But that was all Lilias knew of the matter. Lady Constantine refused to speak more on it, and it was a rule in SLARS that they never made members speak of things they did not wish to. “So has Carrington forgiven Kilgore, then?”
Guinevere nodded. “He has, but he won’t say exactly why. I believe Kilgore made some sort of confession to him, but try as I might, Asher will not divulge what it was or explain what happened. His honor can be tedious at times.” Guinevere grinned.
Lilias felt a pang of jealousy that her friend had gotten her hero, but she buried the useless emotion. She was happy for Guinevere. Her friend had certainly endured her fair share of heartache on her road to true love.
“And why have you borrowed the sleeping aunt?”
They both looked at the woman whose head was still down on her forearm. “I borrowed her for you,” Guinevere pronounced.
Lilias frowned as she looked at her friend. “Whatever do you mean?”
“I overheard some harpies commenting on your lack of chaperone, so…”
Lilias bit her lip. “I had hoped no one would take note.”
Mama had hired chaperones now and again since Papa had died, but they never stayed. Lilias had thought it was because of Mama’s moods, but lately she had begun to wonder if there was something else involved.
Guinevere snorted. “A vain hope in this set of people who long for someone to cut down. Have your family finances worsened?”
Lilias didn’t take offense to the question. Guinevere was her dearest friend, and she knew Guinevere was trying to help. The only person she’d ever admitted it to had been Nash. “No more so than we’ve had for years.”
“Oh, Lil,” Guinevere said, squeezing her hand. “Why didn’t you say something?”
Lilias thought about the question for a moment. “I suppose for several reasons. I was a bit embarrassed, and I suppose not acknowledging the problem almost made it feel like it did not exist. That way I could go on in my fantasy.” She really did need to have a frank talk with her mother.
“About Greybourne being your hero?” Guinevere asked, studying her with concern.
“How long have you known?” Lilias asked.
“Ever since you came to Town and we met, and you told me about meeting him and all about the time you spent with him in the Cotswolds. And then when I told you I knew him from Town and you questioned me for days, it was fairly obvious. What was that? Seven years ago?”
Lilias nodded, feeling more the fool. “I must turn my attention to truly finding a match.”
“Is that why you came to the house yesterday and asked to borrow the gown?”
“No.” She quickly told Guinevere about rushing over to Nash’s after Frederica’s announcement in the SLARS meeting the day before that she’d seen Nash in Town. “I was coming to cry on your shoulder, but then, well, it was all so embarrassing to realize I’d pined for him for seven years and he does not care for me at all. I thought he had not come back to the Cotswolds because he was hurting over what had happened to Owen and blamed himself, and it turned out he had come back and seen Owen, just not me. He didn’t care enough to see me. And I have a horrid suspicion he might have been avoiding me because he suspected I had developed a tendre for him.”
“So the gown is to make him see other men desiring you, which will make him regret what he did?”
Lilias bit her lip. “Yes. It’s foolish and vain, I know. It’s rather smarting to have all your pride stripped from you. I’d like a shred back. I daresay he seemed to be pitying me yesterday. I cannot leave it like that. I cannot allow him to think he has the power to devastate me.” Though he did.
Determination and ire set on her friend’s face, and then a mischievous grin turned up the corners of Guinevere’s mouth. “I know just the man to aid you in showing Greybourne he is already utterly forgotten by you.”
“Who?” Lilias asked. “I don’t want to use any man, so it must be one that—”
“Do not vex yourself,” Guinevere interrupted, waving her hand. “Kilgore has just entered the ballroom, and I know of no other lord better suited to playing the besotted suitor with a devilishly wicked flair than Kilgore. I vow to you, Greybourne will not leave this ball tonight with any reason to pity you.”
The words were exactly what Lilias wanted but did not offer the comfort she was hoping for. She would, she realized, trade pride for love if given the chance, but Nash had not given her such a chance, nor even the smallest reason to hope he would. So tonight would be about pride, endings, and moving on. It was not as she wanted it, but it was how it was.
