A Scot in the Dark (Scandal & Scoundrel #2) - Sarah MacLean Page 0,92

opportunity to respond before the dressmaker was snapping her fingers and a collection of young women arrived to move her into the front room.

Seline and Seleste released twin breaths from the settee as Sesily rushed forward. “That woman is a termagant.” She drew close. “You handled her beautifully. I was particularly impressed by the use of her given name.”

The name Alec used with her.

The name he’d used with her for God knew how long.

He had gone to her. And he’d left Lily.

“I . . .” She trailed off, unable to find words. She looked down at her hands to discover them shaking. She looked up to Sesily. “I don’t know what to do.”

Sesily met her gaze and took her hands, holding them tightly, keeping them still. “You remain strong. And you never, ever let her see you tremble.”

“Agreed,” Seleste joined them, along with Seline. “Nor him.”

Lily shook her head. “I don’t know to whom you refer.”

Sesily smiled at the proper words. “Of course not. But if you did . . .” She paused. “. . . know to whom we refer, that is . . . if you did . . . I assume you’d choose him over the other?”

Tears threatened, and Lily looked to the ceiling, willing them away. Willing herself away from here. As Madame Hebert stood from her place at Lily’s feet, crossing the room to a cabinet full of fabric, Lily reminded herself that Alec was not an option. He was never an option. And two nights past, he had made it more than clear.

She looked to her friend. “He does not want me.”

“Bollocks,” Sesily said.

Lily shook her head. “It is true. He left me alone in the house. I have not seen him in three days. Apparently he left me to seek comfort in the arms of . . .” She trailed off, and waved an arm in the direction of the front room of the shop. After a long moment, she added, soft and sad, “Yes. Yes of course, I choose him.”

It was the first time she’d admitted it aloud, and the words were terrifying and heartbreaking all at once. She wanted him. More than she’d ever wanted anything. “But he doesn’t want me.”

“Oh, Lily,” Sesily said, climbing up onto the platform and wrapping her in an embrace. Lily had always heard that friends’ embraces made one feel better, but this did not. This made her feel worse. It made her want to give herself up to the other woman, to cry and wail and leave all her sadness, all her hopelessness, at Sesily’s feet.

But somehow, in that wanting, she discovered the truth.

That it also made her feel like she was not alone.

“We’ve another sister, did you know that?” Sesily said, and it took Lily a moment to catch up to the change in topic. “Seraphina.”

Lily nodded. “Duchess of Haven.” The fifth of the Soiled S’s, accused of trapping a duke into marriage, disappeared from London months earlier.

A shadow crossed Sesily’s face. “Sera couldn’t win her duke. Not in the end.”

Sometimes, love was impossible. Lily understood that.

Except it did not seem that she understood the Talbot sisters, who looked to her with new resolve. “But your duke. You shall get him. We shall help.”

It wasn’t possible of course, but it was a wonderful fantasy.

Lily removed herself from the embrace, dashing away tears to discover Seleste and Seline had joined them. That she was not alone. That she was not one, but four.

Five.

For behind the Talbot sisters stood the French modiste, London’s most revered dressmaker, holding a length of fabric and watching her with a keen, knowing eye. “If you choose him,” she extended her arms, revealing the fabric. “You find him. And you wear this.”

Lily’s eyes went wide as she took the offering, the movement punctuated by little excited gasps from her friends. Holding the fabric in her hands, she admitted it again, her single, undeniable truth. “I want him.”

“Then he is yours,” Sesily replied, her words dry and full of knowledge. “Truthfully, if that does not win him, the man cannot be won.”

Chapter 16

TARTAN: TEMPTING TEXTILE? OR TERRIBLE TREND?

Alec didn’t think it possible, but the Kensington town house once owned by the aging Number Nine and his wife was even worse than the dog house.

Evidently, Lady Nine had been a collector. Of everything.

In the three days he had been living in the deserted town house off Regent Street—Settlesworth had mentioned something about a boating accident in the North Country that took Duke and