She grinned to herself as she flung her sister’s door open. Nora screeched and jumped off her bed, but Lilias tackled her and they both fell onto the bed in a fit of giggles. “Give me my letter!” Lilias demanded, laughing.
“What shall I get in return?” Nora asked through bursts of her own laughter.
“What do you want?” Lilias made a grab for the note.
“Your cloak,” Nora said abruptly.
Lilias stilled. She knew the one Nora was talking about without having to ask. Papa had purchased her a fur-lined cloak before he’d died. It had been the last gift he’d ever given her. After he’d gambled away so much money, presents had been scarce. He’d promised Nora one, too, but that had not come to fruition. Lilias had been feeling rather guilty now that the weather was so cold about having the cloak when her sister did not, so she had not worn it yet, which also made her feel bad since it had been a gift from her father. This was the perfect solution.
“All right,” she said.
“Truly?” Nora’s blue eyes popped wide.
Lilias smiled and held out her hand for the letter. “Truly, dearest. Just be certain to take good care of it.”
“Agreed,” Nora said and relinquished the letter.
Lilias hugged her sister before scrambling off her bed and returning to her own room to read the note.
Dearest Lilias,
My father has business in London that he requires me to attend to with him. I’ll return in a sennight. Don’t teach Nash about the constellations without me tonight. Oh, and let him know where I am. Also, I want to learn to dance. Will you teach me? Father says I’ll need this skill in London eventually.
Your friend,
Owen
With a grin, Lilias folded the letter, put it in her drawer, and tucked the one she’d written to Nash beside it. She tapped her fingernails against the glossy dark wood of her writing desk. Tonight, she’d be alone with Nash. Finally. And if he showed even an inkling that he felt for her as she’d come to feel for him, that was all the hope she needed.
Nash trod through the moonlit woods toward the bridge where he was to meet Lilias and Owen without really noticing anything around him. His thoughts were on Lilias. In fact, she’d been all he could think about since he’d first hoisted her up into the tree the night he’d started teaching Owen to swim. It seemed as if the harder he tried not to think about her, the more he did.
And he shouldn’t allow it. It wasn’t even because of Owen. Nash had completely misjudged Owen’s feelings toward her. His friend had told him a month ago, after a swim one afternoon when it was just the two of them, that he was going to find the perfect wife one day—a woman who respected the rules of Society and behaved with proper decorum. That certainly was not Lilias. Owen also had told Nash that his mother had scandalously run off with her horse trainer, so Nash understood what drove Owen to want propriety in a wife. Nash wasn’t glad it had happened to Owen, but he couldn’t ignore the relief he had felt knowing that Lilias was not who Owen was looking for. Owen had become his friend, but Lilias had become more than that. Exactly what, he wasn’t quite sure. He’d been trying to fight it. Whatever it was, he knew he didn’t deserve it, but it was impossible to fight the happiness she inspired.
He strode along the path thinking of her, shoving branches out of his way. When he glanced toward the bridge, he saw her. She stood in the moonlight, her hair glistening in the rays, her head tilted back, presumably looking at the stars. He looked around for Owen, and when he didn’t see him, Nash picked up his pace in anticipation of a few moments alone with Lilias. When he was very close, her dogs—who were surrounding her—started barking.
“You brought the dogs?” he called.
Normally, she didn’t.
She turned toward him, white teeth flashing in the dark as she grinned. “I left them outside in anticipation of coming tonight. I didn’t want to be alone while I waited for you.” Before he could ask about that, she said, “Hush,” to the dogs, who immediately quieted. She made a shivery sound on the heels of that statement.
He frowned, coming to stand beside her on the bridge. He touched a hand to her threadbare cloak. “Is this all you wore out here tonight?”
She shrugged. “It’s all I have. I had a fur-lined cloak, but my sister didn’t, and she’s been taking long walks out of doors lately, so…”
“So you gave her your cloak?” he asked, taking off his overcoat and settling it on her shoulders.
