“I’m not certain there’s a person in London who wouldn’t easily ken you. Though you might learn the word know if you wish them to understand you.”
He raised a brow at her smart mouth. “I don’t care for being left waiting at the door of my own home.”
Her gaze moved pointedly to the door, removed from its hinges. “You make a habit of destroying things when they displease you?”
Alec resisted the urge to deny the words. He had spent the majority of his adult life proving that he was not coarse. Not rough. Not a brute.
But he would not defend himself to this woman. “I pay handsomely for the privilege.”
She rolled her eyes. “Charming.”
He refused to reveal his shock. While he had little to no experience with aristocratic servants, he was fairly certain that they did not make a habit of sniping at their masters. Nevertheless, he did not rise to the bait, instead taking in the impeccable home with its broad, sweeping center staircase, stunning and massive oil landscapes on the walls, a touch of gilt here and there, indicating modernity rather than garishness. He turned in a slow circle, considering the high ceilings, the massive mirrors that captured and reflected light from the windows high above, casting the whole space in natural light, and offering a glimpse of a wide, colorful carpet and a roaring fireplace through a nearby open door.
It was the kind of house that should belong to a duke with impressive pedigree, no doubt decorated by some previous duchess.
He stilled.
Was there a previous duchess? With seventeen dead dukes, Alec would bet there was more than one previous duchess.
He growled at the thought. All he needed was a widow to deal with on top of the scandalous ward and the petulant staff.
The staff in question heard the sound of displeasure. “I knew they called you the diluted duke, but I did not think you would be so . . .”
The impertinence trailed off, but Alec heard the unspoken worlds. Beastly. Coarse. Unrefined. He lost his patience. “I suggest you fetch Lady Lillian. Immediately.”
“It’s Miss Hargrove. She’s not highborn.”
He raised a brow. “This is England, is it not? Have they changed the rules, then? You gleefully correct dukes now?”
“I do when the duke in question is wrong,” she said, “Though you should be fine, as few will understand enough of your monstrous accent to know if you are right or wrong.”
“You seem to understand me well enough.”
She smiled too sweetly. “My vast good fortune, I suppose.”
He resisted the urge to laugh at the quick retort. The woman was not amusing. She was moments from being sacked. “And what of the respect that comes with the title?”
“It comes from people who are impressed by said title, I imagine.”
“And you are not?”
She crossed her arms. “Not particularly.”
“May I ask why?”
“There have been eighteen of you in five years. Or, to be more precise, seventeen in two weeks, followed by you for five years. And despite this being the first time you’ve set foot in this house, it—and all its contents—belong to you. Are cared for. For you. In absentia. If that’s not evidence that titles are ridiculous, I’m not sure what is.”
She wasn’t saying anything he didn’t believe. But that did not mean she was not maddening—likely just as mad as the other woman in the house. “While your insubordination is impressive and I do not entirely disagree with your logic, I’ve had enough,” he said. “I intend to speak with Miss Lillian, and your task, whether you like it or not, is to fetch her.”
“Why are you here?”
He let stony silence stretch between them for a long minute, attempting to intimidate her into doing as he asked. “Fetch your mistress.”
She was not intimidated in the slightest. “I think it amusing that you refer to her as mistress of the house. As though she isn’t a prisoner of it.”
That’s when he knew.
His ward was not the swooning type, after all.
Before he could speak, however, she continued. “As though she were not a belonging just like the door you summarily destroyed like a great Scottish brute.”
He didn’t mean to hear the word.
But somehow, standing here, with this impeccable Englishwoman in this impeccable English town house in this impeccable English square, wearing an uncomfortable suit, barely fitting in the open doorway, feeling big and out of place, he couldn’t help but hear it.
Couldn’t help but feel it, close and unsettling, like the tight cravat around his neck.
How often had he heard it from beautiful women? Whispered in awe, as though they were too busy imagining the fine, deep notch he would make in their bedposts to keep their innermost thoughts to themselves. When one came in the size he did, women tended to desire it, like a prize. A bull at the county fair.
Massive and beastly.
The word honored their desire even as it demeaned his own.
Just as it had demeaned him on his mother’s lips, marking her regret as she’d spat it at him—always too large to be fine enough for her. Too big to be worthy of her. Too coarse. Too Scottish.
Too much a reminder of her disappointing life.
She’d loathed his size. His strength. His inheritance from his father. Loathed it so much that she’d left, that single word her parting gift to her only son.