Nash spent the first hour of the ball trying to keep his sights on his sister. It wasn’t until Adaline was finally dancing with a man who looked to be as harmless as a flea that Nash leaned against a column to relax. And of course, in that moment when his guard was down, he saw Lilias.
It was like being struck in the heart by a thousand arrows. The ground beneath him shifted, the air charged with a strange current, and his chest tightened as if a band had been placed around it. He could not look away. He was trapped by years of repressed longing. He was a fly in the web that was sweet, wonderful, untouchable Lilias.
She was a vision of sin with her blond hair flowing uncontrolled, evoking the desire to lay her on his bed and spread her flaxen tresses around her bare shoulders. Couple that with her ruby-red gown, which stirred the throbbing yearning to put his hands on the dips of her waist, and he could not stop his physical reaction to her. He went hard as a stone, and a feral instinct to stride through the crowd and rip her out of the arms of the man who was currently holding her too damn close pulsed to life within him.
Where the devil was Owen?
Nash jerked his focus away from Lilias to scan the annoyingly crowded ballroom. He roamed his gaze quickly over the guests, dismissing them as fast as he took them in. Fop. Lecher. Drunkard. Mother on a hunt for a husband for her daughter. Bored husband with an even more bored wife. Widow searching for a lover.
And Carrington, his longtime friend.
Nash pushed away from the column, and with his attention divided between his sister and Lilias, who luckily were dancing near each other, he strode across the ballroom toward Carrington. Carrington would be able to tell him who was dancing with Lilias and possibly where Owen was. He had not seen him all night, and that had been fine with Nash—until now. He’d assumed Owen was somewhere in the ballroom cherishing Lilias, protecting her as he damn well should be, and that was not something Nash had any wish to watch. He would rather gouge out his eyes than stand by observing the two of them together. He needed time. A couple hundred years ought to suffice.
As he threaded through the crowd, bursts of conversation and muted laughter came to him, but he pushed it all away, considering what to say to Carrington.
Carrington was the one person Nash trusted completely to be discreet, and Nash needed discretion now. Four years of friendship had begun with Carrington observing a man pickpocketing Nash’s coachman in a boisterous inn in Scotland and the same night had ended with Nash taking a bullet in the arm meant for Carrington. He’d been shot by a member of a pickpocketing gang the two of them had fought, and the evening had led to Carrington telling Nash that he owed him a life debt. Nash had never called in the marker, but tonight might be the night.
He could feel interested gazes upon him as he continued through the heated press of bodies. He didn’t care to stop and be cordial. He knew he should, but it was taking all the strength he possessed to stay away from Lilias, so whomever he offended could go to the devil. As he drew closer to Carrington, his friend’s wife appeared by his side and whispered something in his ear.
Damn. Nash could not ask about Lilias without drawing her curiosity. Carrington may wonder why Nash was inquiring about Lilias’s dancing partner, but he would not ask Nash about it. It was an unspoken code among men, but Lilias’s friend would undoubtedly poke about if he inquired about her.
“Greybourne,” Carrington said as Nash
approached. His friend’s tone seemed rather cool, but perhaps it was Nash’s imagination. What he did not imagine was catching Carrington’s wife discreetly elbowing her husband. What was that about?
Carrington cleared his throat as he caught his wife by the elbow and angled his body to cover the gesture, but it was too late. Nash had seen it. “I’m glad ye changed yer mind and came to the ball,” Carrington said. “Ye remember my wife…”
She offered him a polite, albeit seemingly forced, smile. “I told you, darling. I’ve known Greybourne since we were much younger. I’m surprised you are not dancing, Greybourne.”
