A Scot in the Dark
Page 18“There is something you should know, Lily.”
And through the happiness, she heard the name he’d never called her. The name she called herself—the one she’d shared with Derek. The one he’d shared with the scandal sheets he enjoyed so much.
The one that had become Lovely Lily. Lonely Lily.
Her gaze snapped to his.
There was a catch.
“As you remain unmarried, you receive the money at my discretion.” He paused, and she loathed him in the moment, hearing the words before he said them. “And I require you to marry.”
Chapter 5
LOVELY LILY LIVID . . . DEFIES DUKE! DISAPPEARS!
“You cannot force me to marry.”
It was the sixth time she’d said it. It seemed Lily had a knack for repeating herself when she was frustrated. What was more, it seemed that she had a knack for ignoring him when she was frustrated.
Which was likely for the best, because the fury on her face when he’d presented her with the terms of his guardianship and his plan to get her married made it very clear that she would have happily knocked him to the ground if she’d thought she could.
She might still try to do just that, which was why he was keeping his distance, watching her pace the room. He’d taken enough of a beating in the ring the night before.
She hesitated at the far edge of the room, staring out the large window that opened onto the house’s handsome back gardens. Angus and Hardy had taken up watch by the fireplace, lying with their large grey heads on their paws, eyes following the hem of her skirts. Alec watched as her hand worked the fabric of those skirts before she turned back to him, her anger returned. “You—” She stopped herself. Took a deep breath.
He didn’t even know the woman. He shouldn’t care how this situation made her feel. Indeed, it shouldn’t matter how she felt. It should only matter that he was one step closer to being gone from England.
Damn England.
The only place in the world where this kind of idiocy mattered.
He took pity on her nonetheless. “According to Settlesworth, you’re right. I cannot make you marry.”
She spun around to look at him. “I knew it!”
She would marry, nevertheless. He crossed his arms and leaning back against the hearth. “How old were you when your parents died?”
She came toward him, as though she could force him to return to the topic at hand, but seemed to collect herself once more. “My mother died when I was barely one year of age. In childbirth with a babe who did not survive.”
He saw the sadness in her eyes. The regret. The desire for something that would never be. He was drawn to that familiar emotion like a pup on a string. He stepped toward her. “I am sorry. I know what it is to spend a childhood alone.”
“Your parents?”
He shook his head. “Barely present. Better absent.”
“I thought you had a sister?”
He could not hide his smile as he thought of Cate. “Half sister, sixteen years younger, born while I was . . .” He hesitated on the memory. Cleared his throat. “While I was at school. We did not know each other until I was eighteen and my father died and I returned home to care for her.”
He replied with the truth. “I am not.”
She blinked at the honest answer, and he immediately moved to change the topic. “Cate is as troublesome as if we shared full blood.”
Her eyes were grey as the North Sea when she replied, “I wouldn’t know how troublesome that is, as it has always been me, alone.” Before he could find a reply, she said, “At least, since I lost my father. I was eleven.”
The words reminded him of the purpose of his question. He nodded. “Well, he took good care of you.”
Better care of her than his father had cared for him. He’d always been a memory of his mother. And, for his mother, he’d always been a reminder of what she might have had.
She laughed, the sound void of humor. “He left me in the care of a family that was not my own. That was so far above me in station that . . .”
She trailed off, but Alec did not need to hear the words. “How did he know the duke?”
“He worked for him. As land steward. Apparently he was quite good at it, as the then duke agreed to assume my care. A pity that the now duke does not feel similarly.” She looked away, the grey morning casting her in ethereal light. Christ, she was beautiful. Alec had no doubt that Hawkins’s painting was the masterpiece he claimed it to be.
The thought of the painting shook him from his reverie. He tried his best to sound kind. Comforting. Like a guardian. “I am, you know. Caring for you. Taking responsibility for you. I am attempting to give you the life you wish, Lily.”
“Don’t call me that.”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s not for you,” she said.
He resisted the urge to say the words. She was not wrong. The name was all too familiar. She was at best Lillian to him, even as she should be Miss Hargrove. She shouldn’t be Lily.
It didn’t matter that he wanted her to be.
And he certainly had no right to want her to be anything. She was his ward, and in that capacity, responsibility and problems and nothing else.
Fine. He could play the English guardian, cold and callous and lacking in feeling. God knew he loathed it enough to be familiar with the part. He began anew. “The terms of your guardianship include the factors of which you are aware. You are not allowed to marry without the express approval of the dukedom and, though you receive funds on your twenty-fourth birthday, it was clearly assumed that you would be married, because the terms indicate that I am able to hold those funds in trust until such time as you do marry, should I think you . . .”
It was his turn to trail off.
She wouldn’t allow it. “Should you think me what?”
“Irresponsible.”
A wash of red came over her cheeks. “Which, of course, you do.”
“No,” he said, without entirely thinking the response through.
“You do, though. After all, what guardian wouldn’t after his ward experienced such a disastrous scandal?” There it was again, in her tone. The humiliation.