Lady Lilias and the Devil in Plaid - Julie Johnstone Page 0,65

slippers.

She brought a self-conscious hand to her hair to try to tidy it, but he caught her fingertips and held them for just a moment, but even after he let go, the heat of his body lingered on hers.

“Don’t,” he said, the single word husky. “I love your hair. I love the way you wear it. I’ve dreamed about it, and—”

He choked off the sentence, and she wanted to fall at his feet and beg him to continue, to touch her hair, to touch her. Dear God, perhaps knowing was worse than not knowing. But she could not, she would not, stop him now.

His gaze softened, as if he was thinking back to something that made him happy. “You used to hum when it was silent, and I felt so terrible for you because I concluded that silence scared you. Yet, I was so in awe of your ability to face what scared you. Such a slip of a thing you are, but your force of will is greater than any man’s I’ve ever known.”

What he was revealing started a trembling in her that she could not control, so she wrapped her arms around her waist and waited.

“The way you laughed, the way you still do—so infectious. It made me once think that I might catch some of your joy just by being near you.”

“And did you?” She could not keep quiet.

His mouth curved with tenderness. “God, yes. But happiness is damned slippery for someone like me.”

Tears sprang to her eyes to hear him say that, and she tried to stop them but they blurred her vision and rolled down her cheeks. He reached out and brushed his fingers across her left cheek before pulling back. “I remember how warm your tears are, from when you cried that day by the river. Do you remember that? When you told me of your father?”

She nodded, then sniffed and brushed at her tears. This was her opportunity to ask him about his brother. “You told me you betrayed your brother.”

“Yes.” The word seemed to catch in his throat.

“Why didn’t you tell me he was your twin?”

He shrugged. “It didn’t seem important. I was born first—the eldest, the heir.” He said the last so derisively she knew instantly that he hated being the heir. He inhaled a long breath, seemed to hold it, and then released it very slowly. “Thomas, my brother, used to say that I was the heir and he was the frail, unneeded spare. My parents would scold him and act horrified in the moment, but do you know, their actions hardly ever matched what they said.” She remained silent, almost certain he just needed to tell her, tell someone, and she did not want to interrupt that. “They treated him as if he could do nothing. They forced him to stay indoors almost always, as if they were afraid if he went outside he’d die, as if they were afraid that danger awaited him out in the world. I suppose, ultimately, they were correct.”

Nash had threaded his fingers together, and she longed to grab his hands and take them in hers, to help him conquer his pain. But if she did that, she feared she would not be able to make herself ever let go.

“They said to him, ‘You’re strong, don’t be ridiculous, you are not just the feeble spare,’ but every action they took, every action they demanded I take to protect him, to put him first, to let him win at everything, always said to him that they believed him to be weak, that they believed him in need of their hovering, coddling, and constant protection. He hated it, I hated it, and sometimes—” his gaze became pleading, as if he was asking her to forgive him “—I hated him.”

“Oh, Nash.” Her throat tightened mercilessly for the pain she could see he was in. “That is normal. I cannot tell you how many times I have wished my sister, Nora, ill for threatening to tell on me, for being a pest, for blackmailing me.”

Nash shook his head. “It’s not the same. You’ve never failed to protect your sister. I got tired of letting Thomas win, so one day I simply didn’t. Helen—” He swallowed, and Lilias’s heart stopped. There was a connection there, after all. “Helen came to our home for a sennight with her father, like Mr. Levine said. Thomas was instantly enamored of her, but she had her sights set on me—the heir. I knew