A Scot in the Dark

Chapter 10

BE STILL MY BEATING SCOT!

DILUTED DUKE DISCIPLINES DEREK

He did not trust himself to speak.

Not when he faced the worst of London in Eversley’s ballroom, burning in the heat of their combined not-quite gazes. And not when he guided Lily through the room, and he heard the whispers. The Diluted Duke . . . Covered in Hawkins’s blood . . . The girl is nothing but trouble . . . Poor Hawkins . . .

Certainly, Alec did not trust himself to speak at the idea that it was Hawkins who deserved the sympathy in this farce.

As if all Lily deserved was judgment.

The Scottish Brute.

He turned at the last, his gaze falling to a woman nearby, her eyes familiar. Knowing. He gritted his teeth, the words echoing through him, his clothes in shreds, the smell of Peg’s saccharine perfume still on them. The memory of her hands sliding over his chest, the touch evoking loathing, not of her, but of countless Englishwomen who thought of him as a notch in their collective bedposts—good enough to take to bed, not enough for more.

A conquest. The great Scottish beast.

Come and see me, darling, Peg had whispered, her skilled hands slipping over his chest, as though he belonged to her. As though he would follow like a pup on a lead. She’d slipped a card with her direction in his pocket, reminding him keenly of their past, of the way she’d so easily manipulated him despite thinking him less than her. Unworthy.

How many others had thought the same?

How often had he thought it himself?

He did not belong here, in this place with Lillian, beautiful and English and so thoroughly perfect.

Alec did not speak as he and Lily left the ballroom, passing a shocked King—did not even pause to bid farewell. And he did not speak when he ripped open the door to his carriage and lifted Lily inside.

She did speak, however, punctuating her little squeak of surprise at being hefted into the carriage with an “I’m quite able to climb steps, Your Grace.”

Alec didn’t reply, instead lifting himself into the carriage behind her, pulling the door closed with a perfunctory click and knocking twice upon the roof, setting the vehicle in motion.

He could not reply, too filled with frustration and shame and embarrassment and a keen sense of unworthiness. Between the state of his clothing and the battle with Hawkins and the arrival of Peg, he’d had enough of this horrible town. He wanted to destroy the entirety of the city, pull it down brick by brick, and return north like the marauding Scots of yore, who had loathed England with every fiber of their being.

He’d bring her with him. A spoil.

He rubbed a hand over his face, wishing himself anywhere but here. He’d never in his life felt so out of place, as though everything he did was wrong. And then there was Lily, who seemed to take every blow delivered and parry with skill beyond her years, a constant reminder that he was an utter failure at doing right.

So it was that Alec was less than thrilled when she spoke again, filling the carriage with her reminders. “Well. I imagine we shall be well received in the best of London houses after tonight.”

He bit back the curse he wanted to hurl into the night, choosing silence in its stead.

She, however, did not choose silence. “You cannot honestly believe that anyone will marry Hawkins’s muse?”

He speared her with a look. “Don’t call yourself such.”

“Fine. Hawkins’s mistress.”

The words set him further on edge. “Were you? His mistress?”

She met his gaze. “Does it matter?”

Only that he did not honor you. Only that he did not deserve you.

“Someone will marry you. Make your list. I’ll ensure it.”

“Alec,” she said, and the tone was one a mother might use with a child to explain why he couldn’t make clotted cream from clouds. “Hawkins was covered in bruises. You are covered in blood. If anyone in the world were willing to overlook the initial scandal, this has made it worse.”

He looked out the window. “That won’t keep you from marrying.”

She laughed, the sound without humor. “I haven’t spent much time in Society, Your Grace. But I assure you, it will.”

“Then we double the dowry. Triple it.”

She sighed his name in the darkness, and he heard the resignation in the word. Loathed it. “I wanted to marry,” she said, and he stilled, keenly interested in the truth in the words. “I wanted the promise of family and future. And yes, of love. But if I must settle . . .” She trailed off, then returned to the idea, with more conviction. “Alec, I don’t wish to settle.”

Finally something that they could agree upon. “I won’t have you settle. I would never ask you to.”

That little laugh came again, so full of disbelief that he found it difficult to listen to. “That’s precisely what you’re asking me to do.” She paused. “Eight days is not enough for a man on that list to not be settling. Eight days is not enough for love.”

