“Wait!” the girl called. “Where are you going?”
Nash didn’t pause. He’d only be here a few months before he was off to Oxford, and he neither wanted nor needed friends. And they certainly did not need to become close to the likes of him. He was a bad seed. He’d caused his brother’s death. No one had said those exact words aloud, but his parents’ silence had told him everything.
“Did you hear me?” she asked, closer now. “What’s your name? Perhaps you’d like—”
“I heard you,” he growled. “And it’s Nash.” He didn’t say his title in case either of them had heard about his brother. Nash hated the pity and the curiosity that always surfaced when someone realized he was the Marquess of Chastain, the son of the Duke of Greybourne, older brother to Thomas, now one year dead.
Tragic. They’d shake their heads. So tragic that Thomas fell through the ice. That he was born sickly. That you couldn’t save him. How did the fall happen?
The question was inevitable, as was the lying.
Fingers brushed his shoulder and then a hand grasped his arm. He stopped and whirled around. He didn’t like to be touched. Not anymore. He shot her a withering glare, even as her large blue eyes latched on to his. He saw the moment she realized he didn’t care for her hand on his arm. Her lips parted, and she released him. No color of embarrassment stained her cheeks, though. Instead, to his surprise, the girl gave him a determined look.
“I was going to say that perhaps you’d like to spend the day with us. I’m Lilias Honeyfield, and this is Owen—” The boy cleared his throat, and Lilias rolled her eyes. “I mean, this is the Earl of Blackwood and the future Marquess of Craven.” Nash could tell by her tone that she found the need to announce Owen’s title ridiculous.
He liked her attitude toward titles very much, and he was shocked by how much appeal her offer held. They didn’t know him, his secret, or what he’d done. They didn’t know that he did not deserve to be happy. They didn’t know that once, not so long ago, he’d selfishly decided he was tired of looking out for his sickly brother. Tired of trying to be perfect as his parents demanded and not cause them a moment’s worry because they already had so much of that with Thomas. Tired of going unnoticed, except to be criticized.
He hadn’t realized how lonely he was until that very moment, and it was all her fault.
“You need to go home,” he snapped at the girl. “You’ll freeze to death out here in those wet clothes, and I want no part of it. Not that I care,” he added. Caring about someone brought responsibility, and if you failed, if you slipped just once… Well, they might just end up dead.
“Oh yes,” she said with an all-too-knowing smirk. “I could tell by your jumping in the water to save me that you are exactly the sort of person who cares for no one but himself.”
“I’m leaving,” he replied, not liking the way the girl looked at him as if she knew him better than he knew himself.
Not waiting for her response, he swiveled on his heel and crunched his way across the carpet of gold, red, and brown leaves to the bridge where his overcoat, shirt, and cravat lay. He bent over, scooped them up, and twisted around, nearly stumbling backward to find the girl, Lilias, standing there, hands on hips, determined expression still firmly in place, and her head tilted back to spear him with the look of a hunter eyeing its prey. Behind her, Owen stood like an eager pup.
“You need a friend,” she replied, matter-of-fact.
Owen cleared his throat, and Lilias’s gaze darted over Nash’s shoulder for a breath, an apologetic smile coming to her face. Then she settled those eyes—more the color of a stormy sky than a clear summer one—on him once more.
“You actually need two friends,” she amended.
“No,” he said, brushing by her. “I don’t.”
“You do,” she objected, having the cheekiness to sound exasperated with him.
Owen gave Nash a sympathetic look as Nash started past him along the trail back to his house. Nash got no more than four steps when Owen said, “You might as well not fight it. Lilias will make you our friend one way or another. She’s a fixer of broken things.”
Nash stiffened at that revelation but did not slow his pace toward his home. “I’m not a thing,” he tossed over his shoulder as he shoved low-hanging branches out of his way. “And you don’t know me.”
He lengthened his stride so the woods would swallow him up and make the boy and girl disappear. He chanced a look behind him and saw only trees. But then she bellowed, “I don’t need to know you to see you’re broken. We’ll be round tomorrow, Nash—to call for you.”
