Lady Lilias and the Devil in Plaid - Julie Johnstone Page 0,16

tree, but to her relief, Nash pulled his horse to the right, away from the tree. She assumed Owen would do the same. But just as she was exhaling, her mouth slipped open as Owen jumped the tree and his horse came tumbling down on the other side, pinning Owen underneath.

Chapter One

London, England

1837

Guilt was a funny thing. Though the initial onslaught of it could set the course of one’s life, when one lived with it for so long, it eventually went unnoticed, like a shadow. That was, until something made one take note, like the sun overhead and a glance down to see the outline of oneself in startling perfection or like a man who used to walk perfectly straight suddenly leaning on a cane and walking unevenly toward the offender who caused the injury.

Nash Steele, the Duke of Greybourne, raised his brandy and took a long drink. It slid down his throat, easing some of the knots as he waited for the Earl of Blackwood to make his way across the Persian rugs in White’s gaming room. The sound of Owen’s irregular footsteps scraped across Nash’s eardrums in the mostly deserted room. It was well before the hour that most of their peers frequented the club, but when Nash had contacted Owen to let him know he had returned to Town, Owen had written back quickly, asking Nash to meet him here.

The belongings that had been with Nash at Oxford and then Scotland these past seven years hadn’t even made it up to his bedchamber before he had hurried out the door to meet Owen. Luckily, Nash’s mother and sister were not at home when he’d arrived from Scotland so he’d been spared explaining why he was rushing out so soon. To explain the call of guilt, he would have had to tell them of the day Owen had been hurt, and that, Nash would not do.

Owen made his way past the large fireplace and to the table in the back corner where Nash was sitting. As he approached, Nash noted the grim set of his friend’s mouth, and fear twisted inside him. He sat forward, his pulse spiking. “What is it? Is it Lilias? Is that why you wrote that you needed to see me today?”

Owen motioned to the server standing nearby to indicate he’d have the same drink Nash was having, and then he pulled out his chair, balanced his cane against the table, and said, “Yes.”

Nash chest squeezed. “Is she hurt?”

“No,” Owen said easily, his gaze flicking momentarily to Nash before he looked down at his hands, which were now resting intertwined on the table. “I wanted to see you in person to ask you not to contact her now that you have returned to Town.”

“I wouldn’t,” Nash replied, his words harsher than he had intended, but everything about Lilias had always made him passionate. “You know I wouldn’t. So why this meeting? Why this request? Have I not refrained from contacting her for seven years, as you asked of me the day after your accident?”

He could recount going to see Owen the next day with perfect clarity. Owen had been in his sickbed with a crushed leg and had looked at Nash with such pain in his eyes.

You’ll win her if you stay, he’d said. You cannot help yourself. You saved her in the water that day, and she thinks of you as a character in one of those nonsense Gothic novels she reads. She thinks you honorable.

The way Owen had said it, as if they both knew it were not true, had been seared in Nash’s memory, and Nash had feared Owen was right. Lilias had bestowed upon him some ridiculous qualities of a character in a book, a man he was not. So he had left without so much as a goodbye to her. It had felt as if he’d reached into his chest and ripped out his heart. He’d stayed away after that—mostly. He’d seen Owen through the years, and they had written letters. Nash knew Lilias and Owen had spent all their time together in the Cotswolds, and Owen had sometimes written about the things he and Lilias had done together.

She had stayed with Owen every day after his accident. Owen had told him about how she had always been there when he awoke, how she had held his hand while reading to him. She had helped Owen push himself to walk and, eventually, had taught him to dance, even with