Chapter 21

21

On his sixth day back from visiting the man who was technically his father, Andrew climbed the hill to his cousin's home. It was midafternoon. The weather was warming. Grass was greening, and he could hear the click of bugs, newly hatched, going to work. He had put this conversation off long enough.

He was not alone; his mother accompanied him, and beside them both, Lily.

Naomi came down to the inn for mornings and evenings, but the middle of the day, she spent with her husband. He'd thought carefully before deciding how to tell her the truth. The conversation would be more private up here. He knocked on the door, waiting, and she answered.

"Andrew." She gestured him in. "Auntie. Lily."

They took off their shoes. She poured hot water for them all, and they sat at the low table in her front room.

"Well, Andrew?" she asked. "What new thing do you want me to do?"

"Must I always want you to do something?"

"No." She grinned. "But when you want to plant something in my garden, you usually arrive with little pots and tell me about them before I have a chance to greet you."

"Ah." He looked down. "In this case…" He looked around. "We need to tell you something. I think Kai should be here for it."

"Oh, really!" For some reason, that seemed to please her. She jumped up. He could hear her speaking to her husband, although he could not make out what she was saying. It didn't take long for Kai to return, wiping his hands of clay with a small cloth.

"Why are you grinning?" Andrew demanded.

"Because I am about to win a bet with my husband." Naomi bounced on her toes. "Go ahead. Tell us. You and Lily are engaged to be married."

The sentence struck like a blow. Andrew was not going to be married.

Lily sat beside him, eyes fixed on the wall as if unsure where to look. His mother looked down at her hands.

"No." Andrew was so shocked his voice didn't tremble. "We are—not." He was not going to be married at all. He was going to be a guardian to his brother. He was going to leave Wedgeford for perhaps a long time.

Lily was going to accomplish everything she could without him as husband to hold her back.

Everything Andrew was going to lose stretched before him in the instant it took his cousin to see the effect of her words. He could see the realization land: her bright-eyed enthusiasm turned to sadness; her energetic bouncing in place slowed.

"Oh, no." She looked between them. "I have misstepped dreadfully. Why are you both here, then?"

Andrew shut his eyes. How did one tell one's cousin that she had been lied to her entire life?

"We are here," his mother said, "to tell you a story. Your mother and I, we told you about my marriage last year."

Naomi nodded slowly. "Some unworthy man from the Netherlands, yes?"

His mother exhaled slowly.

"He was more than that," Andrew said. "My grandfather was English." He examined his teacup. "He was the third son of an earl. And, to put the matter plainly, everyone else in the line of succession died. When he arrived back with my mother, he discovered he had inherited. Most of what happened to my mother was because his family objected."

His cousin didn't say anything. She looked up at her husband, then back down at Andrew.

"And now that man, who happens to be my father, who happens to be an earl… He's dying," Andrew said.

"So, you're going to be an earl," she said in a strange tone of voice. "Sorry. It doesn't seem to fit."

"No," Kai said slowly. "It fits."

"I am not going to be an earl," Andrew said. "The marriage was hushed up. There's, um, little proof of it. But my little brother is going to be an earl, and he needs me to be his guardian."

"Mr. Wilderhampsher is going to be an earl?" Naomi sounded shocked.

"Wait, how did you know?"

"I put it together just now. You got that letter postmarked from Eton, and you said it was from him. Who else could it possible be?"

"In any event," Andrew said, "yes. Everything is going to change. I'll have to help him manage the estate. I'll leave Wedgeford." He looked down. "I hate it."

"You act like you're alone," Kai remarked.

In many ways, Andrew always had been. He'd always had his secret; he'd always known that he had to protect the ones he loved.

"Why would I be alone?" Andrew winked at his brother-in-law, hoping that his heartsickness wouldn't show. "My brother and I shall have an entire estate to serve us. No real labor. I'll grow nice and soft."

"Auntie," Naomi said, "he's talking about leaving us. Don't let him do this."

Andrew's mother just shook her head. "You can't make people do things. Andrew has to decide for himself what he will do."

"What is there to decide? I get to be surrounded by wealth and riches while the people I love stay safe." His voice quavered on that last syllable, so Andrew forced himself to smile to cover it.

"Mrs. Uchida." It was the first thing Lily had said. "You told me once that the gifts a person gives are the ones they most want to receive. The gifts Andrew always gives are…"

"Plants," Naomi said.

