a good lie, you can believe me. Think about it--if you know her at all, you know how headstrong she is. Sometimes foolish--at least where you’re concerned. Here is a chance for you to help her. You will be a marriageable man, known to be a friend of the family. You’re in good standing in the community, and your charitable act of rescuing this woman whose reputation is terribly, terribly scarred will help take the sting out of the rumors. They may always speculate as to who fathered that boy, but you can rise above it. If you start coming around now, however, perhaps a year before you’re free to be a husband and father, you’ll bungle it. Or she will.
“Andrew,” Amanda continued, “you’re clever enough to understand society. A woman of good standing can marry a bricklayer and lose her status forever. A man of good standing can marry the chamber maid and elevate hers. Exercise your acumen now, your understanding of how things work and how things don’t--for his sake.”
“I’m not the elite. What I do has no impact on”
“Oh, drat that, it’s all starting to blend, and will be blended by the time my great-grandson is a grandfather himself. I don’t know that these morals will ever relax, but I promise you that a parvenu with manners will not be held out of society!”
“Do you think it good form for me to ignore and avoid my child? Now? When Lilly needs me?”
“I think it would be vulgar and cruel to test the patience of the gossips any further. Lilly would not be happy away from her home, she wouldn’t like having no business. If the two of you push this thing any further, you’ll have worse than you do.”
“You should tell her, at least.”
“If I attempt to explain, she may sneak away to see you. Then what? What if she’s seen? Think of the child. She has the love and devotion of her family. She has the baby. Get your affairs in order. Then come around acting as if this conversation has never taken place.”
There was a knock at the study door and it opened. A housemaid looked in. “Mr. Devon? Mr. Montaine has passed away.”
“Dear God,” Amanda said in a breath.
“I’ll have to go to them,” Andrew said.
“Yes, do. But first, tell me you’ll cooperate.”
“I’ll think it over.”
“I am seldom asked for my advice in time, Andrew. I tried to keep my daughter from running off with a fraud, and she nearly ruined her life. I tried to keep Patricia out of this family. I tried to convince Lilly to protect her reputation better. This once I do know what I’m saying is true: if you’ll be patient and stay away until you’re available to step into her life, she and your child can escape much pain. And I’m not advising. I am demanding!”
He stared at her for a long moment. He finally gave a brief, small nod. “I have to go,” he said.
“It’s fitting in a way. One leaves, one arrives. He’s a beautiful boy, Andrew. You’ll be proud of him one day.”
“Thank you.”
Amanda was unable to keep her secret. When Lilly couldn’t hold back her tears on Christmas morning, Amanda explained things. Lilly was as angry as Amanda expected, but the mood passed for she was enchanted with her son and her vitality carried her through a brief dark spell.
The baby was called Richard for the grandfather Lilly never knew, and on most days the mere fact of his existence was enough to buoy her spirits. When the February chill descended and people were frozen into their houses, Lilly spoke of going away, perhaps starting a hotel like the Armstrong Arms in another city. But Amanda urged her to be patient; nothing could be done while the baby was so young. Again, Lilly’s strength proved greater than her loneliness and the fear that she had been abandoned.
What keeps that young man? Amanda often wondered.
When the trees began to bud, Lilly grew impatient and discontent. Her account books received her as unconditionally as ever, but others did not. Not only had she been pregnant, she had actually delivered a fatherless child. It was not a state of grace for a woman.
Amanda, tired of the strain, urged Lilly again to give all of it time. She had warned her that this plan of hers would be at odds with society. They wouldn’t forgive her easily. Again, Lilly bolstered herself. She was of such formidable strength that Amanda was filled with awe.
In Reading, Brenda fought her mother’s voice. There were the voices of war; Mr. and Mrs. Sherman sometimes spoke with the voices of Union soldiers, and she felt the danger creep nearer and nearer. Father Demetrius had been called to Vienna to greet the sick and infirm, and sometimes she could hear him from that great distance. Without him her health was elusive and impossible to maintain.
They gave her poison in her food; they caused her to sleep for days on end--this she knew. Her mother called, her father raged, her stepfather threatened, the priest accused. She crept out of her bed in the dark of night to pray under the stars, to pray for peace in her mind. Why did God send these tormenters? Had she not been forgiving enough? Had she not endured enough?
She found a rope that was used to lead cattle and tied it around a beam in the barn. She could not endure the voices, the threats, the constant fear. She pulled a milking stool over to the bottom of the rope and stood on it. When the rope was tight and fashioned into an unforgiving knot, she kicked away the stool.
The voices were quiet for the first time in many, many years.
Andrew Devon received a letter from the archdiocese in Pittsburgh on the same day he received a letter from the Shermans. The first letter did not end his marriage but gave him legal recourse to use in a court of law to seek a divorce. The second letter made him a widower. Above all the Shermans wished him to know that this tragedy was not his doing--Brenda mourned the absence of the priest and had not been well since Father Demetrius left the country.
When word of Brenda Devon’s suicide reached Lilly through Dale Montaine, she did not understand Andrew’s failure to appear. She didn’t know if he blamed her for having complicated his life, for having caused such pain.
The baby was almost six months old, and Lilly remembered a time when she could hear her own mind very clearly above the clamor of duty, responsibility, and worry. She had trouble convincing her mother and grandmother, but in an adamant argument she won the acquiescence if not the approval of her family. She went to the only place she was herself.
Richard was a contented baby, husky and full on mother’s milk. He could sit up early and laughed at the waves that tickled his feet. This time Lilly was not able to make her own nonschedule; she let the baby decide. She could tell he would one day be a strong and unconventional man--he liked the night sky, he squealed at birds, he liked to put his fingers into her mouth while she nursed him. He was free, beautiful, and curious.
She chopped her own wood and cooked for h
erself for two weeks. She needed help to buy food for her cupboard and found a woman in the seaside village who was willing to shop, clean, and sometimes keep the baby. She apologized to God for all she had dared, professing a wider understanding now, and gave thanks every day for the same thing--her son. She found her mind was no more difficult to hear through a baby’s laughter or complaints, and she came alive with the sea. By the time she believed herself restored, he came.
He walked onto the sandy beach, still wearing his coat and shoes. She heard the coach that brought him depart. She looked back at the cottage and saw his bags below the step at the door. She had been playing on the sand with Richard and stood to watch him approach. She didn’t speak a word until he stood a foot from her. “I’m sorry for your loss,” she said.
“I came as quickly as I could,” he said.
“It’s been such a long time since that day…since the rain, when you said--”
“I can explain. And for once, there’s going to be plenty of time.”
“Are you sure?” she asked him.
“Oh yes, Lilly. I’m sure.”
“I was afraid you would blame me. All the pain…all the tears…all that I demanded.”
He smiled, then laughed. “Blame you? Yes! I blame you, Lilly, for without your courage, none of us could have all this!”
She stooped to pick up his child. She hoisted the heavy, handsome baby on her hip. “Then I take the blame,” she said.
Be sure to check out Robyn Carr’s other historical romances!
Chelynne
The Bellerose Bargain
The Braeswood Tapestry
The Blue Falcon
The Troubadour’s Romance
The Everlasting Covenant
By Right of Arms
Robyn Carr is a RITA Award-winning, #1 New York Times bestselling author of fifty novels, including the critically acclaimed Virgin River series. Her new series, Thunder Point, made its debut as a #1 NYT bestseller in March 2013. Robyn and her husband live in Las Vegas, Nevada. You can visit Robyn Carr's website at www.RobynCarr.com.
Robyn Carr, Woman's Own
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