Nicholas: Lord of Secrets (21 page)

So he gave generously and skillfully, and got his pleasure that way.

He wanted to give to Leah—had planned on years of that very martyrdom—and here, she wanted to give as well.

For the first time, he experienced the subtle rejection of the pleasured by the pleasurer who would not yield to her own desires. She sought to make love
to
him, not
with
him, and the distinction made his heart shrink even as his cock began to stir.

And between bewilderment and arousal, Nick felt fear licking through his veins.

He wasn’t going to be able to keep his distance from her, to offer her pleasure and companionship and the kind of fondness he offered most any woman who sought it. She was going to wind herself around his body, and around his heart, and he’d be reduced to begging, breaking a promise he’d made to himself on Leonie’s behalf, and regretting and regretting and regretting.

God help him, if he wasn’t careful he’d be falling in love with his own wife.

“Nicholas?” Leah peered up at him, concern in her pretty brown eyes. “Are you all right?”

“I will be fine, though tonight would serve us both best if we used it to get some rest,” he said, his voice sharper than he intended.

Leah peered at him briefly then stepped away. “If you say so. The day has been long.”

Before the hurt in her gaze had him howling on his knees for forgiveness, Nick turned and ducked into the adjoining dressing room.

“Here.” He held out a robe, a deep blue velvet, the smallest he had, but it still pooled on the floor at Leah’s feet, leaving inches of hem trailing on the ground. Leah shrugged into the robe, regarding him with puzzlement.

“Thank you.” She belted the robe as best she could. “Shall we to bed?”

He would rather have crawled over hot coals. “A capital notion.” And worse than hot coals was the uncertainty he’d put in his wife’s eyes. “The footmen will deal with the tub tomorrow.”

“A cricket pitch of a bed,” Leah remarked, eyeing the vast, dark, canopied wonder where Nick slept. “Do you prefer one side or the other?”

“I sleep in the middle. But we’re both probably so tired we won’t know we’re sharing. And tomorrow night, your things will no doubt have arrived in your chambers.”

“So we are not to share a bed regularly?” Her tone was perfectly casual; Nick wasn’t deceived for a moment.

“Our bedrooms adjoin,” Nick said, moving around the room to blow out candles. “I will be happy to accommodate you when you desire it, Leah.”

“I see.” Leah’s voice radiated with suppressed hurt, but Nick steeled himself against it and turned in the dim light to face her.

He was going to burn in hell for this day’s work. Slowly, while every neglected wife in the realm jabbed at his parts with a hot, rusty pitchfork. “Shall I pleasure you now, Wife?” he asked softly.

“I think not. Fatigue is catching up to me.”

“As you wish.” Nick took a candelabrum down from the mantel and blew out the last of the lit candles. He cursed himself for hurting his new wife, cursed her for being so damned desirable and good and lovely and married to him. He cursed marriage as an institution and the Creator for making conception so pleasurable for the child’s father, and he cursed himself again, because he hadn’t seen this disaster looming.

Val’s words came back to Nick as he eased the robe from Leah’s shoulders then accepted her chemise when she pulled it over her head. She paused for a moment, naked beside his bed, illuminated only by firelight.

“In you go,” Nick said. “I could lend you a shirt, but it would likely strangle you.” He did not dare pat her bottom, lest he then tackle her and doom them to further miseries.

Leah climbed on the bed, and Nick tried to recapture the admonition Val had left him with—something about Nick’s heart breaking when he disappointed Leah.

“You don’t sleep in anything?” Leah asked as Nick moved around to the other side of the bed.

“Typically, no,” Nick said, unbelting his robe. His cock was still more than middling interested in the woman sharing his bed, and so Nick mentally cursed his simpleminded organ for good measure too. “One of the characteristics of great size is an ability to conserve heat, so I’m more comfortable without yards of nightshirt around me.”

“Well, then.” Leah let out a soft, gusty, unhappy sigh. “Good night, Husband. Thank you for marrying me and keeping me safe from my father.”

