A Scot in the Dark (Scandal & Scoundrel #2) - Sarah MacLean Page 0,11
all things English and never even turned up in Parliament to receive his letters of patent—had been in charge.
And Lily had been forgotten.
No dowry. No season. No friends.
She looked to him, wishing there were a way to tell him all of that, to make him understand his part in the mad play of her life, without rewatching the play herself. As there wasn’t, she settled upon, “I am, rather.”
She sat in a pretty little Chippendale chair, watching him as he watched her. As he tried to understand her. As though if he looked long enough, she would unlock herself.
The irony was, if he’d done the same a year earlier, she might have unlocked herself. She might have opened to him, and answered all his questions, laid herself bare to him.
Her lips twisted in a sad smile at the thought. Laid herself bare in all ways, likely. Thankfully, he was a year too late, and she was a lifetime different.
“I am ward of the estate, until such time as I marry.”
“Why haven’t you married?”
She blinked. “Many would find that inquiry inappropriate.”
He raised a brow and indicated the door to the house. “Do I seem a man who cares for propriety?”
He did not.
There were a dozen reasons why she was unmarried. Reasons that had to do with being orphaned and ignored and alone and then desperately smitten with the wrong man. But she was not going to share them. So she settled on a simpler, no less honest, truth. “I have never been asked.”
“That seems impossible.”
“Why?”
“Because men are a ha’penny a dozen when it comes to women like you.”
Women like her. She stiffened. This man made her beauty sound as it felt. “Have a care. Your flattery will spoil me, Your Grace.”
He sat then, folding himself into a matching chair, his enormous frame making it seem minuscule. “Alec.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“You may call me Alec.”
“While that may be done in the wilds of Scotland, Your Grace, it is thoroughly inappropriate here.”
“Again with the invocation of propriety,” he said. “Fine. Call me Stuart then. Or any number of the other invectives you’ve no doubt been thinking,” he said. “I’ll take them all before duke.”
“But you are a duke.”
“Not by choice.” He drank then, finally, grimacing after he swallowed the amber liquid. “Christ. That’s swill.” He threw the rest of the liquid into the fire.
She raised a brow at the action. “You disdain the title and the scotch it buys.”
“First, that should not be called scotch. It is rot-gut at best.” He paused. “And second, I do not disdain the title. I dislike it.”
“Yes, you poor, put-upon man. Having one of the wealthiest and most venerable dukedoms in history simply land in your lap. How difficult it must be to live your horrid, entitled existence.” He had no idea the power he had. The privilege. What she would do to have the same.
He leaned back in the small chair. “I spend my own money, earned honestly in Scotland. I have ensured the tenants and staff who rely upon the dukedom continue to prosper, but as I did not ask for the title, I do not interact with its spoils.”
“Myself included.” She could not resist the words.
“I’m here, am I not? Summoned south by my ward. Surely that counts for something.”
“I didn’t summon you.”
“You might not have set pen to paper, lass, but you summoned me as simply as if you’d shouted my name across the border.”
“As I said, I’ve no need for you.”
“I’m told the world disagrees.”
“Hang the world,” she said, turning her attention to the fire as she added, “and hang you with it.”
“As I am here to save you, I would think you would be much more grateful.”
The man’s arrogance was quite remarkable. “However did I come to be so very lucky?”
He sighed, hearing the sarcasm in her words. “Despite your petulance, I am here to rectify your alleged . . .” He cast about for an appropriate word. “. . . situation.”
Her brows shot together. “My petulance.”
“Do you deny it?”
She most certainly did. “Petulance is what a child feels when she is denied sweets.”
“How would you describe yourself if not petulant?”
Furious. Foolish. Irritated. Desperate.
Ashamed.
Finally, she spoke. “It is no matter. It’s all too little, too late.” After a pause, she added, pointedly, “I’ve a plan, and you are not a part of it, Duke.”
He cut her a look. “I suppose I shouldn’t have told you I don’t like the title.”