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Owen Lennox, the ninth Earl of Trent, heard rapid footfalls and rustling brush before Miss Lily Taylor emerged from the line of oak trees.
They hadn’t spoken in months, not since their accidental run-in last winter while she ambled around the lake with her sister Hazel. She’d been frostier than the December chill, avoiding his gaze and promptly excusing herself from his presence. He’d willed her to acknowledge him, yet she’d remained steadfast in evading any sort of conversation.
Since then, they’d managed to dodge being thrown together again. A feat, considering the lake and gazebo were their favorite places to hide when seeking peace.
Which is why he’d come this morning. Home for seven months, and it was starting to weigh on him.
Best get used to it. This is the rest of your life.
Sighing at the inevitability of his future, Owen rested against a marble column as his gray eyes tracked Lily’s progress—studied the woman who was supposed to feature prominently in said future.
Until she betrayed me.
Owen had promised her forever, then he caught her with a stablehand in the barn.
News had traveled like wildfire after Asa Lynch told his friends what the Taylor girl let him do. Fists clenched, Owen tried to regulate his breathing as he recalled that Sunday when the gossip-mongering had reached a fever pitch, yet he’d been expected to pretend it didn’t matter to him.
An earl’s son couldn’t marry a former professor’s daughter.
Except I would have found a way if not for her duplicitous actions.
Lily skipped over the four stones set in the small lake offshoot. Water streamed from the lake to surround the old gazebo, creating a secret island that he’d always loved. With spring blooming into summer, willow trees surrounded the island, adding to the intimate setting.
When she finally noticed him, he thought he saw the briefest glimpse of pleasure before it disappeared under a crush of annoyance. “What are you doing here?” Her sharp tone sliced through the serene atmosphere. But she didn’t run from him. Instead, Lily hopped the last stone to the gazebo steps and marched inside.
“Last I checked, this land belongs to me. It’s due to my generosity that you've been allowed to freely dash about.” Opening salvo to me, he thought, as the familiar cadence of their arguments settled over him.
A bark of laughter tinged with bitterness burst from Lily. “Ah, yes, I must be careful. Any more so-called generosity from men, and I’m liable to keel over.” She tore a leaf from one of the climbing vines wrapped around a column, the vicious act putting him on guard.
His Lily was in a mood today.
Not yours.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” He straightened to his full height to frown down at her statuesque form. As one of the taller women in Shoreham, Owen appreciated not having to crane his neck to speak with her. Or kiss her.
His gaze dropped to the plump bottom lip he’d obsessed over ever since he’d reached an age to notice such things about the opposite sex. It’d been years since their last kiss, and he shouldn’t be interested in repeating the act after what she’d done. But her draw remained like a bloody oasis in the desert, beckoning him for the slightest drink.
Pathetic.
“Only that I’m sick of men purporting to be gentlemen, revealing their true underhanded colors in a guise of generosity and kindness,” she huffed, pacing in a half-moon, never crossing to his side of the gazebo. “I don’t care if you own this land. I wouldn’t care if you owned all of bloody Hampshire! I’ll go where I want when I want, and there’s nothing you or any other man can do about it.”
“Speaking of guises, I see you’ve dropped any pretense of being a lady—swearing like a common sailor.”
Wearing breeches that showcased her legs.
Letting another man touch her when she belonged to me.
“I never pretended to be a lady. If you’ve been operating under that misconception all these years, then I pity your future progeny, for they’re sure to be slow indeed.” The insult shouldn’t amuse him—shouldn’t arouse him—but this was the first time Lily had chosen to spend more than a minute in his presence and engage in any kind of dialogue. It almost felt like old times with their fiery bickering.
Something you should forget or else prove her assessment of your intelligence correct.
“How fortunate you no longer need worry about my future children.” The pointed barb met its mark as she flinched, and he resisted offering an immediate apology—the least she could do was feel guilty for what she’d done.
A strong wind blew through the gazebo, bringing the sweet smell of lily—her namesake. But it would take more than the serene tableau surrounding them to defuse this situation.
Once they began, they always saw things through to the end because neither of them could resist a victory over the other.
Marching forward, Lily stopped short from giving him the slap he was sure itched at her palm. Instead, she opted to keep her hands loose at her sides, as if preparing for a future wallop along his head, and fixed turbulent eyes on him. Hazel eyes turned golden in anger—one of the reasons he used to antagonize her, to view the extraordinary change.
“As if I ever needed to concern myself with such a topic as your heirs.” Her gaze dropped momentarily to his lips before glancing to the side then back at him. She knew it was a lie, yet held her ground.
Her blatant denial of their past relationship scraped along his insides and tempted him to remind her exactly how intimate they’d been. Especially when Lily angled away as if to dismiss him.
Don’t be a fool.
