Nicholas: Lord of Secrets (7 page)

“You are stealing my lines as well as my breath,” Nick muttered. He stepped back, softening the loss by smoothing a lock of her hair over her ear.

“You’ve used that line frequently?”

“Countless times,” Nick said, hating himself but keeping his voice as light as he could. He really did not favor lying to women, no matter what that made him in their eyes.

“I wish you weren’t so honest.” Leah shifted back, and Nick feared she was regretting her advances.

“I wish you weren’t so pretty,” Nick rejoined. “I wish you had an honorable papa. Now, how about you introduce me to your negligent brother?”

He led her back around to the doors opening into the ballroom, and she even suffered his scrutiny when he made her tarry under a torch that he might inspect her presentation. Nick prided himself on being able to kiss a woman passionately without messing her hair, but had to ask her to smooth his back into place. She obliged by sifting her fingers repeatedly through his hair, until he had to straighten, clear his throat, and deliver a mental lecture to parts of him that were getting untoward ideas from even such a simple, casual caress.

Darius nodded at Nick’s retreating back, Lady Blanche Cowell nigh wrapped around Reston’s arm as they walked away. “So where did you meet that?”

“I met
him
in the park with Emily,” Leah said, and then because the dratted woman’s perusal of Nick had been so possessive even as she’d clung to Darius’s elbow, “Where did you meet
her
?”

“She’s frequently at the same functions you are,” Darius said, delivering what Leah suspected was a lie—Darius was nigh gulping his wine. “She travels in a slightly less genteel circle.”

“Lord Reston apparently frequents the same set.” And that hurt, even while it also reminded Leah that Nick’s aid was a product of chivalry, nothing more.

“You needn’t sound so offended, Sister mine. I will run screaming into the night if Blanche gives up the juicy prey on her arm and returns her attentions to me.”

There was something off in Darius’s observation, for all he’d handled the introductions with careful punctilio. “You don’t like Reston?”

“I like him well enough, though I can’t say I know him.”

Ah. Darius did not like Blanche Cowell, then. When Leah and Nick had come upon Darius literally in Blanche’s clutches, Leah’s brother’s expression had been one of banked despair. The notion that Leah had abandoned her brother when he might have needed her was insupportable. “Is Lady Cowell trifling with you?”

Darius scowled at her. “I am not going to dignify that, unless you want to tell me if Reston is trifling with you. Shall I lead you out or find you a place to hide?”

“Leave me in peace.” She wasn’t up to concealing her emotions from her brother, but knew if they went home before supper, her father would be railing at her, reminding her he didn’t spend a fortune on ball gowns so she could hide away at home night after night.

“Keep an eye out for Hell-raiser,” Darius warned. “If you see him, find me or Lord Val, or even your new friend Reston.”

Leah waved him off with a flick of her fan and sank onto a bench nearly obscured by potted plants. She loved her brothers, and she owed them more than she could ever repay, but Darius of late had been more than a little trying.

If she did see Hellerington, she was under strict orders from Wilton to be pleasant to the man, just as she was supposed to be pleasant to Reston.

And look what had come of that.

She blushed anew at her forwardness and at Reston’s careful retreat. He was trying to help her, for pity’s sake, and she had to behave like the strumpet her father believed her to be.

A ruthlessly honest part of her had to admit, though, that strumpethood had never been so appealing. Reston’s scent was divine, and dancing with him… When Nick Haddonfield held her, she felt protected, cherished, understood, and… treasured. When he kissed her, she felt all that, and so much more that was wicked, wonderful, and hopeless.

She didn’t know how much time went by while she sorted feelings, arguments, and more feelings, but in the end, she could only conclude she’d suffered a lapse of judgment when she’d kissed Nick—kissed him
again
. He was a flirt, that much was obvious, and she’d misread his generous willingness to dance with her on the back terrace. It was just more of his kindness, no doubt. She’d have to apologize, relocate her dignity, and watch her step in the future.

“Pining for me?” Reston’s mellow bass-baritone startled her out of her reverie, only to be followed by the surprising bulk of him settling in beside her on the bench. “I feel like a bunny rabbit, peering out from between the fern hedges. You have a knack for finding hiding places. Still no sign of Hellerington?”

“My lord.” Leah’s tone was cool, which seemed only to amuse him.

“Reston?” Nick arched an eyebrow. “At your service, and so forth? Are you going to make me start all over with the elementary civilities like an errant schoolboy who’s offended teacher at the dame school?”

“I am not up to your humor, my lord.”

