Page 34 of The Pleasure in Persuasion

Her grandmother glanced back over her shoulder and gave Lily a smile, her gray hair shining silver beneath the moonlight. “No, thank you, dear. I’m feeling just fine.”

Lily watched Gran as she settled back into her solitary walk, all the while scouring her mind for something to say to draw Frederick from his silence.

Fortunately, she didn’t have to.

“Your grandmother is a jewel,” Frederick said softly, his gaze meeting hers as he clasped his hands at his back. “You’re lucky to have her.”

“I know,” Lily agreed, curling her fingers into her shawl. “I don’t know what I’ll do when she’s gone. She’s more like a mother to me than my real mother has ever been.”

Hyacinth Grayling might have brought her into this world, but she’d never been much of a mother to her. She was too frivolous, too self-involved to give the sort of attention and affection her daughters had yearned for when they were young.

Lily learned long ago that yearning for anything from Hyacinth Grayling was an exercise in futility.

With Gran, though, it was an entirely different story.

“She took me in without question,” she said, gazing ahead at her grandmother’s slight figure. “After life as I knew it fell completely apart, all I could think to do was run away. And Gran let me run to her.”

Frederick was watching her with frank curiosity, but he held silent, seemingly content to accept as much or as little as she chose to share with him. It was this that made her decide to share it all.

“I was betrothed, you see. It was a union arranged by our parents when we were children, but although I had no say in it, I was glad to be marrying Stephen.” She looked down at her dark green beaded slippers, still pretty, if a few years past fashionable. “I suppose I had grown used to the idea, and I did genuinely care for him.” A mirthless smile curved her lips. “I even thought I loved him once.”

“But you didn’t?” Frederick’s words were low and sharp, and when she looked up, she found his gaze locked on her face.

“No, I didn’t. But that did not lessen the hurt I felt when he told me he couldn’t marry me because he was in love with my sister.”

Surprise flickered in his eyes, followed by sympathy, and Lily turned away from it, her skin suddenly tight, prickling with the discomfort of vulnerability.

A breeze kicked up, cooling her flushed cheeks, and she let her eyes fall closed for a moment, focusing on the press of the packed dirt beneath her feet.

“I’m sorry, Lily. That could not have been easy for you.”

She tried for a casual shrug, but her lips were pinched, and she had to work to keep her voice even. “They were married last year. I...did not attend the wedding.”

His only response was a low hum with his throat, one Lily could not interpret. Was he simply at a loss for words, or did he censure her decision?

She’d certainly censured herself often enough. Why shouldn’t he?

“I cannot be happy for them,” she admitted. “I’ve tried, but I can’t do it. I suppose that makes me a terrible person.”

“No,” he said quietly. “Only human.”

It was exactly what she’d hoped he would say, even if she didn’t entirely believe it. True, she had suffered a great disappointment, and she knew the chances were low that she would ever have the loving husband and beautiful children she craved.

But two years had passed since that awful day, and Rose was her only sister. Wouldn’t anyone else have forgiven them by now? Wouldn’t anyone else want them to be happy?

Lily sighed, tugging at the ends of her shawl in frustration. “I don’t even want Stephen anymore. I don’t want the life I would have had with him, and yet, I’m still so angry with him. With them.”

She kicked a pebble with the toe of her slipper, sending it scrabbling up the path like a startled jack rabbit.

“That’s perfectly understandable, Lily. Of course you feel betrayed by them. They—”

“That isn’t it, though,” she interrupted. “I don’t feel betrayed. Not anymore. I feel...fleeced. Robbed of my one and only chance at having a family of my own.”

God above, had she just said that out loud? Had she just admitted her deepest, most painful secret to a man she’d only known for a sennight?

She was supposed to be enticing him to spend time with her, not frightening him away with talk of regrets and past mistakes.

“I’m sorry,” she said sheepishly. “You don’t want to hear any of this. Please forgive my wayward tongue.”