She wanted that so bad she could have wept with the desire. “What of your betrothal?” she asked, her body still trembling with what had happened, and her head aching from the hit Levine had given her.
“There is no betrothal,” Nash replied, running the pad of his thumb over her lips as if he were memorizing the shape of them. “My mother lied to you. I’ll deal with her later, too. Right now you come first. We come first. Are you all right?”
She nodded. “We?” she asked again, clinging to him for support.
“We,” he repeated, his voice a slide of velvet over her. “It has always been you and me. You are the only one for me, though I do not deserve you. You don’t even know all my sins. I—”
“Shh,” she whispered, rising on her tiptoes, her body sliding along his—hard flesh to her softness. She found her intended mark and brushed her lips to his. “I know them. I know of you not pulling back in the race with Owen, and you already told me of your brother and Helen. I know your heart, too. You never set out to intentionally hurt either of them, Nash.” She met his eyes. “I know your sins, and I command you to forgive yourself—for you and me.”
He cupped her face, his large hand splaying hotly against her skin. “I love you, Lilias. I have loved you since the day I first saw you crossing that log barefoot.”
“And I love you,” she said, melting into him as he brushed his lips to hers now. “I have loved you since the day you jumped into the river to save me, then dragged me out and chastised me like the moody, imperfect hero you are.”
Nash arched his eyebrows. “There’s such a thing as an imperfect hero?”
“Oh yes,” she said, sighing into his mouth as it covered her in a greedy kiss. His lips were warm and persuasive, and the series of slow, deep kisses he gave her made her knees weak. When he pulled back, she said, “The most glorious heroes are imperfect ones, Nash, because they, more than any others, need their heroines.”
“Ah,” he replied, tracing a line of feathery kisses up to her mouth once more. “That sounds just like me, because I need you with me from this moment until forever. Marry me, Lilias,” he said, sliding his hands from her face to her back to hold her tight. “Marry me and let me spend my life loving you.”
“I thought you would never ask,” she said, circling her arms around his neck, and meeting his hungry kiss with one of her own.
The next day, Lilias stood hand in hand with Nash as he confronted his mother. Lilias wasn’t the least bit worried when the dowager duchess shot her a withering glare. Lilias had seen what Nash was capable of last night, the lengths he would go to in order to keep her safe. Not only had he stopped Levine from hurting her but Nash had deftly dealt with the authorities in getting Levine carted off. She suspected, Levine would end up in Bedlam with his actions and the way he’d raved as they’d taken him away.
Nash had seen her safely home after that and had placated her mother, who was awake and frantic, and then charmingly and politely asked her mother for permission to marry Lilias. Of course, Mama had promptly granted it. And then this morning, he’d shown up as soon as the calling hour had rolled around, Helen Levine’s manuscript in hand. After assuring her mother he’d have her home at an appropriate hour, he’d taken her to Lady Katherine’s and sat in his carriage as Lilias assured the woman that the manuscript would be properly destroyed.
And now they were here so Nash could confront the past that had haunted him most of his adult life. He had not spoken much of it, but his mood had grown increasingly quiet as they approached his home and his face had become set in hard lines. But still, she wasn’t worried. They had each other, and whatever secrets might be revealed, if they faced them together, she felt sure they would only grow stronger in their love.
“Why is she here?” his mother demanded, her glare turning glacial. “I demand she leave,” the duchess said before Nash could respond to her.
“Lilias is not leaving, Mother, or not permanently anyway. You are.”
“What do ye mean?” his mother asked coolly, and she quickly followed the question with, “Do not be ridiculous. This… This—” his mother waved a hand at Lilias “—person needs to go. She’s not yer family. I am. Yer sister is.”
Nash’s fingers tightened around Lilias’s, and his shoulders subtly stiffened. She squeezed to remind him she was there for him. She caught his side glance and grateful smile, and then the fierce scowl he directed at his mother. “Lilias has agreed to become my wife, so very soon she will be staying forever, and there is no room in this house for the darkness you bring it. You can move to any house of mine you wish, except the Cotswold home or this one.”
