---

Walter Leggett’s town house was spacious, clean, and somehow… off.

Hessian concluded this before he’d handed his hat and walking stick to the butler, a dour soul who said nothing other than, “Good day, my lord,” and—when Hessian had passed him a card—“Very good, my lord.”

Perhaps the lack of a child in the house made a difference. No little feet pounding overhead, no miniature parasol in the umbrella stand.

Or maybe Hessian was reacting to a lack of flowers. London in spring was gloriously blessed with floral abundance, and yet, not even a sachet of dried lavender hung from the drapery in Leggett’s formal parlor.

The parlor itself was generously appointed with upholstered chairs and a velvet sofa in shades of gold and green. The Axminster carpet echoed the same scheme with dashes of rose and cream, while the landscape on the wall was more green with a rosy-tinted sky and cream-colored sheep.

The house struck Hessian as a theater set: Prosperous London Town House. A giggling housemaid with her cap askew would soon enter from stage left, or a footman spouting humorous disrespect for the senior staff from stage right.

And yet, Hessian’s business with Walter Leggett was serious indeed.

Would Lily listen to the exchange from behind a door? Would she join them?

“My Lord Grampion, what a pleasure to see you!” Walter Leggett strode into the parlor, hand extended. “I had no occasion to remark it at your recent dinner party, but you are the image—the very image—of your late papa. Let us be seated, and you must tell me how your dear brother goes on and all the news from Cumberland.”

At Hessian’s dinner party, such effusions would have been overheard by a dozen other guests. This was a performance for the benefit of an audience of one.

“Leggett, how do you do? I had hoped for more time with my guests when last we met, but the evening did not go as planned.”

Thank heavens.

Hessian took a seat on the sofa, which, like many sofas, was more ornamental than comfortable. Leggett swept out his tails and appropriated the chair to Hessian’s left.

“The dear ladies make a plague of themselves, don’t they?” Leggett said. “I am fortunate not to be burdened with a title, or the poor darlings would be climbing my trellises and stealing into my town coach.”

What an odd observation from an unremarkable older man. “Speaking of the ladies, will Miss Ferguson be joining us? My Daisy has taken a particular liking to her.”

“Lily is very likely still abed, my lord. She’s not the type to bestir herself much before noon.” Leggett’s tone, more than his words, fondly chided such laziness, though during the social season, much of Mayfair slept their mornings away.

“I enjoy hacking out first thing in the day myself,” Hessian said. “Will I see you in the park at an early hour?”

Hessian had intended a very different conversation: I esteem Miss Ferguson greatly and would like to pay her my addresses. Simple enough, but not a conversation to undertake without assessing his host’s receptiveness either.

Leggett’s dissembling—Lily had willingly ridden out early—suggested more reconnaissance was in order.

“My habits are variable,” Leggett said. “Does your brother enjoy the park at dawn? You have been conscientious in renewing your acquaintance with your dear papa’s friends, but Sir Worth cannot claim the same.”

The implied scold was also… off. Sir Worth had been kicking his heels in London for the past decade. Leggett had had thousands of opportunities to pay a call on Hessian’s brother if he’d cared to.

“Shall I have you to dinner again?” Hessian said. “Your family and mine, and I’ll invite Worth and his lady as well. Informal meals with friends can be among the most enjoyable.”

“I have always said as much, and speaking of sustenance, shall I ring for tea?”

“No need.” Especially if Lily wasn’t to pour out. “My staff frets if I don’t consume frequent, prodigious meals. You have a son, don’t you?”

Leggett waxed effusive about his charming, dear, good-looking “boy,” whom Hessian estimated to be at least twenty-one years of age. Lily had never said anything critical of Oscar Leggett, but neither had she complimented him.

“I have hopes that Oscar might go into business,” Leggett said. “He has the friendly manner of the successful solicitor, the common sense of the man of affairs. Your brother is known to employ myriad subordinates, and Oscar might be a fine addition to their number.”

“You must broach that topic with Worth, or perhaps Oscar might take that initiative?” For if Worth Kettering rewarded any quality in his employees, it was initiative. 

“You’re right, of course,” Leggett said. “Though I do believe Oscar’s focus is in a different direction these days.”

What direction could be more compelling for a young man than securing his financial future? “Most young men need a few years to sort themselves out before settling to a profession.”

