Lily by Patricia Gaffney

Author:Patricia Gaffney
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9781453237489
Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
Published: 2013-04-18T20:27:10.651000+00:00

Sixteen

“AREN’T YOU READY YET?”

Lily looked up, startled. “No, I’m—for what? Aren’t I supposed to—”

“Meet Clay. I told him I’d come and get you.”

“Oh.”

Squinting, Devon moved farther into the room. Lily sat in a splash of sunlight before the open windows, dressed in her nightgown and cloth slippers and sewing on something mustard-colored and voluminous draped across her lap. Dusty sun bars touched color in her dark red hair and made the green specks in her eyes, usually subdued, look almost gaudy. But it was her smile that dazzled him. He returned it unguardedly, and for fully half a minute they were too absorbed in beaming at each other to speak.

Lily recalled herself with a becoming blush and finished pulling the needle through the narrow seam she was sewing. “I’m not quite ready. Your brother said two o’clock, and I’m about three minutes shy of finishing this.”

“What is it?”

“A dressing gown. I haven’t got one, so I’m altering this to fit me.”

“Ah.” He frowned down, observing the lengthening line of her delicate stitches. “How is it that you haven’t got any clothes, Lily?”

Her fingers stilled. What was it she’d told Mrs. Howe? Something about being robbed at a hiring fair. “They were stolen, just before I came here.” The words almost stuck in her throat. Lying to Devon repelled her now, but she shrank from telling him the truth. It wasn’t time. Not yet. Working in haste, she finished her seam, looped a tidy knot, and snipped the thread with a pair of scissors. “There, it’s finished. What do you think?” She held up the robe for his inspection, praying he would ask no more questions.

“Not your color,” he said mildly. She smiled—a bit mysteriously, it seemed to Devon. “Why is that amusing?”

She grinned outright. “Whose color do you think it is?”

He looked at the robe, then back at her. The light dawned. “Mrs. Howe’s?”

“Yes! Clay said it would be all right if I had her clothes—she left them all, Devon, a whole wardrobe full—and tried to make a few things from them for myself. This is my first attempt.” She surveyed her handiwork critically; it wasn’t too bad, she decided, although he was right about the color. She glanced at him expectantly. “Oh,” she realized, seeing his face, “you don’t like it.”

“No, it’s fine.” He took the coarse cotton out of her hands and pretended to examine it. “You sew very well.” What he was thinking was that he detested the thought of Lily working on Howe’s—or anyone else’s—ugly, cast-off garments in order to have something to wear. He was prepared to buy her all the clothes she wanted, and a great deal more. But first they had to come to an understanding. And it was too soon, she was still too ill, to broach the subject of the arrangement he had in mind.

“It’s all right,” she assured him, misunderstanding his expression. “I don’t mind that they were hers, really I don’t. In fact”—she smiled and looked away, a little embarrassed—“if you want to know the truth, I enjoy cutting them up.

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