Nick surveyed her with a thoughtful frown. “You are not out of charity with me because of the time I spent with you on the terrace, though you should be, but you are out of charity with me because I rescued your poor, beleaguered brother from Lady Blanche’s clutches. Am I right?”

Rescued Darius? Perhaps he had, but still… “She was familiar to you. Familiar
with
you.”

“Leah, I am a single young man of good fortune and rank, and that makes me part hound. The Lady Blanches of this world
consort
with dogs according to very well-understood and sensible rules, and the Lady Leahs of the world do not. I am not proud of such associations, but I am capable of treating decent women decently. Blanche is a dog of a sort herself, and you should not envy her.”

She liked that he was honest with her, more honest even than her brothers could be. “I am to feel sorry for her?”

“You really should. She is lonely, mean, pathetic, and headed for a miserable existence. Warn your brother off her if you get the chance. Now, the supper waltz is coming up, and you owe it to me to let me prove I can behave. Will you do me the honor?”

“I’d rather not.” She wanted to; she wanted to so very badly, which meant she ought not.

“If I’m to credibly court you, lovey”—Nick bumped her shoulder gently with his own, which was rather like being nudged by a well-mannered horse—“you’re going to have to be seen with me, and supper will start the tongues wagging nicely. Now don’t be difficult. There are always sacrifices to be made in the course of being rescued.”

“You won’t jolly me out of this,” Leah said, though she was feeling unaccountably more sanguine.

Nick smiled over at her, a smile full of flirtation the likes of which Leah hadn’t seen since, well,
ever
. A smile like that made a woman wonder if she might show off just a hint more of her bosom, or perhaps tap the handle of her fan against her lips. Slowly. Repeatedly.

“You remind me of my grandmother again.” Nick rose and extended a hand down to her, the same hand that had cradled her jaw so tenderly. “This is a great compliment, I assure you. I am not asking you to forgive me my private associations, Leah, just tolerate a few minutes in my company for a good cause.”

“Oh, very well.” Leah rose without his assistance just to make her point, but let him stand up with her and lead her in to supper. The dance was different, of course. Nick held her at the proper distance, though he twirled her down the room with the same sense of utter competence she’d found so appealing on the darkened terrace. On one or two turns, he did pull her in a little too closely. Leah had the impression he was doing it to maintain appearances, that it was expected that Lord Reston—part hound—couldn’t help but flirt with whatever lady was to hand.

How utterly not flattering.

“And now we line up at the trough with our fellow shoats,” Nick leaned down to whisper in her ear. “Can we return to your hedge-bench to eat in relative peace?”

“You are flirting,” Leah whispered back. “It’s tiresome.”

“It’s expected.” His nose bumped her temple—which had to be an accident, didn’t it? “Of both of us, if I might remind you.”

He was right, damn him and his canine attributes. Leah arranged a smile on her face, and let Nick fill up her plate, and one for himself as well.

He leaned in again to speak close to her ear. “Now we make our escape, or Lady Blanche will find me unprotected and start pestering me.”

“Poor Nick.” Leah’s voice dripped with irony. “Too bad for her she doesn’t have a papa like mine.”

Nick bent close, maybe too close. “She did. That’s how she ended up with her current spouse. He’s not a bad sort, but he’s hardly a young girl’s dream. Still, he had the title, you know?”

“Papas are the very devil,” Leah allowed on a sigh, but she’d used Reston’s name—just like that, and it had come easily and it fit him and she wanted to say it again to herself, over and over.

“Papas, brothers, nephews, all the very devil,” Nick said as he got them arranged on their bench with plates on their laps. “I’m a neighbor of your brother, by the way. Would you like a strawberry?”

“I adore fruit,” Leah said, glancing at his plate. “You didn’t tell me there were strawberries.”

“I got enough for both of us. Here.” He held up a strawberry, not to pass to her plate, but rather before her mouth, for her to take from his hand. She watched his eyes, and the teasing she’d seen there earlier shifted, first cooling then heating to a silent dare.

Holding his gaze, Leah leaned forward, touched her tongue to the succulent red berry, then took it between her teeth.

“My thanks.” She chewed slowly then swallowed. “Delicious.”

Nick, looking gratifyingly disconcerted for once, simply passed her his plate and surrendered the rest of his strawberries.

***

Thinking of you.

Blue salvia, Leah learned from a book her mother had given her as a child, meant “thinking of you.”

How interesting, and how odd that Ni—Leah caught herself—Lord Reston had included it in his bouquet and conveniently forgotten its significance. In the long-dormant part of her soul from which feminine intuition sprang, Leah suspected he’d known good and well what the flower meant, and he’d included it on purpose.

