by Lisa Kleypas
“That’s three questions so far,” Alex interrupted sardonically. “And before I answer, I want to know why you’re so interested.”
“I like the boy,” Lily replied with dignity. “I’m asking out of sincere concern.”
He considered that. It was possible she was telling the truth. She and Henry did seem to get along well together. “It wasn’t his marks,” he said brusquely. “Henry was in some trouble. Tardiness, mischief, the usual things. The headmaster ‘disciplined’ him…” Alex’s jaw hardened.
“Flogging?” Lily stared at his averted face. His features were especially harsh at that angle, giving him the appearance of a golden satyr. “That’s why he walks so stiffly at times. It was bad, wasn’t it?”
“Yes, it was bad.” His voice was gruff. “I wanted to kill Thornwait. I still do.”
“The headmaster?” In spite of her loathing of anyone who could commit such cruelty against a child, Lily almost pitied the man. She suspected Thornwait would not get off lightly for what he’d done.
“Henry retaliated by lighting a pile of gunpowder underneath Thornwait’s front door,” Alex continued.
Lily laughed at that. “I would have expected no less of him!” Her amusement died quickly as she studied Alex’s implacable face. “But you’re disturbed about something else…it must be…that Henry didn’t tell you about what had been happening?” She read the answer in his silence.
All at once she understood. Alex, with his unreasonable sense of responsibility for everyone and everything, would take all the blame upon himself. Obviously he doted on the boy. This would be the perfect opportunity for her to twist the knife and make him feel worse than he already did. Instead she found herself trying to ease his guilt.
“I’m not surprised,” she said matter-of-factly. “Most boys of Henry’s age are extremely proud, you know. Don’t try to claim that you weren’t when you were young. Of course Henry would try to handle things himself. He wouldn’t want to run to you like a child. From what I’ve observed, that is the way boys think.”
“What would you know about boys?” he muttered.
She gave him a chiding glance. “It’s not your fault, Raiford, much as you’d like to shoulder the blame. You have too much of a conscience—it nearly matches the size of your ego.”
“What I need is a lecture from you about conscience,” he said caustically. But he looked at her without the usual animosity, and the pale gray depths of his eyes caused a strange feeling to ripple through her. “Miss Lawson…” He gestured to the deck she held. “Would you care to play another hand of truth?”
“Why?” Smiling, Lily flipped another couple of cards to the floor. “What question would you like to ask, my lord?”
He continued to stare at her. Lily had the startling feeling that even though they were standing apart, he was touching her. He wasn’t, of course, but still she had the suffocated sensation that plucked notes of warning in her memory…yes, she had felt this way with Giuseppe…threatened…dominated.
Alex ignored the pretext of the cards, the game, and watched her intently. “Why do you hate men?”
He couldn’t stop himself from asking. The curiosity had built with every word he had heard her speak, every wary glance she had given him, her father, even Zachary. She kept a distance between herself and every man that came near. With Henry, however, Lily was different. Alex could only surmise that Henry was too young for Lily to consider a threat. His instincts told him that Lily had been taken advantage of in the past, often enough that she had come to regard men as enemies to be used and manipulated.
“Why do I…” Lily’s voice drifted into shocked silence. Only Derek had ever been able to disarm her so completely with a few words. Why would he ask such a thing? Certainly he had no personal interest in her feelings. He must have asked because he had sensed somehow that it would hurt her, the bastard.
And he was right…she did hate men, although she had never before put it into words, spoken or otherwise. What should she find so frigging wonderful about them? Her father had ignored her, her fiancé had jilted her, Giuseppe had abused her hard-won trust. Men had taken her child. Even her friendship with Derek, such as it was, had started as blackmail. Devil take the lot of them!
“I’ve had enough of games this afternoon,” she said, and dropped the deck, letting it scatter. Turning quickly, she left the gallery. She heard Alex’s footsteps behind her. He reached her in three long strides.
“Miss Lawson—” He caught at her arm.
She whirled around, violently flinging off his hand. “Don’t touch me,” she hissed. “Don’t ever touch me again!”
“All right,” he said quietly. “Calm yourself. I had no right to ask.”