He laughed at that ridiculous statement as he strode toward home. They couldn’t come to call on him tomorrow. For one thing, they did not know where he lived. For another, he was certain the girl’s mother would not let her go galloping about calling on strangers who were almost men. He was seven and ten summers, after all. It wasn’t proper.
That he’d even considered propriety made him laugh again. It felt strange and good, and that second feeling immediately brought the guilt and silenced the mirth.
He considered Lilias as he made for home, recollecting his hand inadvertently brushing against a swell of soft flesh on her chest. He pictured her face, large blue eyes streaked with gray, high cheekbones, full lips with a ready smile, and long hair that was light like a moonbeam, though he’d only seen a flash of it before she’d fallen into the water. Her wet gown had been molded to her, and when he thought on that and the outline of her curves, he realized the girl was not as young as he’d assigned her to be. So what the devil was she doing alone in the woods with a young earl crossing over a slippery log?
Proper girls didn’t do that. Then again, a proper girl didn’t kiss a boy as Helen had kissed him, and a good brother did not return the kiss of the tutor’s daughter when he knew good and well his younger brother, the one he was supposed to protect, was enamored of the girl. But Nash had selfishly done just that. He’d wanted to act on his own desires for once instead of his obligations as a future duke and as Thomas’s older brother. And the result had been Thomas’s death.
It could not be undone. The withdrawal of his parents’ affection could not be undone, either. It was strange that losing the little bit of love they had shown him had been such a blow. He could not blame them. His action had been the worst sort of selfishness, and he did not deserve to be happy. And friends equaled happiness, so he wanted none. It was a good thing Lilias Honeyfield did not know where he lived. He may not want her as a friend, but he didn’t want to hurt her, either. He wasn’t worried about the boy, Owen, coming to look for him. It had taken one look at his besotted face for Nash to know Owen would do whatever Lilias told him, as well as nothing she did not tell him, to do.
Four nights after meeting Lilias and Owen, the sound of pebbles being thrown against his window ripped Nash from his sleep. He stared openmouthed out his bedchamber window and down into the moonlit garden where Lilias Honeyfield—or more properly, Lady Lilias—and Owen were standing. He’d gained that little bit of information about her when Nash had heard her speaking to the butler the first time she and Owen had appeared at his door. She’d informed Sterns that Lady Lilias and the Earl of Blackwood were there to call upon Nash, and Owen had added that Lilias was the daughter of Lady Barrowe and the late Earl of Barrowe, at which Lilias had shushed her friend. Of course, Nash declined to see them that day, as well as the three other times they had come.
But here she was—again—the persistent chit.
“Nash!” Lilias whispered furiously up at him, somehow managing to convey the tone of a bellow without actually yelling.
She was a slip of a thing with a halo of moonbeams for hair and what appeared to be a gathering of dogs surrounding her, and damn, if he could not look away. Lilias Honeyfield certainly was not a quitter. She’d somehow managed to figure out where he lived in less than a day, and he had no doubt that Owen had only come along at her demand. Her behavior was unheard of in polite Societ
y, but she didn’t seem to care.
He was about to close the window on the pair, but then he thought about how it was night, and dark, and she was a slight girl, and Owen was not exactly the sort of fellow who could protect a girl if ruffians should come upon the two of them. Of course, the dogs could, if they listened to commands, and if they weren’t shot by the ruffians first. Though, it seemed doubtful that ruffians would be about in the Cotswolds. Still, he should not risk her safety. That would be unwise, and future dukes had to make wise decisions always. He’d colossally failed in that endeavor thus far in his life. Perhaps he was overlooking a chance to reset his course.
Nash scowled down at the pair. “You’re making it so I have to come below and speak with you,” he whisper-shouted.
“Indeed I am,” Lilias said, laughter in her tone.
Nash drummed his fingers on his window. The girl was pesky and smug and made him unexplainably want to laugh.
“If you don’t come down here this instant, I’ll command my hounds to bark.”