"More than that." Lily tapped her fingers on the table. "A sense of belonging. Security. Safety. Rootedness. A desire to stay, to be part of the soil that makes Wedgeford live."

"It's true," Naomi said. "He's never wanted wealth. I don't believe a word he's saying now."

Andrew could feel the weight of their regard. He felt so clearly seen that his eyes almost pricked with tears. "More than all of that," he whispered, "I need to not be my father. To not be selfish."

"You've met your father," his mother interjected. "Is that what you think of him? That he is selfish?"

Andrew thought about it. Selfish, yes, but not in the ways that one usually thought of untrammeled greed. He was selfish in his desire to be undisturbed. He was bad at standing up for what was right. He let concepts like "civility" and "etiquette" take precedence over doing the right thing. He valued a stiff upper lip over genuine feeling.

"No," Andrew said. "The problem is more pervasive. He's utterly useless. But it doesn't matter. Either Alan or I must be the earl; and I am selfish enough to say it will not be me."

"Why?" Kai frowned. "Why must it be either you or Alan?"

"Because there's a logbook," Andrew said. "It proves my mother's marriage. If we don't present it, Alan's parentage is deemed legitimate, and he inherits; if we do present it, it proves my mother was married to him, and…"

Andrew stopped. He thought about the page on the logbook. He could envision it now, as if Lily were just showing it to him. The log showed a marriage between one Jacobus Phineas Beauregard Tisbitt and a woman whose name was written in characters.

Who had seen it? Lily could read what it actually said, but she wouldn't speak. Andrew could, too. But Captain Jeremiah Lund? All he would know was that it was a name written in an Asian-looking script.

Nobody who had seen the logbook thus far would actually know what those characters said. And yes, if it were presented to Parliament, he would have to provide a translation. But…

"Kai," Andrew said slowly, "you may be a genius."

" I think so," Naomi said. "But about logbooks?"

"I have a question." Andrew tried not to hope. "Kai, not to lean too heavily on your artistic abilities, but if we needed someone to duplicate a page, in its entirety, changing only four characters… Could you do it?"

Kai let out a breath. "I could. But changing a page in a book isn't easy. You'd need someone who could unbind a book and put it back together."

Andrew could see Lily practically vibrating out of her skin, seated next to him. "I can! I can!"

"But for a legal proceeding, I'd imagine it's not quite that easy," Kai said. "You can't just invent a person out of nothing. Not that I know anything about how nobility is passed along, but on a matter like this, I imagine they'll want some kind of documentation that this person exists, whether she had children, if she were still living—that sort of thing. They'll want experts to verify the proof looks official. If we were on the other side of the world, I could find someone to provide such documents. But here… Where would you get that kind of evidence?"

For a moment, Andrew felt stymied.

But Lily just glowed with delight. "You need documentation for someone who doesn't exist? I have documentation."

"You do?" Andrew turned to her, before realizing with a dawning sense of hope. "You do!"

"I do," Lily said. "There's just one additional problem. It is so small, I hesitate to mention it."

"Go ahead," Naomi said. "We'd love to hear it."

"Really." Lily swallowed. "It's your fault, Naomi. Yours and Chloe's."

"Mine? What did I do?"

"It's about rebinding the book," Lily said. "You both made me promise. I'm very sorry, Andrew, but for work of that nature, I must charge you a full shilling."

The quiet stretched a moment before Naomi began to laugh, and everyone followed.

Days passed. Lily worked with Andrew and Kai to refine their plan. Andrew made another trip to Eton to inform his brother of what had changed; the brothers spent time in London with a solicitor of their own choosing, in anticipation of the battle that was to come.

Lily was bent over the binding of the logbook, door to the shed open to let in a breeze, when a shadow flickered over her desk. She looked up, pulling paper over her work—but it was just Andrew.

"Andrew!" She clutched her chest. "My heart! It's pounding so. I thought you were someone else."

"I come bearing news."

"Good news? Bad?"

"It's potentially dire." He came up beside her and crouched so that his head was level with her hands.

"Alan's uncle has discovered your plan." Lily swallowed. "Oh, no."

"Nothing like that."

"Your father has passed away?"

He grinned. "How morbid. Technically, you're correct."

"Oh, dear. I'm almost finished."

"The hearing is scheduled for the day after tomorrow—you've time still. But that's not what I meant. Remember the bound volumes of poetry you gave me for the inn?"

