Lady Lilias and the Devil in Plaid (Scottish Scoundrels: Ensnared Hearts Book 2)

by Julie Johnstone

  When the butler returned, he said, “If you’ll follow me to the parlor.”

  Lilias nodded, though a sudden thought struck her. If Nash was not with his sister, which he very well likely might not be, how would she manage to see him? She racked her brain to think of some excuse she could use, but she need not have for there at the bottom of one of the grandest staircases she’d ever seen stood Nash and Adaline, talking animatedly. They did not notice the butler, nor her, and Lilias took the opportunity to drink him in. The picture he presented stole her breath.

  The kilt he wore instantly brought a smile to her lips. Did he still wear it to annoy his mother? Had he managed to get a reaction from her over the years? His calves had become even more titillating over time, if that were possible. They were the calves of a man who was not idle. Age had served him very, very well, the devil. The images that filled her head as she stared at his bare legs would have shocked the bawdiest of sailors. She forced herself to look upward and inched her gaze over his long, sinewy legs, up over his slim hips, and farther still to his chest, proportioned to make an artist weep. She finally stopped at his broad shoulders, which looked like the perfect place to rest her head and listen to his the rich timbre of his voice.

  He waved a hand in the air as he spoke to his sister, and Lilias followed the motion, noting that his bottle-green coat was clearly the work of a master tailor. His cravat was untied and hung down his chest, as if he’d recently jerked on it in irritation. His hair, still just as gleaming, dark, and thick, made her want to thread her fingers through it as she had longed to do so many years before. He had a darker shadow of stubble on his beautiful face than she remembered, but it only lent him a more rugged appearance. He stopped talking suddenly as Lilias and the butler passed the window that put them midway to the staircase. Nash looked toward them, and for one breath, he appeared so exquisitely happy to see her that all the years of missing him, hating him, loving him, yearning for him did not matter. Nothing mattered but him.

  “Lilias.” There was a faint tremor in his voice, as if some deep emotion had touched him. She felt it in her bones.

  “Greybourne, how do you know Lady Lilias?” Lady Adaline asked, studying him rather intently.

  The question did something to him, something that made Lilias come to a shuddering halt. His gray eyes, which had been clinging to her, became hooded. His face became impassive, but his stance was rigid. He glanced at his sister. “She is our neighbor in the Cotswolds. I met her when we first moved there.” He chucked his sister’s chin in a loving, protective gesture that made Lilias’s chest squeeze. “You never met her, Adaline, because Mother always had you in some sort of etiquette lessons.”

  “Well, that explains that,” Lady Adaline murmured, looking as if she were thinking about something. “Lady Lilias, I’m so glad you have called!” She came toward Lilias, shiny black curls bouncing against her slender shoulders incased in expensive blue silk, and arms outstretched. She grasped both of Lilias’s hands, and Lilias had to force herself to look away from Nash, who turned toward the window as if there were something fascinating in his garden. Lilias checked—nothing there, just flowers. They certainly were pretty, but not fascinating.

  He was uncomfortable. He was avoiding looking at her. Fear pricked her that what had kept her in knots for years, the memories that had made her unable to properly give attention to any other man, had been a fantasy of her overactive imagination. But she could have sworn he’d been glad to see her, even if only for a moment. Or maybe she’d only seen what she wanted? That prick of fear became more of a stab with an annoyingly sharp invisible knife.

  “Don’t mind Greybourne,” Lady Adaline said, and Lilias, who realized she was staring at Nash, jerked her gaze away from him and back to his sister. Lady Adaline waved a dismissive hand. “He’s practically a hermit.”

  “Adaline.” Nash spoke but a single word, but it was forceful, as was everything about him.

  Lady Adaline turned scarlet but notched her chin, and Lilias recognized the seeds of a determined woman in the younger girl. “It’s true,” Lady Adaline muttered and leaned close to Lilias as if to tell her a secret. “Do you know, in all of his years at school and living in Scotland, he only ever came home once a year? And only to the Cotswolds, never to London.”