Ignoring the warning, he grasped her hips roughly, yanking her body into his—soft molding to firm—and stopped her retreat. Forcing a rebuttal through gritted teeth, he taunted, “Is that so? If memory serves, we were one tryst away from my taking your virtue until you gave it away to Lynch. Shall I help you recall that final afternoon?”
Her nails dug into his shoulders where he expected to be pushed away, but the push didn’t come. Intent on raising her ire higher, he continued, “What’s one more, after all? You’ve already given yourself away, haven’t you?” The harsh words burned as he spoke them, but he couldn’t resist trying to make her feel the pain raging inside him.
“That’s what you think of me, isn’t it?”
“Why shouldn’t I? Do you deny it?” How he wished she would, but Lily remained quiet.
Damn her.
And damn him.
Taking advantage of the hesitation, Owen crushed his mouth to hers in a punishing kiss, his meager resistance crumbling under the rush of old habits. Each fought for supremacy as their tongues dueled—refusing to let the other one win the upper hand.
He’d missed this.
A fair share of women had thrown themselves at the Englishman with a title and money to spare as he traveled throughout the Continent these past years. And on occasion, Owen would even entertain their feminine wiles, giving into clandestine meetings and scandalous kisses, but he never let it go past a certain point.
Because of Lily.
No matter how much she hurt him. How little he trusted her. How impossible it would be for anything to grow between them again.
Despite numerous valid reasons, Owen couldn’t bring himself to touch another woman the way he’d once touched her, once dreamed of loving her.
So, here he stood, a damned virgin nearing thirty, kissing the woman he loved at twenty as if the years and betrayal in between meant nothing.
You are a damned, bloody fool.
***
OWEN’S LARGE HANDS flexed on her hips, and Lily knew she’d have marks later from the bruising hold. Perfect to commemorate her stupidity.
She allowed herself one more minute of his possession, to relax in the freedom of familiarity and ignore all the alarms sounding in her head. The time to dwell on those and curse her weakness would come soon enough, after all.
Spicy cinnamon forced a moan of delight from her. Clearly, Owen still enjoyed those special candies from the confectioners’ shop—a flavor she’d studiously avoided since their separation. As she’d avoided most things that brought memories of Owen to the forefront.
It hurt that he’d so easily believed Asa’s word that Sunday.
While Lily had planned for Owen to catch her in a compromising position, she hadn’t foreseen Asa spreading rumors fabricating further intimacies to the whole village. The fact that Owen thought she could commit such acts reinforced the knowledge that she’d made the right decision to end their relationship.
He was supposed to be upset, angry that she’d been unfaithful to a certain extent—not by providing sexual favors to another man.
You got what you wanted. You set out to ruin the relationship. Mussed hair, unbuttoned dress, and all. Don’t quibble now because it went too far.
But I didn’t want him to hate me.
The broken expression he wore after catching her and Asa still haunted her nightmares. Sometimes she even imagined what she should’ve said that day instead of leaving silently.
Nothing spoken would’ve erased his pain.
A well of sorrow rose in her gut—overwhelming in its intensity despite seven years passing—and Lily shoved at Owen, tearing her lips from his.
“You’ve made your point,” she said raggedly before making her escape, leaping from stone to stone until reaching solid ground and racing into cover under the massive trees bordering the lake.
“Lily!” Owen called out her name, but she didn’t look back.
She’d done enough of that in the past half hour to last a lifetime.
Diverging from the worn path, Lily ducked under low-hanging branches and jumped over fallen boughs when her foot came down on wet leaves, and she slammed to the ground with a grunt. Lying in the muck of damp earth, the wind knocked out of her lungs, Lily closed her eyes and tried to inhale calm breaths.
So rarely these days did she find any sort of peace—a break from the unrelenting pressure swirling inside. The explosive kiss with Owen had provided a measure of release. Allocated her family’s trouble with Mr. Laramie to the background, and even deeper, eclipsed the dark turmoil blotting her soul, a constant companion ever since that fateful day years ago.
Relaxing under the loamy smell of the forest floor, Lily let her mind drift until the sun moved to beat overhead, signaling the afternoon. If only she could lay here forever.
Here lies Lily Nicole Taylor. Scandalous traitor of Owen Lennox and vexatious sister to Caraway, Iris, and Hazel.
Her headstone would disappear under mossy overgrowth, and no one would ever bother her again. Nor she, them.
Are you done wallowing yet?
Right, time to return to reality—bleak reality.
Shallow imprints pressed into the dirt as she dragged herself to her feet, mentally preparing to walk home. Upon her entry to the cottage, she heard someone rummaging in the study and found Caraway rifling through scattered sheets of paper that consumed every piece of flat space to be found.
“What is all of this?” she asked, and saw Iris shrug in resignation.
“Cara believes we can try to compile the research into a book ourselves.”
“That’s ridiculous! We don’t know anything about bryophytes or how to go about doing Papa’s part of the research.”
