The Sea Chest

Chapter 3

Here's the thing: as was stated before, Lillian is rotten with secrets. It just isn't in her nature to be secretive. Will she withhold information and deploy it at the proper time for best results and societal advancement? Naturally, she does have ambition after all.

But no, Lillian is absolutely rotten with secrets. They bubble out of her and threaten to overwhelm her if she holds them in for too long. This secret is one of the biggest that she's ever known. This could destroy her entire family, or make them even richer. Hortense won't shut up about how there's talk of America going to war with Spain and if that's the case then there's even more of an incentive for her father's lascivious self to create a better product.

She leaves her father on the beach nearly two hours later and walks unescorted back up to the house. It's quite scandalous to do so, but Lillian's the sort of girl who doesn't much stand for impropriety, it isn't good and it certainly isn't going to put a person ahead in life, but she can't help herself. She likes the little thrill that comes with reading the book, with looking at those pictures. It feels dangerous, reckless, it's empowering. She feels like she can take on the world or something.

The heat of the day doesn't seem so bad now that she's been down to the shore. She isn't sweating like a pig, at any rate. Lillian leans against the paddock and watches the horses graze. Their tails swish back and forth, swatting at flies as they keep to the shade of the few trees inside their enclosure. Lillian loves horses. Absolutely adores them.

(And their handler, but that's really a story for another day.)

"I know a secret," she says to one of the horses. "I know the deepest, darkest secret there is to know."

The horse's tail swishes and it ambles closer. Lillian wrinkles her nose. It's relieving itself where it eats. Surely even horses are more enlightened than that?

Apparently not.

"Disgusting," she mutters. It's easy then, to turn and head back to the house. Her father is lost in his own world of memories with his scandalous pictures of not-white women and his dirty books. It had felt best, after he'd confessed, to leave him to the memories. He was rather taken with staring down at the full figured woman he'd documented, her face a blur and her legs spread wide. Lillian's never seen another naked woman before, but she's starting to think that she isn't missing much.

Beatrice and Frederick are in the foyer when she slips back inside. No one else is around and the house feels deathly still. They're speaking in low voices, their fingers brushing against each other and their lips a little bit kiss-swollen and slightly rumpled.

Somewhere, probably in her father's study, a clock chimes four o'clock. Lillian lets out a slow breath. The governess would have departed by now. It means that she can be about the house without the dirty looks and guilty feeling that comes from skiving off lessons.

"Where did you go, Lil?" Frederick asks. His bottom lip is jutting out and slightly bloody.

Lillian glances back towards the door. "I was out. With father." She turns back to face the twins. "What on earth happened to your lip?"

His cheeks color and Lillian feels a wave of revulsion swell up within her. She takes a step back. She hates them for making her feel this way. It's just... oh, they should know better! The servants will start to talk and then the secret will creep out into town and then everyone will know.