Three Nights with a Scoundrel: A Novel Read Online Free Page B

tilted her head and narrowed her eyes at him. “I’ve just formed a suspicion. I think I know who … or rather, what , you truly are.”
    His pulse quickened. Sweat beaded at the back of his neck. Despite the mad upheaval in his chest, he strove to look bored. “Oh yes?”
    With a glance to either side, she inched closer. Her eyes gleamed with humor. “You’re a vampire. Aren’t you?”
    A relieved chuckle escaped him. He made a show of stretching his arm along the back of the bench—not coincidentally toward her—and defiantly tilting his face to the sun. After a long moment, he cocked an eyebrow. “Here I am, sitting in broad daylight. I haven’t disintegrated to ashes yet.”
    “No. Not yet.” Her voice went serious. “You must stop. You must give up this search before it kills you, too.”
    Julian rubbed his eyes briefly, then dropped his hand. “Impossible.”
    “Not impossible. Merely difficult. Believe me, I do understand. I’ve buried myself in ledgers and papers, putting things in order for the transfer of the estate. I could leave the duty to others, but I don’t. Because as much effort as it is, I need the distraction. Grieving is work in its own right. A harsh, relentless sort of labor.”
    He would not have thought to phrase it so, but she was right. Julian felt as though he’d been spending recent months digging trenches with a teaspoon. But there was more to this than Lily supposed.
    “It’s not just a distraction,” he said, trying to explain as best he could without revealing details. “I need answers. Leo deserves answers.”
    “Sometimes there are no answers.”
    Before he could argue back, a pair of beribboned young girls in white pinafores bounced past, hand in hand. A round-faced nursemaid followed them, tugging a miniature terrier by the leash. The dog gave Julian’s boot a low growl.
    Lily cleared her throat. “I had an unexpected caller the other day. Lady Norwich. You remember her.”
    The abrupt change of subject set his brain spinning. “Do I?”
    “I should hope so. You had an affair with her two summers ago. Before her husband passed away.”
    “Oh.” An awkward pause. “That Lady Norwich.” With false nonchalance, he asked, “And what did she have to say?”
    “She wants me to marry her brother, Mr. Burton.”
    He sputtered. Damn that Maria Norwich. She wasn’t supposed to be so obvious. But then, subtlety never had been Maria’s forte. “She said that?”
    “No, of course she didn’t say it. But there is no other reason she should have called, except to pave the way for her brother. She had nothing whatsoever to talk about. Just sat there like a stick, sipping tea.”
    “I didn’t know sticks could sip tea.”
    She cut him a stern look. He could tell she meant that glare to have teeth. The problem was, when Lily was near, Julian’s thoughts fixated on lips and tongue.
    “Stop making fun,” she said. “I know you sent her, or at least put the thought in her head. You’re matchmaking again.”
    “Burton will inherit an earldom.”
    “I am not interested in Mr. Burton, or his earldom.”
    Leaning forward, he reached into her lap and took her hands in his. She cast an apprehensive glance to the side, and he ignored it. Etiquette be damned, he had to convince her of this.
    He squeezed her gloved fingers tight. “You must marry, and soon.”
    “I don’t intend to marry at all.”
    “Leo’s heir will arrive from Egypt in a matter of weeks.”
    “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