  Lilias’s eyes flew toward Nash and crashed into his stormy gaze. His look was easy enough to read now—barely controlled irritation. His fists were clenched, his jaw was tense, and his gaze was narrowed.

  “Adaline, cease talking,” he warned.

  “I shall not,” the young girl said in a mutinous tone. “I daresay you never even knew your childhood friend came to the Cotswolds once a year, did you, Lady Lilias?”

  “Adaline, Lady Lilias does not care about my comings and goings.”

  But she did. Oh, how she did. And he knew it. She saw it on his face, which for one flash of a second, held embarrassment and remorse.

  Nash had been to the Cotswolds. Seven times.

  Heat flooded her face. She was possibly the biggest fool to ever live. An expansive hole appeared in her chest.

  “I can see you didn’t know,” Lady Adaline continued. “He practically hid in the house every time he came, as if he were avoiding someone.”

  Dear God. It could not get worse!

  Lilias wished the ground would open and swallow her up.

  “Adaline!” Nash thundered and started toward them.

  But Adaline continued. “He only ventured out to see his friend Owen, and even then only at night. It’s all so very—”

  “Mother is calling you,” Nash interrupted.

  Lady Adaline frowned. “No, she’s not. She—”

  “Is calling you,” he ground out. “So go to the parlor.”

  The girl bit her lip but nodded. She released Lilias’s hands, offered an apologetic smile, and departed.

  Lilias stood before Nash, trembling. Her emotions swung wildly between embarrassment, anger, and agony. She knew she ought to keep her mouth closed, but she didn’t care about what she ought to do.

  “You came back to the Cotswolds, and you avoided me. And Owen knew.” She sounded pathetic, but she would not let that stop her. There was no room for pride when true love was involved. She wanted to pummel his chest, but she at least had enough self-restraint not to do so.

  “Do not blame Owen.”

  The four words held no hint of remorse or apology. But they did hold impatience, as if he wanted this to be over—or more precisely, wanted her to be gone. For one moment, she considered holding her tongue, doing as practically any other woman would do and simply take her leave and give him a reprieve, despite how he had treated her, how he had made her think he was worthy of being a hero when he was really the villain of the worst book she’d never read because it did not exist. The errant thought to write a book and make him the villain came to her mind. It would serve him right.

  “I will deal with Owen later.” She wanted to weep with relief when her voice came out sounding strong. She wouldn’t weep, of course. Not in front of Nash. She was used to having to be strong even when all she wanted was, for once, for someone to protect her, to watch over her. But not just any someone…

  Foolish. Her head was filled with stuffing and nonsense. There was no one to watch over her but herself. Nash was not her Gothic hero.

  “I asked Owen not to mention to you when I came to visit,” he said.

  “Why?” Her heart pounded so hard that her chest hurt.

  Nash looked distinctly uncomfortable. “Because it served no purpose for you to know I was there.”

  “I thought we were friends. Real friends.” She could not bear to say out loud that she had believed they were going to be more. “You said—” She swallowed, wishing she didn’t need to ask the one question that had burned in her mind all these years. But if she didn’t ask it now, she’d never forgive herself for being so weak. One moment of embarrassment could not break her, but if she knew she’d let somethi
ng special, something wonderful slip between her fingers because of pride… Well, that would drive her mad.

  “The night we were alone, you said I made you feel—” Thump. Thump. Thump. She took a deep breath to calm her heart so she could hear him when he answered. Why was she pushing? Why wouldn’t that hope totally die?

  He looked startled for a moment, but then his dark lashes lowered to almost fully conceal his eyes. When he looked up again, whatever emotion he might have been feeling was unfathomable to her. She wanted to scream.

  “I don’t recall the conversation.” His voice was even. Flat. And yet she could see him clenching and unclenching his teeth by the way his jaw moved.