Hessian had spent those years married to a woman he hadn’t understood, while Worth had gone forth into the world and earned a fortune.

“Or the young fellows have sense enough to find a lady who can sort them out,” Leggett said. “I’m hopeful that Oscar has finally found such a woman right under his very nose, so to speak.”

Innuendo wafted around Leggett’s smile. The only lady under Oscar’s very nose would be…

“He’ll take a bride before finding a means of supporting her?”

Leggett’s chuckle was rusty and forced. “Younger sons in titled families must find a calling, true enough. The rest of us with means can be more lenient with our offspring. Oscar is my sole heir, and did I not enjoy managing my affairs above all else, I’d be turning the lot of my investments over to him. He’ll do better for learning the ways of commerce at another’s elbow. Then he can step into my shoes without having been lectured by his papa for years.”

A son often learned life’s lessons best from anybody other than his father, but Leggett’s recitation had the quality of a speech, an oration delivered to convince.

“Some of my fondest memories,” Hessian said, “are of riding Grampion’s metes and bounds with my father. He knew every tenant, every acre of the land, and every fox in every covert. I saw firsthand the standard I was to aim for, and the example has stood me in good stead.”

The cushion beneath Hessian was lumpy to the point of causing discomfort, if the conversation weren’t already making him uneasy. The set-piece parlor, the innuendo regarding Oscar’s choice of bride, the speechifying about why Oscar wasn’t to learn his family’s finances from the only person who could instruct him on the matter…

An ill-fitting boot of a social call.

“I’m sure you miss your father very much,” Leggett said, “but the aristocracy will regret clinging to the land as its sole source of wealth. Mark me on this, my lord, for I know of what I speak.”

“Perhaps young Oscar would benefit from your thoughts on that subject,” Hessian said, rising. “I am expected elsewhere, though you may anticipate a dinner invitation from my household to yours in the near future.”

Was that relief in Leggett’s eyes? Satisfaction?

“If you’d rather not go to the bother of hosting company, Oscar and I could meet you and your brother for dinner at my club,” Leggett said. “The ladies find talk of business and politics tedious, just as we fellows find talk of balls and millinery a trial.”

“I must disagree,” Hessian said as his host escorted him down to the front door. “The company of the ladies, with their poise and graciousness, is preferable to a lot of pontificating men and their stinking cigars. Hosting your family for dinner will be my pleasure.”

Provided Lily was among the guests.

Leggett hovered, smiling and chortling, until Hessian was physically out the door.

The entire encounter had been disappointing and disquieting. Was Lily engaged to her cousin?

Was Leggett rolled up?

Hessian turned at the street corner and took himself into the alley that ran between two rows of town houses. A mews sat near one end, along with a carriage house likely shared by several households. The alley was a quiet, shady stretch of cobbles, just like hundreds of other alleys in London. Hessian sauntered along, a gentleman who preferred quieter environs than the main streets, until he’d counted enough back gardens to find himself behind Leggett’s town house.

The garden was another theater set—a sundial in the middle, a small patch of overgrown grass between walkways and hedges—but not as well maintained as the rest of Leggett’s property.

“Can I help you, sir?”

The question came from a slight fellow in workingman’s clothes. He smelled of horse, and his hair needed a trim.

“If I and a few other fellows wanted to toss a note onto the balcony of Mr. Oscar Leggett, or perhaps serenade him with a humorous ballad some night when the rest of his family was out, which window might we assemble beneath?”

The man’s smile revealed a total of six teeth. “Mr. Oscar Leggett has that room above the terrace, sir. His pa’s to the right, and the young miss is on the left-hand corner. They’d both hear you and your mates, if you chose the wrong evening.”

Hessian passed the man a coin. “We’ll choose carefully.”

The groom returned to the stable, while Hess visually measured the distance from the top of the gazebo to Lily’s window. A bow window beneath made the climb reasonably safe, though where was a handy balcony when a fellow needed to turn up swainly by moonlight?

Hessian consulted his watch—he’d promised Daisy a midafternoon picnic if she finished letters to her brothers—and went upon his way.

The meeting with Leggett had not gone as planned, not at all, but Lily would pay a call tomorrow at Worth’s, and Hessian would then ascertain if her question about eloping had been idle curiosity or a broad hint.