“Ye cannot wed this woman. Ye must wed Miss Balfour. I’ve…I’ve promised Dr. Balfour.”
Annoyance settled on his face. “Why would you do that, Mother?”
Lilias found herself almost leaning toward the woman to see what she would say, but she said nothing. Instead, the woman pressed her lips together.
Nash shifted and then spoke again. “I’ve been recalling things, Mother. Things about the day Thomas died. Things I suppose I buried because they were too painful.”
Lilias felt his hurt in her own chest. She moved closer to him, and he slid his arm around her waist as if he needed her strength as much as she needed his. “My hands were cut so badly from clawing at the ice to get to Thomas that Dr. Balfour said I might not get complete use of my forefinger and thumb back on my left hand. I’d forgotten that.” Lilias looked at his hand, imagining the torment it must have been for him to try and fail to save his twin brother. “I also recalled just this morning how I very nearly drowned, as well. How Father and the stable master had to pull me out because I would not come out of the frigid water, I would not quit diving under searching for Thomas.”
“Greybourne, do not do this,” his mother said, suddenly looking frightened and sounding small.
He didn’t acknowledge her, and Lilias realized he was lost in memories he’d repressed for so long. “Dr. Balfour said I was lucky I had not died from the cold and the blood loss from the cuts. But you… Do you remember what you said to me when I awoke?”
“Greybourne.” She moaned in such an animalistic way that Lilias’s breath caught in her throat.
“I am your son,” he said, “and you have never called me by my given name. So formal. So distant. So damn cruel.”
Tears filled Lilias’s eyes at the pain Nash had been living with caused by his own mother. “There were no kind words from you when I awoke, nor from Father. But you, you said that I let Thomas drown. You demanded to know what I had done to make him charge me on the ice. Never once did you offer comfort. You offered condemnation, guilt, and silence. Bloody deafening silence.”
Lilias swiped at the warm tears now gliding down her cheeks and squeezed Nash’s waist. When he squeezed her back, she exhaled with relief. This moment with his mother was painful but necessary if he was ever to heal and if the life they wanted together was to have a real chance.
“I couldn’t,” Nash’s mother said on a sob. “I couldn’t give ye those things. Not because I blamed ye but because I blamed myself. And yer father blamed himself, too.”
“Explain,” Nash said, the word cold, but Lilias understood why. She understood his need to protect himself now.
Nash’s mother’s gaze darted to Lilias for a moment, then fell on Nash once more. “Ye were not the firstborn,” she whispered, sounding utterly broken now. “Thomas was. Ye were not the heir.” A bitter laugh escaped her.
“What?” Nash said, sounding shocked. Lilias herself could not have even formed that one word in this moment.
“Ye were born second, a breath after Thomas, but ye came out perfect. Strong. Healthy. But Thomas—” The duchess shook her head violently. “He was blue and so quiet, and he had that twisted leg. Yer father and I both knew before Dr. Balfour even told us that Thomas would never be strong enough to carry on the family name.”
“Dear God,” Nash muttered, and Lilias found h
erself nodding in mute agreement.
“Ye do not understand!” his mother sobbed. “Thomas could not have handled the weight of being the heir. Dr. Balfour said his lungs, like his leg, were not properly formed, and he would always be weak. That’s why—That’s why we did what we did to protect him. Ye were to be his protector with us, and in the end, ye failed him and we failed ye both. And…and to make matters dreadfully worse, Dr. Balfour has been blackmailing yer father and me for years! He threatened to expose what we had done unless we paid him and unless ye one day wed his daughter. I wanted to tell ye, I did, but how do ye tell someone how miserably ye have failed them? How do ye tell someone the terrible choices ye’ve made?” She buried her face in her hands and cried.
Partly in shock and partly relieved it all seemed to be out in the open now, Lilias looked at Nash, and she could see the indecision on his face as to whether to go to his mother or not. Lilias knew he could likely not totally forgive the horrible things she’d done, and it would take a lot of time to even accept what had happened, but she knew he’d feel guilty if he didn’t go to her now.