“You don’t have to give me your coat,” she protested, but he noticed the way she tugged the lapels together. It made him feel good to ensure she was taken care of.
“I know,” he replied, his voice rough with the emotions he was repressing—the ones that scared him. “Where’s Owen?”
“He’s in London. He sent me a note this morning and said to tell you he’ll be back in a sennight. He also asked me not to teach you about the constellations without him.”
“Oh,” Nash said. They were alone, after all. “I—” He should leave, but he couldn’t make himself say so. It was the right thing to do, yet the words would not come.
He was aware of everything about her all at once. She smelled like a lily. Did she know that? Her head came precisely to his shoulder. She hummed when it was quiet, just as she was now doing. It made him think silence scared her.
Yes, he should most definitely leave. She didn’t need to be tangled up with him, and yet, when he turned toward her and she, too, was facing him, it was as if there were an invisible string pulling them together.
“Why do you hum when it’s quiet?” he asked.
A beat of silence passed. Then two. Then three. He should not have asked. “I’m sorry.”
“No.” She swallowed. “I hum to stay happy.”
“You’d be sad if you weren’t humming?”
She shrugged. “Possibly. Things have been gloomy since my father died. Actually, even before then.” Another beat passed. “My house used to be loud, cheery. Now it’s so very quiet. My mother insists upon it. So when I’m not there, I sometimes hum.” She paused again. “If I tell you some secrets, will you keep them?”
“Yes.” The word flew out of his mouth without thought, and in that moment, he realized that he’d die before ever willingly betraying her. She had found a way into his darkness, and she might be the only thing that could penetrate it with her light. He wanted that so much.
“My father gambled away almost all his money before he died. We are basically penniless. We still live in our home by the grace of my uncle.”
The news made him want to throttle her dead father for leaving her so vulnerable. “I’m sorry,” he said, trying to keep his feelings from permeating into his tone.
“Don’t be. Money doesn’t make happiness.”
“I know that to be true. My family’s miserable.”
“And wealthy,” she said, her delicate hand coming to rest upon his arm, something no perfectly proper girl would ever do. No, Lilias Honeyfield would never be the sort of girl to follow all the rules, and Nash had never been so glad about anything in his life.
All of a sudden, he knew what he wanted. He wanted to protect her from those in Society who would look down upon her for her lack of conformity. He wanted to protect her as he’d failed to protect his brother. Someday, he could offer that to her with his hand. His family was wealthy, titled, and had land. His father was a duke. Nash would one day be a duke. He could offer her every protection, and she could give him light.
Internally, he shook himself. Who was he to think such things? He had no right after what he’d done, and yet—
“Nash, what happened with your brother?”
It was the one question he always dreaded. Nash tried to pull his arm away from her, but she grasped him.
“I told you already,” he said. “I killed him with my selfishness.”
“Tell me exactly.”
He sighed. “My brother was born sickly. He looked up to me, and I was supposed to prot
ect him, watch over him. And I did. But no matter how much I gave, my parents wanted me to give more. I was to let my brother win at anything I did with him, and I followed that order. Always.” Nash paused and swiped his hand over his face. “I was to stop speaking when he spoke, and I did. I was to give him things of mine that he wanted, from toys as children to pistols as we got older, and I did. I wanted to go on a grand tour with my uncle, and they said no since my brother couldn’t go because of his health. And one day, my brother asked me for one more thing, and I did not grant the favor he requested.” He paused again and looked to the ground as shame rolled over him. “I chose to be selfish, and that selfishness killed him.”
“What did he ask for?” she asked.
“It doesn’t matter.” The guilt roared in his ears.
But it did. Still, he didn’t want to see the look on her face if she knew. It would be the same look his parents had given him when he’d told them that his brother had asked him to ignore the tutor’s daughter, who had been flirting with him, because Thomas liked her and wanted a chance with her, but Nash had ignored his brother’s request. Helen had flirted with him, and he’d encouraged her selfishly. The worst part was that Nash had not even truly liked her. He’d simply wanted to think of himself first for once.