“You leave me thinking the worst, Oscar Leggett, the very worst, then take yourself off to sleep the morning away in the stables.”

Lily was still angry with him for that, for spending the past two days hiding from her, pretending a megrim, then sneaking out of an evening rather than dispelling the nasty, outlandish implications of their last conversation.

She’d risked confronting him at his midday meal, which for him was an early breakfast.

“If you must scold, at least cease racketing about while you do,” Oscar said, pouring himself a cup of coffee. “I was giving you time to reconcile yourself to your good fortune. Honestly, Lily, you could do much worse.”

No, she could not. “Why are you awake and dressed before sundown?”

“You informed the stables that you’d need the carriage for a two o’clock call. If we’re to be married, we must comport ourselves like a couple, and that means we pay calls together.”

That was Walter Leggett’s logic, also an excuse to tighten the noose of surveillance Lily had lived with since the age of fourteen.

“I’m going hat shopping.”

Oscar slurped his coffee. “Mustn’t lie, Lily. That’s not what you told the butler.”

And the coachman would disclose any and all locations Lily had visited. “I’m going hat shopping after I pay my call.”

“Excellent. I adore lounging about among ladies’ fripperies, flirting with shop girls, and consulting on purchases. I’m quite good at it.”

Lily took the seat at his elbow, when she wanted to toss the coffeepot at his head. “Because you indulge your mistresses.” 

“One at a time, but of course. Mistresses are an exercise in mutual indulgence.”

“Mistresses are a means to contract horrid diseases, waste coin, and act like a fool in public.”

Oscar set down his coffee cup and selected a triangle of buttered toast. “If you intend to be that kind of wife, we can live apart once you’ve presented me with a pair of sons. I don’t plan on being difficult about Papa’s scheme, Lily, but you clearly do.”

Why hadn’t she seen this coming? Why hadn’t she made plans to run away years ago? A woman at age twenty-one became an adult in all particulars. Lily had less freedom than Daisy, who was closely supervised at every hour.

“Oscar, we are cousins. Surely you agree that cousins should not marry.”

“Tell that to King George or his sainted father. Nothing illegal about keeping wealth in the family with an occasional marriage between cousins. Why is there no marmalade for my toast? I always take my toast with marmalade.”

A lifetime of listening to Oscar whine for his marmalade was the best Lily faced as his wife.

“And look how His Majesty’s marriage turned out,” Lily muttered. “I can assure you, there will be no children. You will never know a husband’s privileges, Oscar, not with me.”

He brushed toast crumbs from his cravat. “You think to keep me from your bed because we are cousins? The church has no objection to such a match, and as to that, I doubt we are anything approaching cousins.”

All the worry, resentment, anger, and bewilderment in Lily came to a still point of incredulity. “I beg your pardon?”

“You bear a resemblance both to my cousin Lily and her late mother, but my cousin hated animals of any kind—horses, cats, dogs, birds. Never had a kind word for any species besides her own, and seldom for that one either. You dote on that slug of a mare, sneak treats to that feline hearth rug you call Hannibal, and can’t walk past a dog without petting it.”

“For God’s sake, Oscar, you cannot think… people change. They mature.”

“Horses made Lily itch, cats made her sneeze. She was honestly terrified of birds, because some woman at church got a sparrow stuck in her bonnet one Sunday, and the creature ended up dead—the sparrow, that is.”

“I am Lily Ferguson, and you are my cousin.”

“You are a very good actress, but the Lily Ferguson I knew as a boy was a fiend for the piano. You can barely get out a party piece.”

Oh God, oh God, oh God. “Skills grow rusty.”

“My cousin couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket, which I suspect is why she became so proficient at the keyboard. You sing like a nightingale.”

All the years of scrubbing floors at the inn in Derbyshire, all the summers spent hanging linen on the wash line had been leavened by the simple folk tunes that made a workday go more easily.

“I practiced, in Switzerland.”

“I do wonder about Switzerland. Perhaps Switzerland is what we’re now to call some finishing school in the West Riding, except I’ve not heard a single rumor to that effect. Nobody suspects, and you’ve done such a good job of being Lily that I’ve doubted myself from time to time.”

He had no proof, none. So far, all he’d offered was speculation and conjecture.

“I might as well contend that you are not Oscar Leggett. You’re some by-blow your mother brought to the marriage because Walter is unable to procreate. You don’t resemble him in temperament or looks or… anything.”