She sounded so forlorn, Nick’s chest began to hurt.

Damn it, damn it, damn it…

“Good night, Wife. Thank you for marrying me and allowing me to keep my promise to my father.”

And thank you, he silently went on, for even asking what pleases me. He shifted on the bed, and with one more hearty curse directed at his whole, stupid life, Nick linked his fingers through Leah’s and gently squeezed.

He fell asleep like that, cock throbbing, heart aching, fingers entwined with the hand of the wife he would protect with his life, but whose body he would never fully know.

***

Only slightly comforted by the feel of Nick’s fingers closed around her own, Leah struggled with her thoughts long after her husband had drifted off. What had she said; what had she done? Something had put Nick off, had shifted his mood from playful and intent on marital intimacies of some kind, to remote, edgy, and out of sorts.

At least Nick didn’t intend to torment her by sleeping beside her each night. No doubt, this initial night of sharing a bed was for the sake of appearances, to further ensure their marriage was unassailably valid.

Leah eased her fingers from Nick’s. This marriage was going to be long and lonely, probably for them both. She’d be safe from Wilton, at least. But his pure, unrelenting malevolence was a simple source of pain compared to the complication that was Leah’s marriage.

Morning arrived with sunlight bursting through the bed curtains and a pervasive sense of warmth flooding Leah’s awareness. Nick’s scent enveloped her, bringing with it associations of safety, affection, and… frustration. Opening her eyes, Leah eyed the room in which she’d spent the night. The world’s largest tub in the middle of the room was the only jarring note in an otherwise elegant and luxuriously appointed bedchamber.

Nick’s scent, Nick’s house… Nick’s
bride
.

“You’re awake.” Nick’s voice rumbled from behind her, and Leah realized she was wrapped in his arms, tucked on her side against his chest. His lips grazed her neck, and then she felt those arms withdraw. “I’ve been down to the kitchen.” Nick’s bulk shifted as he bounced over to the far side of the bed. “Our breakfast is being brought up. This is the smallest shirt I could find.” He passed her a linen shirt that could have fit four of Leah inside it, and lifted his velvet dressing gown from the foot of the bed.

“One doesn’t want to scandalize the help,” Nick said, shrugging into his dressing gown while he presented Leah with a fine view of his muscular backside. “Do you need help with that shirt?”

“I’m fine,” Leah reported just as her head emerged from the shirt. “But if for any reason I can’t locate my arms, please notify them that a search has been started.”

Nick smiled and tugged the shirt down. “Arms in sight, and all is well.”

Their eyes met, and Nick’s unfortunate word choice reverberated in the silence.

He sat back. “About last night?”

“What about last night?” She tied the shirt closed at her throat, but it still dipped below her collarbone.

“I have a very clear idea how I do
not
want to go on with you,” Nick said slowly. “But that doesn’t tell me much about how we
should
go on, or what you’ll need to be happy as my wife.”

I
need
you.
Leah wondered where that ridiculous sentiment could have come from. Nick was providing her safety in exchange for an untroublesome, virtually white marriage. They could be friends, eventually, if she were very determined and Nick amenable.

“What is it that you
don’t
want?” Leah asked, but Nick’s answer was preempted by the arrival of breakfast and a parade of footmen intent on draining and then removing the great round tub.

“Gentlemen.” Nick raised his voice slightly. “If you could wait until my wife and I have absented ourselves from the chamber?”

“Very good, my lord.” The head footman bowed and waved the other three away.

“They all wanted a peek at you,” Nick groused when the room was once again devoid of servants. “Let me prepare you a plate. There’s more food here than Napoleon needed to reach Moscow.”

“As much as all that?” Leah gathered the shirt up and craned her neck to see the tea cart Nick had wheeled to his side of the bed. Luscious, bacony, toasty breakfast scents assaulted her nose, and her stomach reminded her audibly that she hadn’t eaten much on her wedding day.

