Hawkins squeaked his protest.
“Let him go,” Lily said.
“Why?” Alec did not look to her.
“Because I am ruined anyway. With or without his murder on my conscience,” she said. “And because I asked you to.”
He did look at her then, the moon casting the slopes and angles of his handsome face in beautiful light. He was the most handsome man she’d ever seen, even now, his coat in tatters, his eyes flashing fire.
Especially now.
“Because I asked you to,” she repeated, her gaze on his.
He put Derek down.
Derek rolled his shoulders back, smoothing his coat sleeves, apparently unaware that his face and cravat were bloodstained. By Alec.
For Lily’s honor.
No one had ever cared for her honor before. She wasn’t sure if she liked it.
She liked it.
But she had no time to like it. Instead, she turned to Derek. “Remember this when you wake in the morning, and you are able to see the sun. Remember I gave you something you refused me.”
“I never threatened your life.”
She took a deep breath. “That is precisely what you did.”
“Lillian,” Alec said, and Lily held up a hand at the caution in the word. At his disapproval. He might be her guardian, but she would not allow him to manage her. She stepped around him, coming to face this man she’d once loved, this man who she’d once believed hung the moon beyond.
“I cannot salvage the opinion of those around me, the opinion Society shares. The opinion that will be solidified when you exhibit the portrait.” She paused. Took a deep breath. And added, “I cannot ever be rid of the shame I feel for the whole debacle.” She looked at Alec then. Acknowledged that he was right. That his plan was the best one. “I cannot ever outrun it.”
Understanding flared in his beautiful brown eyes, and she waited for triumph to follow with the realization of what she would do.
She would find a man. And she would marry.
Because there was no other option.
“Get out, Derek.”
He insisted the last word. “A lesser man would display the painting tonight to punish you. To punish your brute of a guardian. But I am a greater mind. More evolved than any the world has ever known. And so I bestow upon you my benevolence . . .” He paused in that way that Derek did. The way that he always had when she posed for him. She’d used to hang on those pauses, certain they predicated utter brilliance. Now she knew the truth—all that came out of Derek Hawkins’s mouth was sewage. “Consider it a gift, little Lily. For the . . . inspiration.” The way the word oozed from him made Lily want to retch with regret. “In your week, you might consider making your beast less savage.”
Alec stilled, looking down at her hand and then to Derek. “The only thing stopping me from tearing you limb from limb is her benevolence, you pompous gnat. Get out.”
The words were barely restrained, terrifying enough to send Hawkins running for the door.
Lily watched the door for a long moment after Derek left, eventually speaking to it, unable to look at Alec. “Tell me. If he’d painted a nude man, would London be so scandalized?” When Alec did not speak, Lily answered the question herself. “Of course not.”
“Lillian,” he whispered, and for a fleeting moment, she regretted refusing him the use of her nickname. After all, if anyone should use it, was it not the man who fought for her without hesitation? Without her deserving it?
She took a deep breath. “My reputation is ruined, because I am a woman, and we are not our own. We belong to the world. Our bodies, our minds.”
“You don’t belong to anyone. That’s the point. If you did, this would not be such a scandal.”
She raised a brow. “I belong to you, do I not?”
“No.”
Her lips twisted at the instant reply. “Of course not. You never wanted me.”
No one ever wants me. Not in any way that matters.
It was his turn to shake his head. “That isnae what I meant.”
“That doesn’t make it less true.”
He watched her for a long moment. “It doesna matter what is true. Only what you believe.”
She nodded at her own words on his lips. “Then we are in agreement. I am not interested in laying blame, Your Grace. I am simply interested in leaving this room and deciding which lucky gentleman I must charm into saddling himself with me as wife.”
He swore again, and she took it as her cue to leave, turning on her heel and heading to the door where Derek had exited minutes earlier. Once there, she turned back to find Alec still as stone in a wash of moonlight, his coat in tatters, along with a tear in one thigh of his trousers. Set against the dainty furniture in the little sitting room, he looked like something out of a scandalous novel—a criminal, sneaking into a proper home to pillage his spoils.
And, somehow, at the same time, he looked rather perfect.
What if he did want her?
She put the thought away.
“Let me captain this ship, Alec. I might dash it upon the rocks and send myself into the depths, but at least I did it myself.”
Before he could reply, she turned away and yanked open the door, coming face-to-face with Countess Rowley, who seemed in no way surprised to discover Lily inside the dark room. Indeed, Lady Rowley simply smiled a secret smile and leaned in. “Is Alec within, darling?”
Lily was set back by the familiarity in the question. “Alec?”
The countess clarified. “Your guardian.”
Lily gave a little humorless huff of laughter at the descriptor and opened the door farther, revealing Alec beyond.
Lady Rowley’s gaze lit in predatory glee. “I knew it. I just witnessed your former lover exit this corridor looking as though he’d been taken to task by a devastating brute. And I knew it was my devastating brute.” Lily went stick-straight at the words. She hated the sound of them in the countess’s pretty, breathless voice. Hated the possession inherent in them. But most of all, she hated the descriptor, disparaging and sexual, like he was a bear to be tamed rather than a man.
“Alec, you heroic beast,” Lady Rowley purred, “I was hoping I’d find you somewhere dark, darling. To resume our acquaintance.”
There was no question of the meaning of the countess’s words.
They were lovers.
Lily ignored the pang of disappointment that surged, telling herself that any disappointment was because she had thought better of his taste in lovers.