“Dammit, Lillian, how does this end?” Her head snapped back as though he’d hit her, and perhaps he had, with frustration and anger. “Let’s say I give you the funds and you run. Where do you go?”

She opened her mouth. Closed it. Again. And finally, “Away.”

He did not want her away.

“Where?”

A pause. Then, “What is Scotland to you?”

“Lillian . . .” he began.

She shook her head. “No. Honestly. Why do you prefer it?”

He shrugged. “It is home.”

“And what does that mean?” she prodded.

“It is—” Safe. “Comfortable.”

“Unlike here.”

The difference between Scotland, wild and welcoming, and London, with its rules and its propriety, was so vast it made him laugh. “It is everything here is not. It is entirely different.”

She nodded. “And that is what I want. I want away from here. From this world. Why should you have it and not me?”

He wanted to give it to her. Wanted her to know the feeling of standing in a field of heather as the skies opened and rain washed away worry.

But even Scotland could not disappear the past.

“You think this world would not find you? You think you could live as a wealthy widow somewhere? Head to Paris and reign a silken queen? Travel to America and use the money to build an empire? You cannot. This world will return to haunt you. That is what happens to—”

She waited. “To whom?”

“To those who run.”

He’d run, had he not? He’d vowed never to let them remind him of the past.

And look at tonight.

Look at his tattered clothes, his bloodstained hands.

He would never outrun it.

But if she found a husband, she might survive it.

She would survive it.

“You stay. Meet the men. See what comes.”

She threw up her hands in frustration. “Lord deliver me from meddling guardians. Fine.”

Silence fell, and Alec found himself at once grateful and exceedingly unsettled by it. Luckily, it did not last long.

“I told you the coat didn’t fit.”

He slid his gaze to hers. “What did you say?”

“Your coat. You’ve split it to shreds. Your trousers, too. You look as though you stepped out of the wilderness and right into the ballroom.”

“To be expected from the Scottish Brute,” he said.

“No,” she said instantly, surprising him. “Not brutish.”

It was a lie. He was covered in blood and his clothes were falling from his body. If he’d ever looked the part of a brute, now was it. “How do I look, then?”

She cut him a look. “Are you searching for a compliment, Duke?”

“Just the truth.”

She lifted one shoulder and let it fall in an affect he was coming to rather like. Not that he should like this woman. She was too beautiful to be anything but dangerous. “Big.”

God knew that was true. “Too big.”

“For the coat and trousers, yes,” she said, “but not too big.”

“The rest of England might disagree.”

“I am not the rest of England.” She stopped, considering her next words, and added. “I rather like how big you are.”

The words sent a thrill through him. She didn’t mean it to come out the way it sounded. It was the darkness of the night and the motion of the carriage and the enclosed space.

And it did not matter if he wanted her to say it again and again. Lillian Hargrove was not for wanting.

Now, if only his body would listen.

“I assure you, the rest of England disagrees,” he said, shifting on the seat, wondering how much further they had to go.

She smirked. “Not your countess.”

Peg. He feigned ignorance. “My countess?”

“Lady Rowley. She doesn’t think you are too big.”

Peg didn’t think that now. Not when he stood before her, the Duke of Warnick, with a higher station than she’d found for herself. But once . . . Peg had valued him much, much less. Even as he’d wanted nothing more than to belong to her.

Alec looked out the window. “She’s Lord Rowley’s countess, don’t you think?”

“I don’t, actually,” Lily said. “I saw the way she touched at you. Like she owned you. And the way you looked at her. As though . . .” She trailed off.

He told himself not to speak. Not to ask. But somewhere in the silence between them, there was something he wanted quite desperately to understand. “As though?”

She shook her head and looked out the window. “As though you wanted to be owned.”

He had wanted it. From the first moment she’d smiled at him when he was a boy, showing him what desire was. Before he’d known what she would make him. What he would make himself for her. He’d have done anything she asked. And he had. He’d trailed after her like a lovesick pup.

Until she’d made it all clear.

Sweet Alec, girls like me don’t marry boys like you.

But he wasn’t about to tell Lillian Hargrove any of that.

“Peg is not my countess.”

“But you were Peg’s,” Lily said, her silly frock turning her into a dog with a bone.

He sighed, looking out the window of the carriage for a time. “Ages ago. She was sister to a schoolmate.”

“And you weren’t a duke.”

He gave a little huff of laughter at that. “No. If I had been . . .” It was his turn to trail off.

