She waved a dismissive hand. “It’s there. We need to draw it out of him. Simply telling her what I saw and heard will not do. She’s quite determined to move on. He hurt her immensely yesterday. Again. I think she’s been waiting for seven years to confront him.”
Asher slipped his arm around Guinevere’s waist and drew her against the length of his body. She wanted this for her best friend—for her to be in the arms of the man she loved, not simply a man she would wed to do her duty. Then Asher scandalously nuzzled Guinevere’s neck, and she let him. She didn’t care if people whispered about them.
“We’ll need to let Kilgore know ye’ve set a rabid hound on his heels,” Asher said in a low voice in her ear, amusement in his tone.
Guinevere snorted. “He deserves it for his obstinance in not admitting that he loves Lady Constantine.” When silence met her statement, she met her husband’s eyes. “Did he admit as much to you?” she demanded for the hundredth time.
“Ye know very well I cannot discuss what’s been told to me in confidence, but I’ll advise ye again not to pursue trying to make those two a match. It’s not going to happen.”
“Because he’s stubborn?” she prodded, but her husband simply smiled at her. She loved his honor, but in this moment, it was a hindrance to progress. Silence again was his answer. “Fine,” she finally said. “Will you at least help me with the other couple in question?”
He arched his eyebrows. “Didn’t I already?”
“Well, yes, but this is likely the beginning. You must tell me if our newly returned friend comes to you and admits any feeling toward a particular lady in a lovely, daring, ruby gown. I fear she’ll go and get herself betrothed before I can uncover the truth.”
“Men do not readily admit feelings, mo chridhe. Especially a man like the one in question.”
“What sort of man would you say he is?” she asked, genuinely curious how one man would view another. She saw Greybourne as cold and withdrawn and, well, of course, utterly handsome. She had known him when his twin had been alive, and Greybourne had not been nearly as withdrawn then, but he always had been serious, as if he carried a heavy burden.
“Darling?” she prodded when Asher did not answer.
A beat passed, and then he said, “Broken.”
She sucked in a sharp breath and kissed her husband right in the middle of their ball. It was unheard of. It was scandalous. Tomorrow they’d be on the tip of gossiping tongues. The besotted, vulgar duke and duchess. She didn’t care. “You’re brilliant!”
Asher grinned, and her heart skipped. “I like to think so.”
“Tomorrow we must find out exactly what it is that broke our friend, though I imagine it has something to do with his brother’s death.”
Her husband’s dark eyebrows dipped together in confusion. “And then ye propose we try to fix him?”
She laughed at that. Her husband was brilliant, except when it came to matters of the heart. “Of course not, darling,” she said, squeezing his very solid waist. “That will be Lilias’s job,” she whispered.
“Will she know it?”
Guinevere rolled her eyes at her husband. She could not help herself. “Of course not, darling. Do keep up.”
Chapter Five
One rule. Nash had made one unbreakable rule for himself in regard to this ball tonight: stay far away from Lilias. And now he’d made an exception to the rule. Of course he damn well had. He was not a bloody idiot. He was a man who made contingency plans. If he had to get near her, say, for instance, Owen approached him with Lilias in tow or he ended up in a group she was in, he would be polite and cool. He would not under any circumstance whatsoever touch her.
And yet…
He’d failed to consider what he’d do if he needed to protect her. He’d not considered to what lengths he might go, rules he might break. But as he approached Lilias and the man who dared to take such a liberty as to brush her cheek and place his hand too low on her back, Nash understood with utter clarity to what lengths he would go—any. And he knew what rules he would break: every damn one of them. If he were a king, Lilias would be his kingdom, and he’d do whatever it took to protect her. But he had to do it without breaking his vow to Owen. If he did, he would not survive the guilt. If he did, his heart would be just as black as his mother acted like it was. He would be officially unredeemable.
“Kilgore, I’m Greybourne. Pleasure to meet you,” he said by way of greeting as he sidled up next to them and stuck his foot in front of the man, forcing him to come to a halt.
“Greybourne, what are you doing?” Lilias demanded.