“Eggs and toast,” Nick said, “bacon, ham, scones, butter, jam, fresh oranges, forced strawberries, kippers, sweet rolls, muffins, and what’s this? A pot of chocolate for my lady, and perhaps for my lord, if she’s willing to share. What can I get for you?”

He was back to being his smiling, charming, agreeable self, but there was something off about the performance. For it was a performance, a very good one, in a role Nick adopted as easily as a second skin, but a performance nonetheless.

“Let’s start with bacon and eggs, toast with butter, and some of that chocolate,” Leah replied. “What will you be having?”

“All of the above.” Nick filled a plate for her, the portions generous but reasonable. “And some ham, and an orange or two, as well as the inevitable cup or three of tea.”

Leah built her breakfast into a sandwich.

“I take it,” she began between bites, “we shared this bed last night to create the appearance of consummating the marriage?” Her tone was casual, but she had the sense it took Nick a heartbeat or so to comprehend the substance of the question.

“Just so,” he said, studying the chocolate pot. “I trust my staff, but they do gossip, and Wilton can hire spies as well as the next person can. I wouldn’t want Wilton using any doubts to his advantage.”

“If I am asked,” Leah said, pausing in her consumption of the sandwich, “I can honestly say I made love with my husband.”

He bristled beside her, the chocolate pot returning to the tray with a sharp little clink. “Meaning?”

“Aaron Frommer assured me he was my husband in fact,” Leah said. “I made love with him, or consummated the marriage, in the necessary fashion.” She took a sip of her chocolate, keeping her expression placid. “I think every marriage takes some getting used to, just like the first time you ride a new horse or sail a new boat. I will not render all you’ve done for me pointless, Nicholas.”

Her words did not have the intended effect of putting him at ease.

“Nor will I allow my efforts to keep a promise to my father be shown as an empty exercise,” Nick said. “So like the good English folk we are, we will maintain appearances, but, Leah?”

She was Leah this morning, not lovey, not lamb, not sweetheart.

“I hope we can do more than that,” Nick said. “I don’t know how, not when the entire business of the marriage bed is going to be complicated, but please know I want us to be at least cordial.”

“Cordial.” Leah blew out a breath, hating the word. “I can manage cordial, if that’s what you want.”

“I think it for the best. Shall I peel you an orange?”

A cordial damned orange. Despair reached for Leah’s vitals with cold, sticky fingers. The sandwich she’d eaten abruptly sat heavily in her stomach, and the chocolate less comfortably still.

“No, thank you,” she said, feeling her throat constrict again. She didn’t cry, as a rule, not when Wilton insulted her before guests, not when her brothers lectured her about finding a husband, not when Emily was thoughtlessly cruel in her parroting of Wilton’s positions and sermons and criticisms.

She hadn’t cried when her mother died, hadn’t cried when her father warned her Hellerington would offer for her.

If she cried now, Nick would hold her and stroke her back gently and murmur comforting platitudes, all the while oblivious to the fact that he was breaking her heart with his very kindness.

“I suppose our dressing rooms connect?” Leah asked, her voice convincingly even.

“They do,” Nick said, watching her from the corner of his eye as he buttered a scone. “And you have a sitting room between your bedroom and the corridor, though I do not. I had my bedroom redesigned to encompass my sitting room as well.”

Always helpful to know the architecture of one’s husband’s rooms.

“I think I’ll find my things, then.” Leah tossed back the covers and threw her legs over the side of the bed. “I can’t very well review the staff in your shirt.”

She managed to get free of the room without facing him. The next challenge was closing two doors quietly, calmly, and then the third challenge—barely any challenge at all for her—was to sob out her heartbreak without making a single sound.

When Nick knocked on her door, Leah was dressed, thank the gods, and sitting at a vanity, plaiting her long hair. He watched in silence as she wound the coil at the back of her neck, jabbed pins into it, then rose, a faint smile on her face, making her look tidy, capable, and self-contained.

Just as she’d looked when he’d first met her, when she’d been steeling herself for the prospect of marriage to Hellerington.