“If you had been?” Lily prompted, and he looked to her, finding her gaze locked on his, waiting. She was still and straight, as though she could wait forever for an answer. She wasn’t getting it.

He shook his head.

“You wanted her?”

Like nothing he’d ever wanted before. He’d wanted all the things she’d represented. All the pretty promises she’d never given.

He’d wanted it all. Like a fool.

Lily did not move for a long while, and Alec refused to ask what she was thinking, instead saying, “So, you see, Lillian, I know what it is not to get the match you wanted.”

She nodded. “It seems so.”

Silence fell between them, and Alec became more and more aware of her in the darkness, of her long legs beneath the silk skirts of her dress, of her graceful hands, wrapped in kidskin, clasped together in her lap.

Those hands began to consume him. He watched them, wishing they were not gloved. Wishing he could see them, bare. Wishing he could touch them.

Wishing they could touch him.

He sat straight at that. She was not for touching.

And he was not for her to touch.

He looked out the window again. How far could they possibly be from the damn dog house? Not close enough, clearly.

And then she said, softly, “I thought he loved me.”

The sentence undid him, flooding him with jealousy and fury and a keen desire to stop the carriage, find Hawkins, and finish what he had started earlier. He flexed his right hand, the welcome sting of his knuckles reminding him that he’d done good damage, but not enough.

“Did you love him?” He regretted the words the moment they left his mouth. The answer wasn’t for him to know.

And then she answered, slowly destroying him with every word. “My mother died when I was a child. My father never remarried, and when he died, I went to live with the duke. He was kind enough. He settled me. Provided me with rooms and a more than generous allowance.” She hesitated, searching for the right words. “He took great pains to be a good guardian. He intended to give me a season, you know. Before he died. But he wasn’t a substitute for a family.”

“And the staff?” he asked, remembering how little they knew of her.

She smiled, small and sad in the moonlight. “They don’t know how to interact with me. I’m neither fish nor fowl. Not an aristocrat. Not a servant. Not family. Not entirely guest. Untouchable. Doubly so, somehow.” She paused, wrapping her arms around herself, as though to ward off a chill. Looked away. “I would go months without being touched by another person, beyond a maid helping to button a dress, a gloved hand taking mine to help me into a carriage.”

His gaze fell to her hands again, and he loathed the gloves anew. “Your room. Under the stairs.”

She lifted one shoulder in that shrug again. “It was nice to hear people. Up and down the stairs. At least I was reminded that there were others in the world. At least I was close to them, physically. Even if I didn’t have them in my life.

“I would hear them laugh . . . the girls. They would giggle all the way down the stairs about some silly thing I never knew of. And I would have given anything to trade places with them. To be with them. Instead of where I was—in between worlds.”

“Lily,” he said, his chest aching with desire to erase all that time alone.

She’d never be alone again. He’d make sure of it.

“I would wonder sometimes—if I’d ever touch another person again. If I’d ever be loved.” Looked back to Alec, the truth in her eyes. “He made me feel loved.”

The words wrecked him, at once making him want to gather her close and set her far away. And then crush Hawkins into dust for taking advantage of Lily. “And you? Did you love him?”

She looked away again. “Who can say?”

Alec hated the words. The way they did not deny her feelings. He could say. He wanted to put the words in her mouth. The categorical denial. Instead, he said, “He did not deserve you.”

One side of her lovely lips rose. “You have a terribly high opinion of me, Your Grace. The rest of the world would say it was I who did not deserve him.”

“The rest of the world can hang.”

She raised a hand to the glass in the carriage window. Dragged a finger through the condensation there. “I did it, though,” she said, softly, lost in memory.

“Why?” He couldn’t resist the question.

“A tempting promise. Sometimes . . .” He wondered if she would finish, and she was silent long enough that he thought she wouldn’t. And then, “Sometimes, you wait for so long, that it all feels like love.”

His chest was suddenly, devastatingly tight. What was she doing to him?

He leaned forward, closing the distance between them and whispering, “I don’t wish to hurt you.”

“I know that.”

“I should never have come.” Nothing good ever came from being in London. Especially not when London came with this beautiful woman, who threw everything into chaos.

“There’s something rather noble about you coming. For me.”