What the devil could he say?
“Blackwood needs you.” It was the one thing he knew for certain would get Lilias to follow him and leave this man behind.
“Is he all right?” she asked, already breaking away from Kilgore and moving toward Nash. Concern was etched on her face.
“Yes, yes,” he replied, taking her by the elbow to get her away from Kilgore, whom he shot a warning look, one that he hoped relayed that he would gut the man if he did not stay away. “I, well, let’s just go find him to see what he wants,” he said, not waiting for her to agree.
He gripped her gently, amazed that an elbow could be so enticing. His body was throbbing with awareness of his fingers on her warm skin. It was a good thing he’d never get the chance to touch her anywhere else. He’d likely devour her with how much he wanted her. He should release her now, but it would be just like Lilias to dash away from him.
He scanned the crowded ballroom looking for Owen but still saw him nowhere. Bloody typical. What should he do now? A glance over his shoulder showed that louse Kilgore stalking them. Nash increased his pace, propelling Lilias before him through outraged dancers and matronly mothers standing at the edge of the dance floor, and onward until they were through the terrace doors and outside in the crisp night air under the bright twinkling stars Lilias had once promised to teach him about. And they were alone. He would not look at her. He would think of a brilliant lie to compel her to stay here while he went to fetch Owen and ordered the imbecile to offer his hand to Lilias this very night.
Nash’s feet didn’t move, but his gaze did, right to her full lips and then upward, torturously slowly, until it felt like he stood in Hell instead of outside on a cool winter night. He wanted to kiss her. His gut told him he’d never want anything more. He wanted to feel her lips on his one more time. This was definitely hell, and he was the proper imbecile, not Owen. He’d led her out here into the fiery pit of temptation.
“Nash?” She looked at him questioningly in the achingly beautiful, frank way only she possessed. “Why are we out here? I thought we were going to find Owen.”
“We are.” His brain felt slowed by her. She made time stand still. If only she could reverse it right back to the day he’d betrayed Thomas.
“You are not moving,” she pointed out. Then she gasped.
Why was she gasping? Her warm breath fanned his face, and he stilled, cold fear going straight through him. He’d leaned his head down close to hers. So very close. Nearly face-to-face, a wicked hairsbreadth. He could not control his own body when it came to her. No. That was wrong. He could.
“Stay here,” he choked out but still didn’t move.
The questioning look on her face became more pronounced, and then her lips parted as if she were considering something. Possibly him? Possibly his intentions?
Let her move away.
But she seemed to press closer, or maybe his feverish brain imagined it. Good Christ. It didn’t matter. Seven years of lust and yearning gripped him in a vise.
“Nash.” His name was the softest, sweetest caress from her lips. “Did you bring me out here to be alone with me?”
Behind her, the terrace door opened. Owen stepped out, and sanity crashed back into Nash like a wave. “Don’t be ridiculous,” he said, enraged at himself and regretting the harsh words the minute he spoke them. He saw her flinch, but he turned away, muttered a greeting to Owen,
and fled the terrace like a coward, like the hounds of Hell were chasing him. And if Hell’s hounds were guilt and longing, then they were on his heels snapping with their razor-sharp teeth.
He swallowed the distance between himself and Owen, intent that his friend knew to do the deed and intent that Lilias not hear Nash instruct Owen. As they passed, Owen turned his face to Nash, and Nash said in a low voice, “You must make your offer tonight. That man Kilgore is sniffing after Lilias.”
Standing there watching Nash walk away, Lilias could not fathom how she’d set out tonight to show him what a fool he was, and instead, she had proven herself a fool once more. She hated love. She never wanted to be in love again. Why had she thought he was looking at her as if he wanted to kiss her? Why could she not keep her mind in reality instead of letting it drift into fantasy? She wished her aunt had not bequeathed her collection of Gothic romances to Lilias when she’d died. Lilias placed the blame for her disastrous romantic entanglements squarely on her dead aunt’s shoulders.
