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He simply had to stay away from her for three days.
Three days.
Three days to find the painting, to destroy it. To give Lily the life she deserved. He would return her life to her. And she would choose one of her infinite futures, and live her life, strong and beautiful and brilliant beyond measure.
Without him.
He’d spent the day with West and King, devising the most likely location for the painting prior to the exhibition. Planning his movements for the following evening, when Hawkins would take the stage for all of Society, and Alec would search the rear rooms of the theater.
And while he did it, while he protected her, Lily would remain in a box high above the stage, and fall in love with Stanhope.
He gritted his teeth at the thought.
It was what was best for her. It was the way she would survive everything—the gossip, the rumors, the truth. The earl was obviously keen on her, and willing to overlook her past. The money helped, no doubt. But he seemed a decent fellow.
One Lily deserved. One who might one day be worthy of her love.
Unlike Alec.
He exhaled harshly, turning down the hallway to what was kindly referred to as the master’s suite, ignoring the long shelves of figurines and collected useless rubbish, aching for sleep. For a night unconsumed by fits of self-loathing and the nearly unbearable desire to rise and go to Lily. And fall into her arms and make love to her until the past had fallen away and the present was all there was.
And she was all there was.
He shook his head, reaching for the handle to his rooms, desperate to put her away from his thoughts even as he knew he would not be able to. Even as he knew he would enter the room and strip himself bare and take to the bed, hard with the memories of her hands and mouth and mind.
He pressed his forehead to the great mahogany door, shame and desire flooding him, making him desperate to turn around and head for Grosvenor Square, and take her. Make her his. Revel in her, and damn the consequences.
He willed his breath calm, his hands still.
Three days. He could stay away from her for three days.
He opened the door, already dreading the room’s cluttered decor and the small, spindly-legged bed with its flimsy canopy. Inside, candlelight spilled across the floor, warm and golden. Hardy lifted his head from his spot at the foot of the bed, tail thumping on the heavy coverlet.
But Alec wasn’t looking at the dog.
He was looking at Lily, fast asleep at the center of the bed, in a pool of golden candlelight.
Wearing nothing but his plaid.
A better man would leave her. Close the door and find another bed. Another house. Another country.
A better man would have the strength to protect her from himself, the greatest danger she would ever face. The man who would claim her, keep her . . . despite being desperately, wholly unworthy of her.
He was not a better man.
His hand tightened on the door handle. He had tried to be. He had wanted to be. But now, here, bearing witness to her utter perfection, he no longer had the strength for it.
He ached for her. He wanted her. He wished for her.
It had only ever been her.
And in that moment, everything he was, everything he would ever be, was hers. And tonight, perhaps, he could fool himself into believing that she was his.
He looked to Hardy, pointed to the hallway. “Out.”
The dog followed the order instantly.
Alec closed the door, already heading for her. He stopped at the bedside, looking down at her as she slept, her hair a pool of auburn fire against the crisp linen. The bed was not too small. It was the perfect size for her—a fairy queen in her bower. She moved, one bare shoulder peeking out from the red tartan—pink and perfect and calling to him. He could not help himself. He groaned.
She opened her eyes at the sound, immediately finding his, as though the universe had connected them with a string. She did not start at his presence, as one might expect, finding a man of his size at one’s bedside. Instead, she smiled, soft and full of sleep, and Alec warmed with wicked pleasure. “You are home.”
She waited for him.
“How did you find me?”
The smile widened. “You are not the only one with access to Settlesworth, Your Grace.” She looked to the table several feet away, hosting a porcelain animal tea party. “I would not have thought this would be quite your aesthetic, though.”
He might have laughed if he did not want her so much. If he were not so broken by her presence. “Why are you here, Lily?”
She blinked, and he loathed himself for the doubt that flashed in her gaze. “I—” She stopped. Took a deep breath. Met his gaze with renewed certainty. “I came for you.”
His knees weakened, but he resisted the urge to go to her. To touch her. To give in to his desire. Somehow. Instead, he said, “My mother was English.”
A pause. Then, “As was mine.”
He ignored the reply, edged with humor, her eyes glittering and making him want her more than ever before as she threatened to laugh. As she tempted him more than he’d ever dreamed possible. “She was beautiful. My father was wild over her. Allegedly.”
“Allegedly?”
“By the time I arrived, neither cared for the other. They lived in Scotland—in the Highlands—and he worked the family distillery. She thought he was wealthy and landed, and he was, but the business—the estate that came with it—it was not run by another. It was run by Stuarts, had been for generations. He was a man who harvested wheat and sheared sheep and tarred roofs and mucked stalls. And she loathed it.”
She sat up as he spoke, the Stuart plaid wrapped about her, auburn hair down around her shoulders, and he resisted the urge to drink her in. Focused on the tale—once cautionary, now prophetic. “She was not made for Scotland, my father would say. She was too perfect. Slender like a reed, but unbendable. She could not bear the cold, the wet, the wild. We moved south, to the border, to another estate owned by the family. And my father thought the proximity to England would change her. Would return the girl he’d once loved.”
“That is not how it works.” She clutched the plaid to her breast, the fabric tempting him with little glimpses of shadow.
“You told me once that love is a powerful promise.” And it was. “My father learned that firsthand. As did I.”
Her eyes widened and he loathed the sadness there. “What happened?”
“She left us.”
Lily’s lips opened in a little, silent inhale. “When?”
He wanted to touch her more than he wanted to breathe, but this story, this prophetic tale, required telling. “When I consider it, she left our hearts long before she left us in truth. I cannot remember a time when she was happy.”
She did not look away from him. “Not even with you?”
“Especially not with me. I was all Scots. Too big. Too coarse. I would come in from the fields and she would shake her head in disappointment and say, to herself as much as to me, Nothing about you fits.”
Her brows were stitched together. “What does that mean? Fits where?”
“Here,” he whispered, the word harsh with memory. “The afternoon at the park. When you told me that you hadn’t received a birthday gift since you were a child?” She tilted her head in silent question. “I think you had the best of the possible scenarios. I doubt my mother ever even knew it was my birthday.”
What a ridiculous thing to remember. He was a grown man, four and thirty, and thinking on his childhood birthdays as though they mattered. He cleared his throat. Tried for calm. “She ran, eventually. She’d been sick for months—consumption—and she was convinced that it was Scotland that was doing it. Killing her.” He looked away. “I often wonder if she thought it was me.”
“She didn’t,” Lily said, and he could not help himself from looking at her. From meeting her grey eyes and drinking in the certainty in them. “It was not you.”
&n
bsp; And for a fleeting moment, he wondered what might have become of him if he’d had Lily then, when his whole world had crashed down around him.
She might have saved him. Might have loved him.
Might have borne him a line of beautiful little girls, red-haired and perfect, who would have worn the little clothes she’d sewn and mended his heart.
Instead . . . “She died not two weeks after she returned to England.”
Lily gasped his name and reached for him, but he stepped out of her reach, not trusting himself in the wake of her touch. “You did not kill her.”
“I know,” he said. “But neither did I save her.”
She shook her head. “You cannot save us all.”
“The moment I was old enough, I fled as well. For England. For school. My father—” He stopped.
“What of him?” she asked, her gaze falling to his hand, where the scar reminded him of his father every day.
And then she was watching him. More beautiful than a woman should be. “When I was in school, they made us learn the myths.” Her brow furrowed in beautiful confusion, but he did not give her time to reply. “We were required to translate them from the Greek, and every boy in the course loathed the project. King did all he could to get out of it. He paid me to do the work for him on more than one occasion.”
She smiled, turning on her side, sending the plaid sliding against her, a whisper of wool on skin. “You did not attempt to escape your studies?”
“I did not have the luxury of it.”
She nodded. “Not yet a duke.”
The Scottish Brute.
He shook his head, watching as the fabric clung to the swell of her hip, to the curve of her breast. “Do you know about Selene?”
She smiled, small and sweet. “She was goddess of the moon.”
He nodded. “She was also sister to the sun and the dawn, the daughter of Titans and a beauty beyond words. She was the scandalous child—the one who was changeable and unsettling. She could move the tides and light the heavens and provide cover for the nefarious deeds of the world if she wished. The sun came every day, as did the dusk, but the moon, it was like joy. Purposeful and inconstant. She was queen of the night.”
Lily watched him with rapt attention, and his fingers itched to touch her, but still he kept himself from her.
“One night, as she moved across the sky, her light touched on a sleeping shepherd.”
“Endymion,” Lily said, the name a rapt whisper.
He nodded. “He was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen—peaceful and good, and everything she’d ever wanted. Selene fell immediately in love, despite keen awareness of the impossibility of their match. She could not be with him, not every day. Not all day. Her time with him was limited. Ephemeral.”
She sat up then, clutching the fabric to her, covering all the beautiful, secret parts of her—all the parts he would give everything to see. “Alec—” she said, as though if she could stop the myth, she might be able to stop the course of their tale.
“He woke as she stood over him and, witnessing her unbearable beauty, fell instantly in love as well. But he could not bear to be without her, not even for a day. Not even for a moment. Not even for a breath. And so he begged the gods to grant him eternal sleep, so that he might never know what it was to live without her.” Alec lifted one hand, finally, lifting a long auburn curl from the place it draped over her shoulder, watching it slide through his fingers, tempting him with silken promise, making him want to bind his wrists in the stunning stuff and remain her prisoner forever.
“He would take even the smallest part of her if it meant having any of her at all,” he said.
Her lips parted on a little intake of breath, and Alec ached to kiss her. “What happened?”
“Zeus gave him his wish. Endymion slept forever, ageless and deathless. And she came to him at night and watched over him with her beauty.”
“No,” she said, her grey eyes suddenly glistening. “They were never together?”
Alec’s hand moved to her cheek, his thumb capturing the single tear that escaped before it could mar her perfect skin. “They were together for eternity,” he answered, the words coming low and thick with longing. “He dreamed forever . . . always of holding the moon in his arms.”
Silence stretched between them, their gazes tangled, Alec willing himself to learn the lesson he was trying to give her. That love was not always happiness. That it was too often sorrow.
