A Scot in the Dark

Chapter 21

ALL’S FAIR IN LOVE AND WARD

“I left Scotland when I was twelve.”

Lily did not know what she expected him to say, but she did not expect that. And then, “I should say, I ran from Scotland when I was twelve.”

She desperately wished to touch him, to make sure he understood that whatever he said to her, whatever had happened in his past, she was with him. But she had learned enough about Alec Stuart in the past ten days to know that touching him would do nothing but remind him of the burden he carried. And so, instead, she clasped her hands together and sat, perched on the edge of her little bed, as though it were perfectly normal to be here.

“My mother left when I was eight.” He looked down at his hands, large and strong and perfect. “I remember very little of her, but I remember how my father responded to her leaving. He was angry and full of regret. And when she died mere months later—”

It took all Lily’s strength not to push him.

He regrouped. “The messenger came and my father read the news in front of me. He showed no emotion. And he would not countenance mine.”

Lily closed her eyes at the words. He’d been a child. And no matter who she was, or what kind of mother she had been, she’d been just that. His mother.

“Alec,” she said, wanting him close. He started at the words and met her eyes. “You shall hit your head if you are not careful. Sit? Please?”

She would have done anything for him to sit with her. But, instead, he chose the little chair at the desk, pulling it out and dwarfing it with his size. With his glory. She drank him in, aware of their knees, inches apart in the little space. “Go on.”

“All I remember of her was that she spoke of England. Of how it suited her. Of how she loved it. Of how much better it was than Scotland.”

She smiled. “I suppose she could have come up with three things superior to those of Scotland.”

One side of his mouth kicked up. “Likely more than three.” He grew serious. “I missed her, oddly. It did not matter that she was not the best of mothers. And so, as she had, I, too, longed for England.” He laughed, small and quiet. “I know that must be difficult to believe.”

“Self-proclaimed reviler of all things English as you are.”

“Not all things English. I find I have warmed to one thing.” The words shot through her. He meant her. And still, he did not let them linger. “I wanted to go to England. To follow her. To see the country she loved. The place she longed for with such intensity that she left her child to find it.”

He stopped, lost in the story, his hands coming together, the fingers of one hand finding the scar on the other. The one his father had given him. She watched those hands for a long moment, wishing she could soothe them. Finally, she said, “And?”

“My father wouldn’t have it. He vowed to disown me. To cut me off if I left.” Lily’s heart began to pound. “And I did not care. I wrote to everyone I could find. Distant relatives—my father was vaguely English, as well, you’ll not be surprised to discover, considering I was seventeenth in line for a dukedom.”

She smiled. “I imagine he would have been equally thrilled to inherit.”

“Likely less thrilled,” Alec allowed.

“And so?” she asked.

“A distant relative sent a letter. Called in a chit. Whatever it was, it worked. And I had a spot at a school. My father did as he’d promised—told me I could never come home. But I did not care. My tuition was paid in full. A generous relative.” He smiled, rubbing his scarred hand over the back of his neck and suddenly looking very much like the boy he must have been. “Perhaps one of the sixteen. That would be ironic.”

Lily envisioned him, king of the schoolboys, handsome and tall and better at every sport there was. “I imagine you were terribly popular.”

His head snapped up, his brown eyes meeting hers. “They hated me.”

Impossible. “How is that—”

“I was tall like a reed, all bones and Scots braggadocio. And they were born of venerable titles and ancient lands and more money than I could ever imagine. I was an imposter, and they knew it. They judged it. And they beat the arrogance from me.”

She felt the words like the blows they described. And still, she shook her head. “They were children. They could not have—”

“Children are the worst of all,” he said. “At least adults judge quietly.”

“And so?”

“For the first three years, I had no choice. I was poor, forced to clean floors and wash windows in the time I did not study in order to pay for the bits that tuition did not cover, and they could smell it on me, the need for funds.” He smiled, lost in the memory, and she could see young Alec there, the little boy alone and desperate for companionship. It was something Lily understood keenly.

Something she would never wish upon another.

“King was the only boy who wasn’t cruel.”

The words made her wish the Marquess of Eversley were there, so she could thank him for his long-ago kindness. But she had a feeling the story did not end with the two boys as happy companions.