Oscar’s smile was pitying. “Lily, you needn’t panic. I do resemble my sire to the extent that I’m capable of exploiting an advantage when it comes my way. We will marry, I will be a decent husband to you, and by degrees, as you provide the grandchildren, I will gain control of Papa’s wealth.”

“My wealth.”

He patted his lips with his serviette. “You’re a woman. You can’t have wealth. In any case, if Papa proves difficult, I’ll simply air my theories regarding your origins and declare the marriage fraudulent.”

Lily rose and paced to the far corner of the breakfast parlor, putting as much distance as she could between her and the nightmare munching toast at the table.

“If the marriage is fraudulent, then I go to jail, and Uncle regains control of my fortune.”

“Does he? Or does he go to jail with you? You would have been quite young when you undertook to impersonate my cousin. She was seventeen when she disappeared with that Lawrence Delmar fellow, and girls are so impressionable at that age. Helpless, really. Year and year away from legal adulthood. Who knows what promises Uncle made to you, or what threats?”

The silence in the breakfast parlor was punctuated by Oscar slicing his ham, while Lily mentally shrieked at a world gone mad once too often.

At fourteen, she’d chosen Uncle Walter’s dubious assistance over certain, repeated rape in the scullery. Other tavern maids had had family to be outraged at their ill treatment, to help them find work elsewhere if the stable boys or guests proved unruly.

Lily had had nobody, and her orphan status had been common knowledge.

“When is the wedding to be?”

“Haven’t a clue. I’m to procure a special license, which means some time in the next six months. Your next birthday is significant, I believe, putting control of your fortune into your own hands. If you marry thereafter, your husband acquires that money, or it gets tied up in settlement trusts that I’ll manage. If you marry before that date, Uncle will decide the terms of the settlements.”

Was Oscar lying? Lily had to assume he was, that the special license was already in hand.

“Uncle will manage any funds I bring to the union. He might have hinted that you will have control, but I promise you—I promise you this on the life of my departed mother—that when you’re presented with the documents, they will very prettily accord to him control of every groat and farthing. He will trade on your trust in him as your father, on smoothly ambiguous lies, and on your own lack of acumen with legal language. You cannot trust him, except to operate in his own best interests.”

Oscar speared the last bite of ham. “Like papa, like son, eh?” His tone was considering rather than offended. “I will think on this, but while I’m thinking, we will become an item of friendly speculation, Lily. You will drag me about on shopping expeditions. I will grow thoughtful when the other fellows mention holy matrimony. We’ll convince the world we’re something more than cousins, and all will fall into place.”

He rose, came around the table to kiss Lily’s cheek, and then left her alone amid the detritus of his meal.

A good two minutes went by before a footman came to clear the table, suggesting that the conversation would not be reported to Uncle.

Oscar wasn’t awful. He, like Lily, was trying to make the best of a situation he’d not brought upon himself. For one moment, Lily was tempted to reconcile herself to the future he painted: a marriage of necessity, cordial on the surface, materially comfortable, and honest, in its way.

But then he’d kissed her cheek.

Oscar stank of last night’s cigars, hair pomade, and bitter coffee. His lips on Lily’s person, his hand on her arm, made her want to vomit. She’d spent years dodging cuffs and kisses at the inn, more than a decade as Uncle Walter’s frightened puppet, and now this—marriage to another man who’d use her however he pleased, even intimately.

Her brave pronouncements notwithstanding, Oscar would have every legal right to exercise his marital privileges, and he was not a man who’d forego available pleasure.

Beyond the window, the coach was coming around from the mews to take Lily on her first social call with Oscar in the role of intended. She dreaded to go, and she didn’t dare stay home, for it might be her last opportunity to see Hessian Kettering, and she did want to see him again.

Desperately.

Hessian arrived to Worth’s town house at a quarter past the hour, because Daisy had insisted on coming with him. In truth, the child’s company was welcome, for he’d have to report to Lily that the interview with Walter Leggett had gone poorly.

Very poorly.

To Hessian’s surprise, Oscar Leggett was swilling tea in Jacaranda’s parlor, looking as if he and Lily always went about socializing as a pair.

Lily sat beside her cousin, nibbling a biscuit—and avoiding Hessian’s gaze.

