Derek shook his head. “There is no price. My version of Lily is not for sale.” His gaze flickered to Lily, “You see, darling? Perhaps I am the hero of the play, after all. Your duke has no trouble selling you to the highest bidder.” He paused then, like a rude child. “Oh, wait. No. He isn’t selling you. He’s giving you away. With a fortune as a bonus payment.”
Alec’s hand tightened around the sword, his knuckles going white, and Lily stepped in to ensure his fingers were not severed. She did not shift her gaze from him. “I think you ought to reconsider, Derek.”
“For you?”
“Would it make a difference if I asked?”
“No. That painting will sell all the others. That painting will make me a name for the ages.”
“And the fact that it is a painting of me? That I never intended for it to be seen?”
He gave her a long, pitiful look. “Then you should not have sat for it, darling. I shall revel in the wealth that comes from it, earned from you. As though you’d worked for it yourself, flat on your back.”
Lily gasped at the coarse words as Alec moved, fast as a cat, the broadsword turning in the air like magic, in his grasp in an instant. He took Derek by the lapels of his ancient costume and virtually carried him to the wall in the hallway beyond, setting the blade of the wicked-looking sword to his cheek. “For one so renowned on the stage, I find it difficult to believe you tempt fate so well as to exhibit such hubris while in this particular costume. You would do well to remember what happened to Macbeth.”
Derek’s gaze found Lily’s over Alec’s shoulder, and she saw it there, the expectation that she would rescue him. That she would reenact the last time they had been together as a trio. The last time Alec had threatened Derek.
She would rescue him no longer.
He must have seen it in her eyes, as he looked back to Alec and spat, “I play a brutish Scot with a whore wife. And lo, I discover a similar pair skulking about the playhouse.”
Alec pressed the sword deeper into his cheek, his words going soft and terrifying. “What did you call her?”
Derek narrowed his gaze. “You heard me. And remember, I am qualified to identify the characteristic.” He paused. “I was there before you.”
Lily paled at the words. At the scathing insult in them. Shame flooded her, and she wished to do the man serious damage for everything he’d ever done. For everything he’d ever said. And for that, spoken to Alec. Reminding him of her past. Of the things she’d done that she could not take back. “Today, like a fool, you have handed me a weapon that you toy with while prancing about your stage. A weapon I have trained with for decades.”
He pressed the blade deeper, and Derek inhaled, sharply. “What do you think your patrons would say if you were found here, in this dark hallway, gutted by Macbeth’s blade? Do you think they would believe you summoned him here, to this playhouse? What is it they call it? The Scottish Curse?” Derek’s eyes closed and Alec leaned in close. “I am your Scottish Curse, peacock. More terrifying than any ghost story you could imagine. But take heart. I’ve no intention of killing you.
“I promised you once that I would destroy you,” Alec said, his words barely there and somehow shaking the walls. “Make no mistake—I will ruin you just as you ruined her. And when you are old and withered and no one in the world can remember your name, you will quake with the memory of mine.”
Derek inhaled quickly and then released a little cry of pain, and Lily started at the sound, which was punctuated by a wild clatter of the sword as Alec flung it down the dark hallway. “Fetch, dog. ’Tis your cue.”
And Derek did, running after the sword, collecting it without looking back.
Lily watched Alec for a long moment, his breath coming in and out on waves of fury, his hands clenched and that tic in his jaw becoming more pronounced. He looked as though he were on springs—as though at any moment he might launch himself down the hall and onto the stage to finish what he had started.
She ached to go to him, and then she did, moving to his side. Taking his big, beautiful arm in hand, feeling the muscles ripple beneath her touch. “You did not have to defend me.”
Alec looked to her. “What?”
“To Derek. He is not wrong.”
“What?” His brow furrowed, and for a moment Lily wondered if it was possible that she was speaking a language other than English.
“It is my mistake, is it not? I sat for the painting. I trusted him. I . . .” She hesitated. “I thought. . . .”
He came at her, taking her shoulders in his hands. Holding her with a firmness she would later dream of. Ache for. “Hear me, Lillian Hargrove. You did nothing wrong. It was not your mistake. You loved him.”
“I did not, though. I see that now.” She gave a little huff of humorless laughter. “I suppose I should be grateful for the realization.”
“How?” he asked.
Her brow furrowed. “How?”
“How do you see it now?”
She smiled. Told the truth. “Now, I know what love is. How it feels. And what I would do for it in earnest.”
He closed his eyes at the words. Turned his head away. “We must return above. I’ve work to do. We’ve one day to find that painting.”
She released him at the words. At the hope in them. At their meaning. He still hoped to find it. To remove it from exhibition. To set her free.
It was ironic, was it not, that she had once fairly begged him for her freedom. She’d asked for money. For independence. She’d begged him to leave her and return to Scotland and let her make her own choices. Carve her own path. Face her own fortune.
And now, as he offered it to her, all she wished was to be trapped. By him.
I love you beyond reason.
“Alec.” She did not know what she would say next. How she would keep him. How she would win him.
So, she was unable to do either, as he was ignoring her, already moving, headed for the stairs, taking them two at a time, and she hurried to keep up with his long strides. She was tall, but he was Herculean, and by the time they reached the hallway that abutted the boxes, he was yards ahead of her, striding purposefully past the West box even as Sesily poked her head out to find Lily.
“You’ve something on your gown.” Her friend’s eyes went wide. “Good Lord. Is it blood?”