“Let’s go to my home and talk to Asher,” Guinevere said. “He will know if Greybourne is betrothed, and perhaps he can help you get through to the man.”
Lilias shook her head. “I don’t want you to put Carrington in that position. If he promised Nash he’d not talk to you about this matter, then he should keep his promise. I don’t want to be the cause of Nash losing another friend.” She had already cost Nash his friendship with Owen.
“Then what are you going to do?” Guinevere demanded.
“I don’t know,” Lilias said helplessly. “I need time to contemplate it all.” Her head pounded, and her heart ached. “I think I’ll walk home.”
“Lilias, no. Let me drive you.”
Lilias shook her head. “It’s not far. I’ve done it before.” Of course, Nash had been following her then. He’d followed her to ensure she was safe, supposedly for Owen’s sake, but she knew now it had been because he’d wanted to ensure she was safe for her own sake. Tears threatened, but she blinked them away, seeing another gig headed down the lane toward them.
“Lilias Honeyfield, I refuse to allow you to walk home alone. I—”
“On second thought,” Lilias said as the driver of the oncoming gig came into perfect view and she realized it was the Marquess of Kilgore, “I don’t think I’ll be going home just yet.”
With that, she held up her hand to wave Kilgore to a stop. As the rogue slowed his gig to a halt in front of her and Guinevere, Guinevere’s eyes narrowed upon Lilias. “What is this about? Are you going to try to make Greybourne come to his senses by using Kilgore?”
“That’s quite the intriguing proposition without even a hello,” Kilgore said, a suggestive grin coming to his handsome face.
“I have no intention of using you to make Greybourne jealous,” she said, her mind turning. She didn’t know where Nash was, and her heart and head were a mess. She needed something else to concentrate on at the moment, and her unfinished mission to secure the manuscript from Mr. Levine was the perfect thing. A chapter of that manuscripthadto be about Kilgore if Mr. Levine intended to see it published to gain revenge on the marquess, so Kilgore should be motivated to help her retrieve it. Besides, she highly suspected Kilgore was a man well acquainted with guilt. Perhaps some time alone with him and some conversation would give her some thoughts on how to reach Nash before he was lost to her forever.
“Well, that’s rather disappointing,” he said, his voice like silk. “I rather enjoyed the idea of being used by you.”
She studied him for a long moment. The way his mouth curved in a bored half smile. The seemingly carefree way he lounged on his seat. But he was not carefree. He was tense. His left hand clutched his thigh, and his right foot tapped. Kilgore was a man who wanted her and everyone else to think he was no good. She’d play along—for now.
“Don’t fret,” she said. “Idointend to use you.”
“Lilias!” Guinevere gasped.
Lilias smiled reassuringly at her friend. “Don’t worry, dearest. I intend to use Kilgore to help me solve a problem he has somewhat helped create.” With that, she launched into a quick explanation of the manuscript by Helen Levine and her brother’s refusal to return it. She also mentioned what he had said at the Orcus Society: it wasn’t about money but about striking Kilgore in the heart.
When she finished, she studied him. “Do you know to what he was referring?”
“Yes,” Kilgore said, his face as tight as the one word. “I—” He glanced at them both almost apologetically. “It’s not fit for a lady’s ears.”
“I’m not much of a ‘lady’ in the prim-and-proper sense so do go on. That is—” Lilias cast a look at Guinevere, whose face was alight with eagerness, “if Guinevere will not be shocked,” she finished, feeling sure Guinevere would not care, but Lilias was compelled to allow her friend to decide for herself.
“Ha!” Guinevere pronounced. “You know better! Both of you do. Do tell us, Kilgore.”
A breeze blew and ruffled Kilgore’s dark hair off his forehead to reveal a white scar down the right side. It appeared to start at his hairline and stop midway to his eyebrow. He touched his forefinger to the scar and appeared lost in the past for a moment. Then he took a deep breath and spoke. “I take it you have not read Helen’s manuscript?”
Lilias and Guinevere both shook their heads, to which Kilgore nodded. “As I have not, either, so some of this is speculation, but it is grounded, I believe, in facts. “I have never touched Helen in my life, but I have an enemy who was her client, and I have no doubt he did not pay her what he promised. He very likely has a scathing chapter in her book.”
“And this would be…?” Lilias asked.
Kilgore’s gaze locked on Guinevere, and he raised his eyebrows. “You know,” he said quietly.
“Oh!” Guinevere exclaimed, and when Lilias looked at her, she was goggling at Kilgore. “Are you referring to Asher’s brother?”
“Indeed,” Kilgore answered. “Talbot met with Helen a great deal, and I would not be surprised if he spoke too freely in the throes of passion, and after, about his many schemes and goings on. As you likely know, one of which involved me and a certain wager on the books at White’s.”
“Oh goodness,” Lilias said as her mind pulled the threads together. She knew the wager on White’s books of which Kilgore spoke had involved Lady Constantine. “You think there is a chapter in the book that must give details of you and Lady Constantine.”
Kilgore’s jaw was like flint, and the flicker of fury in his eyes was so intense in the moment before his lashes fell that gooseflesh rose on her arms. “I do,” he ground out. “But you must believe me that Lady Constantine is a woman above reproach. She would not allow the likes of me to touch her with even the longest pole I could find.”
The statement was emphatic, and Lilias did not know what was true, nor was it truly her concern. The matter was private and should stay that way. “Why would Helen write a chapter that would hurt you?”
“I do not think it would have been intended to hurt me. I think she intended to hurt Talbot. He pursued Lady Constantine, and she turned him down, and he undoubtedly said something to the effect that she was not so pure, that she and I—” He stopped and sucked in a ragged breath. “I could swear it to be lies, but no one would care. And it is already whispered about, bandied around in Society.”