“Might we take a turn in the garden?” Hessian suggested when Jacaranda had served two cups all around. “I can hear the children making a lovely racket, and mild weather is still a rare treat.”

“Capital notion.” Oscar Leggett stood and assisted Lily to her feet, while Worth aided his wife.

“I’ll get Meda,” Worth said. “Are you a dog fancier, Mr. Leggett?”

“Dogs?”

In the space of one syllable, Hessian watched Oscar weigh, measure, and conclude that dog fanciers stood higher in Worth Kettering’s esteem than those who had no use for canines.

“I adore a noble hound,” Oscar said. “Provided he’s a frequently bathed and well-behaved fellow. Man’s best friend and all that.”

Worth lured Oscar from Lily’s side with some taradiddle about finding Meda’s leash in the study across the hall, and Hessian affixed himself at Lily’s elbow despite Jacaranda’s raised eyebrow.

 “They will natter on about dogs and hounds and whelping boxes until midsummer’s night,” Hessian said, leading Lily out onto the terrace. “Talk to me, Lily. Your uncle was very unforthcoming when I called upon him. I did not raise the subject of courtship, and now you look as if you’ve seen Hamlet’s ghost.”

Jacaranda had disappeared to instruct some servant or other—and a nursery maid sat on a bench halfway down the garden walk near Daisy and Avery, who chased away pigeons, the better to chalk flowers onto the paving stones.

“Uncle has decided I’m to marry Oscar,” Lily said, her gaze on the children. “Oscar is in a state of gleeful anticipation, though I’m to know nothing of my impending nuptial bliss until after my birthday.”

Had Lily kicked Hessian in the stomach, she could not have delivered a worse surprise—a worse betrayal.

“You have not objected.”

“I have not had time to think, Hessian. I did not foresee this, but it makes perfect sense. Uncle controls the money, and he controls Oscar, and thus… don’t look at me like that. I had no notion of this, no inkling, and it qualifies as my worst nightmare short of going to prison for a capital offense. I was too besotted with you to pay proper attention, but I’m soon to turn twenty-eight, and that will change everything, apparently.”

The beautiful day, the tidy garden, everything faded behind the dull thud of Hessian’s heart against his ribs.

“Will you play me false, Lily? Will you go willingly to the altar because your uncle commands it? What has that bleating stripling to offer you that’s preferable to being my countess?”

Lily’s eyes confirmed her uncle’s scheme was her idea of hell, but of words, she gave Hessian nothing.

“Lily, I had hoped that my feelings for you were reciprocated, else I would never have… I would not have presumed. Then you declare, with no explanation whatsoever, that you will wed another. Help me understand, for I cannot reconcile the woman who yielded so sweetly in my conservatory with the silent, miserable creature in my brother’s garden.”

“I am so far beyond miserable.”

Across the garden, the little girls had gone into whoops of laughter, while the poor pigeons strutted indignantly atop the garden wall. Lily wandered down the walk, and when she came to the first of the chalk drawings, she sat on the paving stones as the children had done and took up a length of chalk.

While Hessian silently lost his mind, Jacaranda reappeared on the terrace with a footman. He bore a tea tray, and every item on the tray was in miniature. The set had clearly come from the nursery, and the girls left off mocking the pigeons to take their tea by the sundial.

Hessian hunkered down as if to admire Lily’s sketching, which had resulted in the girls’ birds becoming dragons. “Lily? Have you nothing more to say?”

Hessian had more to say, but his tirade was aimed at himself.

Worth had warned him that caution was in order. Bitter experience had taught Hessian to reconnoiter at length where women and matrimony were concerned. Worse, Daisy was growing attached to Lily, and compared to Hessian’s consternation, Daisy would be devastated if Lily simply dropped from her life.

Oscar, Worth, and the damned dog came out onto the terrace next, Meda’s attention riveted on the children, who were arranging their tea set on a blanket in the grass.

“I cannot say what I need to here with Oscar ready to pounce,” Lily murmured as she embellished the wings on the smaller dragon, “but I am sorry Hessian. I’m deeply, deeply sorry. My situation has become… impossible, and that has nothing to do with you.”

She’d said she was besotted with him. Hessian clung to that spar of hope in a sea of doubt and outrage.

“Do you want to marry Oscar?”

“Of course not.”