Alec was leaning forward, his elbows on his knees, his head bowed, as though he were in confession. And Lily’s heart pounded with fear for the boy he once was.

She could not stop herself. “What happened after three years?”

He gave a little huff of humorless laughter. “I grew.” Confusion flared as he shook his head and elaborated without looking at her. Telling the story to his hands, large and warm and clasped tightly together. “More than a foot in a few months. Taller than any of them. Broader, too.” He paused, then looked up at her. “It hurts, did you know that? Growing.”

She shook her head. “How?”

That smile again, the one that made her want to hold him until they were old. “Physically. You ache. Like your bones cannot keep up with themselves. But now that you ask, I suppose it hurts in every other way, as well—there’s a keen sense that where you have been is no longer where you are. And certainly nothing like where you are going.” He stopped, then whispered, “Nothing like where I was going.”

“Alec—”

He continued as though she had not spoken, as though, if he stopped, he might not be able to start again. Lily pressed her lips together and willed herself to listen. “They went from judging me, from teasing me, from mocking my very existence . . . to loathing it. Because they could no longer dominate me. Now, I was the one who dominated. I was the—”

She reached for him then. She knew the words that were coming. Had heard them on his lips a dozen times. Her hands clasped his tightly. “Don’t say it. I hate it.”

He met her gaze then, and she saw how much he hated it, as well. “That’s why I have to say it, Lily,” he said softly. “Because it’s apt. Because I am the Scottish Brute.”

She shook her head. “You aren’t, though. I’ve never met a man less so.”

“I broke down a door the first time we met.”

A thrill shot through her at the memory, at the sheer force of his will. “Because you wished to get to me. To protect me.”

For a moment, she thought he would deny it. But instead, he looked deep into her eyes, all honesty. “I did wish to protect you.”

“And you have.”

He looked away, his gaze settling on the stockings draped over the end of her bed, left there before she fled days ago. “I haven’t, though. I’ve never once been able to.”

She threaded her fingers into his, aching for him. “You’re wrong.”

“You’ve had to do it all yourself.”

“No,” she said, forcing him to meet her gaze. “Don’t you see? You’ve given me the power to do it. You’ve given me the strength for it. You wanted to give me freedom? Choice? You have. Again and again. Without you—”

He shook his head, stopping her. “I was a brute, Lily.”

“You weren’t,” she said. “They hurt you. You fought back.”

“Indeed, I fought. Like a damn demon. I wanted them all to know that I was not for their play any longer. That if they came for me, they would risk losing everything.”

She nodded, proud of the boy he had been. Knowing that she should not wish pain upon a group of children, but grateful that he had found a way to win with them. “Good.”

He laughed again, low and humorless, and shook his head. “You won’t think so when you hear the rest.”

He tried to pull his hands from hers, but she wasn’t having it. She clutched him tighter. “No.” He looked up, surprise and something much more unsettling in his eyes. Something like fear. She shook her head. “You are here. And I am with you.”

She saw the words hit him. Saw the deep breath he took in their wake.

Saw him resolve to strike back.

“The boys could not fight me and win,” he said quietly. “And so their sisters finished the work.”

She was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen, and he could sit there until the end of time, watching her. But he loved her too much to keep her, and so he told her the truth, knowing it would drive her away. Knowing it would prove that he was not for her. That she could find another, infinitely better.

You could make her happy, if you decide to do so.

Stanhope’s words were the worst kind of falsehood. The pretty one. The one that tempted enough to ruin a man, and the woman he had vowed to protect. And so, when her brow furrowed in her confusion at his words, he gave them to her again, clearer.

“My school was paid for, but everything else cost money. Food. Drink. Linens. The wash. And the work I had done for it—it was suddenly unavailable; no doubt the cooks and cleaners at the school had been paid well to forget I existed. I could not survive without funds.” The memory of those months, desperate and hungry and angry, lying in the dark, wondering what would come next. “King would sneak me food and put my shirts in his laundry now and then, but I was proud and it felt like—”

“Friendship,” she whispered. “It was friendship.”

It had been. King had always watched for him. But—“It felt like charity.”

She nodded, and he saw the understanding alongside the sadness in her eyes. Alongside the pity. “It is hard to believe we deserve better.”

