Beyond Seduction (41 page)

His hand made a fist, but his fingers would not hold it. They spread on the door to their suite and shoved at the inlaid wood.

Inside a decanter waited, an oasis of golden brandy. He poured a glass. Not too little. Not too much. Just enough to summon the gods of Lethe.

Nineteen

Nic meant to get out of bed, but instead sat slumped on its edge with his elbows on his thighs and his brow on the heels of his hands. Night pressed, moonless and dank, outside the windows. The day must have passed while he slept. All he wore were the same black silk-lined trousers he'd had on the evening Merry left. He wanted to take them off. He also wanted to eat, wash, then extinguish the lamp some interfering soul had set on the rosewood nightstand.

Of course, soon enough the flame would sputter out by itself. The wick was in need of trimming.

Trousers, he thought, his mind slowly ordering the tasks he wished to do. He'd pull on his robe, the

robe that still smelled of Mary, then slip downstairs to the empty kitchen.

He had one arm through the sleeve when a shadow separated from the archway to the sitting room.

The shadow was Sebastian. He carried a tray on which Nic made out a decanter and two glasses.

"Thought you'd have to wake up soon." He lowered the chased silver platter to the bottom corner of

the bed. Nic saw that it held, along with the brandy, a plate of fruit and cheese. His stomach grumbled

at the sight.

Sebastian straightened and half smiled at him, his eyes traveling slowly down Nic's front. Abruptly conscious of his undress, Nic stuck his arm through the second sleeve and pulled the brown paisley closed.

"What do you want?" he said, his voice like graveled fur.

Sebastian poured a glass and held it out until Nic took it. "Evie and I thought you might be in need of entertainment. We met a young tenor at the opera the other night. He came for dinner. An adventurous lad." He cocked his head. "Perhaps you'd like to help us make him sing."

The flush that moved through Nic's body was more reflex than desire. With a sense of detachment, he

let himself remember how it was to tangle too many limbs to count, to be mindless flesh, to forget

oneself in drunken laughter and faceless warmth.

Unfortunately, he also remembered how disconcerting it was to catch a stranger's eye in the throes of pleasure, and how empty one could feel when that pleasure drained away.

Sebastian seemed to read his reluctance. He covered Nic's fingers where they curled around the glass. "We could send him home if you'd rather. Keep it just the three of us."

But the thought of being alone with Sebastian and Eve was even worse, like willfully stepping into a pit

of quicksand he'd just escaped.

"Too old for those games," he said, not wanting to hurt his friend.              

Sebastian's hand fell away..Folding his arms across his chest, he studied Nic like a boatman trying to gauge a stormy sky. "You have to forgive me eventually," he said. "After all, how many friends do you have in this world? Me, Evangeline, Anna. That's pretty much the sum. And don't add Farnham,

old man. You pay him too much to know if he truly likes you."

 But Nic hadn't been about to add Farnham. He'd been about to add Mary. She could have been a

friend, once upon a time. At least, he thought she could have. But she'd left him. She'd used him.

She'd seemed to love him but that had been a lie. The crudest lie.

Hadn't it?

Pain beat dully between his brows but he didn't reach up to rub it. Nothing was clear to him, not even

the anger he'd felt at her when she left. What if he'd been wrong? What if, in his hurt and humiliation, he'd made accusations that were not true?

But what did that matter now? She was gone. It was over. He couldn't have kept her even if she had loved him. A girl like Mary, like
Merry
, needed a man she could rely on. A husband. A hero. A reliable father for her children. Nic had already demonstrated he could not handle that.

"Nic," said Sebastian, still watching him, "I'm sorry I tried to seduce her. Sincerely sorry."

Nic shook his head. "Doesn't matter. You don't blame a cat for chasing mice."

"Maybe not, but you can blame a man. You had a right to expect better of me."

All Nic managed was a shrug. He was dead to everything tonight.

"You know," Sebastian said, with more gentleness than was his custom, "it wouldn't have worked between you and Mary, not in the long run. Women like that don't give their husbands the kind of freedom our sort need."

Nic said nothing, merely stared at the flickering depths of the lamplit brandy. The golden sparks were a match for Merry's eyes. His heart cramped in his chest. He didn't want the drink anymore, or the food. Come to that, he wasn't certain he could move.

*  *  *

Steam rose from the bath, sheer, silver curls that obscured his view of the brown-and-white tiled walls. The design was geometric. Greek, he thought, a squared rise and fall that lured him to close his eyes.

I could sleep right here, he thought, and let his lids sink down.

He woke to the feel of hands trying to haul him from the water.

"Idiot," said Evangeline. "Do you want to drown?"

Cris was helping her and Nic thought their presence must be a dream. If it was, it was a damned uncomfortable one. With Nic propped between them, they stumbled across the hall and dumped him

in a chair.

