A Scot in the Dark (Scandal & Scoundrel #2)(14)

Lillian Hargrove would not run.

“She wants the funds from you?” It was King who spoke this time.

Alec shook his head. “In ten days’ time, she inherits pin money.”

West swirled the scotch in his glass. “Fine timing, as the painting is revealed in ten days’ time.”

Alec met his gaze. “What are you saying?”

One lean shoulder lifted and fell. “Only, imagine the Mona Lisa.”

Alec huffed his irritation at the exercise. “Who cares a fig about the damn Mona Lisa?”

“A great many people, I imagine.”

Alec cut him a look. “I grow weary of your obvious self-made brilliance, West.”

The newspaperman smirked. “You’re self-made, are you not? You only lack the brilliance.”

“A pity, considering the size of you,” King needled. “I suppose it is true what they say. We can’t have everything.”

Alec cursed them both. “Fine. The Mona Lisa. What of it?”

“Imagine how renowned the model would be if we knew her name.”

Shock flared. “You think Lillian wishes for fame?” Memory flashed. Those grey eyes, storm clouds of sorrow. “No.”

King raised a brow. “I am married to a Dangerous Daughter. Living proof that some revel in fame.” Not six months earlier, the Marquess of Eversley had found a stowaway from one of London’s most notorious families in his carriage. That stowaway had become an unexpected traveling companion and, after the story broke, the most scandalous member of the family. And Marchioness of Eversley.

“You would have never married if not for me.”

King cut him a look. “Oh, yes. Your part in the play was most definitely welcome. I didn’t have to make amends for it at all.”

“You’re lucky you had amends to make,” Alec said. “Someone had to knock some sense into you.”

“And for that, I will be forever grateful.” The words rang with a remarkable honesty.

“Och,” Alec said, looking away. “There’s nothing worse than a nob who loves his wife.”

“Watch it, Duke. Halfhearted or no, you are a nob now—all you need is the wife.”

It would never happen. He’d learned his lesson every time he’d considered it. Every time he’d been passed over for money, for title, for refinement. Every time he’d been desired for his body and nothing else. The Scottish Brute.

He shook his head. “I’ve enough trouble with women, thank you.”

“It’s because you scare the wee things,” King said, mocking Alec’s brogue.

“This one isn’t scared of me.” If anything, Lillian Hargrove was willing to battle him without hesitation. “She could do with a little more apprehension, honestly.”

“Another reason to believe she might be party to the scandal,” West said. “Lovely Lily, immortalized for all ages.”

He loathed the moniker, not that he would show it. “I didn’t know she called herself Lily,” he replied, drinking again, disliking the fact that these two knew more about her than he did.

And he did not like that they might be right. That Lily might have destroyed herself for a man, without hesitation. He thought back on the girl, on their meeting earlier. She didn’t seem to be proud of her scandal. Did not wear it as a badge of honor. He had seen the regret in her gaze. The shame there.

Recognized it as keenly as he knew his own.

He shook his head. “She was not part of it.”

“Then the performance at the exhibition . . .” King began.

West finished the thought. “Was not a performance at all.” He looked to Alec. “Poor girl. What now?”

I plan to run.

She wouldn’t run. If he had to tear London apart brick by brick to ensure it, she would stay here and have her reputation restored. England would not chase her away or destroy her, the way it so easily destroyed those who did not suit it.

One solution remained—safe and swift and utterly acceptable. Swiftness was most certainly a boon. Swiftness ended in Alec returning home, to Scotland, far from London and Lillian Hargrove, who was turning out to be more trouble than expected.

“You could marry her.” King’s words startled Alec from his thoughts.

“Marry whom?”

West smirked. “The London air is clouding your thoughts, Scot. The girl. Miss Hargrove. King is suggesting you marry her.”

A vision flashed, Lily beautiful and perfect in her simple grey dress, skin like porcelain and eyes flashing fire. There was a time when he would have proposed on the spot, blinded by her beauty and desperate to win her heart. To claim her for himself.

Despite his size. Despite his hulk. Despite his lack of grace.

He knew better now. He was for baser acts than marrying.

“Even if I weren’t her guardian—”

King interrupted. “What nonsense. If I had a pound for every guardian who married his ward, I’d be rich as sin.”

“You are already rich as sin,” Alec replied. “Either way, she wouldn’t have me.” It took a moment for him to realize that West and King were staring at him. “What is it?”

West found his tongue first. “I think I speak for us both when I say the girl would get down on her knees and thank her maker you proposed.”