Did she not see? “Don’t compare us. You were never—”

“What?”

The frustration in the question unlocked him. He stood, forcing her touch from him, unwilling to bear it. Being here, in Lily’s little room, was the worst of it. Every word was wrapped in her, and even as he paced, he was barely able to move—his size reducing the space to a step. Two.

Finally, he stopped, thrusting his hands through his hair. He let out a long breath and said, “Peg came to me when I was fifteen.” He felt her still at the name. At the words. “It was Michaelmas holiday.”

“It is always Michaelmas,” she said, softly, and he did not understand. She did not give him a chance to ask. “Go on.”

“She was the older, very beautiful sister of another boy. I was hiding from the families who had come to visit, telling myself I required study.”

“But you were simply trying to ignore what you did not have yourself.”

He looked to her. “Yes.”

She smiled, small and sad. “I know that well.”

He ignored the comparison. Pressing forward. “She followed me. No one was in the library . . . and then she was.”

Lily’s gaze narrowed. “How old was she?”

“Old enough to have had a season. Old enough to know what marriage would be for her.” He thought of Lord Rowley, debauched and rich as a king. “She came to me and offered me . . .”

“I can imagine.”

“You can’t, though.” This was the bit he had to say aloud. It was the bit that would convince her that they were not for each other. That he would never be worthy of her. “When it was over, I did what was expected to be done. I told her I would seek out her father. That I would marry her.”

Lily’s attention was rapt, and he loathed it, the way she saw into him. The way she understood him more than anyone ever had. “She refused.”

He turned away. Looked out the window, over the dark London rooftops. “She laughed.” He paused, his own humorless laugh coming on the heels of the words. “Of course she laughed.” He put a hand to his neck, wishing he were anywhere but there, reliving the sordid past. “She was daughter to a viscount. Set to marry an earl. And I was poor and untitled and Scottish. And a fucking fool.”

“No,” Lily whispered.

He did not turn. Could not. Instead, he spoke to the city beyond. “Not poor any longer.” He was lost in the memory. “She paid me ten pounds. It was enough for a month of food.”

“Alec.” She was behind him now. She’d come off the bed, and he could hear the desperation in her voice. He had to turn to her. To look at her. To show her the truth.

And so he did, seeing the tears in her eyes, hating them. Loving them. What a life it would have been if it had been Lily who had found him in the library all those years ago. And instead . . .

“She sent her friends after that. Aristocratic girls who wished for an opportunity to play in the gutter. To quench their thirst for mud. To ride the Scottish Brute.”

He saw the words strike her. Hated himself for doing it even as he forced himself to finish. “They paid my way through school. And I played the whore. I suppose I should be grateful that, as a man, it was never the shame it would have been if I were a woman. I was revered. They whispered my name like I was their favorite toy. A fleeting fancy. Peg used to say that I was the perfect first and the worst possible last.”

“I do not care for her,” Lily said.

Peg was not the point. He pointed to the trunk on the wall. Made the point again. “When I tell you that I am unworthy of you, it is not a game. It is not a falsehood. Those pristine white clothes, the hems you’ve embroidered with love and dedication, the damn boots with their little leather soles . . . they are for another man’s children. The dress. It is for another man to strip from you. A man infinitely better than I.”

He begged her to understand. “Don’t you see, Lily? I am not the man you marry. I am the other. The beast you regret. But now—you can have another. A man you deserve.” He pointed to the painting. “That thing . . . the painting they would have used to destroy you—it is no longer your albatross. And now, you may choose a different path, far from the scandal. Whatever one you wish. Don’t you see? Choice is the only thing I can give to you.”

She opened her mouth to answer and he slashed a hand through the air, begging her to be silent. “Do not. Do not choose me. How are you not able to see the truth? I will never be for you. I could not even—I arrived in London with a single task—to protect you. And I couldn’t. I could not keep you from them. From the gossips. From Hawkins. Dear God, you were nearly run down on Rotten Row. And that’s before I took advantage of you. I should never have touched you.”

He waited for the agreement to come. For the judgment.

He waited for her to leave.

And when she moved, he braced himself to watch her go. Except she did not leave. Instead, she came to him. He stepped back, desperate to avoid her, too broken to touch her. But the room was too small and she was a superior opponent.