“Is that some sort of apology?” Her chest heaved with the force of her anger.
“Yes.” Alex hadn’t expected to hit a raw nerve with his question. Even now Lily was struggling to control herself. Usually she was so brashly confident. For the first time she seemed fragile to him, a volatile woman living with some terrible strain. “It was uncalled for.”
“Bloody right about that!” Lily raked her hand through her hair until the curls fell in a wild tangle over her forehead. Her searing eyes locked onto his unreadable face. She couldn’t seem to hold back a tumble of accusing words. “But here’s your damned answer. I have yet to meet a man worthy of trust. I’ve never known a so-called gentleman with the slightest understanding of honesty or compassion. You all like to bray about your honor, when the truth is—” Abruptly she closed her mouth.
“When the truth is…” Alex repeated, wanting her to finish. He wanted to know at least this one small part of the complexity. God, it would take at least a lifetime to understand her.
Lily gave a small, determined shake of her head. The forceful emotions seemed to drain away magically, by a self-will that Alex suddenly understood was an equal match for his own. She regarded him with an insolent smile. “Bugger off, my lord,” she said lightly, and left him there in the gallery strewn with scattered cards.
Something about that morning started a piercing ache in Lily’s head that wouldn’t go away. She spent the day in Totty and Penelope’s company, half-listening to their ladylike conversation. In the evening she excused herself from supper and nibbled on cold beef and bread from a tray in her room. After downing two glasses of red wine, she changed for bed and lay down to rest. The silk damask bedhangings draped down from a circle overhead, shrouding her in shadow. Restlessly she changed position, shifting to her stomach and curving her arms around the pillow beneath her. Loneliness filled her chest with a cold, heavy weight.
She wanted someone to talk to. She wanted to unburden herself. She needed Aunt Sally, the only one who had known about Nicole. With her salty wisdom and unorthodox sense of humor, Sally had been able to handle any predicament. She had assisted the midwife at Nicole’s birth and had taken care of Lily as tenderly as a mother.
“Sally, I want my baby,” Lily whispered. “If only you were here, you’d help me figure out what to do. The money’s all gone. I have no one. I’m becoming desperate. What am I going to do? What?”
She remembered going to Sally and confessing in a storm of misery and shame that she had taken a lover, and from that one night of illicit passion a child had been conceived. At the time she had thought that was the worst that could happen to her. Sally had comforted her with common sense. “Have you considered giving the babe away?” Sally had asked. “Paying someone else to rear it?”
“No, I wouldn’t do that,” Lily had replied tearfully. “The baby is innocent. He—or she—doesn’t deserve to pay for my sins.”
“Then if you plan to keep the child, we’ll live quietly together in Italy,” Sally’s eyes had been bright with anticipation. “We’ll be a family.”
“But I couldn’t ask that of you—”
“You didn’t. I offered. Look at me, Lily. I’m a rich old woman who can do as she pleases. I have enough money to suit our needs. We
won’t give a fig for the rest of the world and its hypocrisy.”
To Lily’s sorrow, Sally had died soon after the baby was born. Lily had missed her, but she had found solace in her baby daughter. Nicole was the center of her world, filing every day with love and wonder. As long as she had Nicole, everything was all right.
Lily felt tears seep from her eyes, the pillow absorbing the hot moisture. The ache in her head spread to her throat as she began to cry silently. She had never broken down in front of anyone, not even Derek. Something about Derek wouldn’t allow her to be vulnerable. Derek had seen too much suffering in his lifetime. If he once might have been moved to sympathy by a woman’s tears, that ability had left him long ago. Miserably Lily wondered who was with Nicole. And who, if anyone, comforted her when she cried.
Alex stirred and groaned in his sleep, caught in the grip of a tormenting dream. Somehow he knew it wasn’t really happening, but he couldn’t wake up. He sank deeper into a world of mist and shadow and movement. Lily was there. Her mocking laugh echoed all around him. Her gleaming brown eyes stared into his. With a smile of wicked amusement, she held his gaze as she lowered her mouth to his shoulder and lightly bit at his skin. He snarled and tried to push her away, but suddenly her naked body was entwined with his. His mind swam with the sensation of her silky limbs sliding over him. “Show me what you want, Alex,” she whispered with a knowing smile.
