Chapter 16

O utside the Duchess of Argyll’s front drive, Livian remained seated inside Verity and Malcom’s carriage, staring at the note in her hands.

Since discovering Lachlan’s short note, written in bold, confident slashes, she’d read it so many times she’d committed them to memory.

Livian,

Last night, I took care to see you aren’t left in a bad way, but there’s no guarantee you aren’t. On the chance you are, send word to me at the Albany.

Take care, darlin’.

Emotion wadded in her throat.

Take care?

Livian trembled.

How perfunctory.

How impersonal.

How cold and emotionless.

Why would you expect anything different?

He’d never professed more or proclaimed to feel anything for her.

That reminder did nothing to ease an ever-growing pain inside her chest.

PS I had one of my guards fetched. You won’t see him, but rest assured someone’s watching over you. You’ll be safe.

Someone watched over her.

Just not Lachlan.

Livian’s lower lip quivered, and she took it between her teeth to stop the shaking.

He’d cared enough to make sure Livian was protected; he just, hadn’t cared enough to do it himself.

She angrily wiped away several tears.

Why should he have, though? He’d worried after her in the same way he would any other woman; that’s just the manner of man Lachlan was, and also one of the reasons she’d fallen so hard and so fast for him.

Livian ran her fingertip along the endearment by which he’d referred to her—one of them.

Darlin’ and sweetheart.

A sad smile pulled her lips at the corners.

Funny how, before Lachlan, she’d have traded her left pinky finger to have a man refer to her so, only to find the very one who’d done it in a way that made her heart race, when to him it was nothing more than a casual throw-away.

Livian’s blurry gaze went back to the top line of Lachlan’s note.

I took care to see you aren’t left in a bad way…

Cringing, she curled deeply into herself. As if her carrying his child would be something atrocious.

An anguished sob spilled out.

Which to him, it clearly would be.

You stupid chit, Lachlan never professed to feel anything for you.

She’d been the one, secretly dreaming of him and imagining a life for herself with Lachlan in it.

Liar.

She brushed away a tear.

A large part of her believed…no, hoped, the time they’d spent together meant as much to him, as it her…

He’d never, however, lied to her. He’d been brutally, bluntly honest from the start to the end.

“…Women are all the same. Sex is all the same…”

“Livvie!’

That startled, happy cry penetrated Livian’s grief.

Swiftly folding the note, Livian managed to tuck it inside, just as her sister, Billy wrenched the carriage door open.

“Livv—”

The younger woman’s wide smile vanished. “Ye all right?” she demanded, already reaching up, and lifted Livian out—a seemingly impossible, but impressive feat considering Billy was nearly as fey a young woman as she’d been the child who’d come into her and Verity’s life.

“Livvie, what happened?” her sister asked worriedly.

“I’m fine.” Livian mustered a smile. “I’m just tired, is all.”

Billy scrutinized her with suspicious eyes better suited a woman thirty years her senior.

Livian held her breath.

Billy, having spent just over a decade of her life pillaging in sewers to stay alive, had more reason for wariness than the oldest, most life-hardened man.

Livian, however, seemed to have passed her sister’s test.

“Let’s go,” Billy said, leading the way.

It felt so very good being with the younger woman; someone who truly loved her.

It was the wrong thought to have.

Fresh tears pricked her lashes.

“I have bad news,” Billy said, without preamble.

“Splendid,” Livian muttered. “Just what I was hoping to hear.”

From the corner of her eye, she caught Billy’s smile. “The guests are still in breakfast, and the duchess wants you there now.”

“Now?” Livian echoed.

Billy nodded. “Now.”

Livian cast a dubious glance down at herself. “I’m sure she’ll allow me a brief reprieve so that I can change into my garments.” And not make her first appearance like the rumpled, low-class, woman, she still was, and would always be, regardless of the outcome of this house party.

“On the contrary.” Billy’s eyes hardened at the corners. “The lady is clear in what she wants and demands and doesn’t like being countered.”

Livian tensed.

“Has she been unkind to you?” she demanded, because favor needed of the powerful peeress or not, Livian wouldn’t keep the company of one who dared treat Billy or any member of her family as lesser.

“The duchess has been exactly what you’d expect a duchess to be,” Billy said.

They made their way up the stairs toward the painted pale blue double doors being held open by a pair of gold-clad, bewigged footmen.

“She hasn’t treated me any different than she has any of the other guests here,” Billy added just as they reached the entrance. “Fortunately, given the hour, many of the guests have already left the breakfast room.”

Perhaps another time Livian would have been entirely focused and fearful of the impending exchange. Instead, she found herself being rushed along by Billy, who was all too happy to fill the silence with details of the guests and anything and everything Livian had missed.

The absolute inanity of each revelation managed to slowly carve away the vicious anguish, and allowed Livian to focus on something other than Lachlan’s rejection.

As they walked arm in arm, Billy spoke quietly. “The duchess’ house party is a peculiar gathering.”

“Is it?”

From the corner of her eye, she caught her clever sister’s suspicious gaze. “Aye. There’s a strange mix of nobs and gents. Hardly any other ladies, that is aside from the mothers and sisters and daughters.”

Livian kept her features in a perfect mask. “Oh?”

Billy grunted, clearly not appeased. She continued anyway.

“Marquess of Culross, he’s got two hellcats for daughters. He’s a widower, but his troublesome scamps are the best part of the whole affair.” She hugged Livian’s arm. “That is, of course, until now.”

Livian returned that side embrace, welcoming that showing of love from her sister, and after the ease with which Lachlan walked out of her life, desperately needing it.

Billy proceeded with her rundown. “The Earl of Dunkirk seems like a good enough chap. Viscount Bridport gives me the collywobbs. Baron Linley leers at the dessert the same way he does the other guests’ female kin.”

