Lilly Read Free

terms like ‘when we go,’ or ‘with you at Hillside Park,’ very strange don’t you think?  Does he just assume I’ll say yes?” Lilly asked, feeling her future was missing a piece.
    “Of course he does, he’s rich as Rome and you are short of funds.  He needs a wife and you need a husband.  Remember your father has no sons, the manor is entailed, and if anything ever happens to him, you’d be out of this house,” Aunt Ellen warned.
    “Yes, I know and Aunt Mary too.”
    “It’s kind you take such good care of her, the old drunken bat.”
    The two sisters really did not like each other and though Lilly was enjoying herself royally, Aunt Ellen behaved like a feral cat against a yard dog, always circling, taunting, and trying to swipe Aunt Mary with sharp claws.
    “Tell me what he’s like again?” Lilly asked, though her aunt had described him many times before.
    “Lord Randall is tall and very good looking, mid-thirties, black hair and eyes, well built and popular with the ladies,” Aunt Ellen slipped out then blushed, for she knew much of this lord’s behavior and most of it was not proper for a young lady’s ears.  He was said to be wild and have many women, but she couldn’t tell her niece that.  She knew her brother, Lord Castleford was ill and Lilly needed a marriage.  She tried to say everything pleasing and hide the rest.  She hated doing it, but sometimes ignorance was bliss.
    “ Popular with the ladies?  You’ve never said that before.  That doesn’t sound like a gentleman who would make a good husband,” Lilly said, thinking of loyal Joshua sitting beside his new wife at church.
    “I just meant the London ladies will envy you, catching such a handsome man.  Now what else does he say, when is he coming here to see you?” her aunt asked, trying to turn the conversation.
    “Monday, just four days away.  He doesn’t say how long he’s staying.”
    “We will have you ready, never fear and once he sees you Lilly, he will love you as we all do.”
    “I hope so, I want to be loved,” Lilly whispered, closing her eyes and letting her dreams surface.
    ……….

 
     
    CHAPTER TWO
    The Cad
     
     
    Randall Town House
    Residence of the Earl of Suffolk
    Berkley Square
    London, England
     
    Lord Reece Randall had been busy making merry with his numerous friends the last month.  His brother Robert, more serious and studious, frowned on his brother’s lifestyle and criticized the method of his wedding plans.  Everyone else in his debauched crowd saw it as the best joke this season and at every assembly and ball, they whispered the news that Lord Randall was marrying a country brown mouse for an heir.  Soon, the news slipped out that a solicitor’s clerk was writing the poor soul love letters pretending to be the earl.  This seemed especially notorious and amusing to some, to others it seemed cruel.  Lord Randall’s two mistresses Bell Nelson and Marlena Sims thought the idea very funny and told everyone they saw.
    “Yes, Reece just needs an heir so he’d wed her, bed her, with his eyes closed no doubt and then return to me,” Bell would brag.
    “He’s pay ing a clerk to court her with forged letters!  Imagine such a thing and the silly hen wit believes they are from Reece.  It is the finest joke he’s ever played.  I’m betting he’ll have her in the dark, eyes tightly shut while thinking of me.  Why, it’s the only way he could perform with this brown mouse,” Marlena told her associates, friends and enemies alike, and she did possess many more of the latter than the former.
    Both women were notorious liars and loose souls, constantly in Lord Randall’s company, on and off with him for years.  They believed they owned him as much as he owned them.  They lived off his income, spent high and wild, covered themselves with jewels and fine gowns and knew themselves to be the luckiest of women.  They knew of each other and the sometimes widows and bored wives he