A Scot in the Dark (Scandal & Scoundrel #2)(102)

She would have done anything for him to sit with her. But, instead, he chose the little chair at the desk, pulling it out and dwarfing it with his size. With his glory. She drank him in, aware of their knees, inches apart in the little space. “Go on.”

“All I remember of her was that she spoke of England. Of how it suited her. Of how she loved it. Of how much better it was than Scotland.”

She smiled. “I suppose she could have come up with three things superior to those of Scotland.”

One side of his mouth kicked up. “Likely more than three.” He grew serious. “I missed her, oddly. It did not matter that she was not the best of mothers. And so, as she had, I, too, longed for England.” He laughed, small and quiet. “I know that must be difficult to believe.”

“Self-proclaimed reviler of all things English as you are.”

“Not all things English. I find I have warmed to one thing.” The words shot through her. He meant her. And still, he did not let them linger. “I wanted to go to England. To follow her. To see the country she loved. The place she longed for with such intensity that she left her child to find it.”

He stopped, lost in the story, his hands coming together, the fingers of one hand finding the scar on the other. The one his father had given him. She watched those hands for a long moment, wishing she could soothe them. Finally, she said, “And?”

“My father wouldn’t have it. He vowed to disown me. To cut me off if I left.” Lily’s heart began to pound. “And I did not care. I wrote to everyone I could find. Distant relatives—my father was vaguely English, as well, you’ll not be surprised to discover, considering I was seventeenth in line for a dukedom.”

She smiled. “I imagine he would have been equally thrilled to inherit.”

“Likely less thrilled,” Alec allowed.

“And so?” she asked.

“A distant relative sent a letter. Called in a chit. Whatever it was, it worked. And I had a spot at a school. My father did as he’d promised—told me I could never come home. But I did not care. My tuition was paid in full. A generous relative.” He smiled, rubbing his scarred hand over the back of his neck and suddenly looking very much like the boy he must have been. “Perhaps one of the sixteen. That would be ironic.”

Lily envisioned him, king of the schoolboys, handsome and tall and better at every sport there was. “I imagine you were terribly popular.”

His head snapped up, his brown eyes meeting hers. “They hated me.”

Impossible. “How is that—”

“I was tall like a reed, all bones and Scots braggadocio. And they were born of venerable titles and ancient lands and more money than I could ever imagine. I was an imposter, and they knew it. They judged it. And they beat the arrogance from me.”

She felt the words like the blows they described. And still, she shook her head. “They were children. They could not have—”

“Children are the worst of all,” he said. “At least adults judge quietly.”

“And so?”

“For the first three years, I had no choice. I was poor, forced to clean floors and wash windows in the time I did not study in order to pay for the bits that tuition did not cover, and they could smell it on me, the need for funds.” He smiled, lost in the memory, and she could see young Alec there, the little boy alone and desperate for companionship. It was something Lily understood keenly.

Something she would never wish upon another.

“King was the only boy who wasn’t cruel.”

The words made her wish the Marquess of Eversley were there, so she could thank him for his long-ago kindness. But she had a feeling the story did not end with the two boys as happy companions.

Alec was leaning forward, his elbows on his knees, his head bowed, as though he were in confession. And Lily’s heart pounded with fear for the boy he once was.

She could not stop herself. “What happened after three years?”

He gave a little huff of humorless laughter. “I grew.” Confusion flared as he shook his head and elaborated without looking at her. Telling the story to his hands, large and warm and clasped tightly together. “More than a foot in a few months. Taller than any of them. Broader, too.” He paused, then looked up at her. “It hurts, did you know that? Growing.”

She shook her head. “How?”

That smile again, the one that made her want to hold him until they were old. “Physically. You ache. Like your bones cannot keep up with themselves. But now that you ask, I suppose it hurts in every other way, as well—there’s a keen sense that where you have been is no longer where you are. And certainly nothing like where you are going.” He stopped, then whispered, “Nothing like where I was going.”

“Alec—”

He continued as though she had not spoken, as though, if he stopped, he might not be able to start again. Lily pressed her lips together and willed herself to listen. “They went from judging me, from teasing me, from mocking my very existence . . . to loathing it. Because they could no longer dominate me. Now, I was the one who dominated. I was the—”

She reached for him then. She knew the words that were coming. Had heard them on his lips a dozen times. Her hands clasped his tightly. “Don’t say it. I hate it.”

He met her gaze then, and she saw how much he hated it, as well. “That’s why I have to say it, Lily,” he said softly. “Because it’s apt. Because I am the Scottish Brute.”