Or maybe it was simply her? It was true that she’d had two offers of marriage, but neither of those men had known her. They’d liked her pretty face. She’d never had an offer or even a hint of flirtation from a man she knew well. Nash did not count because she’d only imagined he was flirting. Not even Owen—sweet, hapless Owen—had ever flirted with her. Not that she wanted him to. She didn’t think of him in that way, but still, it would be nice not to be standing here now questioning if perhaps it was her personality.
If it was, that was a grave problem. She could alter an old gown to fit the current style, but her personality, what made her who she was, she did not have the first notion how, or the wish, to change that. As Owen came to stand before her, she was struck with the extreme desire to know the truth, and who better to ask than Owen. She shelved her anger at him for not telling her about Nash’s visits. That, she would address later.
“Lil—”
“Owen,” she accidentally interrupted. “Oh, I’m sorry. You go first. Nash said you were looking for me?”
Owen appeared momentarily startled, but then he said, “Yes. Yes, I was, but you go first, Lilias.”
She sucked in a deep breath for courage. “Is there something wrong with me?”
He frowned. “What? No. You are perfect.”
Drat. His answer did not reassure her at all.
“You’re obligated to say that,” she muttered.
“No, I’m not.”
“You are,” she replied with an emphatic nod. “You are my best male friend; therefore, you do not see the flaws that every other male who knows me must see.”
Owen’s bewildered look became a furious one. “What other males know you? Kilgore? I’ll kill the man! Has he—”
“Do quit acting like an incensed brother,” she snapped.
“What?” Owen sounded aggrieved and shoved a hand through his blond hair, disheveling what was normally in perfect order. “I’m not anything like your brother.”
“What a thing to say,” she gasped, all the emotions of the last day overwhelming her. “I thought we meant something to each other.”
“Lilias.” Owen surprised her by awkwardly, albeit sweetly, cupping her cheek. “We do. I’m sorry. Let’s not quarrel over a silly misunderstanding.”
She nodded, grateful, and pressed her palm over his, her heart thudding as she thought once more about Nash. “Owen, am I odd? Do you think I drive men away with my quirkiness?”
“Are we speaking of anyone in particular?” His voice was hard, and he sounded suddenly so angry that she knew he understood she was referring to Nash. She would not say it, though. That would get them into another quarrel, and at this particular moment, she’d rather not admit that Owen had been correct all these years when he’d told her to forget Nash because he had long ago forgotten her. Owen had said Nash would break her heart if she let him, and Owen had been right. Her heart was shattered.
“No,” she lied. “I had thought by now a man would have realized I was the woman he’d been longing for.” That was as close to the truth as she was willing to get tonight.
“Ah, damnation, Lilias. I… Well, hell…”
And before she knew what was occurring, her best friend, the man she thought of like a brother, yanked her to him and covered her mouth with his. Shock stilled her for a moment, then utter dismay, but before she could react, gasps filled the silent night, followed by a bevy of excited chatter.
“I will live in exile as a spinster,” Lilias said over her mother’s wailing.
Her mother whirled toward her, the excessive noise finally, blessedly stopping. Yet Lilias’s ears still rang. She supposed she should expect no less since Mama had been weeping very loudly since Lilias had been forced to wake her last night and tell her what had occurred at the ball. Lilias was ruined. In fact, her ruination was so complete that she felt she’d given new meaning to the word. She couldn’t have just been discovered in a compromising embrace by anyone. No, certainly not. She’d been found with Owen’s mouth sealed over hers by not only Lady Adaline, but by Lady Adaline’s closest friend, Juliette Blanche, and her father, who everyone knew owned one of the cruelest scandal sheets in London. There was no hope to conceal the incident, and if she’d held the faintest fantasy that there might be, the scandal sheet she now held, which had just been delivered and on which hers was the very first story, dispelled that ludicrous notion.
Her mother paced back and forth, wringing her hands. “Blackwood is a good man. He will come to offer you his hand. I’m sure he simply did not have the chance to do so last night.”