“Are you sorry you married me?” The question came out of Nick’s mouth without his willing it into words, and he saw Leah was as surprised by it as he was.

“I am not,” Leah said at length. “Not yet. I think in any marriage there are moments when husband or wife or both succumb to regrets, or second thoughts, but you were very clear on what you offered, Nicholas, and what you did not. I am not at all sorry to be free of my father.”

“That’s… good.” What had he expected her to say? Leah wasn’t vicious, and she’d had few real options. “May I escort you downstairs?”

“Of course.” Leah smiled at him, but her smile was tentative, and Nick’s silence as he led her through the house was wary, and their marriage had indeed begun the way Nick intended it to go.

He pushed that sour thought aside as he introduced Leah to each maid and footman, the senior staff, and the kitchen help. From there, they moved to the stable yard, where the stable boys, grooms, and gardeners presented themselves. When the staff had dispersed, Nick led Leah through the gardens, where the tulips were losing their petals, the daffodils were but a memory, and a single iris was heralding the next wave of color on the garden’s schedule.

On a hard bench in the spring sunshine, they decided to tarry for two weeks at Clover Down before presenting themselves at Belle Maison. The earl had sent felicitations on the occasion of Nick’s nuptials, and yet Nick felt an urgency to return to his father’s side.

“He has asked you to join him at Belle Maison?” Leah’s hand was still curled over Nick’s arm, though they sat side by side.

“He has not, and he has told me on several occasions not to lay about the place, long-faced and restless, waiting for him to die. He’s sent my sisters off to various friends and relatives, all except Nita, that is. George and Dolph are similarly entertained, and Beckman is off to Portsmouth to see to my grandmother’s neglected pile.”

“What does Nita say?”

“I hadn’t thought to ask her. I’ll send her a note today, but I think I should also consult with my wife. How do you feel about going to the family seat when death hangs over it?”

“I have no strong feelings one way or the other,” Leah said. “When your father dies, there will be a great deal to manage, and I suspect Nita will appreciate some help then. It might be easier to help if everything were not a case of first impression for me.”

“True,” Nick said, realizing he hadn’t thought matters through from the most practical angle—the angle the women would be left to deal with when Bellefonte went to his reward.

“Two weeks then,” Leah said, “and you’d best let Nita know that as well. We’ll likely leave here before the neighbors start to call, and that might be a good thing.”

Which meant what? Nick didn’t dwell on her comment, but instead drew her to her feet.

“I’ve something I want to show you.”

“I am at your disposal, Nicholas.”

As they made their way through the stables, the feed room, and the saddle room, to a space tucked against the back wall of the barn, Nick reflected that he liked it better when she called him Husband.

“This is a woodworking shop,” Leah said, scanning the tools hung neatly along the walls and the wood stored and organized by size along another. “This is yours?”

“It is. I have one in the mews in Town, and another at Belle Maison.”

“Your hands.” Leah picked up Nick’s bare hand and peered at it. “I’ve wondered what all the little nicks and scratches are from, and this is why you have them, isn’t it?”

“Mostly.” Nick eased his fingers from hers. “I like to make birdhouses.” He pulled a bound leather journal down from a high shelf. “I can show you some of my designs, if you like. You take the stool.” He pulled it up, and Leah had to scramble a little to take her seat. Everything in the room was scaled to Nick’s size—the stool, the workbench, the drafting table, even some of the tools were proportioned to fit Nick’s hands.

And yet, she looked as if she’d been made to fit in this room with him, on this fine mild morning, sharing a little of himself he hadn’t shown to anyone else.

“This is one I made for my stepmother,” Nick began, opening the book. He’d drawn sketches, and then colored illustrations all over the pages. She studied each one, asking questions as if birdhouses mattered.

“This is lovely.” She traced the lines of the birdhouse on the page. “It looks like a garden house, a little hanging gazebo, with trellises and flower boxes. How could you even see to make such things?”