“We can all be selfish sometimes, Nash. It’s a human quality.”
“I was supposed to be his protector,” Nash replied, refusing to let her grant him forgiveness when she didn’t even know the whole truth. “My brother was furious with me when he realized what I was doing. He charged me on the ice, the ice cracked beneath him, and he fell through.” Nash swallowed the knot in his throat and forced himself to look up. “I couldn’t save him.”
The tears rolling down Lilias’s cheeks shocked him. “I couldn’t save my father, either,” she said. “I tried.”
Nash gently wiped away her tears, then took one of her hands in his, glad she was not going to press him for all the details. “Tell me.”
“He was different,” she said, sniffling. “A dreamer. A writer. But his parents forbade him from pursuing ‘such folly.’ I think that’s why he encouraged us, me and my sister, to do as we wished. I think that’s why he did not place the usual boundaries upon us that most girls of the ton are required to live and die by. Mother despised it.” Lilias let out a laugh at that, partly bitter, partly understanding. “He sent a story to a publisher once.” She bit her lip, then spoke again. “I’m not supposed to know that, but I do.”
He didn’t ask how. She was clever, this girl. He could picture her with her ear to some door. “My mother told him not to do it. She was fearful, I think, of what would happen if his story got accepted.”
Nash nodded, understanding. It was odd to him how people in their set frowned upon work, especially if one got paid.
“It didn’t get accepted,” Lilias continued, “and he started drinking and gambling. And then—” She waved a hand in the air, and he could feel her helpless despair. “He simply slumped into his plate one night and was dead.”
She was crying softly now, and he put his arms around her and drew her close. Her head came under his chin, and her soft body pressed along the length of his. A tremor of awareness went through him unlike anything he’d ever known. He wanted to take the sadness from her.
“I tried,” Lilias continued, her voice muffled. She turned her head, pressed her cheek to his chest, and slipped her arms around his waist. He felt her fingers lock behind his back. “I tried to save him, but I couldn’t. And so now—” she paused and tilted her head back to look at him “—I try to save other things.”
Owen. Her dogs. Nash. Did he deserve to be saved? He didn’t think so, but she did because she was a dreamer like her father. She was rare and precious, and she needed someone far better than he was, and yet he found himself leaning toward her, drawn to her goodness, drawn to every single thing about her, from her smile, to her dimples, to the way her hair always looked in lovely, wild disarray, to how she didn’t follow a single dictate that ladies of her upbringing were supposed to. He pressed his forehead to hers, telling himself that if she drew back, he would understand. But she didn’t, and he was filled with hope. Her breath mingled with his, sweet and enticing. He wanted to kiss her. He’d never wanted anything more in his life.
Bringing his hands to her back, he brushed his lips to hers ever so gently to give her time to pull away, to tell him to stop. When she moaned, searing need rushed through him, but he reined it in. He didn’t want to frighten her. He slid his hand up the perfect curve of her spine until his right hand held the slender column of her neck, and his left hand came to her lips. He ran his thumb over her mouth, and when she moaned again, he traced the soft fullness of her lips with his tongue. He’d never felt anything so good in his life.
He had to feel her heat, taste her goodness. He parted her lips with his tongue, half expecting her to stop him, but she tugged him closer, and as his own need mounted, she kissed him with a hunger and a sweetness that made him feel completely alive and as if redemption was possible with her.
“Lilias,” he said, breaking the kiss, wanting to tell her the things in his head. “God, Lilias. You make me feel—”
“Lilias! Nash!” Owen burst through the trees before Nash could react. Owen came to an abrupt stop, his jaw dropping and silence descending. As Lilias and Nash scrambled apart, Owen’s gaze stayed on Nash, narrowing.
“What are you doing here?” Lilias exclaimed.
“Shall I leave?” he asked, his tone sharp.
“Don’t be ridiculous!” Lilias burst out, her voice sounding a tad high to Nash. “I, well, I was sad about my father, and Nash was simply—Well, he was simply—”
“Comforting her,” Nash supplied, knowing there was nothing else to be said. They’d had their arms entwined about each other, after all, their faces a hairsbreadth apart.
