“We went to a coffeehouse, Papa, that’s all.” That was not all, but she wasnotgoing to tell him about after the coffeehouse. “I met some new, lovely people, and I understand Lord Devon better now. That’s important, is it not? To understand the man you have to marry?”
Her father huffed and let go of her. “I suppose you don’t have to marry him. I was angry. You can understand why, yes?”
“Yes.”
“If you can find another fellow willing to wed you, I don’t see why you must marry Lord Devon.”
Lillian felt like her father had punched her in the gut. He was freeing her, freeing them, but it was too late.
“What about that Littleton fellow you were interested in?” her father asked.
“I already told him I was no longer available. It did not seem kind to string him along when I could not marry him.”
“Bollocks.”
“Yes. Bollocks.”
“Your brothers likely know some hard-up, titled fellow at Oxford who needs a lovely lass like you to marry. I’ll write to them.”
She arched a brow. “I do not wish to marry a hard-up titled fellow I’ve never met, Papa.”
“No, I suppose you wouldn’t.” His fingers danced nervously on top of his thighs. “Lord Devon it is, then?” His words held a note of hope, but hope for what? That she’d throw the duke’s younger son over or that she’d keep him?
She wanted to keep him, mistake that it was. “We already told his family. As well as Lord Littleton and my friends, and… and there is no going back. If Mama saw us escaping the ball together last night, others might have as well.” Her stomach dropped and spiraled. She felt sick. “I did not think you would relent. If I had known—”
“I’m a beast. A veritable beast. I’m aware of that, you know. But”—his mouth twisted, and his brow furrowed—“Lord Devon is a fine man. A bit lost, but fine nonetheless.”
“I think he’s quite fine indeed,” her mother’s voice drawled.
Lillian and her father looked toward her bedroom door, which opened, revealing her mother, peering at them over the edge of her gold-rimmed spectacles. The gold matched what was left of the gold in her hair, and the two traded sparks back and forth in the dusty morning sunlight. She wore a hint of a smile wound round her thin lips. A shawl was wrapped tightly around her broad shoulders and ample bosom, and she clutched a notebook to her chest along with the shawl. She was a stout and strong woman with a brain to match, and the only person Lillian’s father deferred to.
“Mariah,” Papa said, “the girl says they went to acoffeehouse.”
Lillian did not miss the more than a hint of skepticism in her father’s voice.
“A coffeehouse,” her mother muttered. “Hm. Well, if anyone here wishes for my opinion…”
“Always, my dear Mariah, always. I’d be lost without your most excellent opinion guiding my way these last three decades.”
“Undoubtedly.” Her mother leaned against the doorframe, the picture of elegance and confidence. Lillian often thought of her mother when she wanted to seem aloof and untouchable in a ballroom. She was who Lillian copied on the outside to gain the attention of theton, and her father was who she mimicked on the inside—booming and imaginative and more than a little daring.
Her mother strolled farther into the room and sat on the other side of Lillian on the bed. “As I was saying, in my opinion, Lord Devon is a very good match. He may not have a title in his own right, but he has a house. Inherited from his mother. He has more than five thousand a year.”
“How do you know all this?” Lillian asked, but she was not shocked at her Mama’s knowledge. Her Mama knew all.
“I talk to other mothers,” Mama said with a delicate shrug. “They know everything.”
Must be a maternal trait.
“More than that,” her mother continued, “Lord Devon has… potential. He’s a dedicated type of man with ideas.” She smiled at Lillian’s papa. “They’re the best kind.”
Papa leaned over Lillian and kissed Mama on the forehead. “A man like that’s only as good as the woman he marries.”
Lillian scooted backward in the bed away from her parents, who eagerly filled her vacant spot with their own bodies, her father’s lips finding her mother’s with a single breath.
Lillian jumped from the bed. “Out, the both of you. I’m delighted you approve, but please do not dothatonmybed!”
They pulled apart just enough to smile at one another, nose to nose, then lock arms and lift as one from the mattress. They strolled together into the hallway, then stopped short.