He'd asked for them a few days ago, and she'd seen no harm. "Yes?"

"I've sold them."

She stared blankly at him. "You've sold them. But you haven't even been in Wedgeford."

"As if that would stop me. I was in London, so of course I took one to a bookseller there. He thought it might be of interest. The solicitor we met with to assure that the funds Alan inherited from his mother would continue to belong to him wanted a copy, particularly when he heard this was one from an exceptionally exclusive first printing. And then on the way home?—"

Lily held up a hand to interrupt this absolutely baffling flow of information. "Andrew, have you been going up to complete strangers with the goal of pushing my volume of poetry on them?"

"I wouldn't say that I pushed it." His eyes twinkled with satisfaction. "It practically sells itself."

"And this is your dire news?"

"Yes." He looked up at her from where he was crouched at her knee. "Because when I sell it, what I want to say is not, ‘look at this fine volume of translated modern Chinese poetry.' I want to say…"

He paused, biting his lip.

"Andrew?"

"‘See this name on the cover?'" Andrew said quietly. "‘The one that says she assisted? That's my fiancée.' That's what I want to say."

Lily stared at him.

"I've been thinking how very unfair this is to you. I cannot ask; we still don't know what will happen. I could be putting you in danger. But all I have thought these last days is this: my father never fought for my mother." He bowed his head. "I have never fought for you. Not as I should have done."

"Andrew."

"I was going to wait until things were all resolved, but I cannot." He looked up at her. "I cannot wait, Lily. In two days time, I am going to sit before Parliament, and they will ask me—and I want to say." His voice broke.

"Andrew, what is it you want to say?"

"It's all lies," Andrew said, "but I want to tell the right lie, the one that I want to be the truth. It's not fair to ask you to choose whether you will have me, not when you don't know what my future looks like."

"Nothing about this has been fair," Lily said quietly. She set a hand on Andrew's shoulder. "Not to you. Not to Alan."

"But I have to be worthy of it. I have to be worthy of you. I'm not…" He shook his head. "I'm not as unlike my father as I wanted. I have to prove that I can be…"

"Andrew." Lily leaned down, closer to him. "I know what you aren't. You aren't an earl. And I know what you are: you are enough. Your father was a vast emptiness that the world couldn't fill. But you are kind. You are the soil that makes up Wedgeford, invisible, yet without it, nothing will flourish. You are the yard-long bean, obtained from a great distance, subjected to innumerable horrors, and growing nonetheless."

"I have made such a hash of things."

"Andrew," Lily said. "Listen to me. You don't need to do anything to deserve me. You are already deserving."

"It's not fair. It's not right?—"

"Listen," Lily told him, "and breathe. Do you know what you told me your dream for Wedgeford was?"

He looked up at her. "That there would be enough."

"Then look in yourself," Lily said, "and believe that about yourself. There is enough to be a good man. A loving brother. And…"

"A husband." His hands came to her knees. They clenched hard.

"And a husband," she said. "My husband."

There was little time left until the hearing, but when darkness fell that night, Andrew went for a walk. It was dark, darker still because heavy clouds obscured the moon and stars. The plants were growing. His single remaining yard-long bean plant was climbing the twine at an alarming rate. The first pale blossoms were already fading, the second set was blooming, faintly sweet. Nobody knew yet what it was; they would think it any other vining bean until it started to fruit.

Before Andrew could wrap the new tendrils further around the twine, a drenching rain began.

Andrew was a bit like his father. He had learned that about himself. He felt his own inadequacy.

But that afternoon, Lily had not said you can be enough, or even you will be enough.

She had said, "you are enough." It had to be true, because Lily did not say things simply to be nice.

Andrew made his way, sopping wet, through the village, down graveled paths running in water, until he found himself at her home. He came around the back and tapped at her window. It took a few tries before he heard her fumbling the sash open.

"Andrew?" Her voice was sleep blurred.

"Lily." He had to say it. He had to tell her. "Lily, I love you."

She rubbed tired eyes. "You're wet. Come in."

"There's no need. You see?—"

But she was already gone. She met him at the back door with a towel. She wrapped it around him.

Her arms around him felt too good. He reached out his hands—freezing cold—and pulled her to him.

The kiss felt electric in the small kitchen, her lips giving way to his. He worshipped her, pushed her against the doorframe. She was wearing nothing but a nightrail, and he could feel the swells of her body against him—the slight curve of her bosom. His fingers slipped up, finding the nub of her nipple, and she made a tiny, choked sound in the back of her throat.

