Chapter 7

7

Andrew had little time in which to work. He conducted Mr. Wu home, making sure the man didn't trip in the state he was in. Then Andrew left him at his door with a clap on the back. Once he'd turned the corner of the road, he set off for Lily's home at a dead run.

Ten minutes were all he could take before his absence became suspicious.

Lily and Mrs. Grimsley were both at the inn tonight. That meant now was his chance. He arrived, gasping for breath, in front of her cottage and then, before he could question himself, slipped in through the front door. It was unlocked; who in Wedgeford would lock a door?

The bell rang as he entered, and he startled, before remembering that nobody was about to hear it.

Carefully, he made his way to Lily's room in the dark. There, he produced a stub of a candle and a matchbook from his pocket. Light flared.

It smelled like her in here, a light, sweet scent that lingered. Andrew wasn't one for naming scents—if it wasn't an agricultural bloom, he didn't much care—but for a second, he wanted to chase this one through his memory, to see if it was soap or perfume or just some natural scent of Lily. But he'd have to be some kind of deplorable reprobate to break into her chambers and sniff around.

No, Andrew's moral degradation was supposed to extend only to theft, not lust. He had a logbook to steal.

He opened the wardrobe and ruffled through carefully hung clothing. Gowns, some trousers. Her bed was a roll on the ground; he carefully prodded the bedding. It smelled even more like her, and made him think?—

No. Absolutely not. He was not getting distracted with thoughts of Lily asleep here, her hair spilling over the pillow.

The trunk in the corner contained a rectangular basket, woven from strands of bamboo and smelling of heady, dark tea. It temporarily suppressed the scent he associated with Lily, flooding the room with something far more robust and vegetal. Next to it were some stacks of paper in Lily's neat hand. There was a bound book with a title in Chinese characters, and beneath it, in English, the words Genealogy of Her Imperial Highness, the Most Exalted Princess Zhu Wei Na, in exile. A smaller box next to it revealed some small, confusing pieces of rubber in varying sizes. Andrew had never seen anything like these before. What were they, that she'd brought them around the world with her? Conical hats for geese? He turned one around before reminding himself that he wasn't here to pick through her things.

There was no logbook. Andrew moved on to the chest of drawers. Books were stacked atop it: books of the most astonishing variety. There were account books, journals, even a stack of legal-looking ledgers. Andrew frowned. Why would Lily have any of those, and in such quantity? But none of them were captain's logs, and he wasn't one to pry.

The large drawers were half-empty; he'd have to make sure she found thicker blankets before it started to get much colder again. The top drawer, though?—

He opened it to the sight of Lily's underthings. That same scent, sweet and ever present, seemed stronger here. He saw a rumpled chemise and a pair of drawers made of a rough, raw silk.

Andrew's mind went back to the last time he'd seen these. Well, technically, he didn't know if he'd seen these exact items of apparel, but…

It was a horrific violation of her privacy to reach into the drawer. It felt cruelly, awfully intimate to lay his hands on the chemise that Lily wore close to her skin. Still, he had to do it, to see if anything lay beneath.

There. Underneath the drawers. There were three books, all bound in leather, all identical in size. He took them out.

He held in his hands three captain's logs.

"What the hell?" He fanned them out between his hands. "How is that possible? Did she get more than one volume?"

Only one way to find out. He opened the first one at random.

His eyes widened with what he found on the page. "Lily," he breathed.

On one side of the page, an illustration: a woodcut of a woman sitting in a chair, with a man on his knees before her, leaning in, sporting what could only be called a truly monstrous erect cock. That would have been enough to shock him. But he caught a glimpse of words on the facing page: "He pressed his mouth to her opening, his fleshy instrument engorged?—"

Andrew slammed the book shut. "Absolutely not."

He was not going to think of Lily in this room, reading that book. He was not going to imagine what she would do while perusing those words. At least he was not going to do those things until he was safely back at the inn in his own room and able to take care of the results. He could feel his own cock stirring in interest.

What the hell kind of captain's logs did Lily have? Carefully, Andrew opened the book once more to the frontispiece.

SEVEN STORIES OF HISTORICAL INTEREST

TRANSLATED FROM THE CHINESE

~ including ~

"THE LORD OF PERFECT SATISFACTION"

THE STORY OF CHINA'S EMPRESS WU ZETIAN

BANNED IN THAT COUNTRY FOR CENTURIES!

AND TRANSLATED HERE FOR YOUR PLEASURE

BY THE brOTHERS TALLANT

PRINTERS, BOOKBINDERS, ETC

HONG KONG

"What kind of bookbinder did you work for?" Andrew muttered. She'd made some passing comment about illegality, but the conversation had moved on before he got an answer, and he hadn't really given it much thought. He hadn't realized the work had been so sordid. Or so defiant of reality in general.

My god. That cock must have been two feet long. It hardly seemed possible.

"Shut up, Andrew." He hit his own cheek.

No good. The image of the woodcut was seared into his brain. Really, how could any man function with a member that large? Would it fit in his trousers? Would it fit in her? It was bollard sized.