He couldn’t tell if she was threatening him or teasing him, but feeling more lighthearted than he had in a long time, he shot back, “You wouldn’t.”
“She would,” Owen confirmed, a blob in the darkness. “And her hounds will listen because she fixed them just like she wants to fix you. They are loyal to the death.”
Devil take it, but Nash’s curiosity lit up like a bonfire. “Did she fix you, too?” he asked Owen, suddenly unreasonably, ridiculously hopeful that this girl he did not know could make him feel something other than self-loathing.
“No,” Owen promptly answered, “but she’s working on it. She says tonight is the night I’ll discover my inner courage. She’s going to teach me to swim.”
And just like that, Nash saw an unexpected path to redemption. Owen clearly had a tendre for Lilias. It dripped from every word he spoke. If Nash could help Owen get the girl, perhaps he wouldn’t hate himself anymore. He’d failed Thomas, but he could help this boy. Nash’s nostrils flared at the possibility.
Lilias had absolutely known she’d be able to breach the walls Nash had erected around himself. Well, maybe she had not known for certain, she relented as she stood shivering beside him on the bank near the water. She did not really know him yet, after all. But she wanted to. She’d practically been fixated on him since meeting him in the woods four nights prior.
She blamed the obsession on two things. First was her love of Gothic romance novels. Nash was mysterious, just like a Gothic hero, and absurdly handsome, and she could admit to herself that she’d fantasized once or twice or a thousand times about being the heroine in a book with a gentleman who looked like Nash.
Second, and she’d only confessed this to Owen in a weak moment and sworn him to secrecy after she’d appallingly blabbed her secret, she did have a need to try to fix broken animals and people. The compulsion had been with her a long time, ever since her father had started drinking after he’d gambled a great deal of his money away. If her memory served her, she’d been nine at the time. She’d tried to help him by asking for nothing, for trying to make things last, but she’d not been able to fix his problems in the end. He drank himself to death, or at least that’s what she’d heard the doctor say from her eavesdropping position crouched at the other side of her parents’ closed bedchamber door.
“Why do you wear a kilt? Are you Scottish?” she asked as they stood on the riverbank.
“I’m half-Scot on my mother’s side, and I wear it to annoy my mother. She thinks her family wild barbarians.”
Lilias had done things to annoy her mother in an attempt simply to get her attention after her father had died, but it had not been successful. Her mother was too sad to be annoyed. “Does it work?” she asked.
“Not so far. She hasn’t said a word. It’s as if she doesn’t even notice.”
“I’m sorry,” Lilias said, her chest squeezing for him. Her mother seemed to at least notice when Lilias was doing something irritating; she just didn’t care.
Nash didn’t respond. One of his boots clopped against the dirt, followed immediately by the other. Her awareness of him, the broad chest that strained against his white shirt, and the long bare legs she could see because he was wearing a kilt gave her a thrill that was entirely new to her. She’d read about such reactions women had to men. Her novels were filled with such things, but she supposed she had not truly believed that such tremendous emotion was real.
But heavens! It was like an ocean in her chest when Nash chucked off his overcoat and dropped it to the grass. Owen mimicked Nash, and the roiling waters inside her settled. Poor Owen looked like a pup compared to Nash, but she’d never let on so as not to hurt Owen’s feelings. Friends did not do such things to each other. They bolstered each other up; they did not tear each other down.
She stole one last glance at Nash while he had his attention on the water. He had a fine noble nose, strong lips, a square jaw, and chiseled cheekbones. He leaned suddenly toward the water. What was he doing? She glanced to where she thought he was looking. He must have been trying to decide the best place to show Owen how to swim. Moonlight shimmered off the river, and it seemed to glitter off Nash’s skin as he rolled up the sleeves of his shirt and revealed powerful forearms. She wished he’d strip his shirt off, but she knew it was too much to wish for. She also knew she shouldn’t wish for such a thing, but the knowledge didn’t stop the yearning.
