Three Nights with a Scoundrel (Stud Club #3)

The bells of Christ Church greeted him, ringing in the new day with familiar peals. Welcome home, he could imagine them to say. He’d spent his first nine years of life within earshot of these bells.

For the first time in decades, he entered the church. The devout were at their morning prayers, and Julian had no wish to disturb them. He lingered at the rear. Tilting his head to view the arcade, he was transported back to his boyhood, when these soaring arches and stately white columns made this the grandest building he could imagine ever being permitted inside.

And now, with stern-faced saints to chaperone, he loosed the reins on his thoughts. They went straight to her.

Lily. Just her name inspired in him more breathless awe than any psalm or choir could do. He might never learn who killed Leo, and whether or not that same person wished to kill him. But he knew that Lily loved him. And he knew that made him the luckiest bastard in England. Assuming she would even speak to him this morning, that was. He wanted to believe she was too generous to hold true to her ultimatum, but he couldn’t be sure. Her will was strong. But perhaps her love was stronger.

What would it take, to make a real future with a woman like that? Not just a night of stolen passion, but a life worthy of her?

He would have to commit a small murder of his own. Mr. James Bell would need to die a quiet, sudden death, and Julian would have to sell off the business concerns discreetly. A lady of Lily’s rank could not have a husband who dirtied his hands with trade. Julian would mourn the loss, no question. He’d been working for years toward the new mercantile scheme, and this would mean abandoning the idea entirely. And then, there were his employees … hundreds of mill workers and their families depended on his wages for their livelihood. Unlike most other owners, he paid them enough to live well. If he sold the mills, who could say what their fate would be?

But this was so much more than a business decision.

To be with Lily, he would have to be with Lily. Live in her aristocratic world, with no daily escape into his offices and no anonymous walks through the city at night. He would have to comport himself with dignity—no more wild antics or bacchanal evenings at the club. The affaires—those, he would never miss. They hadn’t been about pleasure in the first place, but merely revenge. So disgusting and degrading. It was a wonder he could stand in this holy place and not burst into flames.

Damn, there was no way around it. He was completely unworthy of her. If he did go to Lily, he would have to live with the knowledge that he’d betrayed Leo’s friendship by taking his sister for himself.

And he would have to accept uncertainty, where Leo’s murder was concerned. He would never know whether he’d unwittingly had a hand in his friend’s death, or whether someone had wished to kill him. He would always worry. Always feel that little prickle of fear as he walked down the street, fearing that one day someone would recognize him, and Lily would suffer as a result.

What would he be forced to give up, to be with Lily? Only his trade, his principles, his possessions, his identity, his loyalty to Leo, and his very peace of mind. Only everything, forever.

Right. There really was no choice.

Before he left the church, Julian bent his head. He said a prayer for his mother and a prayer for Leo. And then a prayer of forgiveness for what he was about to do.

Lily’s sitting room boasted a floor-to-ceiling bookcase, filled with volumes she’d collected from her girlhood on. Since Leo’s death, she’d spent many a sleepless night rearranging its contents. She might pass one evening alphabetizing the books by the author’s last name. Then the next night, by the author’s first name. Another night, she would sort them by genre: poems, plays, novels, essays. She’d invented dozens of ways to organize these books. Chronologically, by date of publication. Chronologically, in the order she’d acquired them. Chronologically, in the order she’d read them. By size. By color of the binding. By the number of pages.

One particularly melancholy night, she’d ranked them by how many characters died in each.

Last night, after Julian so heartlessly left her crying on the doorstep, Lily had marched upstairs, removed all the books from the shelf, and packed them away in trunks. When dawn came, she greeted it with fresh resolve. That was the last night she spent rearranging bookshelves. She’d only just emerged from months of mourning her brother. She would not lapse back into helpless grief today.