A Scot in the Dark (Scandal & Scoundrel #2)(72)

“The driver didn’t seem to notice.”

“The driver also didn’t notice you were being followed, so I would not laud his powers of observation.”

Her brow furrowed. “You cannot simply follow a woman wherever she goes, you know. You nearly scared me half to death.”

“You broke into a man’s house and hid beneath his bed!” he said. “What if it had been him and not me?”

“It was not him!” she whispered, irritated. “It was you! And you shouldn’t be here!”

“Oh, but you belong here?”

“More than you!”

“I forgot,” he said, “you have a damn key! I assume this is Hawkins’s bedchamber?”

“Not that it is any of your business,” she replied, “but he never reclaimed the key.”

“That is absolutely no reason to use it,” he snapped. “Are you lying in wait for him? Planning to tempt him back to you?”

He was horrible.

Lily narrowed her gaze. “How did you guess,” she responded, unable to keep the sarcasm from her voice. “This is my special brand of seduction: ill-fitting men’s clothing and hiding beneath beds for men who have no qualms ruining me.”

His brows rose. “I do not pretend to understand the female mind.”

She snatched the candle from his hand. “Go away. You’re not welcome here.”

“And you are?”

“I’ve business to attend to. I shan’t take long.”

He paused, watching her for a long moment before he narrowed his gaze on her and said, “Why are you here?”

“Does it matter?”

“It does if you still love him.”

The words rendered her speechless. “Love him?”

It seemed impossible to imagine now, two months later, with all that had happened. The painting. The exhibition.

Alec.

Not that Alec impacted her heart. At all.

Liar.

She cleared her throat at the thought. “Why not speak your mind, Your Grace?”

He scowled at the honorific. “Do you love him? Still?”

“No,” she said, unable to keep the shock from her voice. “Of course not. He is nothing of what I thought he was. Especially not now. Especially now that I—” Especially now that I am able to compare him to you.

Alec remained scowling. “Then why are you here?”

She sighed, looking past him to the door to Derek’s studio. “If you must know, I’m here to take matters into my own hands.”

“What does that mean?”

“Only that I am tired of waiting for salvation to find me. I’ve had guardians and suitors and men who made more pretty promises than I can count. And I am tired of believing those promises. It’s time for me to make my own promise. To myself.”

He did not move. “And what promise is that?”

“The promise to save myself.” She pointed to the door. “That’s his studio. Two months ago, that’s where he painted the portrait.”

He inhaled sharply. “And?”

“And, as the subject of the painting in question, I intend to take what’s mine.”

There was a long silence as the words settled between them, before he nodded once. “Let’s do it, then.”

She shook her head. “I just told you that I don’t require a savior. I shall save myself this time.”

He turned toward the door to the studio. “I heard you. But I am here and this door is locked.”

“I was about to look for a key when you terrified me into hiding,” she snapped.

He looked back at her. “Under the bed, by the way, is a terrible place to hide. What if he’d been heading for sleep? You’d have been stuck under there all night.”

She raised a brow. “You’re simply jealous that you wouldn’t have fit under the bed.”

A smile flashed at the irritated insult, and Lily loathed the warmth that coursed through her at the knowledge that she’d made him laugh.

She didn’t care about making him laugh.

He’d turned away, at any rate. With a firm tug, he tore the door from the jamb, as though the lock were made of paper and glue, and the warmth was replaced with shock as she stared at the demolished doorway. “Tell me, Your Grace, do houses in Scotland have doors?”

He did not hesitate. “Rarely.”

She should not find him amusing. “Now Derek will realize we were here.”

“You do not think he will notice when the painting is gone?” Alec said, as though it were that simple.

It occurred to Lily that it probably should be that simple. That she’d been willing to enter the room and take the painting, and Derek would have known when he returned that someone had done it. But for some reason, the splintered wood, the proof that it had been Alec who was here—it struck her. He’d followed her from the house, all the way here, and inside to ensure her safety, and once he’d heard her plans for the evening, he hadn’t forced her to leave them. Instead, he’d offered to help. In his own way.

By removing the door that had been her final barrier to success.

Somehow, despite being an enormous, overbearing, entirely difficult man, he’d also been tremendously kind.