The realization hurt in a strange way. He had carried on with his life at Newbury out of necessity, but he had pictured Elizabeth carrying on with hers while Lily hovered unhappily and awkwardly in the background. All month he had been contriving ways of persuading her to come back to him, ways of making life at Newbury Abbey less daunting to her. Or, failing that, he had been trying to think of what kind of life and environment would suit a young woman who had lived a sort of nomadic existence away from England all her life. He had been determined to settle her happily somewhere. He had dreamed of being her savior, of setting her own happiness above his own, of doing what was right for her.

But all the time Elizabeth and Lily between them had been doing what he had never once considered—indeed, he had resisted his mother's attempts to do so. They had been making her into a lady.

Surely she could not be happy, he thought, gazing at her sadly as she danced. Could she? Where was Lily, that happy, dreamy little fairy creature whom he had used to watch in the Peninsula with such a lifting of his spirits long before he fell in love with her? The nymph with the long hair and bare feet who had sat on the rock in Portugal, watching a bird wheeling overhead and dreaming of being borne on the wind? The bewitching woman who had stood in beauty beside the pool at the foot of the waterfall, telling him that she was not just watching the scene but was it?

She had become the dainty, elegant, alluring lady who was dancing the quadrille at a ton ball in London, smiling at Freddie Farnhope and concentrating on her steps.

"By Jove, Elizabeth," Joseph was saying, using his quizzing glass again, "she has turned into a rare beauty."

"Only to eyes attuned to ballroom beauties, Joe," Neville said, more to himself than to his cousin. "She always has been a rare beauty."

"Neville," Elizabeth said, "you may escort me to the refreshment room, if you please."

He offered her his arm and led her back toward the doors.

"Louisa must be very gratified," she said as soon as they had moved to the relative quietness of the landing beyond the ballroom. "Her ball is even more of a squeeze than it usually is. Or perhaps it is just that most people have been crowding the ballroom itself instead of wandering off to the card room or the salon as they usually do."

"Elizabeth," he asked, "why are you doing this? Why are you trying to change Lily? I liked her just as she was."

"Then you are being selfish," she said. "Yes, the refreshment room is this way. I need a glass of lemonade."

"Selfish?" He frowned.

"Of course," she said. "Perhaps Lily was not happy with herself just the way she was. But there is no question of my changing her, Neville. When one learns, one adds knowledge and accomplishments to what one already is. One enriches one's life. One grows. One does not change in fundamentals. I liked Lily as she was too. I like her as she is. She is still Lily and always will be."

"She hated being at Newbury Abbey," he said, "even though everyone tried to be kind to her. Even Mama was kind after she had recovered from the shock. She was quite prepared to take some of the burdens of being my countess off Lily's shoulders. But Lily hated it anyway—you knew that. She must hate this. I will not have her unhappy, Elizabeth, or bullied into doing what she does not want to do or into being who she does not want to be. I will settle her somewhere—in some country village, I believe—where she can live her own quiet life."

"Perhaps it is what she will choose eventually," Elizabeth said. "But perhaps not. Perhaps she will choose employment of some kind—even possibly as my permanent companion. Or perhaps she will marry despite her lack of fortune. There are any number of gentlemen this evening who appear fascinated by her."

"She will not marry," he said between his teeth. "She is my wife."

"And you will challenge to pistols at dawn any man who feels inclined to dispute that fact," she said cheerfully as they entered the refreshment room. "Lemonade, if you please, Neville."

She was smiling when he came back to her, glass in hand.

"Thank you," she said before sipping her drink and resuming their conversation. "The point is, Neville, that Lily is twenty years old. In two months time she will be of age. Perhaps you should begin to consider not what you wish for her future but what she wishes."

"I want her to be happy," he said. "I wish you had known her in the Peninsula, Elizabeth. Despite the conditions of her life she was the happiest, most serene person I have ever known. I want to give back to her that life of simple pleasures."

"But you cannot," she said. "Even apart from the fact that you have no say in what she does, a great deal has happened to her since those days—the death of her father, marriage to you, captivity, arrival in England, all that has happened since. She cannot go back. Allow her to go forward and find her own way."

