A Scot in the Dark (Scandal & Scoundrel #2)(108)

Whatever you choose.

Never doubt I will think of you, Lily. Then, and now.

Happy birthday, mo chridhe.

—Alec

The words swam with tears.

He’d left her.

Lillian Hargrove had been alone for the lion’s share of her existence. Since the moment she’d lost her father, she had lived beneath the servants’ stairs of a ducal mansion, between the glittering world of the aristocracy and the more ordinary common one. She’d learned to be alone here, in this room, in this house, living a quiet half life that lacked the promise of her dreams, and then a scandal that threatened even that.

And then Alec Stuart had broken down her door and vowed to protect her.

And her life had changed. And her dreams had changed. Now, they were of him alone. And he thought himself unworthy of them.

Her whole life, she’d been terrified of loneliness. Of living out her years with no one to share them with. And now, here, she knew the truth—that she’d trade a lifetime of the loneliness that had once so threatened her for a single day with Alec. Without hesitation.

For an intelligent man, the Duke of Warnick was a proper fool.

He’d left her. Like Endymion, choosing an eternity of dreams over a lifetime with the goddess he loved. There had been a time when Lily had thought she understood the choice. After all, dreams could feel terribly real.

But now—now that she had held him in her arms, laughed with him, loved him—dreams were nothing compared to the reality of him.

Her gaze settled on the painting, wrapped in cloth, leaning against the chest where she had once kept her dreams—dreams she’d thought destroyed by scandal.

Scandal that had brought him to her.

Scandal that he had taught her to bear, unashamed.

He could not leave her. Not when she needed him so much. Not when she loved him so well.

Not when he had so thoroughly become her dreams.

If he wanted her to put those little boots to use, he could damn well fill them himself.





CHAPTER 22



LILY LAID BARE!

MISS MUSE OR MISUSED?

All of London had chosen to attend the final morning of the Royal Exhibition, and why would they not? The legend of Derek Hawkins’s masterwork had been broadcast throughout the city’s rags, shouted by newsboys and whispered in ballrooms.

It was not the artwork London came to see, however; it was the scandal.

Lovely Lily, revealed.

“It’s horrible, really, what he did,” Alec heard at his elbow as he pressed through the crowd. “No girl deserves that.” On the surface, the words were sympathetic, but they were injected with such salacious glee that he gritted his teeth.

“She should not have sat for it if she did not wish for it to be made public,” came an utterly disdainful reply, and he realized that attending the exhibition might have been a poor idea, for he wanted to murder every person who spoke ill of Lily.

It was easy to throw stones at scandal when one’s own tales were still secret.

He pushed himself through the throngs, into the exhibition hall.

“And there,” a woman nearby said loudly enough to be heard, but softly enough to pretend it wasn’t for his benefit. “The guardian.”

“A terrible one, it seems,” another said on a gleeful giggle. “And am I surprised? Look at the man. Clothed as a barbarian. There are ladies present. We can see his knees.”

“And what lovely knees they are,” the first replied, her words thick with innuendo.

It was not the most ladylike sentiment he’d ever heard expressed, considering these two were so angry at his mere presence, but Alec let the comment pass. He could not murder all the gossips in London, no matter how well he would like to. In less than an hour, he’d be high atop his curricle, going hell-for-leather up the Great North Road, headed home.

Not home.

He would never be home again. Not as long as Lily was elsewhere.

He cleared his throat at the thought. Yes, home. England had always been his ruin, and today was no different. Indeed, if the last ten days had done nothing else, they had shown him the truth of his father’s curse.

It did not matter that he left the woman he loved.

Everyone I have ever loved has left.

She’d said the words to him at the start of all this, when he’d convinced her to stay. To face London. To marry another. When he’d convinced her that he’d save her. And he’d vowed to find her a man whom she could love. A man who would not soil her with his past, and who would give her everything she’d ever dreamed.

Yes. Alec had left her. But, to a better life. One that would let her open that damn trunk and use all the things inside, if she wished it. One that would give her a perfect, gentlemanly hero and a beloved family and a happily-ever-after that he— He stopped.

That he would give everything to be a part of.

When he’d arrived in London ten days earlier, she’d asked him for freedom. For choice. And last night, he gave it to her.

The hall was packed wall to wall like a tin of fish, everyone straining to see the dais at the front of the long, massive room, and Alec had never been more grateful for his size. He did not have to strain. He was tall enough to see Hawkins’s decimation play out from his place. And though he wished to push to the front and set his fist in the man’s face, he knew better—he would watch the reveal of Jewel and leave amid the shock and awe that would ensue.