Lady Lilias and the Devil in Plaid - Julie Johnstone Page 0,44
was on Lilias. He’d gone straight from the Orcus Society to Owen’s, only to be informed by Owen’s butler that he had left that very night for the Cotswolds. It seemed Owen’s father had taken a bad fall, and Owen’s presence was required at his country home immediately.
Serafina’s hand slipped to Nash’s crotch and settled there. She frowned. “Yer desire is not here, either.”
“I’m sorry,” he said, grasping her by the waist and hoisting her up and to the floor. He stood and reached for his overcoat in one swift motion. He was aware Serafina was pouting at him as he put on his overcoat, and when he was done, he faced her, trying to think what to say so her feelings would not be injured.
They’d been intimate several times before in Scotland. Serafina knew not to expect any sort of commitment from him, and she’d assured him she wanted none herself. She had been wed once, and she vowed once was enough for her. But she had made one stipulation, and that was that he be honest with her.
She stared at him and asked him bluntly, “Why did ye come here tonight, Greybourne? It’s clearly not because ye were longing to be with me.”
He tugged a hand through his hair. “I was hoping to forget,” he admitted. “And there have been times you’ve been able to make me do that.” Though the moments had been brief.
Forgetting Lilias seemed to be an impossibility. He wasn’t certain why. He’d thought about it through the years but had been unable to come up with an answer. Was it because she’d been the only person he’d ever come close to telling about his brother? Was it because he’d seen in her eyes that she thought him better than he really was and it had given him hope that he could be that man? Was it because they’d never joined so he was left to wonder what it would have been like? Was it because he knew she was unlike any woman he’d ever met or would ever meet again?
Of course it was the bloody last one. He knew it. He just didn’t damn well care to dwell on it. It could be one of the other reasons, as well—or all of them. Who damn well cared? The result was the same.
He didn’t want any woman but Lilias—not truly. And he could not have her. So what now? He was getting older. He needed to produce an heir, of which his mother had reminded him when he first returned to England. And for an heir, he needed a wife. The prospect left him cold.
Another ducal duty.
“Greybourne, did ye hear me?” Serafina demanded, her tone slightly exasperated.
He snapped his gaze away from the wall he had not even realized he’d been staring at. Serafina’s green eyes were narrowed, and she was twisting a strand of her red hair around one of her fingers. “No, I’m sorry,” he admitted. “What did you say?”
She placed a hand on his chest and glanced up at him, her gaze earnest. “I said, as long as I’ve known ye, yer mind has never been totally with me, but I have never seen ye like this. Am I to assume ye have encountered the woman Lilias? The one who truly holds yer desire? Does she live here in London?”
His jaw slipped open. “How do you know her name?” he asked, not bothering to deny the statement.
“Ye muttered it in yer sleep the one time ye stayed the night with me.”
Good Christ. He talked in his sleep? That was a devil of a thing to discover. Thank God he’d never stayed the night with any other woman.
Serafina gave him a knowing look. “So, does she live in London?”
He nodded. Serafina lived her life with utter discretion, and he trusted she wouldn’t speak of Lilias or of him to anyone. Besides, she was not part of the same social circle. Her husband had not been of the ton but a businessman who had a large share in one of the railroad companies. And the fact that her husband had not had a title and had worked for what he had kept the doors to the ton firmly shut to them. It was rubbish, but it was the way of things.
“Have the two of ye never—”
“No.” He cut her off. He didn’t need Serafina’s help putting images in his head of him and Lilias flesh to flesh. He tortured himself quite regularly with images