Lily could never be his soulmate.

But Lily was Neville's wife.

Lauren stopped abruptly on the path and drew her dark cloak tightly about herself for warmth. She was shivering despite her long walk.

It was not fair.

It was not right.

How she hated Lily. And how frightened she was of the violence of her own emotions. As a lady she had practiced restraint and kindness and courtesy all her life. If she was good, she had thought as a child, everyone would love her. If she was a perfect lady, she had thought as she grew older, everyone would accept her and depend upon her and love her.

Neville would depend upon her and love her. Finally she would truly belong.

But he had gone away and married Lily. Lily! The exact antithesis of what she, Lauren, had always thought would win him in the end.

She wished Lily was dead. She wished she was dead.

She wished she would die.

Lauren stood on the path for a long time, huddled inside her cloak, shivering with the unaccustomed vehemence of her own hatred.

***

Lily returned to the abbey buoyed by fresh hope. She was not naive enough to imagine that all her problems would magically evaporate, but she felt that she had the strength, and that Neville had the patience, to face and overcome them one at a time.

Dolly was in her dressing room waiting for her when she stepped into it. She looked her mistress over from head to toe and shook her head.

"You will catch your death yet, my lady," she scolded. "Your hair is wet. And your feet are bare. I do not know what I will tell his lordship when you catch a chill."

Lily laughed. "I have been with him, Dolly," she said.

"Oh, my," Dolly said, momentarily confounded. "Here, let me help you out of your dress, my lady." She was always slightly shocked when she observed Lily doing something that she thought of as a maid's preserve—like taking off or putting on a garment.

Lily chuckled again. "And his hair is wet too, Dolly." she said, "though I daresay his valet will not have the problem that you will have getting a comb through this bush. We were swimming."

"Swimming?" Dolly's eyes widened in horror. "At this time of day? In May! You and his lordship? I always thought he was—" She remembered to whom she was speaking and turned to pick up the morning gown she had set out for her mistress.

"Sensible?" Lily laughed once more. "He probably was, Dolly, until I came here to corrupt him. We have been swimming together in the pool—last night and again this morning. It was wonderful." She allowed Dolly to slip the dress over her head and turned obediently to have it buttoned up the back. "I believe I am going to swim every day of my life from now on. What do you think the dowager countess will say?"

Dolly met her eyes in the looking glass as Lily sat down to have her hair dressed and they dissolved into laughter.

Dolly thought of something else after she had picked up Lily's brush and considered where to start the daunting task of taming her hair. "Why is it that your underthings were not wet, my lady?" she asked.

But she understood the answer even as she spoke and blushed rosily. They both laughed merrily again.

"All I can say," Dolly said, brushing vigorously, "is that it is a very good thing no one came along to see the two of you."

They both snorted with glee.

Lily was determined to cling to the lightheartedness with which she had started the day. After breakfast, when she knew that the ladies as usual would proceed to the morning room to write letters and converse and sit at their embroidery, she went down to the kitchen and helped knead the bread and chop some vegetables while she joined happily in the conversation—the servants, she was glad to find, were becoming accustomed to her appearances and were losing their awkwardness with her. Indeed, the cook even spoke sharply to her after a while.

"Haven't you finished those carrots yet?" she asked briskly. "You have been doing too much talk—" And then she realized to whom she was talking, as did everyone else in the kitchen. Everyone froze.

"Oh, dear," Lily said, laughing. "You are quite right, Mrs. Lockhart. I shall not say another word until the carrots are all chopped."

She laughed gaily again after a whole minute of awkward silence had passed, broken only by the sound of her knife against the chopping board.

"At least," she said, "I do not have to fear that Mrs. Ailsham will sack me, do I?"

Everyone laughed, perhaps a little too heartily, but then relaxed again. Lily finished the carrots and sat with a cup of tea and the crisp, warm crust of a freshly baked loaf of bread before reluctantly going back upstairs. But she brightened again when her mother-in-law asked if she would like to join her in making a few calls in the village after luncheon and in delivering a couple of baskets to the lower village—one to an elderly man who had been indisposed, and one to a fisherman's wife who was in childbed.