Her awareness of him felt electric, the way the air before a storm sometimes felt as if it could prick you. It didn’t matter that he hadn’t spoken more than a sentence since appearing in the garden and telling her in a gruff voice to lead the way. All he had done was greet Owen and tell him that he looked to be the sort of man who would easily pick up swimming. Then he’d patted each of her hounds on the head and told them they were good boys. Those two things confirmed her instinct that Nash wanted friends, despite his words to the contrary, whether he realized it or not.
With all these thoughts in her head, she bent down to remove her slippers, but before she could do so, Nash’s voice washed over her from above. “What are you doing?”
It seemed obvious to her, but in her experience—admittedly only with her father—a man’s powers of observation often needed spectacles. So she brought herself upright and pointed down at her feet. “Taking off my shoes so I can teach Owen to swim.”
“Do you have parents?” Nash’s tone was incredulous.
Before she could answer the question, he launched another at her. “Do you have a chaperone?”
She opened her mouth to respond, but another question came at her like a bullet. “How the devil did you get out of your house unnoticed? You’d be ruined if anyone caught you with us.” He shoved a hand through his wavy hair. “One of us would have to wed you.” His left hand took the place of his right to tangle through his thick, dark hair. She wanted to touch that hair, but thankfully, she refrained. He glanced to Owen. “Had you thought of that?”
Owen answered with a shake of his head as Lilias stood there in mute fascination. Nash scoffed. “Of course not. Are you prepared to wed this girl?” He pointed at her, and she found she still could not speak. Owen apparently did not have the same affliction. He opened his mouth to respond, but Nash cut him off just as he had done to Lilias. “I don’t know how I ended up out here. I—”
“I do believe the woman in my house is my mother,” she interrupted, certain he was about to leave them and she desperately did not want him to go. “She claims to be, anyway. And if she’s not, well, then—” Lilias set her hands on her hips as she imagined one of the heroines in her books would do when giving someone a set down. “That would be shocking. It would inspire loads of questions. Such as, what did she do with my mother?” Lilias tapped a finger against her chin, another Gothic heroine move. “Hmm… I do look like her, so I think it’s safe to say that she is my mother, and we can conclude that I do have a parent,” she finished cheekily.
Nash’s lips parted in
obvious astonishment, and she did not bother to repress her smug smile. Finally, it was she who was rendering him speechless. She offered a quick prayer of thanks to God for her elephant-like memory and then said in a scolding voice, “My father died this past year.” She notched up her eyebrows to let Nash know that now was the appropriate time for him to feel remorse for his unthinking question.
Instead, he turned to Owen and asked, “Is she always like this?”
Owen nodded, his mop of blond hair falling across his right eye.
She would have been incensed by Nash’s question, which implied there was something wrong with her, except his tone held unmistakable admiration. She grinned. Finally, someone who had an appreciation for people who refused to conform! She allowed herself one moment to savor this before she launched back into the task of volleying answers at him just as quickly as he’d shot questions at her.
“I did have a chaperone, Miss Portsmith, but I only had her for a short while. My papa didn’t believe in chaperones. He had a free spirit stuck in an earl’s stuffy life.”
When Nash laughed, she grinned and kept going. “Mama drove Miss Portsmith away with unreasonable demands—Miss Portsmith’s words, not mine—but I must confess, I was not sad to see her depart. I didn’t particularly like having someone watch my every move and want to accompany me everywhere, but I do think my sister, Nora, could use a chaperone. She’s only nine, and she’s quite a handful already.” She took a breath, certain Nash would tell her to be quiet or some such thing, but a smile teased his lips. He appeared to be following her every word. Another tingling thrill went through her. “I get out of my home down a convenient tree.” She pointed to the trousers she’d borrowed from the stable master’s son, Lucas, so she could climb down the tree at her bedchamber window and teach Owen to swim with ease.
“Thus the trousers,” Nash said, seemingly amused. He pressed his lips together in a knowing smirk.
Lady Lilias and the Devil in Plaid (Scottish Scoundrels: Ensnared Hearts Book 2) Page 2
