Page 15 of Lady Lilias and the Devil in Plaid
Foolish.Her head was filled with stuffing and nonsense. There was no one to watch over her but herself. Nash was not her Gothic hero.
“I asked Owen not to mention to you when I came to visit,” he said.
“Why?” Her heart pounded so hard that her chest hurt.
Nash looked distinctly uncomfortable. “Because it served no purpose for you to know I was there.”
“I thought we were friends. Real friends.” She could not bear to say out loud that she had believed they were going to be more. “You said—” She swallowed, wishing she didn’t need to ask the one question that had burned in her mind all these years. But if she didn’t ask it now, she’d never forgive herself for being so weak. One moment of embarrassment could not break her, but if she knew she’d let something special, something wonderful slip between her fingers because of pride… Well, that would drive her mad.
“The night we were alone, you said I made you feel—”Thump. Thump. Thump.She took a deep breath to calm her heart so she could hear him when he answered. Why was she pushing? Why wouldn’t that hope totally die?
He looked startled for a moment, but then his dark lashes lowered to almost fully conceal his eyes. When he looked up again, whatever emotion he might have been feeling was unfathomable to her. She wanted to scream.
“I don’t recall the conversation.” His voice was even. Flat. And yet she could see him clenching and unclenching his teeth by the way his jaw moved.
“You are a liar.” Her mother would have simply expired on the spot if she’d heard Lilias now. Thank heavens no one was around.
He flinched at her accusation but did not deny it. For some reason, that made her glad. At least he acknowledged his fatal flaw. His right hand came up to thread his fingers in his hair, just as he’d done years before. “Lilias, I don’t remember the conversation because whatever I was going to say was not important enough to me to remember. I told you I am not a good person.”
She nodded, feeling as if every emotion she possessed was lodged in her throat. “Yes, yes, you did. I daresay I’m more inclined to believe you than I ever was before.”
“Is there some other way I can help you, Lilias?”
The question was asked as if she were a stranger, as if they had not shared the secrets of what shredded their hearts. “You said that you were not hurting, that you’d have to feel in order to hurt, and you felt nothing. But everyone feels,” she said, arching her eyebrows, demanding him to challenge that.
“Yes,” he said to her shock, “they do. I did contact Owen. I did feel very bad.”
“But you did not feel for me,” she whispered, understanding finally sinking in.
His lips pressed together in a hard line, and then he jerked his hand through his hair. “I felt as a young man would for any pretty girl who showed interest in him. But not as you wanted me to feel. Not… Not—”
She’d never seen him flustered. It was an astonishing sight. He’d never seemed as if he could be made to feel uncomfortable. He’d seemed utterly confident always, but he was uncomfortable now. She would have let him drown in it, but she was going under with him.
“You needn’t say more,” she said. “I understand.” He had not loved her. He’d made her fall in love with him, but all she’d done was inspire a fleeting desire to kiss her. How appalling that she was so foolish that she’d wasted seven years pining over something that had never even existed.
“Your Grace,” she managed to get out with a semblance of, well,grace. “Please tell your sister I came here at the behest of my friend the Duchess of Carrington to invite her to the ball she and the duke are hosting.” It was nonsense, but she had to say something. She had to try to save a tiny shred of her pride. She’d explain to Guinevere, and her friend would understand.
Nash’s gray eyes held skepticism at her claim. Of course they did! It was poppycock, and he likely knew it, but at least he was not going to mention it.
“Shall I get my sister?”
“No. I suddenly don’t feel well.” With that lie—goodness, they were flying out of her mouth today—she gave him the time and location. It wasn’t at all proper to invite him to Guinevere’s ball. The invitation should have been sent by Guinevere, but Guinevere would forgive her. And as she spoke the last word, the butler materialized as if he’d somehow known it was time to see her out.
She exchanged goodbyes with Nash as one stranger to the other, each syllable that tumbled from her lips increasing the ache in her stomach. When the door closed behind her, and she was alone in the bright light of day, she grabbed her side and barely resisted the urge to double over. Hot tears pricked her eyes, but she blinked them away, determined to hold them back until she was in the privacy of her home.
She inhaled a ragged breath when the door behind her creaked open. Before she could even turn to see who it was, Nash said, “You forgot your wrap.”
His voice washed over her, sounding as inviting as she had dreamed. She frowned as she slowly faced him, caught between warring desires of wishing him away and wishing him near.This was madness!She’d loved him for so long, she didn’t yet know how to hate him, but she would not make a fool of herself anymore. She arched her eyebrows as she stepped toward him to retrieve her wrap. “Thank you. I’m sure you could have simply sent your butler after me.”
She grasped the wrap, her fingers brushing his, tingling coursing through her at the warm feel of his skin against hers. She pulled back her hand, but he grabbed it, surprising her. Their eyes locked, and in his, remorse burned. “I’m sorry, Lilias.”
If she’d been the same woman she was when she’d raced over here, she would have imagined he was trying to tell her something, but she was not that woman anymore. The part of her that had held out hope that her love story with Nash was still to be written was gone. They had no story. They never had. He was not trying to convey anything other than the fact that he felt pity for her, and that blessedly made her livid, which was far better than feeling crushed.
“You needn’t apologize. You did tell me you were not a good man.” With that, she snatched her hand from him in a most unladylike manner. “I was the one who was too silly to listen.” She turned on her heel, prepared to make a grand exit where the scorned heroine leaves the hero standing gaping after her, but as she started away, footsteps thudded behind her.
She stopped and whirled toward him with a glare. “What are you doing?”
“I see you do not have a carriage.”