  “You are a liar.” Her mother would have simply expired on the spot if she’d heard Lilias now. Thank heavens no one was around.

  He flinched at her accusation but did not deny it. For some reason, that made her glad. At least he acknowledged his fatal flaw. His right hand came up to thread his fingers in his hair, just as he’d done years before. “Lilias, I don’t remember the conversation because whatever I was going to say was not important enough to me to remember. I told you I am not a good person.”

  She nodded, feeling as if every emotion she possessed was lodged in her throat. “Yes, yes, you did. I daresay I’m more inclined to believe you than I ever was before.”

  “Is there some other way I can help you, Lilias?”

  The question was asked as if she were a stranger, as if they had not shared the secrets of what shredded their hearts. “You said that you were not hurting, that you’d have to feel in order to hurt, and you felt nothing. But everyone feels,” she said, arching her eyebrows, demanding him to challenge that.

  “Yes,” he said to her shock, “they do. I did contact Owen. I did feel very bad.”

  “But you did not feel for me,” she whispered, understanding finally sinking in.

  His lips pressed together in a hard line, and then he jerked his hand through his hair. “I felt as a young man would for any pretty girl who showed interest in him. But not as you wanted me to feel. Not… Not—”

  She’d never seen him flustered. It was an astonishing sight. He’d never seemed as if he could be made to feel uncomfortable. He’d seemed utterly confident always, but he was uncomfortable now. She would have let him drown in it, but she was going under with him.

  “You needn’t say more,” she said. “I understand.” He had not loved her. He’d made her fall in love with him, but all she’d done was inspire a fleeting desire to kiss her. How appalling that she was so foolish that she’d wasted seven years pining over something that had never even existed.

  “Your Grace,” she managed to get out with a semblance of, well, grace. “Please tell your sister I came here at the behest of my friend the Duchess of Carrington to invite her to the ball she and the duke are hosting.” It was nonsense, but she had to say something. She had to try to save a tiny shred of her pride. She’d explain to Guinevere, and her friend would understand.

  Nash’s gray eyes held skepticism at her claim. Of course they did! It was poppycock, and he likely knew it, but at least he was not going to mention it.

  “Shall I get my sister?”

  “No. I suddenly don’t feel well.” With that lie—goodness, they were flying out of her mouth today—she gave him the time and location. It wasn’t at all proper to invite him to Guinevere’s ball. The invitation should have been sent by Guinevere, but Guinevere would forgive her. And as she spoke the last word, the butler materialized as if he’d somehow known it was time to see her out.

  She exchanged goodbyes with Nash as one stranger to the other, each syllable that tumbled from her lips increasing the ache in her stomach. When the door closed behind her, and she was alone in the bright light of day, she grabbed her side and barely resisted the urge to double over. Hot tears pricked her eyes, but she blinked them away, determined to hold them back until she was in the privacy of her home.

  She inhaled a ragged breath when the door behind her creaked open. Before she could even turn to see who it was, Nash said, “You forgot your wrap.”

  His voice washed over her, sounding as inviting as she had dreamed. She frowned as she slowly faced him, caught between warring desires of wishing him away and wishing him near. This was madness! She’d loved him for so long, she didn’t yet know how to hate him, but she would not make a fool of herself anymore. She arched her eyebrows as she stepped toward him to retrieve her wrap. “Thank you. I’m sure you could have simply sent your butler after me.”

  She grasped the wrap, her fingers brushing his, tingling coursing through her at the warm feel of his skin against hers. She pulled back her hand, but he grabbed it, surprising her. Their eyes locked, and in his, remorse burned. “I’m sorry, Lilias.”

  If she’d been the same woman she was when she’d raced over here, she would have imagined he was trying to tell her something, but she was not that woman anymore. The part of her that had held out hope that her love story with Nash was still to be written was gone. They had no story. They never had. He was not trying to convey anything other than the fact that he felt pity for her, and that blessedly made her livid, which was far better than feeling crushed.

