Three Nights with a Scoundrel (Stud Club #3)(8)

Lily cleared her throat. “I had an unexpected caller the other day. Lady Norwich. You remember her.”

The abrupt change of subject set his brain spinning. “Do I?”

“I should hope so. You had an affair with her two summers ago. Before her husband passed away.”

“Oh.” An awkward pause. “That Lady Norwich.” With false nonchalance, he asked, “And what did she have to say?”

“She wants me to marry her brother, Mr. Burton.”

He sputtered. Damn that Maria Norwich. She wasn’t supposed to be so obvious. But then, subtlety never had been Maria’s forte. “She said that?”

“No, of course she didn’t say it. But there is no other reason she should have called, except to pave the way for her brother. She had nothing whatsoever to talk about. Just sat there like a stick, sipping tea.”

“I didn’t know sticks could sip tea.”

She cut him a stern look. He could tell she meant that glare to have teeth. The problem was, when Lily was near, Julian’s thoughts fixated on lips and tongue.

“Stop making fun,” she said. “I know you sent her, or at least put the thought in her head. You’re matchmaking again.”

“Burton will inherit an earldom.”

“I am not interested in Mr. Burton, or his earldom.”

Leaning forward, he reached into her lap and took her hands in his. She cast an apprehensive glance to the side, and he ignored it. Etiquette be damned, he had to convince her of this.

He squeezed her gloved fingers tight. “You must marry, and soon.”

“I don’t intend to marry at all.”

“Leo’s heir will arrive from Egypt in a matter of weeks.”

“Yes, and the new marquess is my cousin. We haven’t seen one another since childhood, but I doubt the man will cast me out of my home. He may be perfectly happy for me to manage the household until he marries, as I did for Leo. And if such an arrangement is not agreeable to us both, I will find living quarters of my own.”

“Alone? You cannot live alone.”

“I most certainly can. I am a single woman in possession of good fortune. Why should I be in want of a husband?”

“Lily …” He released her hands. There was no way to talk around it. “You cannot hear.”

“I am deaf, yes, and have been so these past nine years. And …?”

And there were innumerable obstacles for a deaf single woman setting up a household of her own, and well she knew it. She was simply being difficult. “The merchants will cheat you, for one.”

“Holling and Swift look out for me. And I can hire a companion.”

He made an exasperated gesture. “The companion will cheat you.”

“I’m safer in the hands of a cheating companion than saddled with a grasping fortune-hunter husband. Even if a servant siphons ten percent of my fortune, I still retain the greater part. If I marry, I lose control of everything. And really, Julian. Malachi Burton?” A laugh caught in her throat. “When we were younger, he lacked the temerity to ask me for a dance. Now marriage? He must presume me desperate indeed.”

Her gaze wandered to the center of the square. A little smile touched the corners of her lips. “You never knew me before my illness. I had so many suitors in my first season.”

Julian blinked at her. Unbelievable. She spoke the words as though they should come as a surprise. “As many as there were eligible gentlemen in London, I’d wager. You could have just as many now. Show your face at a party now and then, and the men would flock to you.”

“Please.” Her cheeks flushed. “I’m eight-and-twenty, not a debutante.”

“Were you eight-and-forty, any man would be lucky to marry you.”

“Any man would be lucky to attach himself to my money and connections, do you mean?”

He tsked. “Don’t fish for compliments, Lily. It’s unbecoming.”

“I’m not fishing for anything. I’m stating facts. Even ignoring my impairment—which most find difficult to ignore—by the ton’s standards, I’m a dried-up spinster.”

“Nonsense.” He brushed her cheek, then held up his thumb to mock inspection and pronounced, “Glistening with the dew of youth.”

With another woman, he might have put that same thumb in his mouth, lightly sucked it in lascivious suggestion. He would not do that with Lily. He would not. No matter how much he wished to savor the sweet essence of her skin.

She gave him an arch look, one eyebrow rising in reproof.

He returned the expression, mirroring her primness with such success that she laughed despite herself. He loved the sound of her laugh. It wasn’t musical or affected, just honest and real.

“I’ve missed this,” she said suddenly. “I’ve missed our friendship so much.”

Julian didn’t know what to say. Of course he’d missed her friendship, too. But did she have to graze his wrist when she said that, sit forward on the bench … tugging his eyes down the bodice of her dress, giving rise to desires that strayed well beyond the bounds of friendly discourse?

She said, “The house is so empty with Leo gone.”

God, yes. Speak of Leo. Help me smother this inappropriate yearning under a thick blanket of guilt and grief.