No, he had not. She’d fled the ball and come straight home. She’d left him standing on the terrace calling her name. She still could not believe Owen had kissed her. It was a tragedy beyond reckoning. She had lost the man she loved and the man she’d always counted on as a friend in one night. Would he come? She prayed he did not. Or maybe she prayed he did and that he’d say he’d been impulsive, that he’d acted to simply make her feel better about herself. She did not want to hurt him. She did not want to be capable of hurting him. It left her reeling to think it was possible to hold such power over him and that she’d never seen it, never even suspected it. Her stomach cramped to think perhaps this was exactly how Nash thought of her.
“I cannot wed Blackwood,” she said again.
Her mother turned to her and looked at her as if she had sprouted two heads. “You can and you will.”
“Mama, no! I do not love him. I—”
Her mother grabbed her by the arm in a shocking, viselike grip. Mama had never touched Lilias in anger in her life. “Do you think you are the only consideration?” she hissed.
Fear shot straight to Lilias’s heart, and Nora’s face popped into her head. “No,” she whispered. “I know this could affect Nora’s ability to make the best match.” She was drowning in guilt over that.
Mama gave her a little shake. “If only it were that simple.”
The fear in Lilias’s heart spread everywhere. “Whatever do you mean, Mama? Are you speaking of our finances?”
Her mother grasped Lilias to her bosom suddenly and squeezed her tight, a sob escaping her. “We have nothing, Lilias. Your father left us with nothing.” Another sob burst from her. “No,” she cried out, shoving Lilias away, Mama’s face twisted in a pain that hurt Lilias’s heart. “That’s not quite true. He left us in debt—enormous debt—that I have been struggling to repay because the people he owes are unrelenting and unscrupulous! He died owing four gaming hell owners in the worst part of Town you can imagine!” Her mother pressed a hand to her flushed cheek. “And those men… Those men don’t care about laws or that we did not create the debt. They only care about getting their money.” Yet another sob ripped from Lilias’s mother, and Lilias flinched. “He left a huge debt to two very unsavory Irish brothers who run an illegal whiskey business at the docks.” Tears filled her mother’s eyes. “The things they threatened to do to us if I don’t pay them…” Her mo
ther shuddered. “Your father was not in his right mind near the end. He could not have been to leave us so vulnerable.”
Lilias felt her jaw slip open. “I cannot believe it.” The room seemed to spin around her.
Mama took Lilias by the hand and led her to the settee, dragging Lilias down with her into the cream-colored velvet cushions. “I discovered it several months after your father died—or rather the horrid men started calling upon me, threatening me, and demanding I pay them or else they would harm us, or take us and sell us!”
Lilias did not understand, and her head was aching fiercely. “If we had no money at all, how did you afford all those restorative cures in Bath?”
Mama sighed. “I was not in Bath taking restorative cures. I lied. I was away selling my jewels, our art, your father’s guns, our silver. I worked out yearly payment plans with these men and every year when the payment came up to the men your father owes, I had to go away and sell things. I could not do it here lest I be discovered, and we were ruined. Those men… Well, they arranged for me to meet buyers. But I have nothing left to sell, and there is still so much debt.”
Shock pricked Lilias and then deep guilt. She had not even noticed the silver being gone, and when she’d remarked on the art, her mother had told her that looking upon it made her sad, so she’d taken it down, and Lilias had simply believed her. She had been so self-absorbed. “Oh, Mama. All this time I thought you were melancholy—”
Her mother forced a bright smile. “Well, I was. Truly, in the beginning. But there is nothing like the threat of bodily danger to force someone to make a choice, and I have chosen you girls.”
Lilias bit her lip. She had been utterly, utterly selfish. “What shall we do? Perhaps we can beseech Uncle Simon—”
“No, dearest,” Mama interrupted. “Your uncle refused to aid me when I confessed all to him.”
Lilias supposed she should have guessed that, but she had hoped if he knew the trouble they were in, he might have helped. “I’m surprised he’s aided us this long,” Lilias murmured, her mind spinning with what they could possibly do.
Lady Lilias and the Devil in Plaid (Scottish Scoundrels: Ensnared Hearts Book 2) Page 9