Owen moved toward Lilias and past Nash, scowling at him. A slight suspicion arose that Nash didn’t even want to acknowledge.
“Lilias, why didn’t you tell me you were sad? I’m here for you,” Owen said, slipping his arm around Lilias’s shoulder.
The urge to throw Owen’s arm off her astonished Nash with its intensity. And when Lilias dipped under Owen’s arm and away, Nash could not suppress the gladness.
“I need to go home,” Lilias murmured. “I, well, I don’t feel well.”
“I’ll walk you,” Nash and Owen offered at the same time.
She shook her head, and Nash said, “We’ll both walk you.”
“No, I’ll see you two tomorrow.” She turned, took a few steps away from them, then turned back. “Owen, what happened to your trip to London?”
“My father took ill. He’s abed, but I had to wait to be certain he was going to stay there before slipping away.”
Lilias nodded. “I see. So you won’t be going to Town anytime soon?”
Nash glanced at her, hearing an odd hitch in her voice. Hopefulness? Maybe he was only hearing what he wanted to hear.
Owen shook his head. “I doubt it. He wrote his solicitor to conclude the business on his behalf.”
“I see.” Nash could not mistake the disappointment he heard in her voice, and when Owen tensed, Nash did, as well, and his niggling suspicion grew tenfold.
“Tomorrow, then,” she said, whistling for her dogs to follow, and then she left Owen and Nash as if there were something chasing her.
When she was totally out of sight, Owen turned to Nash, his irritated expression apparent, even in the moonlit night. “Race me.”
Nash frowned. “What?”
“Race me,” Owen repeated, his voice hard.
“What are we racing for?” Nash asked, that suspicion now nearly choking him.
“The right to court Lilias.”
And there it was. A swift punch of unwanted truth to his gut. For one moment, he was robbed of the ability to speak, but then he finally found his voice. “I thought you said you wanted a wife who would behave pro
perly and never go against Society rules.”
“Of course I said that,” Owen growled. “I didn’t want you to know I liked Lilias, but I do. And you do, too.”
He did. God, he did, but it was as if he were standing on that ice again and Thomas was before him. He could put Owen’s desires above his own as he had failed to do for Thomas. There wasn’t ice under Nash’s feet now, simply solid ground, but he was going under anyway, drowning fast. “What you saw was two friends, nothing more.” The surface was gone, as was his hope.
“I think she likes you,” Owen said, his voice glum. And before Nash could respond, Owen added, “I know about your brother. My father heard in Town the gossip of what occurred.”
All the air left Nash’s lungs.
“Tomorrow, I’ll challenge you to a race, Nash,” Owen said. “Who knows, perhaps I’ll win and Lilias will finally see me.”
Nash swallowed the desire to declare that Lilias was his. She was not. He did not deserve her. “I’m certain you’ll win,” Nash replied, meaning it. He would not race his hardest.
Owen nodded and left Nash standing in the woods alone.
Nash couldn’t say how long he remained there, but the sun came up eventually, and when he made his way home, he vowed to himself not to be the thing that drove Lilias and Owen apart, no matter what the cost to himself.
The next morning, Lilias hurried to meet Nash and Owen for their morning ride. She’d overslept because she’d had such trouble getting to sleep the night before. Every time she had closed her eyes, she would recall every detail of Nash kissing her. She hated to wish Owen away, but wish him to London, she did. Yet, when she came to the clearing where they always started their ride, he was there, and she felt guilty for the disappointment that filled her.
She glanced around the clearing, not seeing Nash, and then he came over the hill and jumped over a fallen tree that, to her, looked nearly impossible to clear. Nash reached Owen at the same time she did.
“You ride dangerously,” Lilias chastised Nash, though she was secretly amazed.
Lady Lilias and the Devil in Plaid (Scottish Scoundrels: Ensnared Hearts Book 2) Page 4