Andrew could not think of that, either. He could not think of her in this room. Of the plea Lily had made of him, or the noises she had let out?—

"Right," Andrew muttered. "I'm her sordid past. I already know this." Now was not the time to be thinking of fleshy instruments. "Captain's log. I'm here for the captain's log."

In desperation, Andrew opened another volume, where he was met with the careful notations of a ship's captain.

"Thank God." There was no time to think what he was doing—of the enormous violation he was committing. He checked the final book—also, apparently some kind of obscene literature—then slid it under one arm and tucked the other book back into the drawer. Carefully, he re-folded Lily's drawers, trying not to think about what he was touching. He carefully did not let himself think that this cloth had found itself right against Lily's skin, that his fingers were skating where hers would later touch. He straightened the chemise, smoothing it over as if his hands had never been there. Slowly, he slid the drawer shut and blew out the candle.

Then he decamped.

He should have run back to the inn; time was precious. But he walked, because he needed time to consider.

Once upon a time, he'd been in love with Lily. And she had been his friend.

He hadn't resented that mismatch; being in love with her didn't require anything, and besides, "secretly an earl" meant "would never, ever marry." Andrew's one-sided affection was convenient under the circumstances. Her friendship had been a gift.

The day her grandfather had told her she was going back to China—going to a place where her grandmothers would undoubtedly find her a husband—she had come to him.

"They'll want me to marry!" she'd said. She hadn't been in a panic about it, which surprised him. Instead, she'd seemed grimly determined.

"That happens," Andrew had said slowly.

She had looked at him, a fierce look in her eyes. "I must ask you for a favor."

"Anything."

"Don't say that until you hear what I'm asking." Her shoulders drew back; she gritted her teeth. "I want you to take my virginity."

Andrew had choked.

"It won't mean anything," she'd continued, casually crushing the hopes he knew he could never harbor. "It will just be so I can have my freedom. If they try to force a marriage, I'll tell everyone I'm not pure and embarrass them all. I'll go see Madame Lee in London after to make sure nothing more comes of it."

This was, Andrew had been sure, the point when an upstanding young man who truly loved the girl who would never be his would say no. He would suggest that they lie, that they didn't have to actually engage in intercourse for her to benefit in much the same way.

Except Andrew had also realized in that moment that he was not as upstanding as he ought to be. He couldn't let her know how much she meant to him—if she knew, she might ask questions that he could not answer.

He wasn't going to say no. He would never say no. That was how things were between them. Lily had always felt like a question. Andrew had been an answer given in silence so deep that she could not detect what he was saying.

Rather than whispering any of the real and true things that had crowded his heart, he'd done what he did best. He'd made a joke of it. "I'll bet you five pence that I can make you come before me."

She'd gasped. "You must be joking! You're a man. I bet you can't."

"Tell me what you like," he'd told her, and he'd taken her clothes off, kiss after kiss. He'd never forgotten that afternoon, not one moment of it. Not even the way she'd said, "no, you're cheating, you're cheating!" when he'd put his hands on her and won their bet.

He'd never forgotten the feel of her around his fingers and then his cock. He'd never forgotten the aftermath, either—of looking down on her and wanting, wanting, wanting to beg her to stay and be his.

They'd been so young. He'd promised his mother to keep his father's identity a secret. And he was never marrying; never putting a wife at risk the way his mother had been. He was never having a child who might someday, like Andrew, be technically an earl, because if his father's family ever found out…

What was he supposed to tell Lily in the aftermath? "Stay in Wedgeford. Stay with me. I can offer you nothing."

Ha.

So instead, in that warm and comfortable haze, he'd put his forehead to hers. He'd taken all his feelings and he'd stuffed them deep inside, where they couldn't come out.

"I win," he'd said, while he was still softening inside her body.

She'd looked at him with a tinge of hurt. No matter how little he meant to her, their coupling had still meant something. Still, some bitter, unworthy part of himself had thought: Good. Now she knows how I feel.

There was no use wondering what Lily had thought of their single, futile dalliance, or why she had that volume of pornography, or what she did with it. It was none of his business. His feelings were useless; he could never be anything to her.

"And this," he said to himself, buttoning the logbook in his jacket as he came up to the inn, "is why she can't be anything to me, either."

He took his feelings and packed them back inside himself, where they wouldn't show.

Lily woke the next morning thinking of Andrew.

She often thought of him, even when she'd been away. He'd been her best friend. He'd been supportive when everyone was skeptical. He'd brought her to the suffragists' meeting in Dover and waited for her when he could have left to finish his errands. Afterward, he had?—

Never mind that.

So many years apart, and he was still so steady . So reliable. Underneath his jokes, he was the best person she knew. Last night, after he'd broken up the fight with a joke and conducted a man who'd drunk too much back to his home, he'd come back and listened to her plans. She'd told him how she was going to compile her volume of translated poetry. She'd explained how she'd learned to print small volumes on a jobber press. When he'd asked how she'd paid for her press, she'd told him that she'd earned royalties on a few of her translated works—enough that when her grandfather sent her enough money for passage back to England, she'd seized her chance.