And then she lifted her hand to his, holding his palm to her cheek. “I don’t wish to hold the moon in my arms, Alec,” she whispered, grey eyes unwavering. “I wish to hold you.”
She dropped the plaid and it pooled at her hips, baring her to him, all perfection in the golden candlelight. Alec followed the fabric, sinking to his knees at the side of the bed, desire rendering him unable to stand. He bowed his head and whispered her name, a sacrifice at her temple.
She touched him gloriously, her fingers sliding into his hair. “Alec,” she whispered, “Please. Please choose me.”
As though he could choose anything else.
He lifted his head, reaching for her, taking her in hand, holding her steady. “Be certain, Lily,” he whispered. “Be certain you want me. I am coarse and unrefined and I shall never be worthy of you. But I lack the strength to deny your will.”
Her eyes went wide for a moment before she spoke, the words hot and clear as the sun, “I am not a child. I know my mind. I know the consequences to my thoughts. To my actions. I know myself. I know what is to come. I wish it, Alec.” If the words had not broken him, the movement would have—the way she leaned toward him, her lips a breath away from his.
“I will it.”
And he was hers. For one night. For eternity.
Chapter 17
DILUTED DUKE DAMNED BY DESIRE!
He kissed her like she was air.
Like she was all he’d ever wanted. Like she was temptation and sin and he could not stop himself.
And she reveled in it, running her hands through his hair, then down his shoulders and over his massive arms, aching for him to be closer. To be on the bed with her. She pulled back to tell him that, to beg him nearer, only to find him already watching her, brown eyes turned nearly black, lips stung with the kiss she had happily returned.
“Alec,” she whispered.
“Anything,” he said. “I am yours.”
Mine.
How long had she wanted this? How long had she ached for it? How many nights had she lain awake wishing that someone like this—strong and kind and heroic beyond measure—would find her? Would claim her?
Would love her?
She closed her eyes at the thought, knowing she asked for too much. He might not love her. But tonight, for as long as he was here, with her, she could love him. And it might be enough. “Mine?” she whispered.
He watched her carefully, his gaze lingering over her face, as though he was trying to memorize her, and she did the same, taking in his strong, unbearable beauty and wishing his words true. Forever. “Yours,” he whispered.
He made the word sound filthy. And she wanted it all the more.
She shook her head. “But it is I who is wrapped in your colors.”
His gaze slid down, over her bared breasts, to the fabric pooled at her waist. He reached for it, his fingers running over it for the barest breath before he looked to her, brow furrowed. “This isn’t my plaid. It’s the Stuart tartan, but it is too soft.”
She nodded. “It is cashmere. The dressmaker gave it to me before I left this morning . . .” She paused, not wanting to think of the dressmaker. Of the reason she had been there. For a dress for the theater. For a trousseau.
Not wanting to think of the other woman who had been there. His woman.
Alec would not let her think of those things, however. His beautiful brown gaze captured her. “You knew it would slay me.”
Lily smiled. “I hoped it would.”
He pressed a kiss
to her shoulder. “Here,” he whispered to the skin there. “This is what I saw when I entered the room. This shoulder, bare and perfect against my plaid. And you . . .” His lips moved down, over her collarbone, down the slope of her breast. “You . . . beautiful enough to be a Scottish queen.”
He took the tip of her breast in his mouth, teasing until it was hard and begging for everything he would give her, for the licks and pulls at her flesh, even as she knew she should resist. Knew she should be ashamed. But with Alec, nothing felt shameful. Nothing felt wrong. It felt as though this moment—it was her purpose. He was her destiny. She cried out at the sensation and he gentled, worrying the straining flesh with the light graze of his teeth, making her pant his name and beg for more.
He lifted his head. “Is that how you like it, mo chridhe?”
She caressed his shoulders, her hands sliding up to cup his face, to tilt him to her for a kiss. She whispered against his lips, “I like it however you wish to give it.”
He took control of the caress, sliding his tongue deep and claiming her for his own. Marking her. Ensuring that she would never be able to think of kissing without thinking of him. Of now. Of this night.
He kissed her in long, lingering caresses, addling her mind with soft, sinful pleasure until she nearly didn’t notice that he had peeled away the tartan on her lap. And then his fingers were caressing, delving deeper in long, lingering strokes, and she noticed. Clearly.
She writhed beneath his touch, sighing her pleasure into his mouth.
“You taste of peppermint,” he said after a long, lingering lick at her lips. “How is that possible?”
“Sesily.” She sighed, desperate to find thought as his fingers played and tempted, making promises of what was to come.
He raised a brow, humor in his gaze. “Another Talbot trick?”
“I wanted to taste good,” she said, a blush running over her cheeks.
He held her gaze for a long moment as he slid his fingers deep, and she gasped once, twice, before he removed them, bringing them to his mouth as he had in the carriage days ago. She blazed like the sun as she watched him slide them deep into his mouth, as he tasted her secrets, the visual making her ache. “You taste wonderful. No peppermint required.” He leaned in again, licking along her jaw to her ear. “I should like to eat you up.”
