Chapter 8

W hy didn’t she care more?

Livian wanted to throw her head back and rail and rage at the insolent man before her.

How dare he?

How dare he presume he knew a bloody thing about her, when he didn’t. They were nothing more than strangers.

Why, then, did his ill-opinion and judgement hurt so blasted much? Why should she even care at all what he thought about her?

Feeding her fury and drowning out the confusion swirling in her breast, she opened her mouth to deliver Lachlan Latimer the set-down of his life.

He grunted. “My apologies.”

Her indignant rage faltered.

For a second time, he’d owned his mistake and volunteered an apology.

She contemplated him.

What a…peculiar man. In Livian’s experience, all the men she’d known—Malcom, Giles, Bram, Fowler, peers at house parties, peers at balls—they’d all been too proud. Why, in her brother-in-law Malcom’s case, pride had nearly driven him from Verity.

Lachlan frowned. “What?”

She shook her head.

“You’ve got a strange look on me.”

And he sounded so very much like a disgruntled lad, she found herself smiling.

“It’s just, I’d originally been impressed by your ability to apologize, Lachlan,” she said wryly. “In our short time together, however, I’ve determined you’ve probably a good deal experience with being in the wrong and as such perfected the art of mea culpa.”

“You’d be surprised,” he mumbled.

“Implying you haven’t?” Amusement filled her. “Yes, yes, I would be surprised indeed, by that discovery.”

He’d made so many assumptions this night about her. That together, with his volatility deemed him undeserving of any further revelations her.

“You can have the bedroom,” he said gruffly.

Livian cocked her head.

“It occurs to me the reason you’ve indulged me as much as you have, is you’re kind of stuck with me.” Reaching inside his jacket, he withdrew the key and slid it across the table. “You can have the room and are free to use it, with a promise I’m not going to enter, darlin’.”

She stared dumbly at the old brass key.

Panic set in. He was leaving.

He was also, offering her his rooms. That’s what should matter most. No, that is all that should matter.

Only, as he pushed his chair back and made to stand, she spoke on a rush.

“That’s not why I’m talking to you!”

Unlike before when he’d been rash to hurl opinions, this time, he waited for her to explain.

To give her fingers something to do, Livian took the key. She made a show of examining the metal piece, before lifting her eyes back to his.

She set the key down.

“I’ve…enjoyed speaking with you,” she admitted. She’d never been one to blush. For some reason, she found herself in a perpetual blush with this man. “Peers and lofty gentlemen, I don’t know how to comfortably talk with, but you…you are easy to speak to.”

He snorted. “Said no one ever.”

Livian’s lips twitched. “Said me, now.” Her smile slipped. “Noblemen? They judge women—all women; even the well-born ladies, and especially those born outside their elevated ranks. And when this journey is complete, the manner of man I’ll find myself marrying.”

Lachlan drew her back from her bereft musings. “When it comes to men passing judgement, I wouldn’t say I’ve been guilt free this night.”

“No, but you’re a man who is like me and it feels so nice to be with you.”

His expression grew shuttered.

She ran her eyes over his face. “You believe I’m wrong.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You didn’t need to. Though, I appreciate you did not rush forth a denial, even though you clearly believe there to be one.” She bowed her head.

He inclined his.

“Well?” she prodded.

“Now, you want me to venture my opinions?” Lachlan shook his head sardonically. “Darlin’ you’re as contrary as they come.”

Darlin’ . The low, languid, way he spoke that endearment did strange things to the rhythm of her heart.

She dropped her elbows back on the table and stretched herself as far as she could toward him.

“Given the ease with which you drop your opinions, I’d expect you’d relish the opportunity to tell me exactly what you’re thinking.”

“ Given I made enough assumptions about you, Livian, I decided to keep that one to myself.”

She held her breath.

As hoped, Lachlan took her bait. “But since you’re asking?” He rested his elbows and leaned the rest of the way across so their noses practically touched. “You and I, darlin’? We’re as similar as the night sky from the day one.”

“Some mornings,” she began softly, “the sun and moon will both appear, and they’re able to do so because they still share the same sky.”

Lachlan tensed. His narrow-eyed gaze moved warily over her face. “Your point being?”

“We might be different in ways, but there is much we have in common, too.”

“To be clear, because you believe we’re alike in some ways, you don’t mind me voicing my opinions about you?” he asked haltingly, like he was trying to solve a complex riddle and the world’s fate hung upon the answer he’d arrived at.

She shook her head. “No.”

He looked truly confounded now.

“Those lords who judge me do so largely because of my sullied bloodlines,” she explained.

“The conclusions you’ve reached about me this night have nothing to do with my bastardry.” She continued, “You haven’t looked down your nose at me. Or found me wanting because of my complete lack of decorum and ladylike ways.”

“Darlin’, believe it or not, in my line of work and with my connections to the nobility, I’ve come across my fair share of peeresses, and you’re more a lady in just your single smallest finger than any of those haughty vipers.”

“That!” She jabbed a finger eagerly at him.

He scrunched his brow up. “What—?”

“You didn’t judge me because of reasons beyond my control. Rather, you take exception to decisions I’ve made.”

Or were about to make. She wasn’t betrothed yet, and the knowledge of that left her giddy with relief.

Lachlan lifted a dark eyebrow. “And that’s a good thing?”

She nodded.

He faced his palms up. “I’m more confused than ever, sweetheart.”

“You’re honest with me, Lachlan,” she said. “Oh, you might be frustratingly arrogant in the way you think you know things about me, things you clearly don’t, but you don’t wear a polite smile, and you certainly do not pull back on what you are thinking or feeling.”

“Ah.” It began to make sense. “Nobs on the other hand don’t give a clue as to what they’re thinking?”