“Get away from me,” he said hoarsely, but she didn’t listen, only laughed softly, and then he grasped her head in his hands and pushed it down to where he wanted her mouth…there…
Alex awoke with a violent start, breathing in rough, unsteady gasps. He dragged his arm over his forehead. The roots of his hair were damp with sweat. His body was aching with arousal. Swearing in a guttural tone of frustration, he took a pillow, strangled and twisted it and threw it across the room. He wanted a woman. He’d never been so desperate. Trying to ignore his hammering pulse, Alex cast his mind back to when he’d last slept with a woman. Not since before his betrothal to Penelope. He felt he owed her his fidelity. He’d thought a few months of celibacy wouldn’t kill him. Idiot, he told himself savagely. Idiot.
He had to do something. He could go to Penelope’s room right now. She wouldn’t like it. She would protest and cry, but Alex knew he could bend her to his will. He could bully her into allowing him into her bed. After all, they would be married in a matter of weeks.
The idea made sense. At least, it did to a man who was dying of frustration. But the thought of making love to Penelope…
His mind recoiled from the notion.
It would bring him some measure of relief, of course.
No. That wasn’t what he wanted. She wasn’t what he wanted.
What the hell is wrong with you? Alex asked himself savagely, and leapt from his bed. He yanked the window hangings aside to allow the gleam of moonlight in the room. Striding to the washbasin set on a tripod stand, he poured some cool water and splashed it on his face. His thoughts had been muddled for days, ever since he’d met Lily. If only he could ease the fire inside him. If only he could think clearly.
He needed a drink. Cognac. No, some of the good Highland whiskey his father had always stocked, distinctively pale, tasting of smoke and heather. He wanted something that would set his throat on fire, burn out the thoughts that were torturing him. Pulling on a quilted blue robe, Alex strode from the bedroom. He went through the columned hall that connected the east wing to the grand central staircase.
His steps slowed as he heard the betraying creak of one of the steps. He stopped and tilted his head, waiting in the darkness. Creak. There it was again. Someone was descending the stairs. He knew exactly who it was.
A grim smile crossed his face. Now was his opportunity to catch Lily in a clandestine meeting with one of the servants. He would use the excuse to throw her out of the house. With Lily gone, things would return to the way they had been before.
Stealthily Alex made his way to the side of the balustraded corridor. He caught a glimpse of Lily below in the domed central hall. The hem of her thin white nightgown trailed gently behind her as she drifted across the marble floor. She was going to meet a lover. Gracefully she wandered in what seemed to be a mood of dreamy anticipation. Alex was conscious of a bitter sensation seeping through him like poison. He tried to identify the feeling, but its precise nature was obscured in a mixture of anger and confusion. The thought of what Lily was about to do with another man made him want to punish her.
Alex went to the staircase and froze.
What was he doing? The earl of Raiford, renowned for his moderate, sensible ways, sneaking around his own house in the dark. Nearly wild with jealousy—yes, jealousy—over the antics of a little madcap and her midnight trysts.
How Caroline would have laughed.
To hell with Caroline. To hell with everything. He was going to stop Lily. He’d be damned if she was going to have her pleasure tonight. Purposefully he descended the stairs, and fumbled at the small porcelain and wood table in the entrance hall, where a lamp was always kept. Lighting the lamp, he turned it to a soft glow. He ventured in the direction Lily had gone, toward the ground-floor kitchen. As he passed the library, the sound of whispers floated through the door, which had been left ajar. Alex’s brows lowered in fury as he heard Lily murmuring something that sounded like “Nick…Nick…”
Alex flung the library door open wide. “What’s going on?” His gaze swept the room. All he could see was Lily’s small form curled in a chair. She had wrapped her arms around herself. “Miss Lawson?” He walked closer. The lamplight gleamed in Lily’s eyes and cast a golden shimmer on her skin, and revealed the shadows of her body beneath the gown. She was twitching and rocking, her lips forming silent words. There were furrows in her forehead, lines that seemed to have been carved from intense misery.
