He hadn’t wanted to fight. His opponent hadn’t either, and if he gave the other boy a broken leg, it was likely the boy would not have to fight for the rest of the year. Often, not ever again.
One night, when he’d had too much to drink, he’d shared his past with Maria. She’d been shocked. She’d learned to forgive him but had never trusted him.
It was why he clung to his books, keeping Cass’ business in order while staying out of everything that had to do with people.
And then Elisa had closed her eyes and opened her arms to him. Without hesitation, without question, and with a glorious smile on her lips.
As he’d carried her to his carriage, his mind told him to not let her go. He’d held her tight even while knowing she was promised to someone else.
Two gentlemen, it seemed. There was no doubt in Nick’s mind that Alguire would come after her again.
The mystery surrounding her only seemed to grow.
Nick didn’t know the details and vowed to not ask for them. He needed to stay clear of Elisa and aside from himself, he only trusted Astger to keep her safe.
But Elisa’s screaming made a mockery of his plan. He wouldn’t be able to stay away and know she was touched in the head; he couldn’t leave her with anyone else.
He’d have to stay with her, if only because of her madness.
With the command for the carriage to stop obeyed, he easily caught up and got off his horse. He’d ridden behind the group just in case Alguire’s men managed to catch up.
Astger got out of the carriage and slammed the door. “I’m not doing this,” he grumbled. “You can’t make me.”
Elisa stuck her head out the window and wrinkled her nose at the general’s back and Nick chuckled.
“The great Lord Astger can’t handle a small woman?” Nick asked.
Astger lowered his voice. “When I agreed to repay Van Dero for what he did for my sister’s boy, this was not what I bargained for.” Astger’s nephew’s life had been spared during one of Cassius’ first campaigns to end the child fights.
Nick glanced at Elisa and then turned to the general again. “Soldiers have been known to guard valuable objects before.”
Astger scoffed. “Objects don’t run their mouths as she does. Objects just sit there, being good to the eye.” Astger snarled. “She’s appealing but not enough to make me stay in that carriage a second longer.”
“I can hear you,” Elisa said.
Astger turned to her. “Can you now?” he mocked.
Elisa narrowed her eyes. “Not really, but I would guess that you’re complaining like a small child at the moment.”
The men around them struggled to hold back their laughter as Astger’s mouth gaped. “You did not just call me a child.”
Nicholas didn’t bother holding back his own outburst of merriment. If he was going to make this journey, he might as well enjoy it.
Elisa turned her brandy eyes to him. “Hello.”
He’d never heard a more sensual greeting than that.
He struggled to make a decision about what to do. If he wished, he could force Astger to get back into the carriage. Though the general wasn’t employed by Nick, he had been given to him by Van Dero.
But Nick thought it best not to test the general at the moment. Nick, on the other hand, as Van Dero pointed out, was much better at charming women.
So long as Nick remembered to keep his dealings with Elisa professional, he could foresee few issues.
“Go,” Nicholas told Astger. “I’ll ride with the lady.”
It was a bad decision on his part, but it had been some time since Nick had thrown caution to the wind. Surely, the wind was due.
But they would not be alone, Nick decided. He wasn’t that foolish.
Nick turned to a young soldier who was sitting on a horse nearby. “Come.” Then he climbed into the carriage and settled across from her. Wade followed and Nick introduced him.
Elisa straightened her skirts. “I apologize for delaying this journey, but I had to speak to you before we went any farther.”
He interrupted her. “Are you hungry? I think my men took a jar of comfits from Alguire’s carriage.”
Her eyes widened. “Don’t eat them. They could be poisoned.”
“Poisoned?” Nick laughed. “I had a few already. They are quite delicious. I doubt Alguire has the skill to make such decadence, much less lace it with poison. It would take the Queen of Poisons to pull off such a thing.”
“Queen of what?”
He shook his head. There was no point in introducing her mind to the dark figures of England. “Never mind that. Know that your comfort—”
“I can’t leave London,” she said. “There is something I need to do here.” She glanced at Wade just as the carriage got underway.
He could only imagine the hundreds of things Lady Elisa wished to do now that she was free, but he had not been asked to give in to whims… even if a portion of him wanted to. “That’s impossible. I’ve been charged to keep you safe. We’re to head to my estate, as planned.”
She blew out a frustrated breath. “And what makes your estate safer than London?”
“Well, for one, I have a moat.”
Her eyes rounded. “A moat?”
“With a drawbridge.”
“I thought only castles had moats.”
“It is a castle. Not as grand as Buckingham but a castle nonetheless.”
She turned to Wade. “Is this true? Are we going to a castle?”
Wade looked surprised to be addressed. “I don’t know, my lady. I’ve never been to Lord Nicholas’ estate. However, I do know he is a man who does not lie.”
Nick liked the young man’s answer.
Wade had started his life as a pickpocket who’d somehow managed to make enough coin to buy his way into His Majesty’s army. Not every man who worked for the duke had started life on the straight and narrow, but they were all good men now… mostly.
Nick turned by to Elisa to see how it affected her thoughts.
She sighed. “Very well. I suppose I am interested in seeing this castle, but eventually, I must get to London and soon.”
“Your brother will take you within a month’s time.”
“A month?”
“Yes.”
“No, you will take me before then.”
Nick lifted a brow, surprised and intrigued by her confidence. He tried to tell himself not to be intrigued, but it was too late. “Why do you believe that I will take you to London before the appointed time?”
She smiled softly, knowingly, enchantingly. “Because I am planning on convincing you to do it.”
∫ ∫ ∫
0 8
* * *
He could keep from her if he liked, but Elisa knew there was no denying the attraction between them. It was there in Nicholas’ eyes. Even as they sat across from one another, she could see his struggle. He was trying to hold himself back, but his eyes wanted.
