Chapter 15

Fear,an overwhelmingly new emotion, choked Giles of a full breath. He strode through the long grass, anxious to reach the bridge. Lilly stood at the highest point, and something about her posture frightened him. He had to reach her.

His feet hit the gravel path and the sound turned her head. Lilly slid her hands over the worn stones and smiled at him, but he was positive something was wrong.

That was not Lilly’s usual smile. There was something on her mind, and he would bet his left bollock that it was not a pleasant thought. Her gaze slipped away before Giles reached her and fell to the bubbling water. Her hands, twisting together, signaled her distress.

Giles walked straight to her side, pulled her into his arms, and pressed his lips to her brow. Scant comfort, but the only kind he could offer. Running his hands over her body as firmly as he dared, he had the unsettling feeling she could fly away, and, if she left, he would not know how to survive the parting.

Lilly raised her hands to his embracing arms and gripped him tightly, but the tension was still there. His presence had done nothing to soothe her. Giles rocked them gently, as he had done the day they danced, but after a time Lilly pulled out of his embrace. Panicked, Giles fumbled for what to do.

Since his most frequent experiences with women were diving under their skirts, Giles struggled for something to say. He longed to pull Lilly back to him, but he could not. He did not think she would let him. She had to choose to let him into her thoughts, and Giles had never dreamed he would want to know what a woman thought before.

He remained close, resting his hip against the stone wall while he waited for her to confide in him. Lilly chewed her lower lip as though mulling over a puzzle. Giles reached for her clenched hands and squeezed. She smiled hesitantly again, a little quirk of her lips that did nothing to ease his anxiety, and blew out a long breath before looking down. Her hands, trapped beneath his, did not move.

“I missed you at luncheon today,” Giles whispered.

“I wasn’t hungry. Please don’t make a fuss about me eating again.”

Polite but curiously distant. Giles wondered what he had done. “I was not aware that I had become odious about it. My apologies.”

He slid his hands back and Lilly did not stop him, but continued to look at her own. Her skin showed the impression of fingers where his grip had been too tight. The moment stretched as they watched the marks fade and Lilly’s fingertip traced over the memory of them.

When she did not respond, Giles dragged in a deep breath. “I did not expect to find you here again. Last time you ran off the bridge very fast. What are you thinking about?”

“Lots of things,” Lilly murmured. “The longer I am here the clearer my memory becomes about the past. I find there is much I do not understand.”

“Such as?” Giles waited, hoping that her deep thoughts would not involve him.

“Why do you like sex so much?”

Her question both surprised him and rendered him speechless. She kept her gaze on her hands, but he could see her teeth worrying at her bottom lip again.

“Because I find it is a pleasurable activity that I do not like to deny myself,” Giles answered honestly, blowing out the breath he had held.

He loved intimate relations with women, but he wondered where her questions were leading. He was sure that was not the whole of her questioning.

“Why do you have so many different partners?”

She must be thinking of the night she found him with Sabine and Millie. A night when he’d had the rare privilege of two women in his bed. He had forgotten much of that adventure, but what he clearly recalled was his ghost, Lilly, watching.

How she had watched and especially how, at the end, Giles had held her gaze and imagined he was with her instead. That memory curled around Giles’ overactive brain and tormented him. He still wished it had been Lilly beneath him, even now. But he hadn’t known her then as he did now, and he couldn’t erase what he’d done. “As I think I may have told you before, I enjoy a life of pleasure in London. Sex can be a lot of fun. Sometimes pleasure comes from a variety of sources.”

In truth, sex had become a hollow release, the only meaning found while under Lilly’s ghostly gaze.

“How many?”

“I beg your pardon, how many what?”

“How many bed partners have there been in your life, Giles?”

“Dozens,” he answered without hesitation, “but I do not keep a list and I am always discreet.” Glancing at her compressed lips, he amended, “Until you.”

“Dozens.” Lilly’s voice sounded flat.

“It’s not quite as bad as it sounds, Lilly,” Giles murmured, desperately hoping she would believe him.

“Any woman?” Lilly murmured, but it was not a question. She thought he fucked anyone.

“I tend to stick to widows and courtesans. I find less trouble in that direction.”

“You don’t like complications?”

“I prefer honesty, Lilly. A courtesan must earn her way in the world, but I have never kept one as a long-term mistress. Since I despise infidelity in marriage, I am select in choosing my partners. Bedding widows and courtesans hurts no one. There are no husbands to cuckold, and I do not allow myself to forget the consequences of my actions. There are no illegitimate children bearing my likeness, ruining their mothers’ positions in society. I prefer to keep matters of whom I bed and where private, and as I said before, I am discreet.”

Lilly’s thumb attempted to rub a dent in her hand. “You could always marry them if there was a child.”

“I have no wish to marry. Those women join me in bed for a romp and nothing more. They would not wish to be stuck with my poor company for a lifetime.”

Giles thought he saw a tear fall from her eye, but she turned away to look off into the woodland track.

“You lied to me, Giles.” Lilly swiped at her face, but pulled herself up straight to look him in the eye. “You have dallied with someone’s wife. I know you spent a night in Lady Cameron’s bedchamber.”

“You know Genevieve?” Giles asked.

“Lord and Lady Cameron were my papa’s friends.”

“Oh.” Lord Winter had visited Genevieve briefly during their affair to offer his condolences at her husband’s fate, but he left soon after, if he remembered correctly. Giles hadn’t heard of Lilly’s existence then either, but then again, he’d had a hysterical woman to deal with. “Then you must know all about Lord Cameron’s accident.”

“Accident?” Lilly shook her head. “I don’t know of any accident but my own.”

Irritated that he had to account for whom he bedded, and just as amazed that he wanted to, Giles cleared his throat. “A short while ago, Lord Cameron had an accident involving a serving girl and a very heavy skillet. The usual sad story. He was enamored of a new servant, and thought she should let him bed her. The blow knocked him unconscious. But when he woke, his every word, his every action, was changed. He became dangerous, Lilly. Lady Cameron feared for her children’s safety and her own. She needed help to have him committed. He currently resides in Bedlam.”

“How do you know this?”

“Cameron is an old acquaintance from school. I was a guest the night he tried to strangle his wife,” Giles murmured. “I helped take him away.”

“And you took advantage of her later?”

“Believe me, no one was taken advantage of. Lady Cameron was the one to instigate the short-lived affair. I will never comprehend what she hoped to gain by inviting me to her bed.”

“That still doesn’t make it right,” Lilly asserted, her disgust clear.

Lady Cameron had wanted more from him than just that brief affair, but guilt had already settled into his heart. Especially when he remembered Lord Cameron’s bewildered requests to see his wife after his incarceration.

Glancing at Lilly, he watched her tears fall unchecked and Giles knew he had seriously disappointed her. The past was beyond his power to correct, but what surprised him most was that he thought his heart was breaking too.

This was who he was. By his own choice, he had pursued every imaginable pleasure, dipped his wick wherever he could fit it. Yet right now, he wished it all undone just so Lilly would smile again. The greatest shock was that Lilly had a claim on his own happiness.

“How did I not know you were there?” Giles whispered, as if speaking low would banish the event.

“I didn’t want you to see me.”

Giles’ gut fell out through his boots. Lilly had never hidden from him before. She had always trusted him. “Lilly, there are a great number of things in life that you do not need to understand, and a great number of things that you should not have seen. That was definitely one of them.”

Her brow crinkled and he reached out a hand to smooth her skin, but she jerked away from his touch. Giles dropped his hand as she took a step away. His heart faltered in its beating and he feared it might stop.

“Are you ever going to allow yourself the comfort of a permanent companion?”

It was surprising how quickly a conversation turned from temporary bed partners to the future, but it was not an unnatural leap. Women tended to expect the fairy tale, lasting love, and Lilly was no different from the others. He hadn’t desired to marry any of those women, widow or courtesan. Not one had appealed beyond the moment pleasure ended. “I hadn’t planned to marry, no.”

Lilly nodded sharply and her body sagged. Giles caught her and held her still while she trembled. “Let me take you back to the house.”

“Not yet.”

“Do you want me to stay?”

“No. I am sure you have many other things to do today. It is fine.”

There it was. The word fine should be erased from the English language. Whenever a woman said that word, it was never true. Lilly had shut him out and she was well within her rights to do so.

His reputation was based on fact. She knew from firsthand experience too many of those facts. Every detail that might upset a gently bred young woman paraded before her innocent eyes.

Dismissed, Giles stalked back to the house in a foul mood. She wouldn’t look at him again. He did not like being shut out. He did not like it one damn bit.

“Milord, shouldn’t you have stayed with Miss Winter?” his annoying butler asked as soon as he crossed the threshold of the house.

“I do not stay where I am unwanted, Dithers. Mind your own affairs,” Giles growled, and had the satisfaction of seeing his butler take a step back.

“May I ask Mrs. Osprey to attend her?” the older man asked cautiously.

Giles looked back out the doorway as Lilly dropped her head to her arms. Damn. “Send Mrs. Osprey out,” he ordered and strode into his study.

Slamming the door brought no satisfaction. He threw himself into an armchair to consider his problem. He grew bored with a sexual partner far too easily. That was why he had bedded so many. Each affair started with the promise of more, but there was always something lacking.

Perhaps he should stick to what he did best. Driving a woman wild with pleasure was his greatest achievement. Friendship with Lillian Winter was driving him insane.

These last few weeks at Cottingstone were the longest interval without the relief of an experienced bed partner. Yet Lilly, sweet, innocent Lilly, kept him hard all day.

It had only occurred to him once to leave and get some attention for his problem, yet since her overindulgence of alcohol, he couldn’t bear the thought of it. Only she could sate him, but that wasn’t going to happen. He would need something to distract him when they parted company again, perhaps an orgy of sex to cleanse away these disturbing feelings of possessiveness.

“Excuse me, milord,” Dithers interrupted from the doorway.

Giles turned his head. “What is it?”

Dithers danced in the doorway. “I thought you would like to know that Miss Winter has returned to her room.”

“Thank you, Dithers.” He turned away to stare at the smiling portrait of his mother. If ever there was a woman who could forgive him his sins, then the late Lady Daventry might be the only one.

“There is another matter you should be aware of, milord. Miss Winter has requested to dine in her chambers this evening. Alone,” the butler added apologetically. “I am told she intends an early night.” Dithers approached his desk and placed a pile of correspondence on the corner.

“Of course. I will eat in here. Send me a fresh bottle of brandy with the meal.” Giles slumped and planned for his return to London. He was not looking forward to the trip.

“Milord, is there anything I can help you with?”

“Go away, Dithers.”

Filled with churning restlessness, Giles walked to the window and stood staring out at the beautiful grounds. But he did not see them. His friendship with Lilly couldn’t be over. He—

Giles clutched at his chest. The thought of leaving Lilly did not make him happy. He paced across the room, struggling to know what to do about her. He wanted her to forgive him. He wanted her to like him as he was, but he didn’t think it likely anymore.

Upstairs was a pure-as-snow virgin. She had seen him with multiple partners. He did not blame her for hiding away from him. He had believed she might have been falling in love with him before today’s questions, but the shock of their frank talk would no doubt kill any tender feelings she might have for him. He thumped the chair as he passed it.

He would not push to see Lilly tonight, and Giles was already on edge at the thought of spending the night alone. He wanted to be with Lilly so badly he couldn’t be still.

* * *

The house was quiet, the night as black as pitch, but Lilly couldn’t sleep for missing Giles. It was sometime after three in the morning. The big clock downstairs had chimed the hour a short while ago, keeping vigil with her swirling thoughts.

She didn’t know what to do. She didn’t know what to think. Lilly also didn’t know whether to believe Giles about Lord and Lady Cameron.

Rolling over for the hundredth time, Lilly thumped the pillow, hoping to entice it to send her to sleep. The thumping didn’t help.

Nothing seemed to when she had a problem she couldn’t find an answer to.

In the darkness of her room, Lilly thought of Giles. His care, his affection, and the precious gift of his conversation. He gained nothing by lying to her. In fact, he should be deliriously happy that Lilly had turned away from him voluntarily. Yet earlier, Mrs. Osprey had confided that he hadn’t eaten any dinner and was drinking steadily.

Mrs. Osprey, it seemed, had a fanciful idea that Giles was courting her. She’d claimed that they were intended for each other and a rosy future of love, and largely hinted at children rushing about Cottingstone was soon to follow.

The housekeeper was wrong about that. Giles didn’t want anything beyond the thrill of pleasure. He certainly didn’t want a wife or children in his future.

All that remained was the possibility of taking a place as his temporary bed partner. Yet despite Lilly’s desire for Giles, it didn’t mean she should surrender to these intense feelings. It didn’t help her accept a place among the hundreds of women who’d come before.

All of those lovers had names, some of which she knew. That thought made her insides burn with jealousy and fear. There was no way that Lilly could measure up to the scores of experienced women in Giles’ past. She simply wouldn’t rank.

Lilly sat up and her movements disturbed Atticus. The wolfhound had borne with her agitation all night, but now slunk from the bed and headed to the closed door. Muttering an apology, she cracked the door for him and he hurried off into the dark house.

Lilly went too, creeping along the hall until she found Giles’ door. It wasn’t locked and it opened quietly so she could slip inside.

She needn’t have bothered being quiet. Giles was snoring in his clothes, spread sideways on his bed, and the sickly scent of brandy assaulted her when she got close.

She gagged and took a step back. Mrs. Osprey hadn’t lied about the drinking.

Giles rolled, arm reaching out toward her in sleep. Her insides clenched tight. She wanted him—even in this state.

Shaking her head, Lilly retraced her steps and returned to the privacy of her room. Giles did desire her and he’d kissed her.

Did that mean she held a special place in his heart?

There was only one way to find out—if she was brave enough to take a risk to ask for what she really needed from him.