Lady Lilias and the Devil in Plaid - Julie Johnstone Page 0,37
us if I don’t pay them…” Her mother shuddered. “Your father was not in his right mind near the end. He could not have been to leave us so vulnerable.”
Lilias felt her jaw slip open. “I cannot believe it.” The room seemed to spin around her.
Mama took Lilias by the hand and led her to the settee, dragging Lilias down with her into the cream-colored velvet cushions. “I discovered it several months after your father died—or rather the horrid men started calling upon me, threatening me, and demanding I pay them or else they would harm us, or take us and sell us!”
Lilias did not understand, and her head was aching fiercely. “If we had no money at all, how did you afford all those restorative cures in Bath?”
Mama sighed. “I was not in Bath taking restorative cures. I lied. I was away selling my jewels, our art, your father’s guns, our silver. I worked out yearly payment plans with these men and every year when the payment came up to the men your father owes, I had to go away and sell things. I could not do it here lest I be discovered, and we were ruined. Those men… Well, they arranged for me to meet buyers. But I have nothing left to sell, and there is still so much debt.”
Shock pricked Lilias and then deep guilt. She had not even noticed the silver being gone, and when she’d remarked on the art, her mother had told her that looking upon it made her sad, so she’d taken it down, and Lilias had simply believed her. She had been so self-absorbed. “Oh, Mama. All this time I thought you were melancholy—”
Her mother forced a bright smile. “Well, I was. Truly, in the beginning. But there is nothing like the threat of bodily danger to force someone to make a choice, and I have chosen you girls.”
Lilias bit her lip. She had been utterly, utterly selfish. “What shall we do? Perhaps we can beseech Uncle Simon—”
“No, dearest,” Mama interrupted. “Your uncle refused to aid me when I confessed all to him.”
Lilias supposed she should have guessed that, but she had hoped if he knew the trouble they were in, he might have helped. “I’m surprised he’s aided us this long,” Lilias murmured, her mind spinning with what they could possibly do.
Mama scoffed. “He has not aided us. Not once. He allowed us to stay in the house in the Cotswolds and use this home because I gave him a payment, as well.”
Lilias knew instantly what the payment was. Her aunt had always coveted her mother’s wedding ring. Her gaze went to her mother’s finger where she used to wear that ring, which had belonged to Lilias’s grandmother. It had been set with a rare diamond. “Your ring?”
Mama nodded. “But now he says that payment has been exhausted, and he wants us out.”
A coldness settled deep in Lilias’s gut. Nothing was as she’d thought. All this time she’d been waiting for a man who did not even want her while her mother had been trying desperately to keep them alive. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Her mother stroked a hand down Lilias’s head. “I didn’t want you to worry, and I wanted you to wed the man you loved.”
Lilias sucked in a breath. “You knew?”
Her mother nodded. “I heard you talking to your father at his grave about the Duke of Greybourne one day. Do you think he might rescue—”
“No.” Lilias stopped her mother before she could finish the sentence. “Greybourne does not care for me as I had foolishly allowed myself to believe. He’ll not be rescuing me. Our only hope is Blackwood.” She could hardly believe she was saying it, and she didn’t know if she could actually go through with it. “If he comes and offers, I’m sure it will be merely honor that compels him.”
At her mother’s questioning look, she quickly explained about her conversation with Owen on the balcony last night. “So you see, Mama, Blackwood is my dear friend. I am certain his kiss was impulsive and merely an effort to make me feel better.”
“And if it wasn’t?” her mother asked, the hope in her voice obvious.
Lilias’s gut clenched tight. She could not be selfish. She could not say she’d rather be alone and ostracized from Society than wed to a man she didn’t love and ruin his chances at finding his own true love. But she pressed her lips together on saying any of that.