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.