She forced a smile to her lips that made her cheeks hurt, turned, and offered a curtsy. She came up and—
Was that admiration she saw in his eyes? Stop. Stop. Stop.
She really needed to sit and think upon why she kept imagining things in regard to him so that the next time she saw him, she’d see what was really there and not just what she wanted to see. “Thank you for walking me home.”
“This is not your home.” His smile could have melted the thick ice of the River Eye in winter.
Blast the man. He had her mind in a swirl. She gritted her teeth. “Of course not,” she said sweetly. “I was testing you to see if you knew where I lived.”
Do not ask him. Absolutely do not.
“How do you know this is not my home?” she asked, arching her eyebrows expectantly and cursing herself for the inability to control her tongue.
“Because this is the Duke of Carrington’s home,” Nash said, surprising her.
She frowned at his knowing Guinevere’s husband and that he managed to dash yet another bit of hope that he may have inquired as to where she lived. She absolutely should have known better. “How do you know Carrington?”
“From Scotland,” Nash replied, but he sounded rather evasive.
Heat burned her cheeks as a realization set in. “Am I to assume you already had an invitation to his ball?”
A nod confirmed her worst fear.
Oh, the devil.
She lifted her chin, refusing to shrink like a violet. She was no flower. She was a rapier of a woman, and one day the loss of her would cut him to the quick, just as his loss cut her. She swore it in this moment, even as humiliation burned her. “You let me stand there and lie.” Another nod. How mortifying. He’d likely stood there pitying her.
She clenched her teeth so hard, she thought she heard one crack. She would not bother to try to explain away the lie. He could not truly know she’d come to see him, but he likely had guessed. “Good day, Your Grace,” she said with as much civility and pride as she could muster.
“Good day, Lady Lilias.” His tone now matched her formalness, which infuriated her for no good reason other than anything he did in this moment would anger her because she was so embarrassed.
She turned, raised the brass knocker, and muttered under her breath as his footsteps faded behind her. “May you fall on the way home and break that too perfect nose.”
Chapter Two
It was painful how much he still desired the proud woman who muttered wishes for him to break his nose. How was it possible to still want her so much after so long? Nash paused on his trek home. He ached. His damn body physically ached from the restraint he had shown not to touch her. God, how he had wanted to…
Everything about her whispered to him to hold her, to make her his. Her flaxen hair was still in wild waves, her eyes still a shade of brilliant blue that did not exist on this earth. Her eyes made a cloudless summer day seem dull. They filled him with ridiculous happiness and hope. He had not seen her since last Christmas when he’d gone home to the Cotswolds and watched her from afar, as he did every time he returned there, but he had not been truly in her presence in seven years. He’d forgotten just how alive he felt when she was so near he could reach out and touch her. She still smelled divinely of lilies, too.
He stepped to the side as two young ladies passed him, each smiling and sending him inviting looks. He nodded cordially but did not engage them. Their feverish giggles trailed after them as they walked away, silk skirts swishing.
Nothing. He felt nothing. Not even desire in the moment. They certainly did not awaken that inner instinct to protect and possess, make his chest tight, cause yearning to put an ache in the pit of his gut. No woman had ever made him feel that way but Lilias, and damn, but she still did. He’d recognized just how much after the first words she’d said to him: You came back to the Cotswolds, and you avoided me.
Lilias had always spoken so bluntly. It was as if someone had forgotten to relay the cardinal rule of being English to her—say what you are supposed to, not what you truly feel.
His father had lived by that rule until he’d drawn his last breath, and his mother still did. Neither of them had ever actually said his actions had killed Thomas. They’d offered nothing but silence and an almost total withdrawal of emotions. And they’d not asked him to return home more than the requisite once a year for his father to update him on the affairs of the dukedom. Even the letter his mother had sent about his father’s death had been as cold as the frigid air of the Highlands in winter. She had advised him to come home to take up his duties or people would gossip. There was no mention of love, forgiveness, or sadness over her husband’s loss, just worry about what people might say.