Rational thought pushed past the humiliation and confusion in Hessian’s mind. Why would a woman of means marry against her will? Why would a woman who’d turned aside many other suitors yield to Hessian what she’d never allowed another?

Those questions plagued him for the remaining thirty minutes of a social call that would never end. He replied to queries when spoken to, he admired the growing parade of chalk drawings. He nearly snatched Daisy up when she threw her arms around Lily’s neck and announced that no dragons had come to the nursery since she’d learned to sleep with the curtains open.

Worth cast Hessian odd looks, and the children were very much underfoot. Oscar Leggett was trying to ingratiate himself with Worth’s dog, who was making a pest of herself to Lily. Jacaranda sent the occasional glance to the upper windows, where her infant daughter might well be rising from a nap.

“Daisy,” Hessian said, “we must soon take our leave. Make your farewells and thank your hostess.”

A spate of French between the little girls ensued, for Avery’s native tongue was French, and Daisy had apparently yet to figure out that adults could speak the language as well.

“I hope Miss Lily will be my mama,” Daisy said, not nearly quietly enough. “And I hope she marries my new papa.”

Either Hessian was in the presence of the most socially adept adults in London, or the dog’s waving tail, the nursery maid’s efforts to tidy up the tea set, and Oscar Leggett’s bumbling attempts to present himself as fascinated by the stock exchange meant only Hessian had heard Daisy’s confidence.

Avery giggled and confided something about Uncle Worth and Aunt Jacaranda taking more naps than the baby—what a scandalous observation for a small child to make.

Lily had paid attention to the children, though, for her ears were pink, and she was taking inordinate care donning her gloves. She twisted them around her fingers, then both gloves fell to the terrace.

As a young man, Hessian had studied all the flirtations as general studied battle maps. Fans were a popular means of conveying ballroom code, but parasols, gloves, flowers, and other items had been appropriated by lovers seeking to communicate silently.

Twisted gloves meant: Be careful, we are being watched.

Both gloves dropped at once meant: I love you.

And yet, Lily was apparently to wed her goose of a cousin, for no reason Hessian could discern.

He was furious, hurt, and bewildered, but still a gentleman. He picked up Lily’s gloves and passed them to her one at a time.

She smoothed them on, thanked him, and looked ready to shatter into a thousand pieces.

Hessian took her arm to escort her through the house, and the throng came with them—the children, the dog, the damned cousin, Worth, and Jacaranda. Hessian used the few moments of sorting through walking sticks, pelisses, and gloves at the front door to study Lily one last time.

He wanted to see devastation in her eyes, and found it, also a wildness he’d never noted before. This version of Lily was hanging on by a thread. She’d asked him once about eloping, and he’d dismissed the question. He couldn’t dismiss it now.

Jacaranda passed Hessian Lily’s cloak, a light silk wrap of blue that complemented the sprigged muslin of her puffed-sleeve day dress. He tended to the civilities, bowing low over Lily’s hand and taking special care with her frogs, while Worth promised Daisy to bring Avery over for tea “soon.”

A father learned to prevaricate.

Somebody else had apparently learned to prevaricate.

Hessian watched Lily accept Oscar’s escort to the waiting coach in the street.

“You noticed?” Worth murmured.

Hessian nodded. “No birthmark near her elbow.”

“Birthmarks can fade.”

Jacaranda was tying Daisy’s bonnet ribbons, while Hessian’s insides were already in a knot.

“Birthmarks can fade,” Hessian said, “scars can heal, memories grow unreliable, but I’ve recalled something else: The young Lily was right-handed. Did you notice when this Lily drew a flower with the chalk on the paving stones?”

“She used her left hand,” Worth said.

“She throws a ball with her left hand too—throws it accurately.”

Daisy swung Hessian’s hand, clearly ready to get back out into the fresh air.

“You whispered something to the lady as you did up her cloak,” Worth said. “Oscar was occupied pretending to love my dog, but I noticed.”

“One should enjoy the lovely weather while one can. I suggested she unfasten her window tonight.”

Worth’s brows drew down. Jacaranda laced her arm through her husband’s and led him toward the door.

“Thank our guests for coming, Worth.”

Worth thanked Daisy effusively and shook Hessian’s hand. “If you need anything, Hessian, anything at all…”

He’d needed to hear that he had his brother’s unequivocal support, but he also needed answers, and only Lily could provide them.