Brute.
And so, when he heard it here, in this place, on the lips of another beautiful Englishwoman, with such thorough disdain, he was unable to avoid it.
Just as he was unable to resist retaliating. “I had hoped you wouldn’t be beautiful.”
She narrowed her gaze. “The descriptor does not seem a compliment on your lips.”
A vision flashed, this stunning woman laid across a bed, hair spread like fire and gold across white linen, long limbs beckoning, pink lips parted. Desire shot through him like pain, and he forced himself to remember his place.
He was her guardian. She was his ward.
And English at that.
She was not for him.
“It’s not,” he said. “It makes it far more likely you did it.”
Her eyes were glorious, more expressive than he would ever have imagined, and filled instantly with challenge. “Did what?”
“Ruined yourself.”
The anger changed to something else, gone so quickly that he might not have recognized it if it were not so unbearably familiar to him.
Shame.
And in her shame, in the way it bore the shadow of his own, he instantly regretted his words. And he wished them gone. “I should not have—”
“Why not? It is true.”
He watched her for a long moment—taking in her straight spine, her square shoulders, her high head. The strength she should not have, but carried like honor, nonetheless.
“We should begin again,” he said.
“I would prefer we not begin at all,” she said, and turned away from him, leaving him in the hallway, with nothing to keep his company but the sounds from the square beyond floating through the permanently open doorway.
She needed the Diluted Duke like she needed a hole in the head.
She closed the door to the sitting room off the foyer, pressing her back to it and releasing a long breath, willing him gone from the house. Gone from her life. After all, it was not as though he’d taken an interest in her for the last five years.
But, of course, he was here now, literally banging down the door of her home, as though he could barge in like an avenging guardian king, as though he had ownership over her and her scandal.
Which, of course, he did.
Damn Settlesworth and his copious letter writing.
And damn the duke for turning up, uninvited. Unwanted.
Lily had a plan, and it did not require the duke. She should not have incited him. She should not have insulted him. Indeed, one did not catch flies with vinegar, and the duke was a rather f
at fly.
She crossed the room to the sideboard on the far end.
Not fat.
Poured herself a glass of the amber liquid there.
He was all strength. Lily did not think she would forget the image of the great oak door bursting from its hinges, as though made of paper. And she did not think she would ever not lose her breath at the vision of the enormous man, big as a house and handsome beyond measure, standing in the wake of his destruction, framed by sunlight as though the heavens themselves had sent him down.
She stopped.
What utter rubbish. Being housebound for the past two weeks and four days, hiding from the rest of London, she must have been addled by the onset of fresh air that had arrived when the man had beat the door down.
That alone was enough to set any woman on edge.
Particularly one who had been fooled by handsome men before.
Lily had no interest in his broad shoulders or his brown eyes or his full lips that seemed at once soft and firm and terribly tempting. And she hadn’t even noticed the cheeks and nose and jaw, strong enough to have been hewn in iron by the most talented Scottish blacksmiths.
She sipped at the whisky in her glass.
No, the only interest she had in the Duke of Warnick was in getting him gone.
“Lillian.” She whirled around to find the object of her lack of interest in the now-open doorway. His brown gaze fell to the glass in her hand. “It’s half-ten in the morning.”
She drank again, purposefully. If ever there were a time for drink, it was now. “I see you are aware of how doors properly function.”
He raised a brow and watched her for a long moment before saying, “If we are imbibing, I’ll have one, as well.”
She gave him her back as she poured a second glass, and when she turned to deliver it to him, it was to find that he’d already crossed the room without sound. She resisted the urge to move away from him. He was too large. Too commanding.
Too compelling.
He took the glass. “Thank you.”
She nodded. “It’s your drink. You’re welcome to it.”
He did not drink. Instead he moved away, to the fireplace, where he inspected a large classical oil painting of a nude man, sleeping under a willow tree beneath the gaze of a beautiful woman, dawn crawling across the sky. Lily gritted her teeth as she, too, considered the painting. A nude. Unsettling in its reminder of—
“Shall we discuss the scandal?”
No.
Her cheeks burned. She didn’t like it. “Is there a scandal?”
He turned to look at her. “You tell me.”
“Well, I imagine the news that you broke down the door in broad daylight will get around.”
Something flashed in his eyes. Something like amusement. She didn’t like that, either. “Is it true, lass?”