Lilias set her hand on Nash’s back and gave him a little push, which did not move him at all, but he knew what she meant. He smiled lovingly at her, and then he took the first step toward his mother and toward the possibility of healing. And when he put his arms around his mother and said, “I love you,” Lilias knew, without a doubt, that she had found her perfect love, her perfect hero.
Epilogue
“Come here, my duchess,” Nash said two weeks later, his seductive voice shooting thrills through Lilias that she was positive would never lessen.
She walked toward Nash, who was sitting bare chested on the edge of their bed in nothing but a kilt, and as she drew near, he gave her a smile that promised another night of bliss in his arms.
“Is it true,” she said, placing her hands on his thighs and nudging them apart while holding his gaze, “that Scots do not wear anything under their kilts?”
He smirked up at her, grabbed her by the waist, and lifted her as he stood, swinging her gently around to playfully toss her on their bed. She squealed with delight, and then laughter bubbled forth, followed by a rush of excitement as her husband came to kneel over her, caging her in with his powerful arms planted by each of hers and his strong thighs touching each of her hips. “I don’t know whether it’s true or not,” he said in a husky voice, kissing the skin of her chest that her gown revealed, “but I do know that this half Scot wears nothing under his kilt.”
“Oh, how deliciously scandalous.” She slid her hands between his thighs to their juncture. She smiled slowly as she felt the truth of his words. “I must say I’m glad,” she whispered wickedly. “It will make trysts in the gardens so much easier. If only I didn’t have to wear so many layers…”
“Ah, ye of little faith,” he said, placing dizzying kisses up one side of her neck and then down the other. “Let me show you how easy it is to deal with your layers.” His mouth descended to hers, sucking, pulling, nipping. By the time he was done with his kiss and he pulled back, she realized, bemused, that he’d shoved up her gown and had rid her of any underlayers that would hinder his loving her thoroughly.
“I think I’m too proper a lady for this wicked behavior,” she teased.
He chuckled as his hands slid under her buttocks to hoist her up to meet him and he slid slowly and deliciously into her. “Thank God you are not, nor have you ever been. I like that most about you.”
It was hard to concentrate enough to form a coherent reply because the way he moved in and out of her was building a fire that was burning her all over. With every stroke of his body, he was hitting the spot she had discovered with him, the one that made her splinter in his arms. But somehow she found the thread of her reply as her hands splayed over her husband’s own perfectly formed buttocks. “That’s what you like most about me?” she panted.
Another chuckle came from Nash, this time darkly rich. “In this moment,” he said, his voice ragged as his pace increased, making the blood in her veins rush faster and roar in her ears, along with the loud beat of her heart, “I most like that you are so warm, so inviting, so very wanton with me. I like—” he managed to lower himself, capture her right nipple in his mouth, and suck it in a way that made her arch on a moan toward him “—this breast,” he finished with a release of her now-puckered nipple.
“But that is so unfair to the left breast,” he said, sounding every bit like the devil she loved. “It—” he swirled his tongue around her left nipple “—is just as lovely and gives me just as much delight.”
“Prove it,” she choked out, both her breasts now heavy and tight.
And he did. He used his mouth to torment her nipple with sweet strokes, even as his body moved in and out of hers, pushing her toward that peak she’d discovered in his arms, the glorious one where all thought fled and all that remained was pure bliss. And just when she thought she would splinter, he released her breast and caught her by the underside of her thighs. He spread her legs farther apart and then set one of them over his back and brought his hand to the juncture of her thighs.
“Here,” he said, separating her to find the spot that pulsed only for him, “is another part of you I love, because when I touch it, I know it brings you exquisite enjoyment, and that brings me so much happiness that I ache with it. Shall I remind you?”
“Yes, please,” she begged, lost in him now.