She knew the want of a man. Elisa had always been aware of her strengths.
While taking tea one afternoon a few years ago, a dear friend of Elisa’s mother’s had once said, “With your round face and eyes, one could think you a child, but with a slight shift of your features, one glimpses a hidden maturity. You’ve not the beauty of a swan or its tranquil grace. You’re more a doe, something that men will wish to protect and hunt at the same time. Deer have a different sort of grace. It is fluid but far more pronounced. One never forgets seeing a deer soar. Never.”
After that, Elisa had learned to embrace soaring. Being unforgettable.
With words and expression, she had drawn Lord Alguire and many others.
Yet something else tied her to Lord Nicholas. It was undeniable, and she was certain that given the chance, she could get her way.
But that would only be if he gave her the chance.
Nicholas’s lids went half-mast. “My lady, I can assure you that once I make my mind up about something, it is not so ea
sily changed.”
Wade pretended he wasn’t listening as he turned to look out the window, but Elisa was very much aware that they had his ears.
She spoke to Nicholas. “The general was supposed to ride in the carriage with me, was he not?”
Nicholas sighed. “Yes, however—”
“And the young Mr. Wade was supposed to ride with the others?” she asked
He crossed his arms and said nothing.
She went on. “And you were supposed to ride… well, I don’t know exactly where—”
He cut in. “I see your point. However, from this moment on, we shall be sticking to my plan.” His eyes were unyielding and bid her to break underneath them.
Elisa didn’t look away as she whispered, “Very well.” If they were going to stick to his plan then she would simply have to make her plan his plan. How she’d do that, she had no clue, but the prospect of interacting with the man across from her was more exciting than anything she’d done in years.
* * *
As Elisa continued to hold his expression unflinchingly, Nicholas reminded himself that the lady still had no clue who he was.
And even more, her mind did not work as most women’s did.
Still, he didn’t like that she challenged him, especially in front of young Wade. If not corrected, she’d begin to think herself actually in charge.
In a way, she outranked him. She was the daughter of a duke and he was the second son of an earl, but he’d make it clear that rank and beauty would not sway him.
“You should rest, my lady.” He placed an ankle over his knee. “I hear sleep is good for one in your position.”
Young Wade began to choke and cough loudly.
Elisa paled and her mouth fell open. A mixed expression of surprise and undeniable pain filled her face.
Nick had to bite his tongue to stop from offering an apology, reminding himself that he’d not done or said anything that wasn’t correct.
Yet the longer their gazes held, the worse the tightening in his chest became. The feeling was so sudden that he hadn’t known it was there until he was reaching for the place that held his heart and rubbing it gently.
Though Elisa didn’t say a word, he felt the link of fragile trust being severed. At least for her. He’d never trusted her, but he knew she’d trusted him.
As her eyes softened and she put a gentle lift in her chin—an action that said she still would not yield to his authority, not truly—he knew the moment they’d shared was no more.
Which was good. He needed every firm reminder he could that Elisa and he were from different worlds and never should the two meet again. This chance moment would pass. She would fade from his memory just as he would from hers.
This was a simple job. She was a job. It was the way it had to be.
She finally said, “I don’t know if it will make a difference to you, but I’ve all my sensibilities.”
“You’re right,” he told her. “It doesn’t make a difference.”
She narrowed her gaze and then turned away.
She likely hated him now, which again, he thought best.
For the next few weeks, he planned to make himself especially busy and avoid his charge at all cost.
∫ ∫ ∫
0 9
* * *
Elisa was in a private drawing-room the next morning when General Astger stormed in.
“What is this?” His eyes were as hard as onyx. He held up a missive.
Elisa had written it the previous night. She’d given it to a maid to deliver to the general a little less than an hour ago. “It’s an apology,” she told him. “My behavior was inexcusable. You were only doing what you were asked to do. I pray I didn’t offend you too greatly.”
She’d thought it over all last night and decided it was time to act more a lady and less like the prisoner she’d been for five years. It would take time for her to adjust, but she would take it one day at a time.
Nicholas’ words had pushed her to that reality. Elisa had always found it hard to not be the person everyone told her she was, yet as she’d taken in her new surroundings, there was one thing she no longer was.
A patient at Bedlam.
As a patient, she’d had to learn to think brightly, just as she was doing now.
She’d abandoned her plan to convince Nicholas of anything. She neither wished for his aid nor his friendship, but it didn’t have to be that way with everyone.
Astger sat down across from her.
“Tea?” she asked. There was a tray on the tea table between them. She had a cup in her own hand.
“I recall the other day that you wished to go to London,” the general said instead of answering her question. “Letters with kind words will not persuade me to take you back.”
She smiled. “Are you always so serious?”
“When you constantly face life and death, you become serious or you die.”
She sighed. “Perhaps.” She stared down at her tea. “I’ve never faced death, but I have… suffered.” She glanced up when the general shifted in his chair. His expression was still guarded. “But I enjoy being happy. There is no better feeling in the world. While at Bedlam, I found making others happy the best way to make yourself happy. Though that’s not to say it is the reason I do it, make others happy, I mean.” She laughed. “I just… want you to be happy. And the others.”
“The others?” He frowned.
Elisa put down her cup and stood. “I’ve written a letter to all your men.”
“All of them?” he asked, warily. “Why?”
“I just told you.” She moved to the writing desk and held up a stack. “But I don’t know all their names, so you’ll have to help me address them.”
Astger studied her with a brooding look. “You’ll never convince any of my men to help you. They’ll never disobey me.”
Was the man not listening?
She stared at him. His body was positioned in a way she thought a warrior would sit. He leaned slightly forward, as if ready to spring at the very first attack.
Turning toward the writing desk, