A Scot in the Dark (Scandal & Scoundrel #2)(35)

“Only because you don’t want anyone noticing that your wife is as beautiful as Miss Hargrove.”

Lily attempted to ignore the qualifier and its casual reference to his opinion of her. Of course, she’d heard it before, that she was beautiful. She’d read it in the gossip pages. She had eyes and a looking glass. But when Alec acknowledged her beauty, it seemed somehow different.

Somehow both more true and less important than ever before.

Eversley was growling at him now. “You’d do best to remember that I don’t want anyone noticing her beauty, Duke. Especially not you.”

Alec rolled his eyes, extracting a piece of paper from his coat pocket. “Can we get this done?”

“Christ, Warnick, you brought the damn list?”

Lily’s brow furrowed. “What list?”

The men spoke at the same time.

“It’s nothing,” Eversley said.

“No list,” from Alec, even as he looked down at the paper.

“You’re both terrible liars.” Two sets of wide, handsome eyes met hers. Lily reached for the paper, and Alec held it out of reach, the fabric of his coat pulling tighter across his muscled frame. She pulled her hand back. “You are behaving like a small child.”

He lowered his arm. “It’s nothing.”

“It’s most certainly not nothing. Not if you’re playing games with me while at a ball.”

His gaze slid to the hound and hare protruding from her coif. “I’m not the only one playing games tonight, lass.”

She took advantage of his moment of distraction to snatch the list from his grasp, turning her back on him instantly to look at it. There were five names scrawled on it. An earl, two viscounts, a baron, and a duke.

She looked to him. “What is this?”

Alec did not reply, but his cheeks went slightly ruddy, as though he had been caught in a particularly damning act. And perhaps he had. She scanned the list again, looking for the unifying theme of the names.

They were all titled. All with extensive lands.

All decent men, if gossip was to be believed.

And all poor as church mice.

They were potential suitors. Lily looked up at Alec. “Why does the Duke of Chapin have a question mark next to his name?”

Alec looked to Eversley, who was suddenly riveted by the carpet beneath his feet.

Lily would not be ignored. “Your Grace?” she prompted, enjoying the way his jaw set at the honorific.

He returned his attention to her. “We are not certain that he is interested in marriage.”

She narrowed her gaze. “You intend to sell me like cattle in the marketplace.”

“Don’t be dramatic, Lillian. This is how it’s done.”

He hadn’t even begun to see dramatic. “How you marry off your scandalous ward, you mean?”

He did look at her then. “Well, it’s not as though you’ve made it easy. Name the man you want, and I’ll get him for you.”

“I told you, I don’t want to marry.”

“Then the list it is.”

She looked down at the list. “I certainly won’t marry the Duke of Chapin.”

“Cross the damn duke off the list. Replace it with a butcher, a baker, or a goddamn candlestick maker. But you’re going to marry if it kills me.”

“Warnick,” Eversley warned. “Language.”

Lily didn’t hesitate. “Killing you might be the only benefit to marrying.”

He leaned in then, close enough that the marquess would not hear them. Close enough for Lillian to note that his eyes were not simply brown. They were brown flecked with gold and green and grey. She’d think them beautiful if she didn’t loathe the very sight of their owner, who thought himself a hero despite presenting himself every kind of villain.

“You like your Shakespeare so much, how about this,” he said. “Sell when you can, Lillian Hargrove. You are not for all markets.”

She snapped to attention. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Only that time is of the essence.”

Shame flooded her, hot and unpleasant. Her heart threatened to pound out of her chest and, in that moment, she hated him. She pulled herself straight, pushing her shoulders back and holding herself with all the poise of a royal. “You, sir, are a bastard.”

“Sadly not, love. But I can see how you would wish it so; after all, it’s my legitimacy that’s landed us in this particular situation.”

She didn’t reply, instead pushing past him and following the throngs of people up into the ballroom, suddenly caring little for what she must look like in the ridiculous dog dress—too distracted by the blood rushing in her ears to hear the whispers around her as the ton became aware of her.

And yet, somehow, she heard him perfectly, the whispered curse as she walked away, followed by the Marquess of Eversley’s, “That was off-sides, Warnick.”

Good. Let his friend scold him. He’d acted abominably.

Lily had had enough of the man and his coarseness. He could wither and die in the doorway to Eversley House if he wished. Hang him, his offensive list, and his pretty Scottish poetry.

She was more than happy for them to part now.

Lily stepped into the Eversley ballroom, immediately drawn to the wash of bright golden light, the field of candles throughout the room, hanging from the chandeliers high above and ablaze in sconces and candelabra everywhere she turned. But it was not the candles that glittered most brightly. It was the people. All of London seemed to have turned out for the Eversley ball in bright silks and satins to match bright eyes and cheeks, the excitement of the season flooding through them.