"Her own way," he said with more bitterness than he had intended. "Without me."

"Her own way," she repeated. "With or without you, Neville. Ah. We are about to be joined by Hannah Quisley and George Carson."

Neville turned with a polite smile.

Chapter 19

But he was in attendance at the Ashton ball because of a peculiar fascination with Lily—and because Elizabeth had asked for his escort and it would not have occurred to him to deny her when she made so few demands on him. He had danced the first set with Lily, the second with Elizabeth—and had then been compelled to add an edge of frost to his habitually impeccable manners in order to dissuade his hostess from presenting him to a whole host of other young ladies she was sure would be delightful dancing partners.

Two or three of his acquaintances had teased him with threats of matchmaking mamas setting their caps at him once more—their interest had waned a number of years ago as his age and his indifference to feminine wiles and lures had gradually outweighed the attractions of his rank and wealth and enduring good looks.

"They would be better served to keep their caps firmly tied beneath their chins," his grace replied with languid good humor. But good nature deserted him when Mr.

Calvin Dorsey wandered up to him after Neville had led Elizabeth away to the refreshment room. The duke ignored him and engaged in a casual perusal of the room through his quizzing glass. Dorsey was his dead wife's first cousin and heir to her father, Baron Onslow. His grace had never liked him, neither had his wife.

"Portfrey? Your servant," Mr. Dorsey said pleasantly, sketching a careless bow. "I arrived late. But can gossip possibly have the right of it? Did the Duke of Portfrey lead the sergeant's daughter into the opening set at the grandest squeeze of the Season?" He shook his head, chuckling. "The lengths to which some men are prepared to go in order to curry favor with their mistr—" But he cut himself off with one finger to his lips. "With their particular friends."

"Congratulations, Dorsey," his grace said without deigning to look at his companion. "You still have a talent for avoiding by half a word having a glove slapped in your face."

Mr. Dorsey chuckled good humoredly and said nothing more for a while as he watched the patterns of the dance unfold. He was of an age with the duke, but time had been somewhat less kind to him. His once-auburn hair had grayed and thinned and he looked by far the older of the two. But he was a man of good humor and a certain charm. There were not many people to whom he spoke with a deliberately barbed tongue. The Duke of Portfrey was one of those few.

"I have been told that you called at Nuttall Grange a couple of weeks ago," he said after a while.

"Have you?" His grace bowed to a buxom dowager with gorgeously nodding hair plumes who passed in front of them.

"A little out of the way of anywhere of any importance to you, was it not?" Mr. Dorsey asked.

For the first time the duke turned his glass on his companion before lowering it and regarding him with the naked eye.

"I may not pay my respects to my father-in-law without being quizzed by his nephew?" he asked.

"You upset him," Mr. Dorsey said. "He is in poor health and it is my business to see that he is kept quiet."

"Since you have been waiting for twenty years with barely concealed impatience to succeed to Onslow's title and fortune," his grace said with brutal bluntness, "I would have thought it more in your interest to encourage me to, ah, upset him, Dorsey. But you need not fear—or hope. I merely sent up my card as a courtesy since I was in the neighborhood. I neither expected nor wished to be received. There was never any love lost between Onslow's family and my own even before Frances and I defied both with our secret marriage. There was even less after her death and my return from the West Indies."

"Since we are into plain speaking," Mr. Dorsey said, "you might oblige me by explaining why you were snooping around at the Grange when my uncle was too ill to send you packing."

"Snooping?" His grace had his glass to his eye again. "Taking tea with the housekeeper is snooping, Dorsey? Dear me, the English language must have different meanings in Leicestershire than anywhere else I have ever been."

"What did you want with Mrs. Ruffles?" Mr. Dorsey demanded.

"My dear fellow," the duke said faintly. "I wished to know—I felt a burning desire to discover, in fact—how many sets of bed linen she keeps in the linen closet."

Mr. Dorsey flushed with annoyance. "I do not like your levity, Portfrey," he said. "And I would warn you to stay away from my uncle in future if you know what is good for you."