A Scot in the Dark (Scandal & Scoundrel #2)(23)

Her mouth opened, then closed.

“You see, Lillian? Your father did care for you.” Her eyes went liquid at the words, and he was struck with a keen desire to pull her close and care for her himself. Which would not do. And so, instead, he said, “That, I might add, is why you are the oldest ward in Christendom and somehow, remain my problem.”

The words worked. The tears disappeared, unshed, replaced by a narrow gaze. “I would happily become my own problem if you would give me my freedom, Duke. I did not ask to be a burden any more than you asked to shoulder me.”

And the irony of it was that if he did that—gave the girl the money and sent her away, he’d be on the road back to Scotland at that precise moment.

Except he couldn’t. Because it wouldn’t be enough.

“Why?” she interrupted his thoughts, the question making him wonder if he’d spoken aloud.

He looked to her. “Why?”

“Why do you insist I marry?”

Because she was ruined if she did not. Because he had a sister six years younger than she, and just as impetuous, whom he could easily imagine falling victim to a bastard like Hawkins. Because he would lay down his life for Catherine in the same situation. And, though he found himself more than able to turn his back on the rest of the London bits of the dukedom, he would not turn his back on Lillian.

“Marriage—it’s what women do.”

Her brows rose. “It’s what men do, as well, and I don’t see you rushing to the altar.”

“It’s not what men do,” he replied.

“No? So all these women marching down the aisle, whom are they marrying?”

She was irritating. “It’s not the same.”

That laugh again, the one without humor. “It never is.”

He didn’t like it. Didn’t like the way it set him back. The way it made him feel that he was losing in whatever battle they fought.

“Alec,” she said, his name another blow of sorts—soft and quiet and tempting as hell on her pretty lips. “Let me go. Let me leave London. Let them have the damn painting and let me go.” She might have convinced him. It was not an impossibility, until she said, soft and desperate, “It’s the only way I’ll survive it.”

It’s the only way I’ll survive.

He inhaled sharply at the words—words he’d heard before. Spoken by a different woman but with the same unbearable conviction.

I must go, his mother had said, his narrow shoulders in her hands. I hate it here. It will kill me.

She’d left. And died anyway.

Alec couldn’t stop it from happening.

But he could stop it from happening again, dammit.

“There is no outrunning it, Lillian.” Her brow furrowed in confusion, and he pressed on. “The painting—it is to be the centerpiece of the Royal Exhibition’s traveling show.”

She tilted her head. “What does that mean?”

“It will travel throughout Britain, and then onto the rest of the world. Paris. Rome. New York. Boston. You’ll never escape it. You think you are known now? Just wait. Wherever you go, if they’ve access to news and interest in salacious gossip—which is everywhere I have ever been, I might add—you shall be recognized.”

“No one will care.” She stood straight as an arrow, but her tone betrayed her. She knew it wasn’t true.

“Everyone will care.”

“No one will recognize me.” He could hear the desperation in the words.

Christ, she was beautiful. Tall and lithe and utterly perfect, as though the heavens had opened and the Creator himself had set her down here, in this place, doomed to be soiled. The idea that no one would notice her, that no one would recognize her, it was preposterous. He softened his reply. “Everyone will recognize you, lass.” He shook his head. “Even if I doubled the funds. If I gave you ten times as much, the damn painting would follow you.”

Those straight shoulders fell, just enough for him to see her weakening. “It is to be my shame.”

“It is your error in judgment,” he corrected.

She smirked. “A pretty euphemism.”

“We have all made them,” he said, wishing for some idiot reason that he could make her feel better.

She met his gaze. “You? Have you made such an error?”

More than he could count.

“I am king of them,” he said.

She watched him for a long moment. “But men don’t carry the shame forever.”

Alec did not look away from her, from the words that so many believed true. He lied. “No. We don’t.”

She nodded, and he saw the tears threaten. He resisted the urge to reach for her, knowing instinctively that touching her would change everything.

He hated himself for not reaching for her when she turned away, for the door. “And you think you shall find a man who will choose to marry me. What nonsense that is.”

“I’ve given you a dowry, Lillian.”

She paused, putting her hand to the door handle, but not turning it.

He took the stillness as indication that she was listening. “There was none attached to you. Presumably because you were so young when you became ward to the estate. Also, presumably why you’ve never been asked for. But now there is. Twenty-five thousand pounds.”