Lady Lilias and the Devil in Plaid - Julie Johnstone Page 0,52

unthinkable things. Such as lock her in her bedchamber and keep her there. With him. In her bed. Preferably naked. He swallowed his desire and fear for her. “I’ll help you until Owen returns, but when he does, I’m going to tell him.”

“Do as you must,” she said with a flippant air, then waved a dismissive hand at him. “If Owen demands I stop, I will.”

“You are a liar,” he said, recalling her previous “vow” to stay home.

“That’s rude,” she replied. “But I suppose ’tis true in this circumstance. If you force a person into a corner, what do you expect? These women need me, and I’ll not fail them. They need someone to help them, to protect them.”

Good Christ. He understood now. She was trying to be for them what she had never had herself. It was perfectly clear now why she was a founding member of this society. It had nothing to do with him. It was because neither of her parents had truly made her feel protected. He was a conceited arse for ever entertaining the thought that it could be him.

“Fine. I’ll accompany you on your missions to help these women until Owen returns, and then you are Owen’s problem.”

“Is that what you consider me?” The hurt in her voice was unmistakable. “A problem?”

“Yes,” he clipped, afraid if he said anything else he’d tell her something that would give away how he really felt. She was rash, impulsive, impassioned, and wonderful. Of course, she was a problem, but he’d rather have a million problems like her that made him feel alive than the nothingness he normally felt. “But I will bear you somehow,” he added, which would have been the perfect thing to say to keep a distance between them if his arm had not reached out without alerting his brain and his fingers had not brushed down the slope of her smooth cheek. It was perfect, just like her. He wanted to tell her how she made him feel. Instead, he said, “Where are we going?”

“The Orcus Society,” she said without a trace of embarrassment or concern.

Nash’s mouth slipped open. He knew a great deal about the place from Carrington, such as the fact that there were pleasure rooms there and men who did not deserve to even breathe the same air as Lilias. “How did you imagine you’d gain entry into the Orcus Society? You need to be a patron or be one of the women who—”

His words trailed off as she opened her cloak and revealed the seductive cut of a gown that would cause the scandal of the Season were she to wear it to any balls. She must have seen him staring at her delectable cleavage because she pulled her cloak closed once more. But it was too late. The creamy, round mounds of her breasts would be singed in his memory for the rest of his life. A ravenous need to touch her rushed through him.

Instead, he tugged a hand through his hair and forced himself to keep control. “You mean to tell me that you were planning on going into the club alone, and there you intended to pretend to be a courtesan?” It was unthinkable. Because if he thought too much upon it, then he would go mad with worry at how Owen would be able to protect her from herself in the future.

“I do not mean to tell you anything, but you’ve left me little choice. The answer is yes and yes, though. Now, where is your gig?”

“At my home. I could not very well drive it here and risk anyone seeing me and asking questions.”

“You walked here just to watch over me?”

Something in her tone sounded odd to him. He could not place it so he simply answered. “Indeed. I owe Owen that.”

“Yes, of course it’s about Owen. Well come along, then. Let’s get my gig.”

He followed her as she strode to the lane behind her townhome to the mews, as if she had no fear that she’d be seen by her mother. Because, of course, she would not. He grasped her arm before she entered the stables. “What of your coachman and stable master? Will they not ask questions?”

“No.”

“Whyever not?” he bit out. A proper stable master would.

When she simply shrugged, his temper snapped. “Does no one in your life put restraints on you for your own safety?”

Her eyes widened in the darkness, but away from the lamplight, the moonlight did not illuminate her face