She couldn’t make herself do it. She was a founding member of the Society of Ladies Against Rogues, for heaven’s sake. She was a pioneer of stealthily doing things forbidden to women. For more years than she cared to recall, she had managed to avoid being forced to wed someone she didn’t care for. She was a strong woman, and yet, she was frozen with fear of what was to come, of what might have been, of discovering it had all been the fanciful imagination of a girl who had read—and still did—far too many Gothic novels.
She had been in love, and she had been almost positively certain that Nash had felt the same, but she hadn’t gotten the chance to find out. He and Owen had raced, Owen had fallen, his leg had been crushed, and he had been left with a permanent limp. And before the dust had settled, Nash had fled without a word.
She could still recall in numbing detail going to his house to see him, to cry with him over the horrible accident that had occurred, to take his hand and lead him to Owen’s home so they could sit with him until he was strong enough to get out of bed. She had pictured them helping Owen learn to walk again, and maybe someday to run and ride, but that was not to be.
Nash’s mother, a woman as cold as the River Eye in winter, had answered the door and told Lilias that Nash had left that morning for Oxford, which had apparently been scheduled all along, and that she did not know when in the foreseeable future he would return.
Lilias had been dumbstruck that he had left Owen in such a state, but then she considered Nash’s past with his brother, and she knew in her heart that guilt had driven Nash away. Still, she had thought he’d return. Not the next day, but certainly before seven years had passed. She’d been sad, then angry, then numb, but through it all, hope had remained. She was happy to say the hope was fairly dead now, but this—confronting him face-to-face, seeing him, looking him in the eye—was what she needed to put her love for him in the grave where it belonged.
Owen thought her mad. She knew it. For years he’d been telling her to move on with her life and forget Nash. Even Nash had written her and told her to do the same. The last letter she had written him and the one he had written in response, the only one he’d ever written despite the numerous letters she’d sent to him at school, was seared in her mind and on her heart.
Dear Nash,
This will be the last time I write you. I know I said that in my previous letter, but this time I mean it. Owen’s accident was not your fault. Your brother’s death was not your fault. You are my best friend, and you are… Well, I thought perhaps we might… I miss you. I miss you horribly. Please write. Please come visit. Please don’t just disappear from my life. You are good. I know you said you weren’t, but I know in my heart that you are. I know you are hurting. I know you need me. You said I make you feel—What?
Please write me back this time.
Lilias
Lilias,
Please don’t write to me anymore. I’ve met someone else. And I’m not hurting. I’d have to feel to hurt, and I don’t feel anything.
Nash
Lilias inhaled a deep, steadying breath. It had been that last line—I’d have to feel to hurt, and I don’t feel anything—that made it so hard for her to give up hope. She’d believed that what had begun between them was something special, a love story for the ages like those she read about in her books, and not just the fanciful imagination of a lonely girl on the cusp of becoming a woman. She had not confessed that to anyone but Owen. She had not even admitted her real feelings to her closest friend, Guinevere.
Owen was her closest male friend. Well, her only one really, and he had known Nash’s goodness just as she had. Bless Owen. He had dried her tears and been there for her as she tried to mend her broken heart, but it would not quite heal. She’d assured him at one point that it had, and he’d simply patted her shoulder and told her that in time it would, that eventually, Nash would return to England, she would run into him, and she would find that her heart did not flip in her chest. Her breath would not whoosh out of her lungs. Her lips would not tingle in anticipation of another kiss as perfect as the first one he had given her.
And this was it—the moment seven long years had led her toward. She finally grasped the knocker and struck it, feeling as if she were holding the weight of her entire future.
Within a breath, the door opened and a butler adorned in silver and navy livery stood at the threshold. “May I help you?”
The question was polite, as was the look he bestowed upon her down his long, hawklike nose. He was a well-trained butler indeed. He didn’t even blink his dark brown eyes or show a hint of surprise that she was alone, standing at the doorstep without a companion.
