A Scot in the Dark (Scandal & Scoundrel #2)(22)

“I am sorry. For your father,” she said.

He replied with the truth. “I am not.”

She blinked at the honest answer, and he immediately moved to change the topic. “Cate is as troublesome as if we shared full blood.”

Her eyes were grey as the North Sea when she replied, “I wouldn’t know how troublesome that is, as it has always been me, alone.” Before he could find a reply, she said, “At least, since I lost my father. I was eleven.”

The words reminded him of the purpose of his question. He nodded. “Well, he took good care of you.”

Better care of her than his father had cared for him. He’d always been a memory of his mother. And, for his mother, he’d always been a reminder of what she might have had.

She laughed, the sound void of humor. “He left me in the care of a family that was not my own. That was so far above me in station that . . .”

She trailed off, but Alec did not need to hear the words. “How did he know the duke?”

“He worked for him. As land steward. Apparently he was quite good at it, as the then duke agreed to assume my care. A pity that the now duke does not feel similarly.” She looked away, the grey morning casting her in ethereal light. Christ, she was beautiful. Alec had no doubt that Hawkins’s painting was the masterpiece he claimed it to be.

The thought of the painting shook him from his reverie. He tried his best to sound kind. Comforting. Like a guardian. “I am, you know. Caring for you. Taking responsibility for you. I am attempting to give you the life you wish, Lily.”

“Don’t call me that.”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s not for you,” she said.

It was not for Hawkins, either, and still he used it.

He resisted the urge to say the words. She was not wrong. The name was all too familiar. She was at best Lillian to him, even as she should be Miss Hargrove. She shouldn’t be Lily.

It didn’t matter that he wanted her to be.

And he certainly had no right to want her to be anything. She was his ward, and in that capacity, responsibility and problems and nothing else.

Fine. He could play the English guardian, cold and callous and lacking in feeling. God knew he loathed it enough to be familiar with the part. He began anew. “The terms of your guardianship include the factors of which you are aware. You are not allowed to marry without the express approval of the dukedom and, though you receive funds on your twenty-fourth birthday, it was clearly assumed that you would be married, because the terms indicate that I am able to hold those funds in trust until such time as you do marry, should I think you . . .”

It was his turn to trail off.

She wouldn’t allow it. “Should you think me what?”

“Irresponsible.”

A wash of red came over her cheeks. “Which, of course, you do.”

“No,” he said, without entirely thinking the response through.

“You do, though. After all, what guardian wouldn’t after his ward experienced such a disastrous scandal?” There it was again, in her tone. The humiliation.

He should have murdered Derek Hawkins when he had the chance.

“I don’t think you irresponsible. But I think your desire to run unreasonable.”

She cast him a withering look. “But marriage to a man I do not know seems more reasonable?”

He lifted one shoulder. “Choose a man you know. Choose anyone you like.”

She lost her temper. “I don’t know any other men. Believe it or not, I do not make a practice of knowing men. I know Derek. And now I know you. And excuse me, Your Grace, but you’re rather much of a muchness when it comes to desirability in a husband, with the singular difference that he covers his legs when he dresses.”

Singular difference. Alec could not resist responding to the madwoman. “Ah, but he dresses like an albino peacock, in my experience, so in that, I’d say you’re best off with the tartan, lass.”

She scowled her irritation at him, and he pressed on, unable to stop himself. “Shall I enumerate the other ways in which we differ?”

“I do not pretend to believe I can stop you, Your Grace.”

She was not simply mad. She was also maddening. “Well, I might begin with the obvious. I did not make your acquaintance with the goal of ruining you in front of all London.”

“Did you not?”

The question came quick and simple and utterly unsettling, “What does that mean?”

She did not reply, instead setting her jaw determinedly, as though she might remain silent forevermore.

He huffed his frustration. “Either way, Lillian, I have not proposed.”

“And thank heavens for that,” she said.

He bit his tongue at the words. She meant them to sting, but could not know how much they did, coming on a wave of memory. Of shame. Of desire for women for whom he would never be high enough. Never proper enough. Never good enough.

Lily would have a man good enough. “We go in circles,” he said. “You marry.”

“And if I don’t wish to marry the man you choose?”

“I cannot force you.”

She shook her head. “That might be the law, but everyone knows that forced marriages—”

“You don’t understand. I cannot force it because it is a separate condition of your guardianship that you are able to choose your husband for yourself, and that you remain under the care of the dukedom until such time as you marry.”