At least, that’s what she thought he said. “I didn’t hear you.”

“You’re the very worst kind of scandal,” he said, louder.

That wasn’t what he had said. She couldn’t keep her smile from her face. “What does that mean?”

“You’re the kind of scandal a man wants to claim for his own.”

She gaped at him. She’d never in her life heard something so romantic. And she certainly hadn’t expected it to come from the mouth of this massive, moody Scot.

“That’s very kind,” she said.

“There’s nothing kind about it,” he said.

“There is, though,” she said. “Derek didn’t want me at all. And that was before I was a scandal.”

“Hawkins was an idiot,” he said, more sound than words. He was stopped now, at the closed door to the room, one hand splayed wide against the mahogany.

She was transfixed by that hand. By its ridges and valleys. By the scar that ran an inch below his first knuckle, stark white against the brown of his skin. “What happened to your hand?”

He did not move. “I met with the jagged end of a broken bottle.”

“How?”

“My father was an angry drunk.”

Lily winced, wanting to go to him. Instead she said, “I’m sorry.”

Still he did not look at her. “Don’t be. I left the day after he did this.”

“I’m sorry no one was there to care for you.”

The fingers flexed against the wood—the only indication that he heard her. “We should leave.”

“Do you think someone will want me?” she asked that hand, knowing she shouldn’t. Knowing that the question revealed far too much of what she wanted.

He pressed his forehead to the door and spoke in low, growling Gaelic before switching to English. “Yes, Lillian. I think someone will want you.”

“Do—” She stopped herself.

She couldn’t ask him.

No matter how much she liked the idea.

“Don’t ask me,” he whispered, and the sound made her ache.

He couldn’t. He didn’t like her. He never seemed to like her, that was. He seemed to view her as nothing but trouble.

Didn’t he?

She could not bear it. “Do you? Want me?”

He did not swear in Gaelic that time. He swore in fast, wicked English.

“Don’t answer,” she said, immediately, at once terrified he might and desperate for him to.

He did not lift his head from its place against the door. “I’m to protect you. I’m to protect you.” He said it like a litany, for himself. For God. Not for her. “I’m to protect you.”

“Don’t answer,” she repeated, ignoring the pang of rich desire coursing through her. It was simply that in the moment, she’d wished him to. Quite desperately.

Because, if Alec wanted her, she might have a chance at the life of which she’d once dreamed. With a man far more noble than she’d ever imagined.

I’m to protect you.

And perhaps it was that she had spent so much of her life alone, but the idea of being protected, of being partnered with someone who wished for her safety as she wished for his, was the most tempting thing she’d ever experienced.

But he’d left her, after all. Ridden away, as though they were nothing to each other.

And perhaps they weren’t.

She’d never been very good at understanding what she was to others. Or what they were to her, for that matter.

She nodded once, desperate to put the whole conversation behind her. “I understand. The answer is no. I should never have asked.”

There was a long moment, when she thought he might reply. Thought he might turn his head, look at her.

Tell me you want me, she willed him. Tell me this . . . us . . . it could be.

He didn’t. Instead, he let out a long, ragged breath and that hand that transfixed her balled into a fist. He pressed it against the door, his knuckles going stark white, the tendons in his arms straining. And then he spoke.

“No,” he said. “You shouldn’t have.”

He opened the door with a force that would have ripped it from the hinge if it were locked, as the studio door had been.

And he disappeared into the darkness.

Chapter 15

DILUTED DUKE DESERTS WOEFUL WARD

He deserved a medal.

For saying no. For not turning to her, taking her, making love to her until his hands stopped shaking with need. For not ruining her, thoroughly, there in the darkness, on the floor of Derek Hawkins’s bare bedroom.

Do you want me?

He wanted her like the Highlands wanted mist.

But he would be damned if he was going to take what he wanted and destroy the possibility of her getting what she deserved. A life with a man who was worthy of her. He’d thought it before he’d discovered her plans to steal the painting back, but once he’d committed to helping her, to finding the portrait and destroying it before it could be brought to light, his conviction was redoubled.

He would find the thing.

And he would protect her, dammit.

I’m to protect you.

How had he gathered the strength to leave her, not to turn to her. He’d heard it in her breath—the truth—the fact that she would give in to him. That she wished to. That she wanted him again. That she wanted more.

More. He’d thought he’d known what wanting felt like. What longing meant. And then he’d met Lillian Hargrove, and he’d realized the truth—that everything for which he’d ever hungered was nothing compared to her. There was nothing he would not pay. Nothing he would not do for another taste of her.

And that he was unworthy of her.

And as she’d stood in that empty house, in that empty room, where she’d once been nude for another man, he’d been willing to pay. To do. And he’d resisted.

To protect her. To give her a chance at the life she desired.

Because now, she had a chance for more than a marriage of convenience. Now, if they could find the painting, if they could steal it, she might still be ruined in the eyes of London, but she could avoid ruination in the eyes of the world.

Clever girl.

He should have thought of it himself. Would have, if he wasn’t so blinded by her beauty. By her strength. By everything about her. But he’d been too busy protecting her. From London. From her future. From her past.