“Imagine how renowned the model would be if we knew her name.”
Shock flared. “You think Lillian wishes for fame?” Memory flashed. Those grey eyes, storm clouds of sorrow. “No.”
King raised a brow. “I am married to a Dangerous Daughter. Living proof that some revel in fame.” Not six months earlier, the Marquess of Eversley had found a stowaway from one of London’s most notorious families in his carriage. That stowaway had become an unexpected traveling companion and, after the story broke, the most scandalous member of the family. And Marchioness of Eversley.
“You would have never married if not for me.”
King cut him a look. “Oh, yes. Your part in the play was most definitely welcome. I didn’t have to make amends for it at all.”
“You’re lucky you had amends to make,” Alec said. “Someone had to knock some sense into you.”
“And for that, I will be forever grateful.” The words rang with a remarkable honesty.
“Och,” Alec said, looking away. “There’s nothing worse than a nob who loves his wife.”
“Watch it, Duke. Halfhearted or no, you are a nob now—all you need is the wife.”
It would never happen. He’d learned his lesson every time he’d considered it. Every time he’d been passed over for money, for title, for refinement. Every time he’d been desired for his body and nothing else. The Scottish Brute.
He shook his head. “I’ve enough trouble with women, thank you.”
“It’s because you scare the wee things,” King said, mocking Alec’s brogue.
“This one isn’t scared of me.” If anything, Lillian Hargrove was willing to battle him without hesitation. “She could do with a little more apprehension, honestly.”
“Another reason to believe she might be party to the scandal,” West said. “Lovely Lily, immortalized for all ages.”
He loathed the moniker, not that he would show it. “I didn’t know she called herself Lily,” he replied, drinking again, disliking the fact that these two knew more about her than he did.
And he did not like that they might be right. That Lily might have destroyed herself for a man, without hesitation. He thought back on the girl, on their meeting earlier. She didn’t seem to be proud of her scandal. Did not wear it as a badge of honor. He had seen the regret in her gaze. The shame there.
Recognized it as keenly as he knew his own.
He shook his head. “She was not part of it.”
“Then the performance at the exhibition . . .” King began.
West finished the thought. “Was not a performance at all.” He looked to Alec. “Poor girl. What now?”
I plan to run.
She wouldn’t run. If he had to tear London apart brick by brick to ensure it, she would stay here and have her reputation restored. England would not chase her away or destroy her, the way it so easily destroyed those who did not suit it.
One solution remained—safe and swift and utterly acceptable. Swiftness was most certainly a boon. Swiftness ended in Alec returning home, to Scotland, far from London and Lillian Hargrove, who was turning out to be more trouble than expected.
“You could marry her.” King’s words startled Alec from his thoughts.
“Marry whom?”
West smirked. “The London air is clouding your thoughts, Scot. The girl. Miss Hargrove. King is suggesting you marry her.”
A vision flashed, Lily beautiful and perfect in her simple grey dress, skin like porcelain and eyes flashing fire. There was a time when he would have proposed on the spot, blinded by her beauty and desperate to win her heart. To claim her for himself.
Despite his size. Despite his hulk. Despite his lack of grace.
He knew better now. He was for baser acts than marrying.
“Even if I weren’t her guardian—”
King interrupted. “What nonsense. If I had a pound for every guardian who married his ward, I’d be rich as sin.”
“You are already rich as sin,” Alec replied. “Either way, she wouldn’t have me.” It took a moment for him to realize that West and King were staring at him. “What is it?”
West found his tongue first. “I think I speak for us both when I say the girl would get down on her knees and thank her maker you proposed.”
The Scottish Brute.
So big. So beastly. Only for working days.
The memories burned. How many Englishwomen had denied him anything more than sex? Held themselves for another when it came to marriage? Even if he were interested in the girl. Even if she were more than a troublesome beauty keeping him from home . . . He shook his head. “I am not the husband in question.”
King watched him, he knew. But he did not look to the man who had known him since their days in school. Not even when the marquess said, “What then?”
“I am a duke, am I not?”
King lingered over the last of his scotch. “With the patent to prove it.”
“And dukes are allowed to do their will.”
West smirked. “It is a perk of the title, I am told.”
Alec nodded. “The man who ruined her. He marries her.”
A wild cheer from the faro table nearby punctuated the words. Alec looked toward the noise, noting the man in the white coat and trousers once more. It appeared that the peacock had lost a massive round, if the shock on his face were any indication.
So it was in gaming hells. One moment up, the next, down.
So, too, it was when it came to women, Lily’s scoundrel would soon discover.
Alec turned back to his friends. “He marries her if I have to put a pistol to his head and force him to do it.”
King blinked. “You might have to.”
“Well, being a brutish Scot will help with that. The plan is impenetrable.” He turned to West. “A name, if you please.”
“I shall do one better,” West said, finishing his drink and indicating the card table. “Name and location. You seek Derek Hawkins, artist and theatrical genius. The vision in white currently nursing his loss.”
It was not possible.
Alec could not imagine this man conversing with Lillian, let alone . . . No. There was no way that too-honest woman would be caught dead with such an obvious peacock. He looked to King for confirmation. “No.”
King nodded. “Indeed. Artist, theatrical genius, and proper ass.”