She did not touch him.

Worse. She reached up and removed the pins from her hair, letting it fall around her shoulders like auburn silk. His mouth went dry and his gaze narrowed before she said, “I’ve something to say now, if I might.”

As though he could stop her, this warrior princess, dressed like a pickpocket about to thieve his damn heart.

“It is a great fallacy, you know. The idea that first is most meaningful. That second is. That any that follow are. That the circumstances of those early encounters somehow mean more than the one we choose forever. It is the lie the world tells us, but you have taught me to know better.”

She looked to him, the love in her eyes stealing his breath. “I have heard your tale. And now it is time for you to hear mine. When I am old, Alec, and I look back on the faded memories of my life, shall I tell you of what I will think? It will not be him. And when I think on my scandal, I shall be grateful for it, as it will have brought me you. But I will not think much on it, because I will be too busy thinking of you. Of the days we sparred and the nights I wished we might. Of the hours I spent wrapped in your plaid. Wrapped in you. Of the way you look at me, as though there has never been another woman in the world.”

And there hadn’t been. Not for him. She put her hand to his chest, where his heart threatened to beat from it. “Of the way you have held me. And the way I have loved you.

“So tell me, Alec Stuart, self-made man turned duke, strong and kind and brilliant beyond measure.” She was going to destroy him with her words and her gaze. “When you are old, of whom will you think?”

And suddenly, it was the only question that mattered.

“You,” he said, reaching for her. Or perhaps she reached for him. It did not matter, as she was in his arms.

And it was true. He would remember her.

“Always you. Forever you.”

Even if this night was all he had.

“None of it matters,” she said, the words strong against his lips, “Not the past, not the women, not the scandal. None of it matters when we are here, and we have each other.” And then she was kissing him, and he was lifting her in his arms and her legs were wrapped about him as though she belonged there.

And she did.

Without breaking the caress, he returned her to the bed, lowering her to sit on the edge of it, coming to his knees at the bedside. She released his lips and pulled away. “No,” she said. “I do not wish you on your knees.”

“You shall like it when I show you all the things I intend to do to you from this particular position,” he said, his lips finding purchase at the soft, warm skin of her neck before opening and giving him access to the line of her jaw and the lobe of her ear. “Leave me here to worship you, love. And I shall make it worth your while.”

He took her lips again, loving the little sigh she released, the way she went limp at the touch, as though he she could not resist him.

As though he was as irresistible as she was.

The caress lingered until her hands fell to his shoulders and she pushed him back, again, putting space between them. “I don’t want you on your knees, Alec,” she repeated. “I want you.”

His hands threaded into her hair, “I am with you, love. I couldn’t be anywhere else.”

She shook her head. “You don’t understand.” She leaned back. “I don’t want you with me. I want us with each other.”

When he finally understood the words, they were like a blow to the side of the head. He sat back on his heels there, on the floor of her tiny room under the stairs, and watched her for a long moment, as color rose in her cheeks and she said, “Do you see, love? I want us together.”

She wanted them equal.

Not a guardian and his ward.

Not a duke and a miss.

And not the other.

He swallowed, unable to find any other words but “I see.”

She had once more ruined him.

She saw the truth in him and smiled, wide and gleeful, before she went to her knees on the bed, shucking the coat and shirt she’d worn as a disguise that evening—as though she’d removed men’s clothing from her person a dozen times—revealing her high, lovely breasts, soft and perfect as peaches and fresh cream.

His mouth watered, and he raised his attention to her auburn hair, cascading around her shoulders. And then she reached for the fall of her trousers.

He watched her for a long moment his eyelids growing heavy with desire before he could not help himself. “Stop,” he growled, his gaze riveted to those long, lovely fingers where they lingered at the fastening of her trousers.

She stopped.

He rubbed the back of one hand across his mouth, aching for her. Afraid of her.

“Are you going to do it?” she whispered.

With effort, he rose his gaze to her. “Do what?”

She smiled at him—not the coquettish smile he’d seen on women before in this particular situation, but something far more dangerous—she looked happy. Gleeful. Eager.

You could make her happy if you decide to do so.

He pushed the thought away. He didn’t want Stanhope here. And then she replied, and the earl was the farthest thing from his mind. “Are you going to tell me what you want me to do?”