“ Exactly .”

“Yes, well in fairness,” Latimer said, deadpan, “it remains doubtful whether the highborn lords are actually capable of truly thinking.”

He winked.

Livian burst out laughing and he joined in, and it felt so very wonderful.

“All right,” he said after their amusement died down. “We can both agree that we do share some similarities—”

“ Many similarities.”

“Particularly in our aversion and ill-opinion of the nobility.”

She nodded. “Agreed.”

“Which begs the question why, Livian,” he said, somberly, and without his earlier mockery. “You’re going to bind yourself to one of those undeserving, priggish, pompous lords.”

Her joy faded. “Yes.”

She swallowed around a ball of emotion. “Though, I’m hoping he’s kind.”

“Hoping?” he echoed flatly.

She nodded, bracing for the same disdain he’d heaped on her.

This time, it didn’t come.

Lachlan edged back a fraction, and she stayed absolutely still under the assessing stare he passed over her. “Why?”

“You’re a self-made man,” she noted.

Since hers wasn’t a question but rather a statement, he stayed silent.

“How did you come to be an owner at your club?”

“Luck,” he automatically said.

“Come,” she scoffed. “You’re not modest or illogical. You’re practical, Lachlan. We both know luck is gold at the end of a proverbial rainbow. How did you manage to become a proprietor at one of London’s most successful clubs?”

“It’s a gaming hell, hardly a respectable venture.”

“That doesn’t mean it’s not profitable,” she quietly reminded him. “It also happens to be one that caters to London’s wealthiest and most powerful.”

Why was he so determined to diminish his accomplishments? When to her, his having built himself up from nothing accounted for her appreciation for him and what he’d done.

“How were you able to become a proprietor at Forbidden Pleasures, Lachlan? Truly .”

He considered her a moment. “You’ll be horrified by the truth.”

“Try me.”

“I stole.”

She didn’t flinch. “Anyone who hadn’t been born to a life of privilege has, at one point or another, been forced to do so.”

“Does that include you?”

“Yes,” she said, and promptly wished she’d held back her truth.

He drew back.

The sight of his shock and horror sent her insides curling up. “I take it I’ve surprised you enough that you’re rethinking you’re earlier high opinion of me.” Livian forced a smile that felt strained to her own lips.

“I’m thinking I’m even more impressed by you, darlin’,” he said quietly.

Her defenses crept up. “You’re making light of me.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it. I don’t make jests, and I certainly don’t lie.”

She hesitated, gauging the veracity of his claims and finding only frank honesty and… appreciation .

Livian wetted her lips. “When we were really struggling, and Verity was working, Bertha would take me out to beg in various parts of London. Begging was less lucrative.”

“Sure is,” he murmured.

Livian nodded. Yes ! “ You know . While I begged, Bertha scouted out lords who’d be easy marks for a little girl.”

“Hunger and desperation will make you do things society tells us are crimes and sins.” One corner of Lachlan’s mouth lifted in a cynical smile. “All the while, those moral zealots live their comfortable lives and don’t give a single damn about the ones outside their ranks. We may as well be invisible.”

She gave an exuberant nod. “Precisely.”

How very good it felt to be with someone who understood, and who’d not condemn her—even though, she deserved to be.

Livian drew in a shaky breath. “I’ve never shared that part about myself,” she revealed. “Not even with my sisters.”

He chuckled. “Do you truly believe, me, of all people would find you wanting?”

At that gentle query, Livian’s heart both warmed and hurt.

“You’d show me grace,” she murmured. “And yet, you would not extend that same courtesy to yourself.”

“Is that a question?”

Lachlan’s expression gave nothing away.

“No.” She shook her head. “It is an observation.”

She held her breath, wanting him to say more; to share some piece of himself the same way she had—but he didn’t.

Instead, they sat in a comfortable silence; the crackling fire behind them lent a calm, coziness to that silence. All the while, they wordlessly passed the rapidly dwindling tankard of milk back and forth, each taking sips of the opposite side.

Livian raised the pewter glass to take the final drink.

“I fought,” Lachlan said, and she froze with the rim to her lips. “I was part of a fight club.”

Unsteadily, she set her tankard down.

Her mind raced. All Society knew of the Lost Lords. They’d been children of the peerage who’d been abducted and sold to people on the streets. Her brother-in-law, Malcom, had been one of those unfortunate souls. That was how Verity, a reporter, had met her now-husband. Among those lost lords, there’d been ones forced to fight for the same organization Lachlan just mentioned.

“Savage’s Fight Society?” she whispered.

“Ah, you’ve heard of it, then.”

Her lips worked.

“Your sister’s newspapers?”

She tried to find a hint of what he was thinking from his tone but found none. “Y-Yes.”

He nodded.

“I saw the money they were raking in using me as a fighter and got away real quick. I started a ring of my own on the street. Wasn’t long before lords were coming to place wagers. I kept the profits, grew the ring, and then one day, happened to save Argyll’s arse.”

“The luck piece,” she murmured.

He’d once thought so. “Yea, the luck piece.” Fury tightened the harsh, angular planes of his face.

“They betrayed you,” she murmured.

He tensed and gave her another one of those deep, unnerving, assessing looks. “What makes you say that?”

There was a warning there.

“Bertha,” Livian said softly.

His brow dipped.

“My nursemaid, who was more a mother to me than my own,” she disclosed the hurt that would never stop hurting. “She believed my brother-in-law was taking advantage of my sister, the same way my father did our mother. She thought Verity was repeating all the same mistakes. In her attempt to protect us, Bertha attempted to separate them. In doing so, she hurt Verity in the worst way and…that was the last I ever saw her.”

Her throat worked.

What did that say about Livian that, despite Bertha’s machinations, Livian missed her still?