He could do with a fight.

Chapter 4

DILUTED DUKE AND DOGS RESUME RESIDENCE

Lily should have known when she saw the maid scurrying past the foot of the stairs at eight o’clock in the morning that something was amiss.

She should have sensed it from the quivering silence of the house, as though someone of import was present. But she didn’t.

Not until she smelled the ham.

For five years, Lily had descended the same stairs at the same time to take tea and toast in the breakfast room. It was not that she preferred tea and toast for breakfast—simply that it was the food that was offered. And even then, there were days when the cook forgot her, and she had to go looking for breakfast. Those were the better days, honestly, because they allowed her to enter the kitchens and be in the company of others.

Lily lived in the margins of life at 45 Berkeley Square. She was neither nobility nor servant—too highborn to be welcome in the lives of the staff, not highborn enough to be honored by them. For the first year, she’d ached for their friendship, but by the second, she’d simply become a part of this dance, weaving through them, not unwelcome, but more . . . invisible.

Though she had disliked the disinterest for years, recently, she had become comforted by it.

After all, Lily was no longer invisible beyond this house.

She was altogether too visible beyond this house.

The fact remained, however, that the invisible did not receive ham for breakfast. And so it was that, as the maid disappeared down the long hallway and the salty scent of cured meat beckoned to Lily from the breakfast room, she realized that she was not alone in the house.

That the duke had decided to take up residence.

She pushed open the door to find him behind a newspaper, a plate piled high in front of him, nothing but shirtsleeves visible.

Shirtsleeves. The man didn’t even have the courtesy to dress for dining.

Therefore, Lily did not have the patience for courtesy. “You slept here?”

Alec Stuart did not lower the newsprint when she crossed the threshold. “Good morning, Lillian.”

The words rumbled through her, thick with a Scots brogue that she told herself she did not care for, as it was too low. Too languid. Far too familiar.

Of course, it had to be familiar, as the man was sitting at her dining table, as though he owned the place. Which he did, of course.

She stopped halfway down the large dining table and repeated herself. “You’re not staying.” That’s when she noticed the dogs seated on either side of him, two enormous grey wolfhounds, all wiry fur and lolling tongues, one with several inches of slobber hanging from his jowl. “And they are certainly not staying.”

“You don’t care for dogs?” He did not lower his paper.

She did, actually. She’d always rather wished she had one. “They are dogs? I thought they were small horses.”

“This is Angus,” he said, one hand peeking out from behind the paper to stroke the massive head on his left. “And this is Hardy.” He delivered similar care to the other. “They’re kittens. You’ll like them.”

“I shan’t have a chance to, as you are not staying. There are eight other residences in London, Your Grace, not to mention wherever you’ve laid your head the other times you’ve been to town—I’m sure you can find another that will suit.”

He lowered one corner of his paper. “How do you know I’ve been to town before now?”

“Good God,” she said. “What happened to your face?”

“A lady wouldn’t notice.”

His right eye was swollen shut, black and a wicked shade of green. “Is the lady in question blind?”

One side of his swollen lip lifted in a barely there smile. “You should see the other man.” He returned to his paper.

She should be grateful for the beating. For the way it took away from those supremely distracting lips. She’d never in her life even noticed a man’s lips before, and now all she could think was how she hoped the swelling was not permanent. It would be a tragedy to ruin such a mouth.

Not that she was interested in his mouth.

Not at all.

She cleared her throat. “What did he do to you?”

“Nothing,” he said, as though the entire morning were perfectly ordinary. “I went looking for a spar.”

Men would forever perplex her. “Whatever for?”

“I found myself irritated.” He set the paper aside.

Her eyes went wide. “You are wearing tartan.”

A deep red plaid cut a diagonal swath up his torso, over his shoulder, where it was met with another drape of wool and fastened with a pewter pin. The garment only underscored how ill-fitting he was here, in this house—in this world he’d inherited so unwillingly.

In this world that she had so desperately wanted before she’d so desperately wanted to be rid of it.

He lifted his paper again. “I find it more comfortable.”

“Are you wearing trousers?” The words were out before she could rein them in.

His good eye met hers with a piercing brown gaze. “No.”

She’d never in her life been so embarrassed as in the wake of that single, simple word. She wished to crawl beneath the table. She might have done, if doing so wouldn’t have brought her entirely too close to the source of her embarrassment.

Thank heavens, he changed the topic. “You did not answer me.”

She couldn’t remember the question. She couldn’t remember any question in the entirety of her life but her last. She was mortified.

“How do you know I’ve come to town before now?” he repeated.

“I read the papers, just as you do,” she said. “You’re a particular favorite when you arrive in town.”

“Oh?” he said, as though he did not know it already.

“Oh, yes,” she said, recalling the way the scandal sheets described him, the ladies’ dark dream. She supposed he was a particular specimen, if one liked the tall, broad, and brutish sort of thing. Lily did not like it. Not at all. “The whole of London is warned to put out the sturdy furniture, in the event you happen along for tea.”

A muscle in his cheek tightened slightly, and Lily was surprised that the triumph she expected to feel knowing that she’d struck true did not come. Instead, she felt slightly guilty.

She should apologize, she knew, but instead bit her tongue in the long, uncomfortable moment that followed, during which he remained still as stone, coolly regarding her. They might have stood there for an age, in a battle of will, if not for the long strand of drool that dropped from one dog’s jowl to the carpet below.