A sneer pulled at the corner of Alex’s mouth. She must have realized he was following her. “You little fraud,” he muttered. “This playacting is beneath even you.”
She pretended not to hear him. Her eyes were half-closed, as if she were caught in a mysterious trance.
“That’s enough,” Alex said, and set the lamp on a nearby table. With rising annoyance he realized that she intended to ignore him until he left her. “I’ll drag you out of here if necessary, Miss Lawson. Is that what you’re hoping for? A scene?” As she refused to even look at him, his endurance snapped. He seized her narrow shoulders, giving her a hard shake. “I said that’s enough—”
There was an explosion of movement that astonished Alex. Lily gave an animal cry and struck out blindly, springing from the chair. She stumbled back against the table and nearly overturned the lamp. In a quick reflex Alex kept her from falling as he reached out and grabbed her. Even then her panic didn’t cease. Alex jerked his head back to avoid the frantic swipe of fingers curled into claws. Although she was a small woman, her wild struggles were difficult to contain. Somehow he managed to crowd her against him, crushing her flailing arms between them. She flinched and went rigid, breathing in rapid pants. Alex slid his fingers through her thick curls and forced her head against his shoulder. He muttered a string of curses and tried to soothe her. “Christ. Lily, it’s all right. Lily. Relax…relax.”
The heat of his breath sank through her hair to her scalp. He kept his hold on her tight enough that only the slightest movement was possible. She was too disoriented to speak coherently. He tucked her head under his chin and began to rock her gently. “It’s me,” he murmured. “It’s Alex. Everything’s all right. Easy.”
Lily regained herself slowly, as if she were waking from a dream. The first thing she became aware of was being held in an inexorable grip. Her cheek and chin were pressed against the opening of a quilted robe, where the brush of wiry hair tickled her skin. A pleasant, masculine scent stirred her memory. It was Raiford, holding her in his arms. Her breath caught in amazement.
His hand moved in a slow stroke on her back. She wasn’t used to being t
ouched so familiarly, not by anyone. Her first instinct was to wrench away from him. But the circling motion was gentle, softening the brittle tension of her body.
Alex felt the shift of Lily’s weight as she accepted his support. She was light and lithe against him, her small frame trembling with aftershocks. There was a tugging, twisting sensation inside him, alarming in its sweetness. The pronounced silence of the room seemed to enclose them.
“Raiford?”
“Easy. You’re not steady yet.”
“Wh-what happened?” she croaked.
“I forgot the old maxim,” he said dryly. “Something about waking a sleepwalker.”
So he had found out. Oh God, what would happen now? She must have betrayed her fear, for he began to rub her back again, as if she were an overwrought child. “This is what happened the other nights, isn’t it?” His palm moved down the delicate ridge of her spine. “You should have told me.”
“And give you the idea to put me in some as-asylum?” she replied shakily, making a move to push herself away.
“Be still. You’ve had a shock.”
She had never heard his voice so gentle…it didn’t seem to be his voice at all. Lily blinked in confusion. She had never been held like this before. Giuseppe, with all his impetuous passion, hadn’t even held her this long during their love-making. She felt uneasy, helpless. The situation was beyond her imagination. Lord Raiford, clad in a robe, no starch, buttons, or cravats anywhere in sight. The chest under her head was like the timbered side of a frigate ship, while his muscled legs were impossibly hard against hers. The beat of his heart resonated in her ear. What would it feel like to be so invincible? He must not be afraid of anyone.
“Do you want a drink?” Alex asked quietly. He had to let go of her. Either that or sink to the floor with her. He was hovering on the brink of disaster.
She nodded against his chest. “Brandy.” Somehow she mustered the strength to pull away from him. She lowered herself into a leather armchair, while Alex went to the corner cupboard where the liquor was kept. He poured a small amount of cognac into a glass. In the light of the lamp, his hair shone with the gold luster of a doubloon. As she watched him, Lily bit at her lower lip. So far she had known him as a arrogant, judgmental figure, the last man in the world she would accept help from. But for one astonishing moment she had felt all his strength surround her. She had felt safe and protected.