And forgotten its meaning with the same sense of purpose.

Reston had chosen his bouquet with care and an unerring sense for what was lacking in her life.

“Pretty,” Wilton remarked, eyeing the bouquet as he sauntered into the family parlor. “I have to commend the man for showing some strategy.”

“I beg your pardon?” Leah resisted the urge to get to her feet. Wilton might interpret it as a sign of respect, though more likely a sign of weakness.

“Reston is courting your sister,” Wilton said, touching the little white snowdrops.
Why
didn’t they wilt on contact?
“He’s scouting the terrain, forming an ally, gathering information before he tips his hand.”

“No doubt.”

Wilton eyed her pensively. He was a good-looking man, tall, trim, with even features and a full head of white hair. His smile, when he produced one, gave Leah chills nonetheless.

“Perhaps he thinks to take you off my hands,” Wilton said. “I cannot credit his taste, but his coin will spend as easily as the next man’s. You’ll have him, if he offers.”

“He won’t offer for me.” Leah bent to her book, turning a page as if in idle perusal.

“You will do nothing to deter him from that possibility,” Wilton informed her icily. “Your sister can reach higher, but you will take what’s offered and be grateful.”

“Aren’t we being premature, my lord?” Leah strove for an indifferent tone. “One bouquet does not a courtship make.”

“One bouquet, a supper waltz, several meetings in the park,” Wilton shot back. “Don’t think you’re ever far from my sight, girl. Your brothers can’t hide your comings and goings, and neither will you, if you value their happiness.”

“I value their happiness,” Leah said, and thinking to offer a placatory display of submissiveness, she added, “and if Reston offers, I will accept him.”

“Of course you will. If he’s stupid enough to make that mistake, I will not preserve him from his folly.”

Having left the requisite ill feeling and discontent behind him, Wilton stalked out, calling for a footman. His footsteps had barely died away before Leah looked up to see the bouquet with its blue salvia directly in her line of sight. By the time Wilton had slammed out the front door, she felt the first tear sliding down her silly, foolish, wretched cheek.

***

Colonel Lord Harcourt Haddonfield, fourteenth Earl of Bellefonte, had not enjoyed a decent bowel movement in weeks, by which evidence he concluded that death was indeed stalking him. He had some time, maybe even weeks, before the filthy blighter actually took him down, but when a man couldn’t preside competently over the lowliest throne in the land, what dignity was there left in living?

Neither one of his deceased wives would have understood that sentiment or appreciated its vulgar utterance even in private, which thought provoked a faint smile. Good ladies they had been, but ladies through and through.

His heir shared his appreciation for the fairer sex, which was a bloody damned relief. George, the third boy, was a nancy piece. Beckman was deuced independent, and Adolphus, who aspired to professordom, would be unlikely to marry young.

“My lord,” Soames intoned, “a Mr. Ethan Grey to see you. He did not leave a card.”

Soames had been with the earl for only ten years and could be forgiven his ignorance. He could not be forgiven for sneaking up on his employer.

The earl turned a glacial blue eye on the hapless man. “Soames, if you have to pound the damned door to sawdust, you do not intrude on your betters unannounced, and you do not intimate I am going deaf, when I can hear every damned footman and boot boy sneaking about and pinching the maids.”

“Profuse apologies, my lord.” Soames bowed low, his expression betraying not a flicker of amusement or irritation. “Shall I show the gentleman in?”

“The gentleman is my firstborn,” the earl said more quietly. “Of course you show him in, but give me a minute first, and hustle the damned tea tray along, if you please.”

“Of course, my lord.” Soames bowed again and glided out.

The earl waited, wondering what one said to a wronged child grown into a wronged man. He’d kept track of Ethan, of course. He’d also paid his bills through university, managed his late mother’s little property, managed the modest sum he’d set aside for the boy, and was managing it still, as the cheeky bastard—well, no, probably not the wisest word choice—the cheeky devil wouldn’t touch a penny of it.

“My lord.” Soames had on his company face and used his company voice. “Mr. Ethan Grey, late of London.”

“Thank you, Soames.” The earl waved him off and took in Ethan’s appearance with poorly veiled gratification. He’d most recently caught a glimpse of Ethan three, maybe five years ago, and in the intervening years the last vestiges of the youth had been thoroughly matured out of the man. At thirty-some years old, Ethan was quite tall, like all the Haddonfield men, with golden-blond hair, arctic-blue eyes, and a damned good-looking bas—fellow to boot. He had a little of Nick’s aristocratic features, too, but more hauteur than Nick aspired to and a leaner frame.