The Lily Brand by Sandra Schwab

Author:Sandra Schwab [Schwab, Sandra]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: historical romance
Publisher: Sandra Schwab
Published: 2015-11-27T05:00:00+00:00

PART IV

All precious things, discover’d late,

To those that seek them issue forth;

For love in sequel works with fate,

And draws the veil from hidden worth.

—Tennyson, The Day Dream

Chapter 11

After the lush green of the countryside, London seemed gray and dreary. The smells of the streets, the smoke that stung one’s eyes and nose, the noise of the carts and carriages, of the people and the animals, came together in a shrill symphony of discord and made Lillian yearn for the peace and quiet of the gardens of Bair Hall.

She missed not just the gardens, but the house, too, that vast, empty building where she had not met her husband for days or even weeks. In London, by contrast, they lived in a narrow town house, too small for her to keep out of his way, to stay hidden in shadows. Time and again she was thrust into his presence, was confronted with the signs of strain and weariness on his face. As tall and dark as he was, always impeccably groomed, Lillian still saw traces of the man in the prison cell, the man chained to Camille’s construction.

Every time she met him on the stairs or entered the breakfast room when he was still taking his coffee, her heart would constrict in her breast, a funny, little pain, which for a moment would cut off her breath. He would look up, his eyes so blue, those same eyes she had seen clouded with pain, and then he would pretend to look through her as if she were not there. Yet he never succeeded very well. His eyes would become all stormy, his lips compress into a thin, tight line, deepening the grooves that bracketed his mouth. He looked old and haggard then, and the pain inside Lillian would intensify until she wanted to cry and scream.

Of course, she never did.

Instead, she witnessed his pain in silence, a penance for the hurt she had inflicted upon him all those months ago. Her responsibility… While at the Hall she had been able to flee into the gardens and the fields, here in London she had nowhere to go. She could not roam the streets on her own; she had no friends to visit; she was stuck in the house, was stuck in the churning of shame and guilt.

How she missed the easy chatter of Aunt Louisa and the quiet presence of her grandfather! Nanette urged her to sit down and write a letter to her family. “You should have done so weeks ago,” the old woman said. “But, of course—”

“Yes,” Lillian said quickly. She did not want Nanette to worry more than necessary. Nanette had taken up again her work for the sick and the poor, sewing blankets, knitting socks and scarves. In the afternoons that dragged so endlessly along, Lillian would sit down with her in the morning room to knit, to sew, to create things that would keep other people warm in the winter to come.

But she also wrote the letters to her family.

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