“I wear magnifying spectacles,” Nick said. “The next one was for my papa, though a birdhouse is hardly a manly sort of present. I was eight, though, and had found my first personal passion.”

“Eight is a passionate age,” Leah murmured as she followed his castle with a finger. “Was this for your papa?”

“I only had illustrations in my storybooks to go by, but it was my version of Arthur’s castle. My father loomed in my awareness with all the power and mystery of the legendary king, of course.” And now his father lay dying, and Nick’s birdhouse had weathered to a uniform gray where it hung outside the earl’s bedroom window.

He would repaint Papa’s birdhouse when they repaired to Belle Maison.

They spent most of the morning in Nick’s shop, the time passing easily and pleasantly. Nick showed her sketches of the current work in progress, the birdhouse design intended for Ethan, then suggested they repair to the house for lunch.

As she slid off the high stool, Leah linked her arm through his. “Do you ever miss your mother, Nicholas?”

“I never knew her, but yes. I wish I’d known her. Do you miss your mother?” Nick posed it as a question, but any woman would miss her mother at the time of her own wedding.

“I did,” Leah said. “When I went to Italy, I missed her terribly, but it was her idea that I go. And as to that, she proved prescient. When I left England I didn’t realize I was carrying a child. I was twenty and figured my body was just upset, which it was. Darius guessed before I did, and thank God he was his usual blunt self about it, or I might have done something stupid.”

“Something stupid?” Nick stopped short in their progress past the single iris and stared down at her as her meaning sunk in. “You would have taken your own life?”

“Young people can be dramatic when they think they are in love.” Leah regarded the iris as she spoke.

“Irises symbolize messages,” Nick answered her unasked question. “You would really have taken your own life, but for your pregnancy?”

“I don’t know, Nicholas.” Leah watched the iris as if it might change from purple to white while she stood there. “My father had killed my husband, and there was to be no recourse. I could not prove we had married, because Aaron had taken charge of all the formalities. I was alone, disgraced, deflowered, and not even afforded the status of widow or access to such funds as a widow enjoys. Then too, my mother’s health had failed, and I foresaw the rest of my life, alone in that house, with Wilton’s criticisms and castigations my daily fare.”

Nick’s hands slid to either side of her neck, and he leaned down to rest his forehead against hers. He showed her a few birdhouses, and she trusted him with her darkest memories.

“Promise me”—he gripped her gently but quite firmly—“promise me no matter what happens between us, Leah, you won’t let this marriage make you so miserable you think of taking your own life.”

She laid her hands on his and peeled his fingers away. “I was young, feeling sorry for myself, and grieving. I promise you, I will not contemplate such measures, not as a function of being married to you.”

“Not as a function of anything,” Nick shot back. “You are too… You just… It wouldn’t be right.”

“I agree,” Leah said, resuming their progress. “I saw that, when my son died. Life can be difficult, but death is difficult too. Had I taken my life, all of my brothers’ sacrifices and risks would have been for nothing. My mother’s heart would have been broken, my sister disgraced by my suicide. I had no right to hurt the people who loved me like that. Worse, at least at the time, taking my life would have proved Wilton’s assessment of my flawed nature all too true, and that, more than anything, dissuaded me.”

“And who raised this most convincing argument to you?” Nick asked, letting her draw him along beside her.

“Darius. Sometimes his ruthless streak is really a strength.”

“May I ask you something?” And, please God, change the subject?

“Of course.”

“Has your brother ever given you the impression that he has unusual personal tastes?”

A moment of considering silence followed, in which Nick congratulated himself for at least shifting the topic.

“Not exactly,” Leah said, “but it’s as if Darius associates with a fast set despite his own preferences.”

“A very fast set,” Nick concurred. “The question is, why?”

“To disgrace my father? Or because that’s all Darius feels he merits in this life? Because it’s a way to be different from Trent, who can be a dull boy indeed? I don’t know, and it’s not something a sister should know about her brother.”