Perhaps it was the way she said it that made it sound nearly magical, as though she’d stood naked beneath the stars like some pagan goddess and conjured him there. Perhaps it was the darkness, the wash of silver moonlight on her porcelain skin that made him reach for her hands even as he knew shouldn’t. Knew it was a mistake of the highest possible caliber.

Lily relinquished her hand without hesitation, and he turned it, palm up, revealing a little quartet of buttons on the inside of her wrist. Slowly, he unbuttoned the glove and, tugging on the fingers, slid it from her hand, revealing her smooth, bare skin.

At first, he simply stared at it, feeling as though he existed on a precipice, looking down into a deep abyss from which he would not return. Lily’s breath was coming in a quick, staccato rhythm—or perhaps that was his own, filled with desire to touch her.

I wondered if I would ever touch another person again.

The memory of the words whispered around them, and in their silent echo, Alec lifted his own hand to his mouth, pulling at the fingers of his glove with his teeth, removing it with efficiency, before tossing it aside and—before he could regret it—sliding his bare palm over hers.

Her breath caught at the touch, at the slide of their fingers, at the way he captured her small hand in his much larger one.

Her skin was so soft, like silk. Like the sound of the little sigh that came on a lovely exhale. He did not look up at the sound. Refused to, because he knew that if he did, he would not be able to stop himself from what came next.

Instead, he stroked her hand, his palm running over hers, his fingers tracing the dips and valleys of her fingers, until only their fingertips touched, before he once again took her hand, lacing their fingers together tightly.

“Palm to palm,” she whispered, and he heard the barely-there teasing in the words. The reference to their earlier discussion of Romeo and Juliet.

He should let her go. He meant to.

He didn’t mean to say, “The only part of the play that’s worth anything.”

He didn’t mean to look at her, to find her too close and still infernally far away. He willed himself to move. To sit back. To release her.

And then she whispered, “Let lips do as hands do.”

“Fucking Shakespeare,” he cursed, tightening his grip and pulling her to him, his other hand, still gloved, capturing her, sliding over her jaw, his long fingers curving around her neck and into her hair, scattering pins as he set his lips to hers and kissed her like he was starving and she was a banquet.

She tasted like sin and sex and . . . He didn’t know how it was possible, but she tasted like Scotland, wild and free and welcoming.

He stopped, pulling away just enough to put a hairsbreadth of space between them, and closed his eyes. He should stop. This wasn’t the plan. It wasn’t possible.

She tasted like home.

Just one more kiss. One more taste. Quickly. Just enough to tide him over until he could get back and breathe again.

“Alec?” she whispered, and the question in his name was his undoing. Not protest. Not confusion.

Desire.

He knew, because he felt it, too.

Alec groaned and pulled her closer, releasing her bare hand and hauling her across the carriage and onto his lap, where he could get a better taste. He put one arm around her, protecting her should the carriage hit a rut and send her flying, and he returned to her lips, playing over them gently, softly, teasing her with his tongue until she gasped at the sensation and he took full advantage, tasting her silken heat with long, luxurious promise.

She groaned, unexpected and unfiltered, and he went hard as iron beneath her, wanting that sound again and again—that proof of her pleasure. Of her passion.

Her fingers slid into his hair, then, and she held him close, meeting his tongue with hers, matching him with a kiss that threatened to send them both up in flames, along with the carriage.

He growled his pleasure and captured her face between both hands, holding her still as he kissed her, stealing her sighs like a thief.

And he was a thief. Taking without hesitation.

Or perhaps it was she who was the thief.

They stole together.

Marauded together.

Pillaged together.

And it was the most glorious thing he’d ever experienced. Her hands slid inside his shredded jacket as she moved against him, and he lifted her skirts, sliding his hands up her silk-clad thighs, lifting her again, setting her down astride him, scandalous and secret and everything he’d ever wanted.

The carriage bounced again, and she clutched his sides, gasping against his lips at the movement. “Alec,” she whispered. “Please.” No. She didn’t whisper. She begged. And how was he to deny her, especially when she lowered herself to his lap. To him.

He was wickedly hard, too-tight trousers suddenly, brutally uncomfortable.

He groaned her name, stealing her lips again as he pulled her closer, until he could feel the heat of her through his trousers and her pantaloons, and one of her hands slid up, over his chest and shoulders and into his hair again, pulling him close as her tongue met his again and again, and he ached for more of her.

Her free hand clutched one arm, moving it, directing it, sliding it up her bodice to the place where silk met beautiful, pristine skin. “Touch me,” she sighed. “Please.”