He was assaulted with images—with hundreds of ideas of what he’d like her to do for him. To him. To herself. He returned his attention to the trousers, a half-dozen buttons in the way of what he wanted. And he did as he was asked.

“Take them off.”

Her smile turned utterly satisfied. “With pleasure.”

The trousers were gone before he had time to appreciate her skill with the fastenings, shucked across the room, revealing bare legs that promised sin and salvation all at once. She lay back on the tiny bed, one long arm covering her breasts, and the other cutting a swath across her beautiful, rounded stomach, the hand covering the place he wanted more than anything in the world.

“Go on, Your Grace,” she teased, knowing that with every breath, with every movement, with every stunning smile, she made him mad with desire. “What can I give you next?”

“Open for me.” The command shocked him even as her lips fell open in a stunning, surprised inhale. For a moment, he thought he’d gone too far. And then she did, spreading her beautiful thighs wide on the narrow bed. She did not, however, move her hand.

He raised a brow. “Minx.”

She smiled. “You will have to be more specific about your desires, Your Grace.”

She was magnificent.

“I desire you,” he said.

The smile widened, but the hand did not move. “Much more specific.”

He unclasped the pin on his shoulder, holding his plaid in place, and her eyes widened, her fingers tightening so barely that one might not even notice. One might not notice, that was, if one were not fully riveted to the woman in question, hard and hot and desperate for her.

He was naked in seconds, his cock hard and aching for her.

Her eyes widened, and she—dammit—she licked her lips, her gaze trained on him. “More specific, even, than that.”

“I desire that you move your hand, lass,” he said, approaching the bed and staring down at her, reveling in her glorious nudity. “So that I might have a closer look at you.”

She raised a brow. “Only a look? Is that some kind of Scottish half measure?”

His lips twitched at her teasing and he let his burr take over. “Once I’ve seen ye, lass, if yer lucky, I might touch ye, and once I’ve touched ye, ye can wager I’ll be tastin’.”

She laughed then, wild and free, like the Highlands. “I think, Mr. Stuart,” she whispered, moving her hand, revealing a thatch of secret, stunning auburn hair, “that if ye’ll be touchin’ me, it’ll be you who is lucky.”

And she was right. He was the luckiest man alive. For the night.

To honor that good fortune, he laid himself down next to her, and proceeded to do all he’d promised, whispering to her the whole time, revealing her secrets in the little room as he made love to her. “So soft,” he said at her ear, his lips lingering over the soft skin of her neck. “So wet.” He licked, worrying the lobe between his teeth as he slipped a finger through her folds, drenched with her desire. “So warm,” he said, that finger sliding deep and returning again and again, swirling and petting and stroking until she was writhing beneath him and he moved to her breast.

He licked, long and slow, before taking the straining tip between his lips and sucking, soft and rhythmic, in time to the movements of his hand, and she came off the bed like she was pulled on a string, one hand threading into his hair, the other finding his, strong and sure below, slowing it as she rode her climax to its glorious end.

And it was glorious. She turned pink with pleasure, with excess. And when she settled, sighing his name and opening those eyes to meet his, he could see that her thoughts had scrambled.

She dragged his mouth to hers once more, kissing him slow and deep and thorough.

And when she released him, he said, “I desire it again.”

Her eyes went wide and her lips curved into a little O. He moved, this time spreading her thighs apart with his shoulders and lifting her to his mouth with one arm, turning her into his banquet. Loving her with his hands and mouth until she came apart in his arms, his name first a whisper and then a scream on her lips.

And when she’d collapsed once more in a heap on the bed, he pressed soft kisses to her stomach and whispered, “You, Lily. It will always be you. Everything. Always. You,” until her breathing returned to normal and he growled, “Again,” before pressing his mouth to the center of her, where she glistened, warm and pink and sated.

“Alec,” she sighed, barely able to find the words. “Please. Love. What of you?”

As though there were anything in the word that would give him more pleasure than the taste of her on his lips and the sound of her in his ears and the feel of her in his hands.

One last time.

“Once more,” he said. “Once more.” And he made love to her with slow, slick strokes, gentle and slow, honoring her. Worshipping her. Pleasuring her until she found her rhythm once more, moving in time to his strokes, to her own desire. Until she came again, hard and long and magnificent, her hands in his hair and his name on her lips.