So here he was. He’d known he would come face-to-face with Lilias, but after his talk with Owen yesterday, he’d planned to do all in his power to avoid her for as long as possible as Owen had asked. He owed Owen that.
It was his fault Owen walked with a limp. He had let Owen challenge him to that horse race all those years ago, and he’d told himself he’d let Owen win so that Owen would look good in Lilias’s eyes. He could and would do for Owen what he should have done for Thomas—that’s what he’d told himself. But then they’d been racing and Nash’s thoughts had gone to impressing Lilias himself, not putting Owen first. It was the second most shameful memory of his life.
He tugged a hand through his hair as he entered his house and brushed past the butler. He made his way to his study, poured a drink, and sat down. Lilias’s image immediately filled his mind in blinding vividness. The craving he’d long had for her had not diminished one damn whit. It was a dark and dangerous thing that threatened to consume him.
She should not have come to his house. He gripped his glass, his thoughts crashing into each other. Why had she come? To see Adaline? That’s what Lilias had said, but what was the nonsense about the invitation to the ball? No, she’d come to see him. Had she waited seven long years to confront him? A bark of desperate laughter escaped him. He somehow was not surprised. He’d hurt her. She’d thought them real friends, and he’d betrayed her. His glorious girl.
Perhaps she’d felt a small bit of the emotion that he’d felt, still did, for her, and she had simply wanted the closure he’d never given her? Perhaps she’d wanted to set things straight between them for Owen’s sake, as she likely knew she’d wed Owen. Most likely, she wanted him to understand that if he still felt anything for her, it could not be. He didn’t know. His mind wasn’t working properly.
He felt haunted, and he was—by her. She was the ghost that would not die in his mind or heart. He poured another drink and prayed for no dreams of her tonight.
“No.”
Nash’s mother sat across from him in his study the next day and arched her dark eyebrows at him. “Nay?” She repeated the answer he’d just given her with definite incredulity. “I never ask anything of ye.”
That was not quite true. She frequently asked for more pin money for new gowns and baubles, but he gladly gave it. She did not, however, ask for his company. Ever.
“Ye live yer life as ye wish. Ye cling to heathen ways.” She flicked her hand at the kilt he wore.
He resisted the urge to laugh. There was nothing heathen about wearing the kilt of his mother’s clan. She just didn’t like it because her stuffy friends would not like it. They thought themselves better than the Scots, so his mother liked to conveniently forget that she was a Scot. Just as she’d conveniently forgotten his existence until it had become inconvenient.
“I need ye to go to the ball,” she said.
“No.” He could not go to Carrington’s ball. Lilias would be there. He didn’t trust himself around her. Yesterday, when he’d realized she had walked to his house alone, he’d dashed out the door to see her safely to where she wanted to go. That was not his duty. She was not his duty. At the very least, he could have had his footman accompany her or his coachman take her, but that would have required foreth
ought, and Lilias stole that ability from him simply by being near. He needed to keep a good distance between them until she was wed, and he could finally put her on the shelf where she belonged, the high one where precious things went so some fool didn’t come along and break them.
His mother scowled, opened and closed her mouth several times, and then said, “I have not wanted to ask this of ye, but—”
She paused, and damn it if he did not find himself leaning forward as an eager boy of seventeen would have instead of the man of five and twenty he now was. He knew better. She was not going to offer a chance to finally be forgiven, a way to redeem himself, and yet…
“What is it?” he asked.
“I need ye to watch over Adaline. I’ve tried, but she is clever and refuses to listen to me about the dangers of unscrupulous men. She flees her chaperone at balls and most assuredly avoids me. Ye are the only one who can control her with yer father gone. I’ve no notion why ye are refusing to go to this ball, but ye must put yer sister’s welfare above yer feelings.”
And if I do this, will you finally forgive me?
He didn’t ask it, though he wanted to. For one, he’d do anything for his sister, whether it meant his mother could finally forgive him or not. But the other reason was he was quite sure he would not want to hear how she answered the question. Sometimes it was better not to know how someone might answer a question. Like the one he’d replayed in his head a mind-numbing number of times in which he confessed to Lilias that he’d kissed the girl he knew his brother liked and that he’d not allowed Owen to pull ahead of him in the race because Nash had been too busy trying to impress her himself: What do you think of me now, Lilias? He’d never ask the question; he didn’t want to know the answer.
