He watched her for a long moment in the silence before he said, “Good morning, Lillian.” There was nothing teasing or condescending in the words. Just a simple, civilized greeting.
Except something about it made Lily feel entirely uncivilized. And very petulant. “There. It wasn’t so difficult, was it?”
“It was not. I apologize. Again.”
Again.
I’m sorry, Lily. For everything.
“For what?”
He blinked. “For . . .” He trailed off.
“For forgoing a proper good morning?”
“Among other things.”
She stabbed a tomato with her fork, enjoying the way the juice of it oozed out the side. It was gruesome and macabre, if one really thought too much about it, and Lily was finding herself more and more in the mood for the gruesome and macabre.
“What other things?” She shouldn’t ask. She knew that. But still she could not resist it.
He did not hesitate to answer. “For my part in this disastrous play.”
“Which part is that?” She was rather proud of herself for holding his feet to the fire.
He looked to her, knowing immediately what she was doing. Impressively, he did not back down. “The part that threatened you with more scandal.”
“I was in scandal long before you went after him. Derek and I were not exactly clandestine in our friendship. Add you to it, and the gossip pages gave me nicknames, for heaven’s sake.”
“Add me to it?”
She waved a hand. “Lovely Lily when I was out and about with Derek, but when I was seen in Hyde Park, or on Oxford Street, or anywhere else, I was Lonesome Lily—”
He cut her off. “What do I have to do with that?”
“The Woeful Ward.”
He muttered beneath his breath, his eyes flashing with anger. “I didn’t know—”
“That I existed. I know. I wouldn’t worry so much about it, honestly.”
“Well, I do worry about it,” he grumbled. “More than Hawkins did. More than I did last night. More than you should have.”
She narrowed her gaze upon him. “I beg your pardon?”
He did not see how close he was to the precipice. Instead, he explained his words, as though she were a child. “I appreciate that you did not have a mother or a chaperone or whatever it is a woman of your age requires, Lillian, but surely even you knew that if you spent time alone with Hawkins, your reputation would be the victim.”
She watched him for a long moment. “And so it is my fault.”
He hesitated. “Of course it isn’t.”
The hesitation was all she heard. “It is, though. I was not forced. I was not drugged. I posed for the nude. For a man whom I thought I loved. For a man I thought loved me.” As the words came, so did her anger. “It was for him. Alone. Not for you. Not for them. Not for all time. But I did it, Alec. And so the fault lies at my feet.”
“No,” he fairly barked. “It’s Hawkins’s fault, dammit. If he hadn’t taken such advantage of you—if I hadn’t—”
She raised a hand to stop him from speaking. “So we get to it. I understand. I am at once responsible enough to be expected to predict my demise and cabbageheaded enough to be victim.” She paused. “I suppose you’ve convinced yourself that I was your victim last evening?”
There were few things more satisfying than seeing the Duke of Warnick, nearly seven feet tall and weighing close to three hundred pounds, blush. But he did, his cheeks awash in color at her casual reference across the breakfast table to the previous evening’s interlude. He was clearly displeased by the conversation.
Lily found she didn’t care. “There is no need for embarrassment, Your Grace. There is nothing for which to apologize.”
“There is e’rything for which tae apologize,” he said, loud and urgent, his accent thickening with his frustration. He looked to the door, as though to be certain they were alone before lowering his voice. The brogue lessened. “I should never have done it. Any of it.”
The sting of the words, the conviction in them, as though he had awoken this morning to discover he’d done something truly abhorrent, stung. Sharply.
Lily hated it. She pulled herself up straight and played her best British lady, feigning true aristocratic indifference and lying through her teeth. “How very dramatic. It is barely worth mentioning.”
He froze. “What do you mean, it is barely worth mentioning?”
Of course it was worth mentioning. It was worth remembering again and again forever. If she had the skill, she would have committed the entire event to paper so she might reread it every night for the rest of her days.
With Derek, it had never felt as though he cared much that she was there. It had always felt as though she was trying to make him see her. But Alec . . . Alec made her feel as though she was the sun, hot and bright at the center of a universe. His universe.
At least, she’d felt that way until he had apologized for making her feel that way.
She schooled her features. “I am not entirely without experience.”
He stood so quickly his chair tipped back and crashed to the floor, sending the dogs scrambling across the room. He did not seem to notice. “Another guardian would drag the man who gave you that experience to the damn altar.”
Good. He was as angry as she was. “Are you a virgin, Your Grace?”
If his eyes grew any wider, they would roll from his head. “What the hell kind of question is that?”
She resisted the urge to shout her glee at setting this enormous, arrogant man back on his heels. “It’s only that you remain unmarried, so I wonder how it is that no one ever dragged the woman who gave you your experience to the damn altar.”
His eyes narrowed to slits. “You shouldn’t curse.”
“Ah. Another rule that differs between men and women. No matter,” she added, lifting her teacup to her lips. “I politely decline your offer of marriage.”
He blinked. “My what?”
“Well, you did add to my experience last night and, by such rationale, that should result in a wedding, no?”
He stood there for a long moment, watching her, as though she were an animal behind bars in a traveling show. Finally, he said, “Lily, I’m trying to do right by you. Everything I’ve done—all of it—has been to protect you. I realize I’m doing a terrible job of it. Last night—in the carriage—it shouldn’t have happened.” He paused. “I’m your guardian, for God’s sake.”