This.

This was what he would think of when he was old.

He had destroyed her with pleasure.

She was in pieces on the bed, without ability to move or even think, when he came up to lie beside her, to hold her as she trembled, weak from his hands and mouth and words. She turned into him, his large, warm arms coming around her.

“You betrayed me,” she said to his broad chest, rubbing her cheek across the crisp hair there, unable to summon the energy to say it with more conviction. “We were to be with each other.”

“And we were.”

She shook her head. “You did not take your pleasure.”

He pressed a kiss to her forehead. “That was the most pleasurable experience of my life, love. Sleep.” The words rumbled beneath her ear.

As though she could sleep with him there, with the hard length of him against her thigh like a promise. She was not going to sleep. Not until he had received his pleasure as openly and as thoroughly as she had.

Not until she had given it to him.

“No,” she whispered, sending her hand over the planes of his chest, enjoying the way the muscles of his torso tightened beneath her touch, and he hissed his desire. “I’ve other plans.”

“Lily,” he spoke her name in the flickering candlelight, his hand coming to hers, halting it on its path, just as her fingers found the place where soft hair grew thicker. “You don’t have to . . .”

She turned her face into the warmth of him, pressing a soft kiss to the skin on his chest. And another. And another, until his breath was coming harsher and she could feel the deep pulse of his heart beneath her lips. Only then did she slide her tongue out in a little circle, honoring him, adoring the way he drew tight like a bowstring at the touch.

She moved, her lips sliding down his body, over his torso, his free hand coming to her hair as he spoke her name low and dark and wonderful. She imagined he intended to stop her, but then she was licking over the planes of his stomach, breathing him in, and he was trembling at the touch, and—thank Heaven—forgot to stop her.

Not even when she moved her hand, sliding his away, clearing a path to the place she desperately wanted to reach. She leaned back, reveling in the size and strength of him—glorying in the fact that he was hers in that moment, as her mouth watered and her fingers itched to claim him.

And then ran her lips up the hard, straining length of him, breathing his name as he arched off the bed with a wicked curse, and she gloried in the power he had given her. The strength. The pride that this man was not only hers, but that she was about to give him all he desired.

She licked over the tip of him, the salt and sweet of him tempting her even as he groaned her name, his hands coming to her, fingers sliding into her hair—not pulling to or pushing away, but cradling her with near-unbearable gentleness.

“Once more,” she whispered his words back to him, and the groan deepened, his fingers flexing against her as she parted her lips and took him slow and deep, adoring the feel of him. The steel of him. The desire that rioted through him.

And through her, as well, as he gasped his pleasure in a wicked, tempting echo of what she had experienced only minutes earlier.

She’d never in her life wanted anything more than Alec’s pleasure, and that desire drove her further, licking and sucking and drawing him as deep as she could, playing with speed and sensation, finding the places that seemed to drive him wild and trying—desperately—to send him over the edge.

His hands tightened in her hair. “I can’t . . . Lily . . . Please . . . If you don’t . . . I won’t be able to . . .” The words were a growl, deep and fierce. “Lily.”

“I don’t want you to stop,” she whispered to the pulsing, beautiful head of him. “I don’t want you to hold back. I want you to give it to me. All of it. Let me revel in you.”

He whispered her name, dark and sinful in the little room, and Lily thrummed with power. With passion. With her own desire as she sucked deeper, licked, found a rhythm that brought them both to the edge, a string of Gaelic on his lips as he gave himself up to her, to passion, and finally, finally, with her name on his lips, to release.

She stayed with him, adoring him as he basked in his pleasure before ultimately lifting her to lay with him, pulling her into his arms, running his hands over her naked skin, whispering long strings of his lovely, lyric language against her hair, interspersing the words with soft, lingering kisses until she shivered and he pulled a blanket over them both.

“That was—”

The words were barely there—a rumble beneath her ear as much as anything else—trailing off, his thought incomplete. She smiled, kissing his chest. “I agree.”

“Lily,” he whispered, those massive hands still moving, cloaking her in warmth and love and security. “My Lily.”

She closed her eyes and sighed. “Yours.”

