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“Blind?” his voice was neutral, all emotions buried.
She could feel the heat of his gaze as it roamed over her features, no doubt looking deep into her eyes. Did he notice the scarring at her temple? “Yes.”
There was a swift intake of breath and then dreadful silence.
“I suspect you wish to take your leave, my lord. I only ask that you escort me safely to my grandmother. I will not hold you accountable for wanting to end our tryst.”
“Our tryst?”
Her cheeks burned. That was how she had indeed been romanticizing their encounter. Foolish.
He slipped his fingers over hers, linking their hands together. “Willow, I—”
She pulled from him and straightened her spine. “No, Lord Westcliffe.” She thought he flinched at her formality, but she pressed on. “I think we both needed tonight to happen. I am glad we spoke. While your offer to exorcise me from your dreams was indeed tempting, I fear I must decline. I propose you will have to find another method. I can feel the need in you to know what happened, but this is private for me, and it is not something I will share. Please do not press me, but I would appreciate you escorting me to the library, my lord.”
She waited, her heart a drum in her chest.
“It will be my pleasure to escort you, Lady Willow,” he said, lifting her hand to his arm.
His response hurt her when it shouldn’t have. What had she expected? For him to deny her charge, to fight to have an affair? Very silly of her to be sure. After all, years ago when he had professed to adore her, he had walked away without looking back. Why would he fight now, when her circumstances were so inferior?
Foolish, foolish girl.
Chapter 3
Alasdair stood by the windows in the parlor, deep in thought. He had taken a morning tour of his main estate, Westerham Park, just on the outskirts of London, very near to Hadley House. The repairs were daunting, the park wall alone ran for almost five miles, and in many places, the stone needed to be rebuilt. Many tenant houses and cottages were in desperate need of fixing. Yet his mind invariably shifted to Willow.
Now he understood the shock in her voice when she had recognized him. The relief and triumph he had felt when he led her away from the ballroom was unwarranted. She had not been following and placing her trust with him, but with a faceless stranger. Willow was a woman he had banished from his thoughts years ago. All of his resolve should not have toppled from a mere glance. He’d rushed to her rescue without giving another gentleman a chance to intervene. The years had fallen away as memories of her laughter, and her joy in the simple pleasures in life had curled through Alasdair.
Now instead of feeling the justifiable anger of the callous way she had disregarded their love, all he felt was the unfulfilled ache of desiring her and sorrow. The surge of cold rage and the need to use her body had vanished. Why? A soft breath expelled from him, and he closed his eyes.
It was because of her blindness. The shock of her words had been a brutal punch to his system, and all thoughts of hurting her had vanished. The pain and vulnerability on her face had been deep; he would be an arse to even want to add to her suffering. Moonlight had spilled over her features, a shimmery glow, and her beautiful green eyes had stared at him sightlessly, her expression a fierce mix of resignation and pride. The pain of her loss still scythed through him. He had seen men ravaged with agony and grief over the loss of eyes and limbs in the war. He could imagine how she must have railed and cried. And he had not known. How long had she been without sight?
Upon his return home from last night’s ball, it had been the first time he had slept without nightmares of war, or of his dying brothers. Instead, he had dreamed of her. Of how lonely and proud she had looked when she had confessed her blindness.
“I am very sorry for your loss, Willow,” he had said as he discreetly returned her to the main house.
Inadequate words and silence had lingered between them. He had also dreamed of her kisses, of what it would be like to sink himself into her wet heat and hear words of love once again spilling from her mouth. It had been a mistake to touch her. Even now, the memory of her soft skin, so supple and smooth, sent a rush of need through his body.
The entire time he had walked toward the main house, he had berated himself for being foolish. He had let his anger cloud his judgement and the control he exercised over his emotions and actions. From a simple taste of her, everything in him had clamored to draw her deeper into the hidden alcove and take her. The knowledge she would be willing, had only served to make the lust burning through his body for her flare hotter.
He should move on from Willow and direct his thoughts to wooing an heiress, but it was damned difficult to do. He needed to know what happened to her. Why had Quinton not said anything to him? Alasdair had seen her brother just last week in Bath.
The drawing room door opened, and a cloud of perfumed lavender travelled inside. There was a rustle of movements as his mother settled herself. “I am thinking of taking a position with the Foreign Office,” he said without turning around, contented to watch his sisters running through the maze in the garden without an ounce of decorum. A position in the Foreign Office was an offer Lord Liverpool had made Alasdair several months ago before he had inherited the title. He believed the offer would still be valid as the Prime Minister had admired his war efforts.
The only sound his mother made was a swift indrawn breath of, undoubtedly, outrage. He shifted, and with a glance at her face, Alasdair deduced it might very well be disgust. He smiled, though it was without humor. “Mother…”
She gripped the quill and pushed aside the parchment she had been composing her morning correspondence on. “You will not shame this family. A marquess does not work. You will not work. To even think to take such a position is to ruin your sisters when they depend on you… you will make them common,” she spluttered.
Common? He swallowed the shout of laughter. She was absurd. “Filling a position at the Foreign Office will not make us common. We are on the brink of financial ruin, madam. I think that is the only ruin we should be worrying about.”
After the death of his father several years ago, his eldest brother Marcus had assumed the mantle of leadership. He had been groomed for it, and he had made a good marquess. He had been loved and admired by many in Parliament, and in society. He had not been the marquess for long before influenza had claimed his life. Then Alasdair’s next brother Charles, the spare, had inherited. While Alasdair had been fighting on the Peninsula, Charles had been living a dissipated lifestyle, one filled with wild debauchery, which had depleted their already modest financial situation. He had been unlucky enough to kill himself in a racing carriage accident right in Mayfair. Too warped in his own pleasures to adequately care for their estate, including their mother and their younger sisters, some would say it was a blessing he had been taken early.
Then it all had fallen to Alasdair—the mistake. He had refused to consider what his two younger sisters were to his parents if, as the third child, he had been the mistake. He only knew he had to provide for them, settle them suitably in life, ensure their happiness, and protect their future. And he would do this at any cost. Annabelle was the eldest at eighteen, and Elizabeth was sixteen. He would have to put off Annabelle’s coming out for at least another year, and she was already late. His mother would have the vapors if she knew he had leased the house at Cavendish Square.
“You will need to prepare yourself to get acquainted with the intricacies of Parliament. You are now Lord Westcliffe. Find yourself a wealthy bride and assume the mantle you were born for. Procure an heir and secure the title. You are the last of the Westcliffe line. As far as we know, there is no cousin to inherit. Do what is expected of you, Alasdair.”
He raised a brow. The mantle he was born for? The question of succession was a thing that plagued his mother. He would admit that understanding he was the last of his line was disquieting, but he was still not moved to do all in his power to secu