“Are you?” Nash glanced away for a breath and located his sister dancing very near him. He should have turned back then, but he found himself searching out Lilias once more to ensure she was not being mauled by the man she was dancing with. When he looked back to the duchess, he had the distinct feeling she’d been watching him. “I beg your pardon,” he said. “I was ensuring my sister is still safely on the dance floor.”
“Hmm,” the duchess said, the sound dripping with disbelief. “You appeared to be scanning the ballroom for someone other than your sister, given I noted you looking at her as she is right there.” The duchess tilted her head toward Adaline. He could see why Lilias was friends with Carrington’s wife. She was bold like Lilias.
“I was actually looking for Blackwood,” Nash said smoothly, using Owen’s title instead of his familiar name.
“Oh,” the duchess replied, her mouth parting in a surprised O.
Beside her, Carrington tried to cover a chuckle with a cough without much success.
His wife elbowed him good, and she did not bother to disguise it. “I believe I saw him near the terrace doors caught by Lady Tindall and her daughter, Lady Camille. The woman is in search of a husband for Lady Camille, and I think Blackwood is her prime candidate.”
“Surely the woman must know she’s wasting her time,” Nash muttered, looking toward the terrace doors and finding Owen leading a frail girl away from it and toward the dance floor with an unhappy look on his face. Nash noticed that Owen was walking without his cane, but the uneven gait was there and guilt pricked him.
“Why would she be wasting her time?” the duchess inquired, frowning at him.
Did the woman not know that Owen had been courting Lilias and that Lilias had told Owen she loved him? Nash recalled what Owen had said yesterday about Lilias being so independent, and Owen wanting to give her time to settle into her lot. Was that what the duchess was referring to? Did she know something? Such as Lilias confessing she did not wish to wed Owen? Oh, happy thought. No. Devil take it. That could not be allowed to make Nash happy.
“As far as I know, Blackwood has not offered marriage to anyone,” she said, studying Nash.
Was that it? Was she vexed on Lilias’s behalf because Owen had not made his intentions clear enough to Lilias?
“But the night is young,” the duchess continued, surprising Nash. “Why, at balls such as this, shocking offers are given all the time. Take, for example, my dearest friend Lilias and the man she’s dancing with, the Marquess of Kilgore. He may be a renowned rake, but Lilias is so beautiful, so warm and special, that I wouldn’t be surprised if Kilgore declares himself for her this very night.”
“The devil you say,” Nash bit out before he could stop himself.
He saw the swift look that was exchanged between Carrington and his wife, and Nash supposed he’d offended her somehow with his crude statement. But he didn’t give a damn. All he cared about was Lilias. He found his gaze on her again. The marquess had his hand on Lilias’s back, too low for propriety and for Nash’s liking. What the devil was Owen thinking letting Lilias dance with a rake?
Nash wanted to be involved with aiding the match between Lilias and Owen as much as he wanted to be at this ball. Not. At. All. Penance was bloody trying. If he thought he could live with himself without staying this course, he’d deviate off it now. Owen needed to take the reins and tell Lilias exactly how he felt and that he wished to wed her immediately. The time was now! Before she slipped out of Owen’s grasp. Owen was, as usual, too busy worrying and not doing enough seizing of the moment. He’d have to have a talk with his friend as soon as he was done dancing.
The thought of speaking to Owen about how to secure things with Lilias made him want to toss back several dozen drinks, and as a footman passed by with a tray of champagne, Nash grabbed two flutes and downed them in succession without pausing. And then, because the anger stirring inside him was starting to feel uncontainable, he drummed his fingers on the crystal, imagining it to be the rake’s face.
Behind him, Carrington cleared his throat, and Nash forced his gaze away from Lilias and back to the duke and duchess.
Carrington was staring at him with a speculative look while his wife was smirking as if she’d discovered a titillating secret. Their behavior was both annoying and odd. “Tell me what you know of this man Kilgore,” Nash said, throwing caution to the wind. He might raise the duchess’s curiosity with his questions, but that did not mean he had to explain himself.