“Will ye attend the ball or not, Greybourne?” His mother’s lips pressed together in a line of annoyance.
Greybourne. His title. Never Nash, the name she’d given him. Always cold. But he owed her for what he’d done to Thomas.
“I’ll go,” he said with a sigh. He’d simply have to stay away from Lilias. Of course, that could be difficult if he encountered her with Owen. If that occurred, he’d be pleasantly cool. He looked at his mother. He’d learned from the best.
“If Mama saw you in that gown, she’d have fit,” Nora said, pursing her lips at Lilias.
Nora was correct, but her mother was abed with another deep melancholy. It was the third time this month that Mama’s sadness had been so great that she’d told Lilias to attend a ball without her. Her only parting motherly advice had been to “please secure a husband.”
Lilias eyed herself in the crimson gown she’d borrowed from Guinevere. It was cut daringly low, and the rich color of the silk would make her stand out. It was perfect. This was the new her. A woman who was no longer a fool, who no longer believed if she loved Nash enough, he’d love her in return. He was not some hero from one of her books. He would never protect her and cherish her, and she would forget him. But before she really strove to do that, just once she wanted him to see her, to desire her, to perhaps even question what he might have let slip through his fingers.
After tonight, she would be good. She would follow the rules of Society and find a proper husband to ease her mother’s burdens and to set a good course for her sister’s future. She’d been selfish long enough.
“Lilias, did you hear me?” Nora demanded.
Lilias took one more look at her hair before answering her sister. It was down and in slight disarray. She patted it, but it was fairly hopeless. She had no skill with putting up her hair, and they could no longer afford a lady’s maid, not that the one they’d formerly employed had been any good with hair, either. Finally, she turned to Nora. “I hear you. Mama won’t see me. She’s abed.”
Nora gave Lilias an exasperated look. “I said, what are you going to offer me for keeping this—” she motioned to Lilias’s attire “—a secret.”
“I’m out of trinkets to give you, Nora.” Lilias’s escapades at the Cotswolds had cost her nearly all her things, including her ribbons and lace.
Nora grinned. “You should behave, then. I’ll take a ride in Owen’s coach in the park,” she said, eyes twinkling. “At the fashionable hour.”
Lilias scowled at her sister. “Your lust to be part of the fashionable set is going to cause you heartache when you make your debut.” That pretentious lot would never accept Nora with her lack of funds.
Nora tossed her blond curls over her shoulder. “When I wish for your opinion, I’ll ask for it. If you will not convince Owen to do this, then I’ll tell Mama about your gown.”
Lilias gritted her teeth. Nora could be a real pain, but she did love her. “I’m not speaking to Owen,” she said, matter-of-fact. And she wasn’t sure when she would do so again, but it was none of her sister’s business. He had lied to her. He had kept Nash’s presence in the Cotswolds through the years a secret, and he’d even visited with him. The betrayal cut deep, even though the logical side of her mind knew Owen had been trying to protect her feelings. He’d likely seen what she had refused to: Nash would never love her.
“Perhaps the Duke of Carrington can drive you in the park with Guinevere at the fashionable hour?” Lilias suggested.
Nora scowled. “That won’t do. It must be a handsome, eligible man so that the other girls my age will see me and be green with envy. When Mama lets me debut next Season, I’ll be the talk of the ton.”
“You certainly will,” Lilias quipped, realizing how hypocritical the words she was about to say were. “But it will not be the sort of talk a young lady trying to make a good match would wish for.”
Nora gave her a look that told Lilias her sister thought her as much of a hypocrite as Lilias thought herself. A flush heated her face. “I was not trying to make a match,” Lilias huffed. “I thought I’d found the man I would wed.”
“And now?” Nora asked, sounding fascinated.