  “You needn’t apologize. You did tell me you were not a good man.” With that, she snatched her hand from him in a most unladylike manner. “I was the one who was too silly to listen.” She turned on her heel, prepared to make a grand exit where the scorned heroine leaves the hero standing gaping after her, but as she started away, footsteps thudded behind her.

  She stopped and whirled toward him with a glare. “What are you doing?”

  “I see you do not have a carriage.”

  “My, aren’t you observant. But that does not answer my question. What. Are. You. Doing?”

  He smiled. He actually smiled. And it was blindingly beautiful. Hating him was becoming easier by the second. Whyever was he smiling at her? He needed to stop instantly.

  “Stop smiling at me.” When he accommodated her immediately, it was even more vexing. He had not once been accommodating since she’d met him. He did not need to start now, not when she was planning to hate him forever. “Stop being accommodating.”

  He arched twin perfectly formed, dark, thick eyebrows. Everything about him was annoyingly perfect, except his heart.

  “Do you want me to smile or not?” he asked, amusement in his voice.

  She served him what she knew from experience with Nora and loads of practice in the looking glass was her best scowl. “I want you to tell me why you are following me.”

  “I cannot very well allow you to walk home by yourself. That would not be very honorable of me.”

  “Ah yes, you and your honor,” she snipped. It was his blasted supposed honor that had first made her tumble into love with him when he’d made that little speech by the stream so many years ago about not allowing her to aid him in teaching Owen to swim because she could have been hurt. He was honorable, she begrudgingly acknowledged. Which also meant he was good. She begrudgingly acknowledged that, too. What he was not was besotted with her, and he had told her as much. Plainly. Years before.

  She felt like such a fool. Again. “I order you not to follow me.” She prayed he’d listen. She wanted to cry, and she absolutely could not do so with him at her heels like a guard dog.

  “I’m not the sort of man to follow orders, Lilias. Just as you are not the sort of lady to follow commands.”

  “You know nothing about what sort of lady I am now,” she snapped, though what he’d said was true. She had never been good at following commands. She blamed that on her father. He’d always said his biggest regret in life was following the course for his life that his parents had demanded instead of the one his heart had wanted.

  For one moment, Nash looked as if he might argue, but then he simply nodded. “You are quite right, but that does not change the fact that I am going to ensure you get home safely.”

  “Do as you wish,” she grumbl
ed. “But I vow I won’t speak a single word to you.”

  She could have sworn his lips started to tug upward into a smile, but he very quickly schooled his features into the most serious expression. “I’d be disappointed if you did.”

  She opened her mouth to insist upon his telling her what he meant by that, but she promptly snapped it shut, realizing that such an action would break her just proclaimed vow to herself. She whirled away from him, started toward her home, then changed course to make her way back to Guinevere’s home on Picadilly. She needed a shoulder to cry on.

  “Where are you going?” Nash asked from behind her.

  The desire to tell him it was none of his business nearly burst from her, but she pressed her lips together, determined not to speak to him.

  “Lilias, this is not the way to your home.”

  She almost tripped at the realization that he knew where her home was. They were not in the Cotswolds any longer. So how did he know such a thing? For a man who’d been away for seven years and had never been to her family’s home in Mayfair, Nash should have no notion which way her townhome was. Had he made it a point to discover where she lived?

  Stop it. She would not allow herself to live in a fantasy any longer. Seven years was quite enough.

  She squared her shoulders and strode forward as fast as her swishing skirts would allow. When she reached the steps of Guinevere and Carrington’s townhome, she thought to simply march up the steps without a goodbye, but it occurred to her that by behaving as she was, she was letting him see how much his rejection had hurt her. She would not be such a fool as to tell herself he did not know she had liked him. At least he did not know she loved him. Oh, she still did. She couldn’t simply turn it off. But she would smother it until it no longer had life.