“I’m here to see Lady Adaline.” Guilt tugged at her that she wasn’t really here to call upon Nash’s younger sister. She did like the girl, who had been presented to Society this Season. Lilias had made a special point to meet Lady Adaline, compelled to do so for mostly selfish reasons at first. She had hoped that in getting to know Adaline, she might learn information about Nash. It embarrassed her to think upon now.
She’d scarcely heard a word about him since he’d left seven years ago. She knew he’d gone to live in Scotland at one of his family’s estates after Oxford—Owen had told her so—but Owen didn’t seem to know much more since he and Nash rarely corresponded. She had overheard his sister say that Nash had not had any serious intentions toward any women and that she’d likely get married before her rogue of a brother did. Lilias had promised herself that she would not think it was because he was longing for her, but the promise was ridiculously futile.
She also knew, as everyone in thetondid, that Nash’s father, the Duke of Greybourne, had recently died. She reminded herself to call himGreybourneand notNash. No, she’d need to call himYour Grace. He’d likely not be anticipating such conformity from her, but times had changed a bit. She had to think of her sister and mother and not just herself.
The butler cleared his throat, snapping her attention back to him, and she noted him staring at her hand expectantly.
She knew what he wanted: a calling card. But she did not have one. Even if she had not been in a state of shock upon hearing the announcement from Guinevere’s younger sister Frederica that she’d seen Nash in Town that morning, even if she hadn’t rushed straight here from the SLAR meeting at the home of Guinevere and her new husband, the Duke of Carrington, Lilias would not be in possession of a calling card. She and her mother had run out, and Mama had said they must wait to ask her Uncle Simon for funds for more. It was scandalous to her mother to be without a calling card. It was ridiculous to Lilias, but it was a fact of life in thetonthat she should have a calling card to produce, and not having one would mean there would be those bored, vapid sorts who would treat her like a leper.
She arched her eyebrows. “I’m without a calling card, but I am Lady Lilias Honeyfield.”
She’d had doors shut in her face before for such boldness, but the butler stepped to the side. “Come in, my lady, and I’ll let Lady Adaline know you’re here.”
Lilias entered, her heart nearly pounding out of her day gown as she moved across the threshold and into the grandeur of Nash’s Mayfair home. The entrance hall looked as she’d imagined it might through the years. The floors were a gleaming black-and-white marble, which the butler’s shoes tapped against as he walked, and marble pillars stood on either side of the interior hall like soldiers guarding the family within. The floors in Lilias’s own, much smaller townhome were dull and chipped. The whole home needed repair, but there was no money to do it, and her uncle had not offered.
They paused, and the butler took her wrap, and as he left her to set the wrap aside, she gazed into the dining room, which was just barely visible. A beautiful marble fireplace was the centerpiece, and it was accompanied by crystal sconces and a breathtaking, shimmering chandelier. She imagined Nash sitting there across from his sister and mother. Were they close? She did not even truly know. He had not talked of his parents much except when he’d told her how they’d expected him to watch over his sickly brother and let him win at things. She was sure they’d only wanted to protect his younger brother, though they had done so at Nash’s expense.
When the butler returned, he said, “If you’ll follow me to the parlor.”
Lilias nodded, though a sudden thought struck her. If Nash was not with his sister, which he very well likely might not be, how would she manage to see him? She racked her brain to think of some excuse she could use, but she need not have for there at the bottom of one of the grandest staircases she’d ever seen stood Nash and Adaline, talking animatedly. They did not notice the butler, nor her, and Lilias took the opportunity to drink him in. The picture he presented stole her breath.
The kilt he wore instantly brought a smile to her lips. Did he still wear it to annoy his mother? Had he managed to get a reaction from her over the years? His calves had become even more titillating over time, if that were possible. They were the calves of a man who was not idle. Age had served him very, very well, the devil. The images that filled her head as she stared at his bare legs would have shocked the bawdiest of sailors. She forced herself to look upward and inched her gaze over his long, sinewy legs, up over his slim hips, and farther still to his chest, proportioned to make an artist weep. She finally stopped at his broad shoulders, which looked like the perfect place to rest her head and listen to his the rich timbre of his voice.
