Three Nights with a Scoundrel (Stud Club #3)(72)

“I do? No, I don’t. Do I?” Suddenly self-conscious, she pulled her fingers away from that same ear he’d just named.

“Yes, you do.”

He began signing along with his speech. She couldn’t decode the rapid motions just yet, but she adored watching them, in much the same way she loved watching him play the pianoforte so masterfully.

“The night we met,” he said, “it was your twenty-fifth birthday. A pleasant Wednesday evening, warm for April. You wore a gown of violet silk with gold braid trim. White gloves. Your hair was lovely. It was twisted into a knot at the center, with a smaller coil and ribbons encircling the chignon. You used to wear that style often, but I haven’t seen you do so of late. Have you changed lady’s maids?”

She nodded numbly. “This past May.”

“I thought so.”

“But how did you …” Lily frowned, not understanding him. “Last week, you said you didn’t even remember the night we met.”

“Your menu was inspired by Indian fare,” he went on. “All these exotic curries and chutneys and spiced lamb. I remember marveling at the fact that you’d ordered a birthday meal of entirely unfamiliar dishes, when most would ask for old favorites. It told me you have an adventurous spirit.”

“Me? I don’t have an adventurous spirit.” Lily wasn’t an adventurer. She was a keeper of lists and ledgers. She only wished she possessed an adventurous spirit.

“Not adventurous?” He teased her with a look. “In the past week, you’ve danced in assembly rooms and crude taverns, attended the theater in outrageous disguise, flung yourself at me in carriages and dark alleys. If that’s not proof of an adventurous spirit, I don’t know what is. But back to that first night. You took us all on a culinary adventure to India. Our place cards had little elephants drawn on them. I still have mine, somewhere.”

“Leo didn’t care for it.” She chuckled, remembering the way her brother’s face had flushed beet-red after one bite of the spicy curry. “He declared an end to Hindu sympathies and asked the footman to bring cold roast beef.”

“He did. And though he’d just thrown over all your hard work, you smiled and said nothing. The conversation floated on to something else, and you rubbed your left ear. And then, for some reason, your eyes sought mine. In that moment, I knew three things. First, much as you loved your brother, you occasionally found Leo a bit trying and dull.”

She gasped. “No. Leo? I never—”

“Secondly,” he went on, undeterred, “I knew that a band of vicious outlaws could storm the dining room and hold you at knifepoint, and you would deny that fact to the gruesome end. Just as you’re doing now. But thirdly, and most remarkably, I knew you couldn’t hide it from me. Didn’t even wish to. I can’t explain exactly how or why, but I understood you, Lily. And I felt certain, somehow, that you would understand me.”

She knew exactly what he meant. Lily had recognized their connection too, even when she’d called it nothing more than friendship. She’d always felt safe baring her emotions to him.

“I was in love with you by the time the third course was served. I’ve been in love with you ever since.” His lips quirked in a little smile. “So you see, it did not take me so very long to figure it out. Perhaps an hour, all told.”

Truly? He’d known himself to be in love with her all this time? She hardly knew how to respond. A lump rose in her throat, and the taste was bitter. If he’d been in love with her, how could he have wasted so much time—so much of himself—on all those others?

W-H-Y, she signed with halting motions. “Why did you never say anything?”

He gave a defeated shrug. “I’m a bastard. Isn’t it obvious?”

If that was meant to be a joke, Lily wasn’t laughing.

“I don’t know,” he finally replied. “Why do you rub your left ear when you’re vexed? Out of pain at first, or perhaps fear. After a while, it just became habit.”

He went still for a moment. When he began again, his signs were expansive, animated. Deeply felt, she supposed.

“I’ve spent so much of my life wanting. As a boy, wanting food, wanting warmth, wanting shelter. Wanting my mother back, for even just one day. Then as a man, wanting wealth, wanting esteem, wanting revenge. By that night of your birthday party, I’d accomplished everything I’d set out to do by entering the ton. And as much as I’d taken for myself, I still wasn’t satisfied. Always, I wanted more. That insatiable hunger … I reveled in it. I pretended to enjoy what I could not control. Let it become my life, my identity.”

He paused a moment before continuing. “I saw you that night, and we had that moment of understanding over chutney and whatever else. And a little voice in my soul said, ‘This. If I had this—if I had her, I would want for nothing. She would be enough.’ And I think it scared me witless.” He gestured around them, at the rumpled bed linens and their naked limbs. “This was something I never dreamed could happen. Not with you.”

Lily could hardly fault him for that. She’d never encouraged him to dream of it, and she’d kept her own imagination tightly laced—always so careful to label their connection as friendship, affinity. Never attraction or love.

Perhaps she’d been scared witless, too.