Iris lifted the book in her hands. “Bryophytes are species of moss, so there’s one thing we know.”
“We’ve spent years watching our parents work. We’re smart, capable women. It’s worth a try unless you have a better idea,” Cara snipped from her place at Papa’s desk. The room remained mostly the same despite his absence, as they only ventured inside to dust every week. Otherwise, his books lay open with a pair of spectacles resting on one, as if he’d stepped out for a brief recess before returning to his work.
If only that were true.
Multiple frames showcased Mama’s sketches and paintings of plants in various stages of growth, a testament to her own botanical interests. What a pair their parents had made.
Iris interjected quietly. “I suggested writing to Hazel and Jonathan. Perhaps they can help in some way.”
“They’re in their first year of marriage and busy opening the boarding house along with Hazel’s classes. They don’t have the time or funds to help us. It would cause unnecessary worry.” Leave it to Cara to shoulder the responsibility, protecting Hazel as she’d tried to protect all of them at one point or another. Flipping another sheet of parchment over, she continued her search through the disorganized mess.
What she thought to find Lily couldn’t fathom.
Their father was notorious for being a bit scatter-brained and followed his own sorting system. Not to mention barely having time to work on Mr. Laramie’s project before the accident that took him and Mama and almost Hazel. She doubted much of anything useful would be discovered.
“Maybe we should follow Hazel’s lead and resign ourselves to leaving Hampshire. Maybe it’ll be the blessing we need like it was for her.” Skepticism coated the sentiment, but she supposed it could prove true for Cara and Iris.
“We’re not leaving, and I wish you’d stop stating it as if it's fact.”
Her agitated growl caused Cara to shoot a scowl in response before her gaze took a deliberate pass over Lily’s disheveled clothing. “Why are you covered in mud and grass? You've got a streak of it across your cheek here, too.” She motioned to her left cheek, and Lily untucked her shirt to use part of the clean hem to wipe it away.
“I tripped over an exposed tree root.” No need to mention who’d occupied her mind so surely to distract her from such dangers.
“Are you okay?” Iris asked in concern.
Waving a dismissive hand, she nodded, leaning against the door frame to observe the chaos before her. “Nothing that hasn’t happened before or won’t happen again. I’m fine.”
“Good. We wouldn’t want you injured before the dowager countess’s birthday ball.”
Damnation. She’d forgotten about the ball for Owen’s mother. “We’re attending? Won’t we be out of place as the country bumpkins?”
“You may refer to yourself as a bumpkin, but I take umbrage at the term.” Cara sniffed, her pert nose wrinkled in disgust. “And of course, we’re going. Her ladyship has been nothing but kind and invited us personally when I saw her at Millie’s the other day.”
“But what will we wear?”
“The gowns leftover from my short jaunt in London.”
“Those old things!” Iris voiced the exact worry coursing through Lily.
Made for Cara’s time in London after she turned eighteen, when she’d been hoping to find a husband while their father taught, they were going on a decade old. Moths should have eaten straight through them at this point.
“They’re the only suitable garments we have for a party at the home of nobility unless you’d prefer to stick out like a sore thumb in our Sunday best.” Cara gestured to the current cotton dress she wore whose blue trim differentiated it from the Sunday gown with gray. “We’ll tailor them to fit both of you, though yours will be tough Lily with the height difference. And while we’re making the adjustments, we’ll bring them into this year’s fashion trends.”
Either way, we’re going to look terrible.
Lily groaned and covered her eyes in shame. It was bad enough she’d have to see Owen after their recent interlude, but to have him see her dressed in home-stitched hand-me-downs while surrounded by beautiful women in silk and lace would be unbearable.
Perhaps I can claim a migraine...
Something she dealt with regularly these days, so it wouldn’t be too far out of the realm of possibility.
“With your attitude, the gown won’t be the problem. Try being optimistic for once.”
Lily ignored the insult, too focused on creating a plan to escape attending the ball. Once, she’d been what Cara wanted—optimistic, blind to life’s bitterness. But the truth had been revealed to her, and there was no going back to that young, naive girl.
“Good luck with your futile search.” She swept an arm out to encompass the massive, cluttered desk. “I’m going to wash up. Maybe by then you’ll have come to your senses.”
Cara crumpled a scrap of paper and threw it at Lily in exasperation. “Doubtful. Now, get on with you! How I got saddled with sisters so...”
Lily laughed as she missed the end of her sibling’s diatribe. At least some things would never change, even if their home did. The sobering thought quieted her as she filled a bowl with water in the kitchen before going upstairs for privacy.
Home. What did it really mean, anyway?
The cottage hadn’t felt much like home after the death of their parents. All it really represented was a moratorium to their memory, no matter how hard they tried to carry on without them.
A change of scenery may not be a tragedy, after all.