And, in that moment, in the four, simple words, spoken in his rolling Scottish brogue, warm and rough and almost kinder than she could bear, she wished herself anywhere but there. Because it was the first time anyone had asked the question.
And it was the millionth time that she’d wished the answer were different. “I think you should go.”
He was still for a long moment, and then he said, “I’m here to help.”
She laughed at that, the sound without humor. “It is impressive, Your Grace, how well you sound the caring guardian.”
“I came as soon as I heard of your predicament.”
She was a legend, evidently. “It reached you all the way in Scotland, did it?”
“In my experience, rumor travels like lightning.”
“And you’ve much experience with rumors?”
“More than I would care to admit.”
Lily heard the truth in the words. “And were your rumors true?”
He was silent long enough for her to think he might not reply, so it was a particular shock when he said, simply, “Yes.”
She’d never in her life been so curious about a single word. Of course, it was nonsense. Whatever his scandal, it was not like this. It had not destroyed him.
It had not forced him to flee.
She met his gaze. “And now, what? You arrive to tend your reputation?”
“I don’t care a fig for my reputation. I am here to tend yours.”
It was a lie. No one had ever cared for Lily’s reputation—not since her father had died. She’d never had a patroness, never a friend.
Never a love.
The thought came with hot tears, stinging with the threat of their appearance, unwelcome and infuriating. She inhaled sharply and turned back to the sideboard, refusing to reveal them to him. “Why?”
His brow furrowed. “Why?”
“You don’t even know me.”
He hesitated. Then, “You are my responsibility.”
She laughed. She couldn’t help looking back. “You’ve never once taken interest in me. You did not even know I existed, did you?” She saw the guilt in his eyes. The truth there. “I suppose that is better than the alternative.”
“Which is?”
“That you’ve known about me for years and simply ignored my existence.”
He would not have been the only one.
“Had I known . . .” He trailed off.
“What? You would have returned to London years ago? Immediately taken up the banner of guardian and savior?”
He shifted on his massive feet, and she felt a twinge of regret, knowing that he did not deserve her accusations. She bit her tongue, refusing to apologize. Wishing he would leave. Wishing he had never come.
If wishes were horses.
“I am not a monster,” he answered, finally. “I did not ask for the responsibility, but I would have made certain you were provided for, without hesitation.”
’Twas always thus. A promise of funds. Of room and board. A promise of all the bits that came easily.
And a dearth of everything that had value.
She waved her hand to indicate the beautiful house. “I am perfectly provided for. Look at the beautiful cage in which I perch.” She did not wait for him to reply. “It is no matter, either way. I am afraid you are rather too late.” She pushed past him, saying, “I am in the market for neither guardian nor savior. Indeed, if the last few years have taught me anything, it is that I would do well to save myself. Play my own guardian.”
He did not reply until she reached the door to the sitting room. “You’re older than I expected.”
She stopped. Looked back. “I beg your pardon?”
He did not move. “How old are you?”
She matched the impertinent question. “How old are you?”
“I am old enough to know that you’re older than any ward should be.”
“If only you hadn’t had such a longstanding disinterest in your guardianship, you might know the answer to your question.”
“Do not take it personally.”
“Your longstanding disinterest?”
“Now that I know you exist, I find myself quite interested.”
“I suppose you would be, now that I’m a creature under glass to watch and point to as a warning to all others.”
He raised a black brow and crossed his arms over his massive chest. “Seconds ago, you were a bird in a cage.”
“It is the mixed metaphors you are interested in?” she retorted.
He did not hesitate. “No, it’s you.”
The words warmed her. Not that they should have. “A pity, that, as I am not interested in you.”
“You should be. As I understand it, guardians have quite a bit of control over wards.”
“I’m a ward of the Warnick estate. I would not get too possessive, if I were you.”
“Am I not Warnick?”
“Perhaps not for long. You dukes do have a habit of dying.”
“I suppose you’d like that?”
“A woman can dream.” His lips twitched at the words, and if she were to tell the truth, she would have admitted that sh
e enjoyed the fact that she’d amused him. She was not interested in the truth, however.
“Well, I am not dead yet, Lillian, so you are landed with me for the time being. You’d do best to answer my questions.” He paused, then repeated himself. “You’re rather old for a ward, nae?”
Of course she was. She’d been lost in the fray. Her father had died and left her in the care of the duke, and all had been well for several years, until the duke had died. And sixteen more, as well. And then this man—this legendary Scot who had eschewed 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.”