A Scot in the Dark (Scandal & Scoundrel #2)(27)

He dropped them like they were aflame, and yet, somehow, remained unable to look away from them when they landed on a layer of satin and lace that did not look like it was for a child at all.

He looked over his shoulder to the open door, fleetingly imagining what he would say if a servant happened by, but not entirely caring if he were discovered. He was too far down this particular road at this point.

He lifted the dress from the trunk and knew immediately what it was—pristine and white, as untouched as the children’s clothes he’d found above and somehow, oddly, far more precious. Far more important.

This was Lillian’s wedding dress. No doubt sewn with dreams of happiness and a future filled with love and family.

She wanted to marry.

She dreamed of it, and of the family that would come with it.

As he held this garment in his hands—proof of her desire, of the fact that she did not wish to be alone, that she had not spent her life dreaming of being alone with none but herself for companion, he found his commitment to his plan renewed.

She was his to protect. To care for. And he would do it. He would get her married. He’d fulfill her dreams.

Of course, to do that, he had to get the girl found, which wasn’t going to happen as long as he stood around in what would kindly be referred to as a cupboard beneath the servants’ stairs. She’d likely gone to visit friends.

A noise punctuated the thought, a little bang, followed by several thuds and a peal of muffled laughter, and Alec realized that the room wasn’t just minuscule. It was loud. He could hear the servants on the other side of the wall.

Why on earth did she sleep here?

He did not have time to consider the question, as it occurred that the proximity to the servants was a boon in this particular moment. He left the room and poked his head out into the servants’ stairwell, catching a footman and two maids descending. “You there.”

They went stone still, and one of the young women squeaked.

The footman spoke first. “Your Grace?”

“Who are Miss Hargrove’s most frequent visitors?”

Silence.

Alec tried again. “Her friends. Who visits her?”

One of the girls shook her head. “No one.”

His brow furrowed. “No one?”

The other shook her head. “No one. She does not have friends.”

The words came heavy in the dark stairwell, and surprising enough for Alec to have to work to hold back his instinctive How is that possible? Lillian was beautiful and clever and had the power of a dukedom behind her. How could she possibly lack friends? Perhaps they simply did not come to the house.

He nodded once. “Thank you.”

“Your Grace?” the footman asked, confusion in his voice.

“Och,” Alec replied. “In Scotland we’re more grateful than they are in England, apparently. You needn’t peer at me like a lion in a cage.”

The servants blinked in unison. “Yes, Your Grace.”

Alec returned to the landing as the trio passed. “Oh!” one of the girls cried a split second later before she popped her head around the door frame. “She sees the solicitor.”

It was Alec’s turn to blink. “I beg your pardon?”

“Older man. Wiv spectacles. Starswood or somefin’,” she said.

“Settlesworth?”

The girl smiled. “That’s it! Comes once a month. One of the other girls says it’s ’ow Lillian—” She corrected herself. “Miss Hargrove—gets her blunt.” Another pause. “Her money.”

Of course it was.

She couldn’t leave home without funds. And Settlesworth held the purse strings. Alec turned to leave the girl before another thought occurred. He turned back to find her watching him. “Why does she sleep here?” he asked, indicating the room.

She blinked, considering the little room as though she’d never thought to look at it before. Shook her head. “Don’t know, rightly,” she said, finally. “ ’Twas ever thus.”

Alec nodded at the unsatisfying answer, thanked the girl, and headed for his solicitor’s offices.





CHAPTER 6



DUKE GOES TO THE DOGS!

If he wished to marry her off, he’d have to find her, first.

The Dukedom of Warnick boasted eight London residences. There were four town houses scattered throughout Westminster and Mayfair, a house east of the city on the banks of the River Thames, a lodging house off Fleet Street that she’d been told was “for income” (though it didn’t seem that the dukedom lacked such a thing), a sprawling home with extensive gardens in Kensington, and a little house east of Temple Bar that was supposedly quite drafty.

Lily had always preferred number 45 Berkeley Square the best, likely out of comfort, as the house had belonged to the Duke of Warnick she’d known best—the one who had died five years earlier, beginning the spate of ill luck that had subsequently taken the lives of sixteen other Dukes of Warnick, leaving the dukedom several residences richer, thanks to those interim dukes who had died without heirs, wives or family. Bernard Settlesworth, taxed with managing the London bits of the dukedom, had purchased the properties in the months and years following the deaths. As a result, Alec Stuart, Number Eighteen, now claimed them as his own, despite very likely not knowing that they existed.