But the delivery of the baskets, Lily discovered later while they were sitting in the parlor of the Misses Taylor, drinking the inevitable cup of tea, was to be done by proxy. The coachman was to carry them down the hill and take them to the relevant cottages.

"Oh, no," Lily protested, jumping to her feet. "I will take them."

"My dear Lady Kilbourne," Miss Amelia said, "what a very kind thought."

"But the hill is too steep for the carriage, Lady Kilbourne," Miss Taylor pointed out.

"Oh, I shall walk." Lily smiled dazzlingly. She had not been down to Lower Newbury since that morning when she had climbed across the rocks to it. She welcomed the chance to return there.

"Lily, my dear." The dowager countess smiled at her and shook her head. "It is quite unnecessary for you to go in person. It will not be expected."

"But I wish to go," Lily assured her.

And so after they had left the Misses Taylors' genteel cottage a few minutes later, the dowager proceeded to the vicarage while Lily tripped lightly down the steep hill, one large basket on her arm. The coachman, who had the other, had wanted to carry both, but she had insisted on taking her share of the load. And she would not allow him to walk a few paces behind her. She walked beside him and soon had him talking about his family—he had married one of the chambermaids the year before and they had an infant son.

Mrs. Gish, who had given birth to her seventh child the day before after a long and difficult labor, was attempting to keep her house and her young family in order with the assistance of an elderly neighbor. Lily soon had the main room swept out, the table cleared and wiped, a pile of dirty dishes washed and dried, and one infant knee cleansed of its bloody scrape and bandaged with a clean rag.

Elderly Mr. Howells, who was sitting outside his grandson's cottage, smoking a pipe and looking melancholy, was in dire need of a pair of ears willing to listen to his lengthy reminiscences about his days as a fisherman—and a smuggler. Oh, yes, he assured an interested Lily, they had their fair share of smuggling at Lower Newbury, they did. Why, he could remember…

"My lady," the coachman said eventually after a deferential clearing of his throat—he had been standing some distance away—"her ladyship has sent a servant from the vicarage…"

"Oh, goodness gracious me," Lily said, leaping to her feet. "She will be waiting to return to the abbey."

The dowager countess was indeed waiting—and had been for almost two hours. She was gracious about it in front of the vicar and his wife. Indeed she was gracious about it in the carriage on the way home too.

"Lily, my dear," she said, laying one gloved hand over her daughter-in-law's, "it is like having a breath of fresh air wafted over us to discover your concern for Neville's poorer tenants. And your smiles and your charm are making you friends wherever you go. We have all grown remarkably fond of you."

"But?" Lily said, turning her head away to look out through the window. "But I am an embarrassment to you all?"

"Oh, my dear." The dowager patted her hand. "No, not that. I daresay you have as much to teach us as we have to teach you. But we do have a great deal to teach you, Lily. You are Neville's wife, and he is clearly fond of you. I am glad of that, for I am fond of him, you know. But you are also his countess."

"And I am also the daughter of a common soldier," Lily said, some bitterness creeping into her voice. "I am also someone who knows nothing about life in England or in a settled home. And absolutely nothing at all about the life of a lady or of a countess."

"It is never too late to learn," her mother-in-law said briskly but not unkindly.

"While everyone watches my every move to find fault with me?" Lily asked. "Oh, but that is unfair, I know. Everyone has been kind. You have been kind. I will try. I really will. But I am not sure I can—give up myself."

"My dear Lily." The dowager sounded genuinely concerned. "No one expects you to give up yourself, as you put it."

"But the part of me that is myself wants to be in Lower Newbury mingling with the fisherfolk," Lily said. "That is where I feel comfortable. That is where I belong. Am I to learn to nod graciously to those people and not speak to them or show personal concern for them or hold their babies?"

"Lily." Her mother-in-law could seem to think of nothing more to say.

"I will try," Lily said again after a minute or two of silence. "I am not sure I can ever be the person you want me to be. I am not sure I want to stop being myself. And I cannot see how I can be both. But I promise I will try."