They neared the breakfast room and Billy hurried through her cataloguing.

“Wakefield is here, sporting his usual grim, ‘my favorite mount died and keeled onto his favorite hunting dog’ look.”

Livian’s lips twitched. “Stop.”

“You’re smiling,” Billy pointed out.

Ah, so that’d been what her sister intended.

“I’m smiling at your wildly, colorful description,” Livian pointed out. “The gentleman does not deserve that unkindness.”

Before they entered, Billy placed a hand upon her arm.

Livian stared at her questioningly.

“There’s one more guest. The only interesting one. Even more interesting, he’s the only self-made man. The Duchess of Argyll hasn’t let him away from her side. I thought he was the lady’s plaything, but there’s been whispers about a formal arrangement.”

A self-made man.

Livian’s mind immediately went to another self-made man.

Oh, God.

Her heart fresh cracked and broke all over again.

I cannot…

“Livvie?”

Before her sister could ask any more questions that Livian didn’t want to think about the answers to, she looked to the handsome footman stationed at the entrance.

Taking Livian’s cue, the servant stepped forward and announced in a booming voice. “Miss Livian Lovelace.”

All previous conversations taking place around the table came to a jarring stop.

Well, nothing could distract a woman from a broken heart faster than finding herself a low-born oddity with a room of gentlemen staring her way.

Through the singular most humbling moment of Livian’s existence—which considering her life, was saying a great deal.

The guests rose in polite greeting. They considered her with haughty, blue-blooded expressions that made it clear they’d found her wanting.

Livian’s feet twitched with the overwhelming need and urge to flee.

The echo of Lachlan’s voice, husked with passion and wry amusement pierced her misery and grounded her.

“Yea, well in fairness…It remains doubtful whether the highborn lords are actually capable of truly thinking…”

Her lips tugged up at the corners.

Livian managed to look around the room.

She stopped—her gaze locked on the familiar gentleman staring back, and the entire room melted away. She’d thought she’d never see him again, but here he stood.

Joy and disbelief swept through Livian.

Why is he here…?

Except, only one thing made any sense.

Tears of happiness filled her throat. He is here for me!

His angular cheeks and hard, square jawline bore no hint of stubble and his previously tousled dark hair was now drawn neatly back, but there could be no mistaking this man’s identity.

His gloriously masculine features, however, revealed no hint of a like exaltation.

Lachlan’s expression bore an impassivity that cut right through her.

The smile on Livian’s lips grew painfully strained in what felt like a grotesque grin, and then fell altogether.

Is he not happy to see me as I am him?

Or…perhaps it was his being here amidst noble guests he took exception with?

Confusion clouded her head. “ What are you doing here?” she whispered.

Gasps filled the room.

Blinking slowly, Livian came careening back to the present and the late reminder she and Lachlan were not alone.

Oh, God.

Dazed, she looked up and down the thirty-foot-long breakfast table.

Each of the Duchess of Argyll’s distinguished guests stared at Livian with rabid horror and sick delight. Livian, however, had grown accustomed to those looks years ago. They didn’t matter.

Livian swung her gaze back to the one man who did, the only man who’d held—and would ever hold—her heart.

She recoiled.

Stiff and expressionless, Lachlan possessed the same air of coldness and tension as the rest of the guests.

What is happening?

The duchess called out. “ Miss Lovelace ?” There was a question, as well as a warning, within the woman’s frosty, imperious voice.

Livian looked to her hostess—the same woman who’d been so gracious as to host this entire affair for Livian’s benefit—and took in glaring details that in Livian’s earlier shock failed to escape her.

Seated at the head of the table, two men flanked the Duchess of Argyll’s sides. One older, one younger, but each man, with the scars upon their skin, and menacing, midnight black garments, possessed an aura of power.

Livian could care less about the sneering fellow on the duchess’ left.

No, Livian stared with a sick fascination at the exquisite, worldly duchess’ gloved hand upon Lachlan’s naked fingers. The older woman’s touch bespoke both intimacy and a proprietary claim she exerted over a larger-than-life Lachlan.

Livian went motionless.

Then, the duchess smiled. “I trust you are tired, my dear,” the woman was saying.

Livian couldn’t make out the excuses Her Grace now made to explain Livian’s graceless entrance.

A wave of horror kept battering at Livian, and it was only a moment before that violent tide sucked her all the way under.

Oh, God.

Livian’s chest constricted.

Her skin went clammy the way it had when she’d contracted pleurisy, and breathing proved an even greater chore now than it had then when her lungs nearly failed her.

Livian stared, transfixed by the sight of Lachlan’s arm held covetously by that elegant, all-powerful woman.

Her stomach revolted.

As if staring in on someone else’s horrific life, Livian backed away slowly.

It was too much.

I’m going to throw up.

Before Livian mortified herself further by casting up the contents of her stomach, she somehow managed to walk out.

She walked stiffly and briskly and with no real intent.

Tears pricked her lashes and, Livian, to keep the occasional footman from seeing those drops, fixed her gaze dead-on at nothing in particular. That way, she didn’t have to relive in her mind, the memory of some other woman intimately touching Lachlan—suggestively, proudly, possessively.

Livian quickened her stride. Her breath came hard as she set off furiously down the corridor.

It was too much.

Livian took the corner at the end of the hall quickly, and finding no dutiful servant standing by, she let herself in a pretty parlor that mocked Livian with his cheery brightness.

The minute she’d closed the panel, she sagged against the door.

She’d thought to never again see Lachlan Latimer, the fierce warrior who’d defended her, watched over her, and who’d awakened Livian to the wonders of lovemaking—seated at the head of the table beside some other woman.

Why? Why ?

And as that question repeated a frantic mantra in her mind, there were a thousand different reasons for that entreaty.