His hands stilled at the word, just barely, just enough for her to shift at the change, and he began anew, long, languid glides that tempted her with comfort she had never before experienced.

“Sleep,” he said, and there was something in the soft, rough word that sent a thread of unease whispering through her, but she was too exhausted to consider it. Too consumed with him to be able to think of a time he might not be with her. Touching her. A part of her.

His hands stroked over and over, until avoiding sleep became an impossibility. Lily closed her eyes and pressed closer to him with a final, soft plea. “Be here in the morning. We shall start anew.” And then, from the edge of sleep, “Do not leave me. Be here.”

Be mine.

Not two hours later, she woke in the darkness, cold and alone beneath the covers of her Berkeley Square bed. The curtains were open, but the London night beyond was dark as soot—the darkness that came when it was nearly dawn.

She sat up to light the candle on the bedside table, knowing even before the spark turned to flame what she would find.

He was gone.

Tears came, desperate and unavoidable as she looked around the room, this room that she’d chosen because she’d once been so lonely, and now fairly breathed with the memory of him. Of his touch. Of his kiss. Of his past and the way it destroyed him even as it made him the man he was.

He’d left her.

She threw her feet over the edge of the bed and Hardy sprang awake, a yelp of surprise waking Angus, who slept at the threshold of the room.

Hope slammed through her. The dogs were here. He had not left.

And still, the thread of certainty remained.

She set one hand to Hardy’s big head, staring down into the dog’s soulful eyes. “Where is he?”

Hardy sighed longingly, and Lily understood the pathetic sound better than any she’d heard in her life.

He had left. No doubt thinking she should be without him.

No doubt thinking she could be without him.

That was when she saw the letter. On the desk, propped up next to the still-covered painting, was an envelope in familiar ecru. He’d left her a note, drafted on her own paper. Propped on a pair of baby boots—the ones with red leather soles.

He had left her.

Dreading the truth, Lily reached for the envelope, her name in bold, black scrawl across the face.

Opened it.

The dowry is yours. The money due to you today, as well. And, of course, the painting, to do with what you wish.

I am leaving you Angus and Hardy—they have loved you from the start, and will be able to protect you better than I ever could. Not that you need them. You have always been strong enough to keep yourself safe.

You are the most glorious woman I have ever known, beautiful and passionate and powerful beyond measure, and no man will ever be worthy of you, especially not me. You asked me once for freedom, Lily, and though I have been a terrible guardian, today, I can give you that. Freedom to leave this place or stay in it. To be a queen of London and the world. To have the life you wanted. The life you dreamed of. The children, the marriage, the little feet that fit these silly red boots.

Whatever you choose.

Never doubt I will think of you, Lily. Then, and now.

Happy birthday, mo chridhe.

—Alec

The words swam with tears.

He’d left her.

Lillian Hargrove had been alone for the lion’s share of her existence. Since the moment she’d lost her father, she had lived beneath the servants’ stairs of a ducal mansion, between the glittering world of the aristocracy and the more ordinary common one. She’d learned to be alone here, in this room, in this house, living a quiet half life that lacked the promise of her dreams, and then a scandal that threatened even that.

And then Alec Stuart had broken down her door and vowed to protect her.

And her life had changed. And her dreams had changed. Now, they were of him alone. And he thought himself unworthy of them.

Her whole life, she’d been terrified of loneliness. Of living out her years with no one to share them with. And now, here, she knew the truth—that she’d trade a lifetime of the loneliness that had once so threatened her for a single day with Alec. Without hesitation.

For an intelligent man, the Duke of Warnick was a proper fool.

He’d left her. Like Endymion, choosing an eternity of dreams over a lifetime with the goddess he loved. There had been a time when Lily had thought she understood the choice. After all, dreams could feel terribly real.

But now—now that she had held him in her arms, laughed with him, loved him—dreams were nothing compared to the reality of him.

Her gaze settled on the painting, wrapped in cloth, leaning against the chest where she had once kept her dreams—dreams she’d thought destroyed by scandal.

Scandal that had brought him to her.

Scandal that he had taught her to bear, unashamed.

He could not leave her. Not when she needed him so much. Not when she loved him so well.

Not when he had so thoroughly become her dreams.

If he wanted her to put those little boots to use, he could damn well fill them himself.