He had to stop. They had to stop. He lifted his lips, gasping for breath. “Lily. We mustn’t.”

She opened her eyes, desire warring with something far more complicated in them. He could feel her heart racing beneath his fingers, where she held his hand to her, where she burned him with her beauty. “Please, Alec,” she said, soft as silk. “Please want me.”

She made it sound like it was a choice. As though he did not ache for every inch of her. As though he did not wish to claim her in the most primal way possible and erase the memory of every man she had ever desired.

As though he were worthy of her.

His throat worked as he fought for strength, and he might have found it. Might have, if she did not take matters into her own hands. If she did not take his hand into her own, moving it until it cupped one full, glorious breast. “Please, Alec.”

He resisted the urge to move, terrified that if he did, she might continue with this mad temptation. Terrified that if he did, she might stop.

Instead, he extracted his hand from the heat of her skirts and took her face in his hands. He pulled her close, as close as possible without taking her lips, and looked deep in her eyes, the dim light of the lanterns beyond the windows casting wicked shadows across her beautiful face. “Show me,” he said.

But what he really meant was Use me.

Her eyes widened at the words, and for a moment he thought her shock would stay her. As he watched, however, the surprise turned to desire and, like a gift from God, she did as he asked.

As she was told.

Time slowed in the small space, her hand guiding his, pressing him tight against her. “Touch me here,” she said.

He did, feeling her tighten beneath his palm, even through the layers of clothing. She sighed her frustration, pushing into him, eager for more, just as he was. He took pity on her. “Do you intend to wear this dress again?”

She didn’t understand. “What?”

“The dress. Are you wedded to it?”

She shook her head. “It is awful.”

“Then let’s do right by it,” he growled, his massive hands coming to the neckline and grasping. Without hesitation, he pulled, and tore the bodice in two, freeing her to his hands and gaze.

She gasped her surprise. “You—”

He had no time for discussion. “Show me, Lily.”

And she did, setting his hand to her breast. They groaned their mutual pleasure at the contact before Alec plucked at the tight tip, using thumb and finger to tempt her until he could no longer deny himself, and he set his lips to its twin. She cried out at the touch, her fingers sliding into his hair until he suckled, lightly, just barely, and she needed more, pulling him closer, silently begging him for more.

When he gave it, reveling in the feel and taste of her, certain that if there was a heaven, it was this moment, relived again and again, she moved pressing closer to him, the glorious heat of her cradling him, hard and thick and desperate for release. He growled at the feeling, desperate to release himself, unwilling to do so—unable to trust himself to stop when necessary if he were—

And then she was moving against him, making the most glorious little noises, sighing her pleasure and groaning her desire as he worked her with tongue and lips and made promises to his body that he could never keep.

He would not take her.

He would not soil her.

She deserved better than him.

He lifted his head and looked to her, her eyes closed and frustration clear as she rocked against him, desperate for something she could not find herself. Desperate for something he could easily give her.

For something he wanted to give her.

He slid a hand beneath her skirts, the brush of his fingertips on the inside of her knee opening her eyes. Her mouth opened, and he shook his head, staying her words. “Here?” he teased, stroking there at her knee.

She shook her head. “No.”

He slid his hand up the outside of her pantaloons, loathing the fabric, the way it blocked her from his touch. But he deserved it, the denial. For what he did. For not being good enough for her. He deserved it, just as she deserved the pleasure he could give her. In this moment. Just once. Without taking his own.

“Here?” he asked again, higher on her thigh, near the crease of it that marked the beginning of her most secret place, where he wanted to be more than he wanted to draw his next breath.

She shook her head again, but this time, the word came out on a little cry. “No.”

He found the slit in the pants, and moved deeper, finding the soft curls there, stroking as she panted her desire, imagining their color—a beautiful, secret auburn. “Here, then?”

She was through with the game, and he saw the irritation in her gaze when she found his. And then she spoke, shocking the hell out of him. “Shall I show you?”

She was fucking glorious.

He replied instantly. “Please.”

And then her hand was on his, and she was pressing him deeper, past the curls and into the silken softness of her, hot and gloriously wet. He swore, low and deep in Gaelic.

She gasped a single word as she took what she wanted, her gaze unapologetically on him. “There.”

