Lady Lilias and the Devil in Plaid - Julie Johnstone Page 0,36
heart if she let him, and Owen had been right. Her heart was shattered.
“No,” she lied. “I had thought by now a man would have realized I was the woman he’d been longing for.” That was as close to the truth as she was willing to get tonight.
“Ah, damnation, Lilias. I… Well, hell…”
And before she knew what was occurring, her best friend, the man she thought of like a brother, yanked her to him and covered her mouth with his. Shock stilled her for a moment, then utter dismay, but before she could react, gasps filled the silent night, followed by a bevy of excited chatter.
“I will live in exile as a spinster,” Lilias said over her mother’s wailing.
Her mother whirled toward her, the excessive noise finally, blessedly stopping. Yet Lilias’s ears still rang. She supposed she should expect no less since Mama had been weeping very loudly since Lilias had been forced to wake her last night and tell her what had occurred at the ball. Lilias was ruined. In fact, her ruination was so complete that she felt she’d given new meaning to the word. She couldn’t have just been discovered in a compromising embrace by anyone. No, certainly not. She’d been found with Owen’s mouth sealed over hers by not only Lady Adaline, but by Lady Adaline’s closest friend, Juliette Blanche, and her father, who everyone knew owned one of the cruelest scandal sheets in London. There was no hope to conceal the incident, and if she’d held the faintest fantasy that there might be, the scandal sheet she now held, which had just been delivered and on which hers was the very first story, dispelled that ludicrous notion.
Her mother paced back and forth, wringing her hands. “Blackwood is a good man. He will come to offer you his hand. I’m sure he simply did not have the chance to do so last night.”
No, he had not. She’d fled the ball and come straight home. She’d left him standing on the terrace calling her name. She still could not believe Owen had kissed her. It was a tragedy beyond reckoning. She had lost the man she loved and the man she’d always counted on as a friend in one night. Would he come? She prayed he did not. Or maybe she prayed he did and that he’d say he’d been impulsive, that he’d acted to simply make her feel better about herself. She did not want to hurt him. She did not want to be capable of hurting him. It left her reeling to think it was possible to hold such power over him and that she’d never seen it, never even suspected it. Her stomach cramped to think perhaps this was exactly how Nash thought of her.
“I cannot wed Blackwood,” she said again.
Her mother turned to her and looked at her as if she had sprouted two heads. “You can and you will.”
“Mama, no! I do not love him. I—”
Her mother grabbed her by the arm in a shocking, viselike grip. Mama had never touched Lilias in anger in her life. “Do you think you are the only consideration?” she hissed.
Fear shot straight to Lilias’s heart, and Nora’s face popped into her head. “No,” she whispered. “I know this could affect Nora’s ability to make the best match.” She was drowning in guilt over that.
Mama gave her a little shake. “If only it were that simple.”
The fear in Lilias’s heart spread everywhere. “Whatever do you mean, Mama? Are you speaking of our finances?”
Her mother grasped Lilias to her bosom suddenly and squeezed her tight, a sob escaping her. “We have nothing, Lilias. Your father left us with nothing.” Another sob burst from her. “No,” she cried out, shoving Lilias away, Mama’s face twisted in a pain that hurt Lilias’s heart. “That’s not quite true. He left us in debt—enormous debt—that I have been struggling to repay because the people he owes are unrelenting and unscrupulous! He died owing four gaming hell owners in the worst part of Town you can imagine!” Her mother pressed a hand to her flushed cheek. “And those men… Those men don’t care about laws or that we did not create the debt. They only care about getting their money.” Yet another sob ripped from Lilias’s mother, and Lilias flinched. “He left a huge debt to two very unsavory Irish brothers who run an illegal whiskey business at the docks.” Tears filled her mother’s eyes. “The things they threatened to do to