"I don't imagine I'll make a fortune off the volume," Lily said, "but it will mean something to me to do it, if I can make a few people think."

She hadn't directly confessed her true secret desire: to one day have one of the women who had snubbed her so viciously at that suffragists' meeting find her, and to apologize for what she had done. But Andrew might have known. He'd been with Lily afterward. She'd sobbed out what had happened to him, and he'd held her and muttered. By the way he'd put a hand on her shoulder last night, she suspected that he still remembered.

At no point in the evening had Andrew told Lily she was a fool and that she should give up. He'd never told her to shut up and accept that she was worth nothing but to be some man's accessory.

It was probably for the best that he was going to be an earl. Earls needed a woman who would be an accoutrement, and Lily would never know how to do that. Once he was an earl, it would set her fantasies straight.

Sometimes, though, she thought…

Technically, he had kissed her. Back then. He'd done a lot more.

Sometimes, she thought that the memory of what they'd done together had to mean something.

It had not. It did not. It had meant simply that she'd asked, and he'd said yes. That was what it meant.

And here she was. Lying in bed, thinking of Andrew, when there was work to be done. Lily stretched and stood. The floor was cold against her bare feet. The better to shock her out of her daydreams.

She opened the drawer where she kept her underthings and immediately knew something was wrong. This was not how she'd left them. Her heart sunk. She rummaged about, found a leather cover and pulled out two volumes. Two, not three. The covers of both were blank and undamaged by water; neither were Captain Jeremiah Lund's log.

She reached in, testing the dimensions of the drawer, but there was nothing there but rough silk and wood.

The logbook was gone. The logbook was gone.

Panic threatened: how was she to tell Andrew that she'd lost it, and how could he ever forgive her? Who had taken it, and what did they intend to do with it?

For a moment, horrors flashed in front of her mind—someone was trying to destroy Andrew's chance at being an earl! —but then more questions entered. These felt less laden with fear, more laden with suspicion.

Who would know? She went to her trunk and checked the pouch with her spare coins. It was still full.

It hadn't been a thief looking for monetary gain who had happened upon something of surprising value. It had been someone who knew that the log existed and what it signified.

Who knew about the log? Lily. Captain Lund, she supposed, and anyone he might have told, but he'd known it all these years and nothing had happened. Lily had told Andrew; Andrew had promised to tell his mother.

The thought of Andrew's mother reminded Lily of the conversation they'd had the prior morning.

Please be patient with him, his mother had said, and Lily had been confused. Why did Andrew need her patience?

Suddenly, everything clicked into place.

Of course, Andrew's mother knew the identity of the man she'd married. Of course, she'd told Andrew about it. Lily had imagined, stupidly, that she was bringing news, but of course she hadn't.

That was how Wedgeford worked: people didn't have to speak of their pasts unless they wished to do so.

Lily set the fake logs down and paced across her room, thinking. Andrew and his mother had concealed the truth.

Andrew knew he was an earl's son. Now that she considered the thought, it seemed blindingly obvious. He'd stared at her blankly when she'd arrived. She had thought his response to be surprise. But shock wasn't how Andrew responded to strange concepts. The Andrew she knew, if someone had told him he was an earl, would have laughed himself silly.

Andrew knew he was an earl's son, and—this was the obvious conclusion—he didn't want to be one. She mulled that over, before understanding what must also be true: Instead of telling Lily any of this, he'd stolen the logbook.

A hint of bitterness, touched with anger, grew.

What right had she to be angry? He didn't have to tell Lily anything. She only had the logbook for his benefit—he could steal it if he wanted to. He was under no obligation to tell her about his background.

But somehow, those fine, upstanding thoughts didn't help control her emotion. It hurt that he hadn't told her, like a long, sharp needle piercing her gut.

He'd stolen the logbook from her. He'd stolen it rather than talk to her.

Was Lily so untrustworthy?

Memories of her childhood threatened: of the times she had blurted out the wrong thing or spoken without thinking. At the inn, she'd mentioned the logbook in front of others—after he'd asked her not to do so!

Each of those memories felt like another needle, each piercing a different organ. Lily wasn't enough. She had never been enough. She squeezed her hands into fists.

Then the memory of his mother returned once more. Be patient with him, Mrs. Uchida had said.

She had said that yesterday morning. If she'd known yesterday, what Lily had said last night had no bearing on what he'd done.

Slowly, Lily breathed through her anxious thoughts, sorting them into place. Andrew was not her lover, not her husband, not her intended. He wanted to keep his secrets.

Andrew had a right to keep his secrets. She had no reason to hope for more.

Yes, she wished otherwise, but her wishes were foolish.

What was Lily? She was his friend. That and only that.

Lily considered this for a few moments. Friendship with Andrew had never felt like a disappointment, but then, he had never done anything before that made it so starkly clear that Lily was not to be trusted.

No. Those were her wishes speaking again. Friendship was enough. Friendship, she could do. If she did a good enough job of being trustworthy, surely he would start to trust her.

She just had to take his mother's advice and be patient.