“Maybe not in your family,” Nick said as they gained the back steps. “My sisters seem to know every lady to whom I’ve given a handkerchief.”

Leah fell silent, and just like that, they were surrounded once again by a marital bog, one enshrouded in a fog of hurt feelings and miscommunication.

And yet, Nick had to try. “I didn’t mean that I’d… I meant, literally, a clean handkerchief. I always carry at least two, you see, and… you don’t believe me.”

“I believe I have enjoyed spending time with you this morning, but it’s past noon. Luncheon probably awaits us as we speak.”

“Excellent point,” Nick said, wanting to kick himself. “Shall we go in?”

They ate companionably enough, the conversation turning to which neighbors lived where in proximity to Clover Down.

“What will you find to occupy you this afternoon?” Nick asked as he topped off Leah’s teacup.

“The rest of my things have arrived,” Leah said. “I’ll see them situated and start exploring the house.”

“Sounds productive. I’m going for a ride. The trusty steeds in yonder stable are getting fat on spring grass, and this I cannot allow. I’ll be back by teatime, and look forward to seeing you then.” He rose, brushed his lips across her forehead, then took his leave.

Leah would notice that her new husband hadn’t invited her to join him on his ride. Nick knew that, hated it, and headed off to the stables at the most decorous pace he could manage. Once there, only a gentleman’s unwillingness to spook the horses stopped him from slamming both fists into the wall, repeatedly.

***

So
that’s her.

Leah had taken herself out walking in the afternoon sunshine as soon as her meager wardrobe had been set to rights. The weather was lovely, and Leah had had little opportunity to move around the previous few days, so she’d struck off through the gardens and aimed for the hill behind the estate.

The acclivity was crowned with trees at the top, a pretty copse that was leafing out nicely, the occasional patch of lavender-blue wildflowers dancing at the foot of the trees, as if laughing in the dappled sunlight.

Leah took a seat among flowers nearly the color of her husband’s eyes, intent on enjoying the view of the surrounding neighborhood. Clover Down, neat and tidy, its back gardens awash in color, spread before her to the left. On the right, another estate, just as tidy and even more generously dressed in flowers, graced the view. Whoever lived there was also unwilling to waste the lovely afternoon, and was moving into their garden. Leah made out a man and a woman, both blond, their arms linked while they looked for a spot to make use of the sketch pad the man carried under his arm.

She was struck first by the companionability of the couple. Though the lady was tall, the man’s head was bent to catch her every word, and when he seated his companion, he settled in right beside her, still listening intently. Even seated, though, the man was quite a bit…

Taller—Leah’s heart lurched in her chest, a painful, aching dislocation that did not ease as her eyes confirmed what her mind had already deduced:
That
was
Nick
, that tall, blond, so-considerate escort down there in the distance. That was her husband, kissing the woman’s temple, hugging her… Oh, God.

As Leah sat in abject misery amid the flowers and the dancing sunlight, Nick made his companion laugh frequently, and each time the lady laughed, Nick smiled down at her.

Leah was too far away to see details of Nick’s expression, and the breeze blew in the wrong direction to carry their words to her, but she knew from the angle of his head and the worshipful way the young woman beamed back at him, that he loved her and she loved him. Still, Leah could not bring herself to leave until Nick had escorted his hostess back inside.

He’s going to ride home and take tea with me, asking about my afternoon and pretending to care. He won’t be honest, but he’ll be as kind as he can be.

And sitting alone on the hill, Leah hated him for it.

For all of about three minutes. Sustained ill will toward him would have been quite handy, except Nick had been honest when it counted. He’d never lied to Leah about his availability as a husband, never tried to convince her she held his heart or he wanted to hold her heart. Nick was as much a victim of circumstance as she was, and there was nothing to be gained by dramatics.

There never had been.

Leah had no recollection of returning to Clover Down, but as she made her way down the aisle in the stables, petting velvety equine noses and carrying a fat yellow tomcat purring against her middle, she heard Nick’s voice in the yard.