A Scot in the Dark (Scandal & Scoundrel #2)(17)

The men surrounding them hooted and jeered at the words, at their summary destruction of Lillian. The chortles and shouts turning into gasps when Alec moved, a dog loosed from his chain.

He lifted Hawkins from his feet by the collar of his elaborate topcoat as though he weighed nothing. “That was a mistake.”

“Put me down,” Hawkins squeaked, his hands clawing at Alec’s fist.

West rose. “Not here, Warnick. Not in front of the world.”

Alec tossed the vermin to the ground. Looming over Hawkins, he said, once more, “How much?”

Hawkins scrambled to his feet. “You can’t just manhandle me. I am—”

“I don’t care one bit who you are. How much for the picture?”

“You’ll never get it,” Hawkins spat, high-pitched and terrified, filled with false bravado. “I wouldn’t take your money if you offered ten times as much, you Scottish thug. You’re a perfect match. As cheap as she is. Just luckier.”

The words reminded Alec of his intentions, that there had been a time when he’d actually planned to force this bastard to marry Lily.

As though he’d ever let him near her again.

As though he’d ever allow him to breathe the same air as her.

“I have been more than polite,” he said, stalking Hawkins back as the men assembled chattered and grumbled.

A voice rose over the crowd. “Twenty pounds on the Scot!”

Alec ignored it. “I was willing to pay you for the painting. A fair price. More than fair.”

“No one will take that wager. Look at him! Fists the size of hams!”

Those fists clenched and unclenched.

“I’d pay just to see the fight!”

“I don’t put it past him to force Hawkins to the altar!”

“Ten quid on that!”

Hawkins could not keep his mouth shut. “As though I’d take lowborn, lonely, sad Lillian Hargrove. As though a genius marries a muse. I could have anyone. I could have royalty.”

“Take ’im to the ring, Warnick! Show ’im your displeasure!”

“I don’t need the ring.” Alec wasn’t displeased. He was murderous. “Listen to me and listen well,” he said, low and barely discernible through his angry brogue. “Commit my words to memory. Because I want you to spend the next two weeks wondering how I’m going to do it.”

“Do what?” Hawkins was terrified.

“Destroy you.”

Hawkins blinked, and Alec saw his throat working, as though he was considering a reply. Finally, he shook his head, turned on his heel, and ran—straight through the curtain that marked the doorway to the club, and out into the London night, chased by the laughter and jeers of the rest of the membership of the gaming hell.

After several long seconds, King appeared at Alec’s shoulder. “It seems he is not an imbecile after all. Running was a good choice.”

I plan to run.

Lily’s words echoed through him, full of desolation, reminding him of another who had run and been destroyed.

He shook his head. “That man drives her from London over my decaying corpse.”

West joined them. “Then you no longer intend him to wed the girl?”

The words summoned an image of Lily in Hawkins’s arms, her hair spilling down her back, tangled in his fingers. Her lips on his. And Alec wanted to upend the nearest card table.

He settled on, “Not for all the blunt in London.”

“What then?”

“It is no matter who she marries. Only that she does.”

King and West looked to each other, then back to Alec, now firmly resolved in his modified plan. He waited for one of them to speak. When they did not, he said, “What of it?”

After a long moment, West replied. “Nothing. It sounds an excellent plan.”

King raised a brow. “I cannot imagine how it could possibly go wrong.”

Alec heard the sarcasm in the other man’s tone, and in scathing Gaelic, told him precisely what he could do with himself, before turning on his heel and heading for the club’s boxing ring.

He could do with a fight.





CHAPTER 4



DILUTED DUKE AND DOGS RESUME RESIDENCE

Lily should have known when she saw the maid scurrying past the foot of the stairs at eight o’clock in the morning that something was amiss.

She should have sensed it from the quivering silence of the house, as though someone of import was present. But she didn’t.

Not until she smelled the ham.

For five years, Lily had descended the same stairs at the same time to take tea and toast in the breakfast room. It was not that she preferred tea and toast for breakfast—simply that it was the food that was offered. And even then, there were days when the cook forgot her, and she had to go looking for breakfast. Those were the better days, honestly, because they allowed her to enter the kitchens and be in the company of others.

Lily lived in the margins of life at 45 Berkeley Square. She was neither nobility nor servant—too highborn to be welcome in the lives of the staff, not highborn enough to be honored by them. For the first year, she’d ached for their friendship, but by the second, she’d simply become a part of this dance, weaving through them, not unwelcome, but more . . . invisible.