A Scot in the Dark (Scandal & Scoundrel #2) - Sarah MacLean Page 0,26
one will care.” She stood straight as an arrow, but her tone betrayed her. She knew it wasn’t true.
“Everyone will care.”
“No one will recognize me.” He could hear the desperation in the words.
Christ, she was beautiful. Tall and lithe and utterly perfect, as though the heavens had opened and the Creator himself had set her down here, in this place, doomed to be soiled. The idea that no one would notice her, that no one would recognize her, it was preposterous. He softened his reply. “Everyone will recognize you, lass.” He shook his head. “Even if I doubled the funds. If I gave you ten times as much, the damn painting would follow you.”
Those straight shoulders fell, just enough for him to see her weakening. “It is to be my shame.”
“It is your error in judgment,” he corrected.
She smirked. “A pretty euphemism.”
“We have all made them,” he said, wishing for some idiot reason that he could make her feel better.
She met his gaze. “You? Have you made such an error?”
More than he could count.
“I am king of them,” he said.
She watched him for a long moment. “But men don’t carry the shame forever.”
Alec did not look away from her, from the words that so many believed true. He lied. “No. We don’t.”
She nodded, and he saw the tears threaten. He resisted the urge to reach for her, knowing instinctively that touching her would change everything.
He hated himself for not reaching for her when she turned away, for the door. “And you think you shall find a man who will choose to marry me. What nonsense that is.”
“I’ve given you a dowry, Lillian.”
She paused, putting her hand to the door handle, but not turning it.
He took the stillness as indication that she was listening. “There was none attached to you. Presumably because you were so young when you became ward to the estate. Also, presumably why you’ve never been asked for. But now there is. Twenty-five thousand pounds.”
She spoke to the closed door. “That is a massive amount of money.”
More than she needed to catch a husband.
She could catch a husband with nothing.
“We shall find a man,” he said, suddenly consumed with distaste at having to buy her a future. It had seemed such an easy solution the night before. But now, in the room with her, he felt the whole thing slipping away from him. “We shall find a man,” he repeated. “A good one.”
Alec would carry him to the altar if necessary.
“We have nine days,” he said.
“To convince a man to take a risk on my scandal before all the world has truly witnessed it.”
“To convince a man that you are prize enough to ignore it.”
Lily turned, grey eyes flashing. “Prize.”
“Beauty and money. Things that make the world go round.” Not just those things, he wanted to say. More.
She nodded. “Before the painting is revealed. Not after.”
He opened his mouth to reply, but did not have a good answer. Of course before. Once she was nude in front of the world, she would be—
“Before my shame is thoroughly public,” she said, softly. With conviction. “Not after.”
He ignored the topic, instead saying, “Marriage gives you everything you wish for, lass.”
“How do you know that for which I wish?”
“I know what a woman wants out of life.” He found himself unable to meet her gaze. “It is marriage. Not money.”
She gave a little huff of laughter. “Well, any woman worth her salt wants both.”
He had her. “You’ll get both. Just as you wanted.”
“I wanted to marry for love.”
He recoiled from the very idea. Love was a ridiculous goal—one that was not only implausible but nonexistent. He knew that better than anyone. But Alec had a sister, and so he knew a thing or two about women—and knew, without question, that they believed in the great fallacy of the heart. So he lied to her. “Then we shall find you someone to love.”
She faced him then, tilting her head and watching him as though he were a creature under glass, fascinating and disgusting all at once. “That’s impossible.”
“Why?”
She lifted one shoulder and lowered it. “Because love is for the lucky among us.”
“What does that mean?” he said, her words rioting through him, unwelcome in their eerie truth.
“Only that I am not counted among the lucky. Everyone I have ever loved has left.”
He did not have time to reply, because she was through the door and gone, leaving him with his dogs, the words echoing in the empty room.