Three Nights with a Scoundrel (Stud Club #3)

“Yes, and the new marquess is my cousin. We haven’t seen one another since childhood, but I doubt the man will cast me out of my home. He may be perfectly happy for me to manage the household until he marries, as I did for Leo. And if such an arrangement is not agreeable to us both, I will find living quarters of my own.”


“Alone? You cannot live alone.”

“I most certainly can. I am a single woman in possession of good fortune. Why should I be in want of a husband?”

“Lily …” He released her hands. There was no way to talk around it. “You cannot hear.”

“I am deaf, yes, and have been so these past nine years. And …?”

And there were innumerable obstacles for a deaf single woman setting up a household of her own, and well she knew it. She was simply being difficult. “The merchants will cheat you, for one.”

“Holling and Swift look out for me. And I can hire a companion.”

He made an exasperated gesture. “The companion will cheat you.”

“I’m safer in the hands of a cheating companion than saddled with a grasping fortune-hunter husband. Even if a servant siphons ten percent of my fortune, I still retain the greater part. If I marry, I lose control of everything. And really, Julian. Malachi Burton?” A laugh caught in her throat. “When we were younger, he lacked the temerity to ask me for a dance. Now marriage? He must presume me desperate indeed.”

Her gaze wandered to the center of the square. A little smile touched the corners of her lips. “You never knew me before my illness. I had so many suitors in my first season.”

Julian blinked at her. Unbelievable. She spoke the words as though they should come as a surprise. “As many as there were eligible gentlemen in London, I’d wager. You could have just as many now. Show your face at a party now and then, and the men would flock to you.”

“Please.” Her cheeks flushed. “I’m eight-and-twenty, not a debutante.”

“Were you eight-and-forty, any man would be lucky to marry you.”

“Any man would be lucky to attach himself to my money and connections, do you mean?”

He tsked. “Don’t fish for compliments, Lily. It’s unbecoming.”

“I’m not fishing for anything. I’m stating facts. Even ignoring my impairment—which most find difficult to ignore—by the ton’s standards, I’m a dried-up spinster.”

“Nonsense.” He brushed her cheek, then held up his thumb to mock inspection and pronounced, “Glistening with the dew of youth.”

With another woman, he might have put that same thumb in his mouth, lightly sucked it in lascivious suggestion. He would not do that with Lily. He would not. No matter how much he wished to savor the sweet essence of her skin.

She gave him an arch look, one eyebrow rising in reproof.

He returned the expression, mirroring her primness with such success that she laughed despite herself. He loved the sound of her laugh. It wasn’t musical or affected, just honest and real.

“I’ve missed this,” she said suddenly. “I’ve missed our friendship so much.”

Julian didn’t know what to say. Of course he’d missed her friendship, too. But did she have to graze his wrist when she said that, sit forward on the bench … tugging his eyes down the bodice of her dress, giving rise to desires that strayed well beyond the bounds of friendly discourse?

She said, “The house is so empty with Leo gone.”

God, yes. Speak of Leo. Help me smother this inappropriate yearning under a thick blanket of guilt and grief.

“I haven’t bothered with parties in years. The house was always full of his friends. I never felt deprived of companionship, but now …”—she straightened her glove—“those friends don’t come around so often as they might.”

He was unable to look at her for a moment. “I’ve been busy.”

In just how many ways was it possible to betray a friend? Julian had lied to Leo for the duration of their acquaintance, lusted after his sister for almost as long, and then sent the man alone to a violent death that had been meant for him instead. It galled and shamed him, to look back on the record of this “friendship” and feel how acutely, how catastrophically he’d failed. He’d vowed to prove a truer friend now, even as the poor man shivered in the grave. Justice for Leo’s murder and a suitable husband for Lily: These were now his guiding aims in life.

She noted his solemnity. “I know how hard it will be for you to let this investigation go. The senseless nature of it all offends you deeply. You’re so like Leo that way. He never could tolerate injustice. That’s why the two of you were such fast friends.” She framed his jaw with one hand, lifting his face until his eyes met hers. “He knew, as I do, that beneath all that scandal and devilry … you’re a good man, Julian Bellamy.”

A good man? Good Lord. She had no idea.