A Scot in the Dark (Scandal & Scoundrel #2)(47)

“Of course,” Sesily said with a shrug. “It is what friends do. Help each other survive.”

Friends.

She’d never had a friend. But she’d read about them. She shook her head. “Why would you be so kind to me?”

Shadow passed over Sesily’s face, there, then gone. “Because I know what it feels like to have them all loathe you. And I’ve seen them chase another away. Women like us must stay together, Lovely Lily.”

Lily wanted to ask more, but there was no time to do so, as Alec chose that moment to reappear from the hallway beyond, coat shredded, trousers in tatters, gloves stained red with Derek’s blood.

“Cor! He looks like a prizefighter. Or worse,” Sesily said, her gaze locked on him as he approached and took Lily’s elbow in hand. “Oh, the female half of the ton wishes to be you, tonight, Lillian Hargrove.”

Lily couldn’t imagine why, as Alec looked as though he wished to murder someone. As though he had already murdered someone.

“We leave now,” Alec growled, ignoring Sesily, and Lily knew better than to argue with the glittering anger in his brown eyes, or the firm set of his square jaw.

Sesily leaned in to kiss Lily on her cheek, and took the moment to whisper, “Be careful. In my experience, men who look like that are ready for one of two things: kissing or killing. And he’s already attempted the latter.”





CHAPTER 10



BE STILL MY BEATING SCOT!





DILUTED DUKE DISCIPLINES DEREK


He did not trust himself to speak.

Not when he faced the worst of London in Eversley’s ballroom, burning in the heat of their combined not-quite gazes. And not when he guided Lily through the room, and he heard the whispers. The Diluted Duke . . . Covered in Hawkins’s blood . . . The girl is nothing but trouble . . . Poor Hawkins . . .

Certainly, Alec did not trust himself to speak at the idea that it was Hawkins who deserved the sympathy in this farce.

As if all Lily deserved was judgment.

The Scottish Brute.

He turned at the last, his gaze falling to a woman nearby, her eyes familiar. Knowing. He gritted his teeth, the words echoing through him, his clothes in shreds, the smell of Peg’s saccharine perfume still on them. The memory of her hands sliding over his chest, the touch evoking loathing, not of her, but of countless Englishwomen who thought of him as a notch in their collective bedposts—good enough to take to bed, not enough for more.

A conquest. The great Scottish beast.

Come and see me, darling, Peg had whispered, her skilled hands slipping over his chest, as though he belonged to her. As though he would follow like a pup on a lead. She’d slipped a card with her direction in his pocket, reminding him keenly of their past, of the way she’d so easily manipulated him despite thinking him less than her. Unworthy.

How many others had thought the same?

How often had he thought it himself?

He did not belong here, in this place with Lillian, beautiful and English and so thoroughly perfect.

Alec did not speak as he and Lily left the ballroom, passing a shocked King—did not even pause to bid farewell. And he did not speak when he ripped open the door to his carriage and lifted Lily inside.

She did speak, however, punctuating her little squeak of surprise at being hefted into the carriage with an “I’m quite able to climb steps, Your Grace.”

Alec didn’t reply, instead lifting himself into the carriage behind her, pulling the door closed with a perfunctory click and knocking twice upon the roof, setting the vehicle in motion.

He could not reply, too filled with frustration and shame and embarrassment and a keen sense of unworthiness. Between the state of his clothing and the battle with Hawkins and the arrival of Peg, he’d had enough of this horrible town. He wanted to destroy the entirety of the city, pull it down brick by brick, and return north like the marauding Scots of yore, who had loathed England with every fiber of their being.

He’d bring her with him. A spoil.

He rubbed a hand over his face, wishing himself anywhere but here. He’d never in his life felt so out of place, as though everything he did was wrong. And then there was Lily, who seemed to take every blow delivered and parry with skill beyond her years, a constant reminder that he was an utter failure at doing right.

So it was that Alec was less than thrilled when she spoke again, filling the carriage with her reminders. “Well. I imagine we shall be well received in the best of London houses after tonight.”

He bit back the curse he wanted to hurl into the night, choosing silence in its stead.

She, however, did not choose silence. “You cannot honestly believe that anyone will marry Hawkins’s muse?”

He speared her with a look. “Don’t call yourself such.”

“Fine. Hawkins’s mistress.”

The words set him further on edge. “Were you? His mistress?”

She met his gaze. “Does it matter?”

Only that he did not honor you. Only that he did not deserve you.

“Someone will marry you. Make your list. I’ll ensure it.”

“Alec,” she said, and the tone was one a mother might use with a child to explain why he couldn’t make clotted cream from clouds. “Hawkins was covered in bruises. You are covered in blood. If anyone in the world were willing to overlook the initial scandal, this has made it worse.”