Lilias realized she had not done a good job at all of setting a proper example for her younger sister, and tomorrow she would start doing so. For herself, she honestly didn’t care very much, but for Nora and for her mother, she had to try. “And now,” she said, “I see that ‘true love’ is more apt to occur in Gothic novels than real life.” Saying the words made her very depressed, but she needed to accept reality.
“But how am I to be envied, then?” Nora wailed. “We have little money. My gowns will be old. And you will be on the shelf, which will make my prospects even worse!”
Lilias stiffened. “Thank you for your confidence, Sister, in my ability to secure a husband. I’ve had offers, if you recall.”
“I recall,” Nora said, arching her eyebrows. “I also recall you finding something wrong with both men, though they were handsome, titled, and wealthy. It was very selfish of you. I do believe you are part of the cause of Mama’s melancholy.”
Lilias opened her mouth to defend herself but promptly shut it. “When did you get so wise?” she asked instead, shame burning her cheeks.
“Not long ago,” Nora said with a giggle, “after I discovered your hidden hoard of Gothic novels and read them. Very informative!”
“Don’t bother with them, Nora. I have firsthand experience that real life is nothing like a novel. Not everything turns out as you dream it will.”
Chapter Three
“I like what you’ve done to the gown,” Guinevere whispered as Lilias came to stand beside her where the duke and new duchess were gathered with some of their guests. Carrington was telling a story, and Guinevere was smiling fondly at her husband.
Lilias glanced down at the daring bodice she had modified at the last minute after speaking to her sister. She’d pinned a flower at the low V to cover the tops of her breasts the plunge had exposed. She decided just enough was left to show Nash what he’d let slip away but not so much to make tongues wag.
“Do you really think it’s passable?” she asked in a low voice, meeting her friend’s guileless green gaze.
Guin
evere nodded, then cut her husband a pleading look, which slightly baffled Lilias until Guinevere took her by the hand and led her away from the guests. It wasn’t the done thing to step away from one’s guests simply because another had arrived, but Guinevere was now a duchess and, therefore, was afforded much leeway by the ton. Her friend greeted people as she wove through the press of bodies and made her way to the edge of the ballroom by the terrace doors. There was a scattering of tables on the right side, which held but one elder woman who looked to be napping, and potted plants to the left of the doors.
“Do you see that woman over there?” Guinevere asked, tucking a strand of her chestnut hair behind her ear.
“The one at the table with the gray hair? Who appears to be sleeping?”
Guinevere nodded. “That’s Kilgore’s aunt. I’ve borrowed her.”
Lilias frowned. That sentence raised so many questions, she hardly knew where to start. “Does your husband know that you’ve ‘borrowed’ your former suitor’s aunt? The suitor your husband detested?”
Guinevere smirked. “First of all, you and I both know Kilgore was never truly courting me.”
Lilias nodded. Guinevere had told her all about how the Marquess of Kilgore had only been pretending to court her because he’d lost land in a card game and the man who held it had wanted Kilgore to stop Carrington from wedding Guinevere. That man, who happened to be Carrington’s half-brother, had wanted Guinevere for himself. Guinevere had also told Lilias how she was nearly completely sure that Kilgore was in love with a new SLARS member, Lady Constantine Colgate.
Lilias didn’t know how inclined she was to believe that, though. Kilgore didn’t behave like a man in love. He had a different woman on his arm every week, and the rumors about his affairs in the ton were legendary. But Kilgore certainly fit the description of a Gothic hero with his dark good looks and brooding and mysterious nature. He was a rogue of the first order. Everyone knew that there had been a wager placed on the betting books at Whites Gentleman’s Club some years ago that Kilgore could not seduce four specific ladies. Two of the women were wed, and two were young, unmarried ladies. Guinevere had been on that list, as had Lady Constantine. If the rumors were to be believed, Kilgore had seduced all the women but Guinevere. It didn’t matter if it was true or not; Lady Constantine was all but ruined. Of course, Lilias now knew that Kilgore had, in fact, seduced Lady Constantine, and the poor lady had fallen in love with him only to have her heart broken.
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