His thumb pressed gently to the swollen secret spot, and he moved it in small circles. As he increased his speed with his thumb, he increased the speed of his strokes in and out of her, and she could see the top where he would take her, and she would fly. “What of you?” she gasped. “What shall I do for you?”
“This,” he said, moving faster. “Exactly this. Give yourself to me entirely always and that’s all I need.”
On that statement, she reached the top, and heat washed over her, her body tensing and then constricting around Nash over and over again. She let out a scream of satisfaction as he released his own rough moan to grip her thighs and find his own fulfillment.
They fell together to the bed, breathless in the candlelight until their chests slowly rose and fell evenly. Then Nash rolled off her, went to the washbasin, cleansed himself, then returned and lovingly tended to her. When he was done, he held out his hand to her, and they stood. He stripped himself of his kilt fairly quickly and climbed onto their bed once more, and then he watched her as she removed the clothing she still had on. She loved the intensity of his gaze, the hunger she saw there, and the love. When she was finished, she cocked her head at him, and he offered a slow, roguish smile.
“Come here.” He opened his powerful arms wide for her. “It’s been quite the sennight.”
She crawled between his hard thighs and lay across his chest, resting her chin there so she could look in his beautiful eyes. He smelled divinely of fresh soap, and she inhaled his scent, savoring it. “I’d say it’s been quite the frantic fortnight, but the sennights were hectic in very different ways.” Today, Miss Balfour had called upon them to say thank you for stopping her father’s plans. It had been quite unexpected.
He nodded and smiled lovingly down at her as he stroked a hand over her head and along her back, causing gooseflesh to race across her skin.
“I always imagined our life together would be exciting,” Lilias said, “but I daresay, not even I could have imagined we would stop a man like Levine and take care of a blackmailer like Dr. Balfour only to have his daughter call upon us to thank us for letting her know what her father was up to.”
“I would not have known exactly how to take care of him if it were not for your marvelous suggestion,” Nash replied.
Lilias grinned up at Nash. “Well, when you told me how you suspected someone else held Miss Balfour’s affections entirely and that she, too, had been forced to appear for supper the night you joined them, I simply knew we had an ally in her.”
“Yes, you did, my
dear, and you handled it brilliantly.”
“We did,” Lilias replied, thinking of how Miss Balfour truly had been the one to stop her father’s blackmail. She’d threatened to cut the man from her life, and it seemed everything he had done had been an attempt to ensure his daughter had the best life possible. When he’d realized what he was doing would cause him to lose his daughter, he ceased immediately. “I wish, though, that we had not lost Owen as a friend and that Kilgore had not been so horribly injured.”
“I do, too, darling,” Nash replied, running his hands over her bottom and cupping her buttocks.
When he squeezed her, her entire core tightened. One of the astonishing advantages of being wed was the marriage bed. She had never read about those pleasures in any of her Gothic romances.
“I cannot say what the future holds for either of those men,” he said, “except if my own life is any guide, I know it cannot hold true happiness until they face the pain and secrets keeping them in the darkness. For Owen, I do believe it all starts with his mother’s leaving him, and though I don’t like it because you are mine, he did truly think himself in love with you.”
She nodded, swallowing. “If I had known, I would have dissuaded him much sooner. I was yours from the moment I saw you standing there in that kilt.”
“And to think I took to wearing it in an effort to get my mother to show some emotion,” Nash said with a chuckle.
She pressed a kiss to her husband’s muscled chest. “I’m very glad you are such a devil.”
“And I’m very glad that you have such a love for Gothic romances,” he replied, claiming her mouth. “Otherwise, you might not have had the notion that I was your hero and waited for me.”
“I would have waited,” she assured him. “It was always you for me, Gothic romances or not.”
“And it was always you for me,” he agreed, hugging her tightly and pressing a tender kiss to the top of her head. “You are mine to cherish, mine to love, mine to protect. You are my free-spirited duchess.”
Lady Lilias and the Devil in Plaid (Scottish Scoundrels: Ensnared Hearts Book 2) Page 21
