From himself.
Yes. He deserved a damn medal.
When they’d left, it had begun to rain in earnest, and he’d continued to do the best thing for her, stuffing her into a hack and climbing onto the block next to the driver, for her own safety.
Or for his.
He wasn’t certain what he would do if he ended up inside the carriage with her, next to her. Sharing her space. Breathing her air. Smelling her, somehow like heather and Highlands.
The rain stung his face as the carriage careened around corners, returning her to the safety of Grosvenor Square, where they would lie in their beds, separated by walls adorned with dogs, and he would pretend to sleep, aching to go to her. To strip her bare and worship her with his hands and lips and tongue—
The thought had him growling in the cold May rain, recalling her taste. Recalling the peaks and valleys of her body and imagining how her most secret places would feel against his tongue.
“Problem, m’lord?”
Of course there was a problem.
He wanted Lily with a raging intensity. And she was not his to want.
“Stop the carriage up here,” he said, digging deep in his pocket to pay the driver. “Where are we?”
“Hanover Square.”
“I shall walk from here.”
“Sir. It rains.”
As though he hadn’t noticed. “Take your passenger to Grosvenor Square.”
His fingers brushed a piece of ecru in his coat pocket, and he extracted it, along with his purse. Looked down at it in the light bouncing about from the hack lantern. Countess Rowley. Peg’s calling card. His unknown valet must have transferred it from his shredded coat to this one.
He paid the driver his exorbitant sum, received his obsequious accolades, and climbed down from the carriage as the door opened from the inside.
Don’t let me see you, he willed her. He didn’t know that he would be able to resist her again. And, at the same time, Let me see you.
“Alec?” His name on her lips a gift in the rain.
“Close the door,” he said, refusing to look. Not trusting himself to see.
A pause. Then, “It is raining. You should ride inside.”
Near her. Touching her. He could not help the huff of frustration that came at the words. He should not ride inside. He should not be near her. He had a single task. To protect her. And he was the most dangerous thing in her world right now.
“The hack will return you home.”
“What of you? Who shall return you home?” The soft question threatened to slay him. The idea of a home they shared. The impossibility of it.
“I shall walk.”
“Alec—” she began, stopping herself. “Please.”
At the word—the one she had whispered so much while in his arms, the one that promised so much and asked for so much more than he was able to give—his hands began to shake again, just as they had in Hawkins’s house. He clenched them, willing away his desire.
Would he ever not want her?
“Close the door, Lily.” She had no choice but to follow the order when he looked up to the driver. “Drive on.”
The carriage was instantly in motion.
He rubbed a hand over his face, loathing London. Wishing he were anywhere but here.
England will be your ruin.
Removing his hand, he looked down at the card. At the direction beneath the name. Hanover Square.
Come and see me, Peg had whispered when she’d slipped the card into his coat pocket.
Earlier, Lily had asked him if he believed in fate, and he’d answered truthfully. Fate did not put him here, in Hanover Square, with Peg’s calling card. A too-skilled valet and a too-frustrating ward had done it. And, as he watched the carriage disappear into the darkness, the sound of horses’ hooves and clattering wheels masked by the rain, it was not fate that sent him to the door of number 12 Hanover Square.
Come and see me.
It was his own shame.
He waited for no time before a maid arrived in the foyer to escort him into the depths of the house, up a back stairway and to a room that he identified before the door even opened.
Peg’s bedchamber.
And she, within, standing by the fireplace, blond hair glittering gold in the light—as gold as the silk nightgown she wore, low and clinging to the curves he had worshipped a lifetime ago, thinking they would be the first and last he would ever worship, thinking she would wish him to worship them forever.
“I knew you would come,” she whispered, low and secret, as though the maid weren’t there. And then the girl wasn’t there, disappeared into the hallway and closing the door behind her with a soft snick.
“I did not,” he said.
She smiled, that knowing smile from two decades earlier—the one that made promises she would never keep. “You underestimated my irresistibility. And you wore your kilt, you glorious thing.” She moved to the bed, lying back against the pillows, arranging herself in a way so casual that it could only have been practiced.
And it was. He had, after all, seen her in just such a position before. In a different place, in a different world, when he’d been young and green and desperate for her beauty. For her perfection.
And it had ended differently than tonight would.
Because then, he had been even more desperate for what she represented. For a future he would never have. For acceptance by her world. For England.
Now, he wanted none of those things. Now, all he wanted was Lily.
And he was here to remind himself that she was not for him. That every time he touched her, he soiled her with his past. And his shame.
“I am not here for you,” he said coolly.
A sleek blond brow arched. “Are you sure?”
“Thoroughly.”
She sighed and leaned back, unmoved by the pronouncement. “You waste my time then, darling. Why are you here?”
Why indeed? What did he want from this moment? When had Peg ever given him what he wanted?
She did not wait for him to arrive at his answer, instead saying, “If you are not here to play, then you should return home to your little scandal.”
He snapped his attention to her. “What does that mean?”
“Only that you made it quite clear at Eversley’s ball that you were willing to do anything for the girl. Even make a scene. And I know you learned your lesson about scene making years ago.” She paused, then said, “I confess, had I known that Alec Stuart—without family or funds—was to be a duke with a king’s fortune, I might have reconsidered your very sweet offer.”