“He tried to seduce my wife away from me before we were wed.” Carrington’s face grew dark, but his wife laughed. Nash frowned at her reaction. One would think she would not want to raise her husband’s ire.
“He kissed me twice,” she said. “Once at a ball. Just. Like. This. One.”
“Excuse me,” Nash said, shoving the two champagne flutes he was holding at Carrington.
The moment Carrington grasped them, Nash was turning, locating Owen to drag him over to Lilias and then changing courses when he could not immediately find his friend. Nash had not tortured himself for the last seven years for some rogue to end up with Lilias. And he sure as the devil wasn’t going to stand around watching the rake seduce Lilias while Owen foolishly danced attendance on some marriage-minded mama and her daughter.
He once again made his way through the crowd, but this time, he was stalking. He was practically upon Lilias and Kilgore when it occurred to Nash that he had completely forgotten about the main reason he was here—Adaline.
“Damn and double damn.” But a glance around the ballroom revealed Adaline was now standing with Carrington and his wife. That was rather surprising but very, very convenient. And then the oddest thing happened. The duchess raised her hand and waved at him, as if she’d been expecting him to look for his sister. He didn’t have time to consider it, though, because in that moment, Kilgore danced Lilias right in front of him, and when the man actually raised his hand to Lilias’s cheek and brushed his fingers down the perfect slope, Nash could only see red.
Chapter Four
“Thank you, dear,” Guinevere whispered to her husband.
Asher’s lips came immediately to her ear. “Ye’re lucky I can understand yer signals. For a moment I was not sure what ye wanted me to do.”
Guinevere grinned. “You caught on rather quick.”
A grunt was his answer. The force of it sent his warm breath over her ear and caused gooseflesh to rise on her neck.
“Guin, do ye think it wise to interfere with Greybourne and Lady Lilias?”
Guinevere wanted to answer, but every stealthy woman knew not to talk private affairs in public if someone was too near. To her left, the Duke of Greybourne’s sister stood now chatting with Frederica, whose gaze met Guinevere’s for one brief moment. Understanding, the kind that could only be between sisters who had shared secrets and well-meaning schemes since the day they were old enough to plot, passed between Guinevere and Frederica. As if Frederica had been given some magical signal—because of course she had—she took Lady Adaline by the elbow and exclaimed she must make the acquaintance of their other sister, Vivian. And off they went. One of one thousand problems solved.
Now Guinevere could focus on her husband. “I don’t see how we cannot interfere. I am certain she loves him. I know firsthand that trying to forget the one you truly love is hopeless.”
Guinevere didn’
t need to use Lilias’s name; Asher would know to whom she was referring. They’d discussed Lilias last night after her friend had left with the borrowed gown. But Asher did not know what Lilias had told Guinevere about her plan to forget Greybourne after she regained some of her pride tonight. Nor did her husband know that Guinevere had asked Kilgore to aid her friend.
Asher frowned. He was the only man she knew who could look positively alluring when frowning. “I’ll defer to whatever ye wish, mo chridhe, but can ye explain to me what has occurred between yer concocting this plan to make ‘our friend’ see what he’s lost and just moments ago when ye adeptly manipulated ‘our friend’ onto the dance floor to interrupt the dance?”
Guinevere glanced toward Nash, whose entire attention was focused on Lilias, and the look of yearning and fury on his face stole Guinevere’s breath. And as for Lilias, Guinevere saw her friend’s eyes widen when she noticed Greybourne approaching, and the longing on Guinevere’s face was unmistakable.
“Greybourne occurred,” she whispered in her husband’s ear, breaking her rule so there would be no confusion. “It was in his voice when he spoke of her just now. It was in the way he stared at her as if she were the very thing he needed to survive.”
“I didn’t see or hear that,” her husband said.
Lady Lilias and the Devil in Plaid (Scottish Scoundrels: Ensnared Hearts Book 2) Page 8
