Page 67 of Inconvenient Honor
My “situation?” That’s one word for it.
“What is it, honored uncle? Word about my father?” she asked.
“I fear not, little one. Your government believes him safe with his studies in Copenhagen still.”
She studied his face. Something lurked behind his kindness. Sahin dropped one of her hands but held the other.
“Your government, regretfully, feels less certain about your well-being. They have made inquiries.”
Lily felt sick. Sahin, who blocked her view of the room, moved to her side, still holding one hand. Her heart soared and did a flip. Richard.
A vortex of thought and emotion surged through her.He came!Confusion followed elation.How? When? He’s thin. His hair is too long. He looks?—
Blue eyes, wide with shock, stared back at her. Richard stood immobile, his face frozen in stunned disbelief.
She swung round to face Sahin. The old man’s lips twitched; sly amusement lit his eyes.You manipulative old man! You let me walk into this with no warning. Richard, too, from the look of it.
When she looked back, Richard had not moved. His eyes had lost the glaze of shock, however. What she saw instead shook her to her core.
Still as a statue, he gaped, grief and longing stark on his face.
“Richard, I—”He must hate me.
His eyes moved from her face to the swelling where her child—his child—grew.
He can’t take my baby, can he? Dear God, don’t let him take her.
Chapter Twenty-Five
One by one, pieces fell into place, and, like boulders, flattened Richard’s dearly held belief in his own intelligence. The man who helped England side step the hidden traps of enemies and allies alike at the Congress of Vienna had missed the obvious.
Lily is pregnant. He couldn’t take his eyes from the swelling beneath her gown. Very pregnant.
He pulled his eyes to her face. Terror stared back.She should be worried; she made a fool of me. I ought to be enraged.
Wonder, worry, and a surge of joy so great it threatened to upend him pushed all other emotions aside. He held his hands behind his back to still their shaking.
“Lily,” he began, utterly at sea. Nothing in his experience prepared him for the most delicate negotiations he had ever conducted. He swallowed hard. “We need to talk.”
She didn’t respond; her anguished look didn’t alter.
“Talk is needed,” Sahin Pasha agreed. He pulled Lily’s hand forward. She stumbled a step or two toward Richard.
“Sahin Pasha, may I have a moment alone with Miss Thornton?”
“One is never alone here,” Sahin said sadly, “but I will remove myself from the room. Perhaps Sir Robert may join me.” He raised a questioning eyebrow, but Robert Liston had already walked toward the door.
Sahin gave Lily’s hand one more tug. “Talk, little one, and listen to this man. Be a sensible girl. You will be safe.” He nodded at theeunuch who had followed Lily and now stood silent and disapproving from his place against the wall.
“Good grief, I’m not going to harm her!” Richard exclaimed. Sahin Pasha’s guard remained.
“Ten minutes, my lord,” Sahin said and departed.
Richard ran his hand across the back of his neck. Ten minutes? Where to start?
“Lily when—that is, I know when, but why didn’t you tell me?” He thought rapidly. Five months? Six? More? His brain refused to calculate the time.
“You can’t have her!” Lily burst out. She looked frantic.
