After a long journey by train and pony cart, Lily knew she looked as bedraggled as she felt. She’d bartered what she could in order to feed herself along the way, but by the time she’d walked the last mile towards the house, she couldn’t remember when she’d last been so hungry.
Well, of course, that was at the maison. Living on thin gruel and very little else had meant she was perpetually hungry. But the last four months had seen the flesh return to her bones, and the lustre to her hair. She’d been called beautiful again.
She stopped and gripped the wrought-iron railings of the large gates to the entrance of the driveway that wound through parklands to the familiar stone pile in the distance, and took in the familiar sight through tear-filled eyes.
Nostalgia was not behind her emotion. Instead, she felt exhaustion and fear. She’d barely been alone in his company her entire life. How would he receive her now?
If she had anywhere else in the world she could go, she’d turn around and seek a reception less icy than the one she knew awaited her.
But her father owed her some obligation, if not to house and protect her, then to provide some means of succour.
Not surprisingly, Edgeworth, the butler, didn’t recognise her though she greeted him warmly as he tried to send her to the servants’ entrance.
His mouth dropped open, and he could only gape at her like a flounder when she identified herself.
Still shocked and unable to speak, he left her standing in the lobby while the stately retainer turned on his heel and disappeared into the nether regions of the house.
After a while, he came back and bade her follow him to the drawing room where she was left to wait for what seemed an interminable length of time.
Time to stew. Wonder what her reception would be. Question her sanity in choosing to petition her father of all people, to come to her aid.
Unable to stay still, Lily got up and began to pace the large expanse of expensively carpeted floor, draw aside the heavily tasselled curtains and gaze at the expanse of sweeping parkland.
Who would inherit all this when her father died? she wondered. His nephew, Lawrence, she supposed. A lad she had met only once. It barely mattered.
Or maybe he lived here now. She hadn’t thought to enquire if her father had, in fact, passed away while she was in Brussels, though surely Edgeworth would have mentioned it.
Maybe she’d receive a kinder reception from Lawrence who had been quiet and withdrawn, and nothing like the cold, hard man her father was.
A heavy footstep in the passage outside made her heart clench with fear, and she had no reserves left to pretend the bravado she’d summoned up when, as a younger person, she’d been the frequent recipient of his cold contempt.
“Lily.”
She inclined her head when he addressed her, saying softly, “Hello Father.” There really was little else to say.
“This is a surprise.”
And, clearly, not a pleasant one.
For a long time, he stared at her as if unsure what to say. “Forgive me,” he said, finally. “I had thought you dead.”
She shrugged. “As you can see, I am not.”
“Sit down, then.” He waved her towards the drawing room, sighing as he added, “I’ll order tea. You don’t look well. But then, you haven’t been well for a long time, I hear.”
So, he was going to go with the insanity card and have her committed. It didn’t take more than a brief look at his face to know that he had not mellowed with age. That he was no more disposed towards treating her with kindness than he had been in all the twenty-five years she’d known him.
“I’m perfectly fine, thank you, Father. Just tired.”
“Your husband will not think you perfectly fine, I suspect. Though what the actual status between you is a matter of conjecture?” His nostrils twitched, and he looked pained, as well he might, she supposed. Lily was about to create a scandal of immense proportions just for being alive.
But it wasn’t her fault that Robert had thought her dead. Or that he’d married someone else.
“So, you ran away, did you?” Sir John looked at her as if all this were her fault. But then, it always had been her fault. It had been her fault she’d killed his wife by being born. Everything stemmed from that, Lily supposed.
“I didn’t run away. I was taken,” she said. “I had no say in the matter.”
“Indeed.” The familiar scepticism was there. “Now there’s just the question of what to do with you.”