“He’s in London. He sent me a note this morning and said to tell you he’ll be back in a sennight. He also asked me not to teach you about the constellations without him.”
“Oh,” Nash said. They were alone, after all. “I—” He should leave, but he couldn’t make himself say so. It was the right thing to do, yet the words would not come.
He was aware of everything about her all at once. She smelled like a lily. Did she know that? Her head came precisely to his shoulder. She hummed when it was quiet, just as she was now doing. It made him think silence scared her.
Yes, he should most definitely leave. She didn’t need to be tangled up with him, and yet, when he turned toward her and she, too, was facing him, it was as if there were an invisible string pulling them together.
“Why do you hum when it’s quiet?” he asked.
A beat of silence passed. Then two. Then three. He should not have asked. “I’m sorry.”
“No.” She swallowed. “I hum to stay happy.”
“You’d be sad if you weren’t humming?”
She shrugged. “Possibly. Things have been gloomy since my father died. Actually, even before then.” Another beat passed. “My house used to be loud, cheery. Now it’s so very quiet. My mother insists upon it. So when I’m not there, I sometimes hum.” She paused again. “If I tell you some secrets, will you keep them?”
“Yes.” The word flew out of his mouth without thought, and in that moment, he realized that he’d die before ever willingly betraying her. She had found a way into his darkness, and she might be the only thing that could penetrate it with her light. He wanted that so much.
“My father gambled away almost all his money before he died. We are basically penniless. We still live in our home by the grace of my uncle.”
The news made him want to throttle her dead father for leaving her so vulnerable. “I’m sorry,” he said, trying to keep his feelings from permeating into his tone.
“Don’t be. Money doesn’t make happiness.”
“I know that to be true. My family’s miserable.”
“And wealthy,” she said, her delicate hand coming to rest upon his arm, something no perfectly proper girl would ever do. No, Lilias Honeyfield would never be the sort of girl to follow all the rules, and Nash had never been so glad about anything in his life.
All of a sudden, he knew what he wanted. He wanted to protect her from those in Society who would look down upon her for her lack of conformity. He wanted to protect her as he’d failed to protect his brother. Someday, he could offer that to her with his hand. His family was wealthy, titled, and had land. His father was a duke. Nash would one day be a duke. He could offer her every protection, and she could give him light.
Internally, he shook himself. Who was he to think such things? He had no right after what he’d done, and yet—
“Nash, what happened with your brother?”
It was the one question he always dreaded. Nash tried to pull his arm away from her, but she grasped him.
“I told you already,” he said. “I killed him with my selfishness.”
“Tell me exactly.”
He sighed. “My brother was born sickly. He looked up to me, and I was supposed to protect him, watch over him. And I did. But no matter how much I gave, my parents wanted me to give more. I was to let my brother win at anything I did with him, and I followed that order. Always.” Nash paused and swiped his hand over his face. “I was to stop speaking when he spoke, and I did. I was to give him things of mine that he wanted, from toys as children to pistols as we got older, and I did. I wanted to go on a grand tour with my uncle, and they said no since my brother couldn’t go because of his health. And one day, my brother asked me for one more thing, and I did not grant the favor he requested.” He paused again and looked to the ground as shame rolled over him. “I chose to be selfish, and that selfishness killed him.”
“What did he ask for?” she asked.
“It doesn’t matter.” The guilt roared in his ears.
But it did. Still, he didn’t want to see the look on her face if she knew. It would be the same look his parents had given him when he’d told them that his brother had asked him to ignore the tutor’s daughter, who had been flirting with him, because Thomas liked her and wanted a chance with her, but Nash had ignored his brother’s request. Helen had flirted with him, and he’d encouraged her selfishly. The worst part was that Nash had not even truly liked her. He’d simply wanted to think of himself first for once.
“We can all be selfish sometimes, Nash. It’s a human quality.”
“I was supposed to be his protector,” Nash replied, refusing to let her grant him forgiveness when she didn’t even know the whole truth. “My brother was furious with me when he realized what I was doing. He charged me on the ice, the ice cracked beneath him, and he fell through.” Nash swallowed the knot in his throat and forced himself to look up. “I couldn’t save him.”
The tears rolling down Lilias’s cheeks shocked him. “I couldn’t save my father, either,” she said. “I tried.”
Nash gently wiped away her tears, then took one of her hands in his, glad she was not going to press him for all the details. “Tell me.”
“He was different,” she said, sniffling. “A dreamer. A writer. But his parents forbade him from pursuing ‘such folly.’ I think that’s why he encouraged us, me and my sister, to do as we wished. I think that’s why he did not place the usual boundaries upon us that most girls of thetonare required to live and die by. Mother despised it.” Lilias let out a laugh at that, partly bitter, partly understanding. “He sent a story to a publisher once.” She bit her lip, then spoke again. “I’m not supposed to know that, but I do.”