It drove him wild, that sound. That involuntary noise that she made, and the gasps that followed.

"I'm dripping," he whispered. "We shouldn't do this."

He could not see her face.

"I'm dripping, too," she whispered back. "We should absolutely do this."

A flush of heat ran through him at that revelation.

"Come." She took his hand and drew him back with her to her room. They had been here before, but not like this. Not with their hearts open to each other. Not with Andrew thinking that he could be enough for her.

He reached for her, but she was ahead of him, kneeling before her trunk and rummaging about inside.

"Ha." She found something and held it up. It looked like a card. She nodded, as if to herself, then rummaged again. "Ha!" Now she was holding up one of the little rubber hats he'd seen on his first visit.

"What do you have there?"

She gleamed up at him. "Presents!"

"Presents? For me?"

"Here." She stood and handed him the card. It was dark; he had to squint to read it. They were printed in some curling script; he wouldn't have been able to make it out, but for the flashes of lightning that lit the windows momentarily.

"This man-ticket entitles the bearer to our deepest and most heartfelt congratulations," he read haltingly, and then stopped. "Um."

"I printed a few of these as a joke," Lily said, "after that conversation at the inn a little bit ago. But after we spoke earlier today, I did a few more just for you. For my grandfather. Because I refuse to let manhood be defined by its worst mistakes. Turn it around."

He turned it around. "For he is a man," Andrew read aloud, "and that means that he makes sure everyone has enough." His throat felt dry. "Lily."

She pushed into his space, and he kissed her again, long and deep and searching. She pushed him down to the bed and straddled him. "We have been remiss."

"Have we?" His head spun. "Should we be doing this more?"

She held up the little rubber hat. "Here." She put it in his hands. "Put it in me."

"What…where does it go?"

"It's a womb veil," she said. "And I will help you. But first… You must help me make room for it with your fingers."

She was on top of him. He reached down. She was lit by intermittent flashes; he found her passage. She was wet, so wet. For him. It seemed like a miracle that she would want him so much.

"Your fingers," she said, and he slipped his index finger inside. "You promised me if I ever needed help with a lubricated passage…"

He laughed, pressing further inside. "Oh, you caught the gist of what I was saying back then?"

"I didn't think you meant it like…this! Oh!" Her back arched as he circled his finger around.

"How else would I mean it?" He curled the tip of his finger.

He could see her back arch, hear her breath stutter out. She felt so good, so hot around him.

"Another," she said, and he put two inside her, letting her clench around them until her passage opened up.

Then she put the rubber womb veil in his hand, bending it to make it smaller. "Push it up," she said. "Inside. This direction."

He did. She clenched around him, her mouth parting. "There," she said. "Just a little over—there. It's in place." Then she leaned down and kissed him.

His fingers were still inside her. He could hear the rain beating against the window, could feel her breath against his face. Her hands, warm, fumbled with the waist of his trousers.

"Lily," he whispered, as she managed to work his trousers down. "Lily. I love you. I want you. Tomorrow—I'll get it right tomorrow at the hearing, just for you."

"I know you will." She took him out.

She had such perfect trust in him. It was everything he wanted. It was not misplaced, he told himself. Not wrong.

He had been hard just touching her; now, with her hand taking hold of his member, he felt rock solid.

"You know," Lily said, moving to position herself above him, "you said once I didn't want to be married. But that was to any random person."

He reached between them, adjusting himself to be at her entrance. "I should actually like to be married," she said. "To you."

So saying, she sheathed herself on him. It felt…amazing. Beyond amazing. Perfect, to kiss her lips, to feel her body against his. The clench of her passage around his member was beyond joy. But most of all, there was that closeness—the closeness he had yearned for, one without secrets or surprises.

"Yes," he breathed into her ear. "Yes, yes. I should like that as well."

And then there was nothing more to say—nothing but "yes" and "Lily," nothing but trying not to say it too loudly, lest they wake Letta. There was nothing but biting his lip through the pleasure of feeling her body clamp down on his in rhythmic waves, followed by his own hot, roaring release.

Andrew waited until Lily had drifted off to sleep after.

"As soon as we are done," he said to her, running a hand down the side of her cheek. "I'll ask after tomorrow, after I'm sure things work out. I'll ask you then."