He kissed her then, long and lush, his fingers searching and stroking and tempting her secrets from her until they were without breath. Releasing her lips, he found her eyes closed, as she rocked against him, her hand on his, showing him all the ways she wanted him.

He stopped. Those eyes opened instantly. Furious.

He couldn’t help the thread of amusement that coursed through him on a wave of aching desire. “Look at me,” he said.

Her brow furrowed in confusion.

“I will give you everything you want, mo chridhe. Everything you need,” he promised, the words dark and low and filled with the accent he worked so hard to keep at bay with her. “I will show you heaven. But only if you let me watch you find it. That is my price.”

The words hung between them, sinful and full of sex, and for a fleeting moment, Alec regretted the last—as though she owed him.

She would never owe him. From this moment on, she would only need beckon and he would come to heel.

He’d never met a woman so dangerous.

But he was already wrecked by her, by her soft skin and her beautiful sighs and her magnificent gaze on his as he teased and touched, as he tested her curves and folds and the glorious dark channel where he wanted to be—beyond reason. Her eyes were locked on his as she rocked against him, begging him for more, narrowing to slits when he offered her slow, wicked strokes, and then widening when he found the spot that would bring her wicked, wonderful pleasure.

He watched those eyes, grey like the North Sea, riveted to him as her breath quickened and her hand clutched his wrist and she panted her desire, and he held that gaze until she called out his name and they lost focus and slid closed and she cried out again and again, branding him. Taking him in the darkness.

Showing him the sun.

When those eyes opened again, they found him immediately, her hands threading into his hair, her lips pressing to his, her tongue sliding into his mouth in a kiss that laid him bare and destroyed him completely, summoning his pleasure, hard and hot and nearly unbearable against her.

He pulled his lips from hers, gasping for breath, somehow still hard and thick as though he hadn’t come, wanting to strip her bare and open his trousers and make her his. Here. Now.

Forever.

And then her hands were moving her skirts, and he wondered if he’d spoken aloud. Her fingers played at the falls of his trousers, touching lightly—too damn lightly—and it took him a moment to find the strength to stop her.

Until she whispered, “Oh, my . . .”

And he loathed the reverence in the words.

Women dream of men like you, darling.

But for a night. Not a lifetime.

“No.” He lifted his lips instantly, releasing her like she was hot steel, branding him.

Her gaze was wide with confusion. “But . . .”

“No.” He lifted her off his lap and set her back on her seat, so quickly that it took her several seconds to understand what had happened.

They were both breathing heavily, and he could not look away from her for a long moment, her bodice in tatters, her legs askew, weak from the pleasure she’d found in his arms. He knew she was weak because he, too, was weak. And aching.

She was so close. He could take her.

She’d let him.

He pressed himself back against the seat, willing himself to turn away. To look out the window. To look down at the floor. Anywhere but at her. But he couldn’t, because she was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.

And then he made the mistake, lifting his hand to his lips, meaning to erase the feel of her there, forgetting that her scent would be on him like a promise. And the desire was more than he could bear. He tasted her, sucking his fingers deep, reveling in her.

Fire came to her eyes as she watched and he saw the truth there. He could have her. She would let him.

Christ, he wanted her.

Even now, even with her hairpins scattered and her long auburn locks falling down around her and the hound and hare, that had been shooting off the top of her head earlier in the evening, now drooping by her left ear.

She looked as though she’d been ravished.

By The Scottish Brute.

This woman wanted marriage and children and love, and those were not things he could ever give her. They weren’t things she’d want from him. Too big, too Scottish, too brutish.

Not for marrying.

Not anything like the man she deserved.

What had he done?

He had to get away from her.

He rapped on the ceiling of the carriage, slowing it immediately.

Confusion flashed in Lily’s beautiful grey eyes, as he began to strip his tattered coat from his shoulders—she would need it to cover her own shredded clothes. “What are you doing?” She looked out the window. “Where are we?”

“It doesn’t matter,” he said, tossing the coat to the seat beside her and opening the door before the coach even came to a stop.

“Alec,” she said, and he ached at his name on her lips.

He leapt to the ground and turned back. “You didn’t ask me the title of the Burns.”

She shook her head as though to clear it, the strange change in topic blindsiding her. “I don’t care about poetry.”

She was frustrated.

Just as he was.

“ ‘Ae Fond Kiss, and Then We Sever.’ ” Before she could respond, he added, “I’m sorry, Lily. For all of it.”

And he closed the carriage door.