Evangeline shook her head at him, her paint-splattered shirt plastered to her body by his bath water.

"You can go now," Cris said very firmly. "I'll take care of him from here."

To Nic's surprise, Evangeline nodded and withdrew.

He'd begun to doze when Cris threw a bath sheet across his lap.

"I don't know what you're still doing here," the boy snapped in exasperation. "Neither one of those

lechers can keep their hands to themselves."

Nic slid lower in the soggy chair. "They're my friends."

"Could have fooled me."

"You don't understand them."

"Actually," said Cris, in a tone that reminded Nic of his mother, "I don't think they understand you. In fact, I'm not convinced you understand yourself. If you did, you wouldn't have let the one thing you wanted slip through your fingers."

Against Nic's will, anger began to clear the cobwebs from his brain. "I suppose you're going to tell me

I should have fought to keep her."

"Nothing of the sort." Cris tossed his head. "She's far too good for the likes of you."

"I'm sure that explains why she lied to me."

"And you didn't lie to her?"

Cristopher's eyes were slits of hard blue steel. Annoyed by his defiance, Nic shoved himself upright in

the chair. "She used me," he said, speaking as clearly as he could. "She never loved me at all."

"Huh," said Cris, "for a man who lives by his eyes, you're pretty blind."

"She was only trying to avoid a marriage she didn't—" Rather than continue the argument, which he wasn't certain of in the first place, Nic pushed to his feet and wrapped the sheet around his waist. With a grimace for the wobbly feeling that plagued his knees, he stalked past Cristopher toward the bedroom.

"I don't have to explain this to you. You're fifteen years old. You couldn't know the first thing about it."

"Don't judge me by your own stupidity. I know more about love than you."

The voice was following him. Nic stopped and turned at the archway to head it off. "Oh, really."

Cristopher flushed but held his ground. "I know you don't give up just because the person you love turns out to be imperfect. I know you don't pretend not to love a person just because it would be easier if you didn't. I know you don't hide in bed and pull the covers over you just because fighting for what matters takes some work. Mary was right to go back to her family. You're a mess!"

"I wasn't a mess for her." Fully awake now, Nic jabbed his thumb against the center of his chest.

"I changed. She made me change."

"Did a good job of it, too. Minute you face a challenge, you're back to your old ways."

Nic bit back a curse no fifteen-year-old should hear. "Leave me alone," he muttered and headed stubbornly for the bed.

Cris grabbed his arm before he could crawl in. "If I did what you deserved, I would leave you alone. You don't know what you're missing, you stupid bastard. There's plenty of people who'd be glad for a son like me."

Nic would have ignored him but for the tears he heard in his voice, the pride that wanted to believe but couldn't quite. Everything he said was true. Cris was bright and brave— good Lord, was he brave—not only to come here on his own but to speak his heart, and in full expectation of having it trampled! He wasn't responsible for their father's sins. He was a gift, a second chance that Nic had done his best to

spit on.

Just as, in the end, he'd done his best to spit on Merry.

He blew his breath out through his nose, disgusted by the level to which he'd sunk. Cristopher obviously thought the sound was directed at him because he pulled away as if Nic's skin had burned.

"No." Nic caught him back. "You're right. I am a stupid bastard and you are a son a man should be

proud of."

Cristopher's jaw dropped. For all his bravado, he seemed not to have expected Nic to concede. Nic

found himself smiling, something lightening inside him, delicate but there, like a flicker of sun seen from the corner of the eye. He put his hand on Cris's shoulder, rubbing the ball of it with his thumb. The feeling in his heart intensified, not merely light but warmth. His knees steadied.

What if the thing he'd feared most was the very thing that could save him?

Cris started to speak but Nic lifted his hand to stop him. He had to get these thoughts out while they

were clear. "There's something I need to tell you, something I think you're old enough to know."

"Yes?" said Cris, abruptly wary.

"I don't know if this will make you feel worse or better. Believe me, it doesn't change what I owe you."

"Just tell me."

"I'm not your father."

Cris stared at him. "Not... but you look just like me!"

"That's because I'm your brother."

Cris shuffled haltingly to the bed. Moving like an old man, he lowered himself to the mattress. Velvet covers heaped around him, red once, but now a dusty pink. How many dramas had this bed seen? How many broken hearts? "Then your father... your father was mine." He looked up, emotions sliding across his face. "Grandmother doesn't know, does she?"

"No, and I'm not certain I want to tell her."

Cristopher grimaced as if picturing how she'd react. Given her sterling standards of behavior, the dowager marchioness was not a woman one liked to admit one had deceived. "If you're not my father," he said, pausing to bite his lip, "then I was wrong to be angry at you for not treating me like a son."

Gingerly, Nic took a seat on the bed beside him. "You had every right to be angry. That's who you thought I was. Hell, I agreed to the lie myself. Some other time I'll tell you why. Right this minute all