A Secret Ambition

XXVI

"Truth without love is brutality, and love without truth is hypocrisy." Warren Wiersbe

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XXVI.

Below stairs, Lily could hear her grandmother barking orders at servants for how she wanted the drawing room arranged for when callers arrived. Lily leaned over the railing as she listened for any indication that any of her family members were to come upstairs in the near future.

It was still early, and despite spending time in her bedroom after reading the letter from Sir Richard, Lily hoped that her father had not yet made his way to his study.

Lily could not pretend that her plan was sensible. Of course, it was not. What was sensible was never having masqueraded as a secretary in the first place. She had long left sensible behind. Lily had quite certainly dug her own grave, and if she was not careful, she was to dig Callan's as well.

She could not bear that, and she would do what she needed to in order to prevent it.

But at the same time, Lily felt a great deal of shame for the mess that she had caused. She had never been a troublemaker. That had always been Perrie's role in the family. When they were at school together, Perrie had been the rebellious daughter, and Lily had been the ideal. It was not a role that she had strived for but had simply fallen into.

And despite it not being her intention, she could not deny that she enjoyed the trust, faith, and pride that her parents felt and had in her because of her reputation.

Lily viewed her father as infallible. He was the pillar of strength and of decency, and having his love and respect gave Lily the greatest sense of safety that there ever could be.

And yet a venomous disease of anxiety was festering inside of her heart, and it was only growing more deadly. Shattering her father's illusion of her was unbearable. The idea of Adam being disappointed in Lily sickened her. Her anxiety, above all, taunted her with the very real fear that if Sir Richard's threats came to fruition, and Lily's ruse became the downfall of her family, that her father might not ever love her the same again.

Lily knew that she was correcting one wrong with another, but she had to do what she thought protected both her family and Callan. That was how she garnered the strength to steal away into her father's study.

It was empty, though how her family below stairs could not hear the thunder of her heartbeat and not think that a herd of horses had not broken into Ashwood Place, she had no idea. Lily rushed over to her father's desk, which was quite orderly in comparison to Callan's despite there being a few piles of paperwork and correspondence, an open ledger, as well as an open diary.

In it, Lily could see that her father noted down his appointments and today's included a meeting with –

"Callan," whispered Lily.

There, in her father's neat hand, was Callan McCarthy's name.

But the notation above it for the date a few days earlier nearly brought tears to her eyes.

Debut for my darling Lily.

Underneath, he'd added: Reminder to buy a new gun.

Lily couldn't allow herself to be distracted. She wiped her eyes with the back of her sleeve and continued to look over the contents of her father's desk. She did not want to disturb anything to arouse suspicion, and even such a thought made Lily feel wicked.

She did not exactly know what it was she was looking for. She remembered such information being in Callan's correspondence, and so Lily could only hope that she would find luck and answers in the pile of open letters. Lily was careful to keep them in order and found that several of the letters were from family back home in Ashwood filling Adam in on everything that he was missing in Hertfordshire. She also found a few letters of business sent from her Uncle Jem, though he had sent them as part of his role as Adam's Land Steward.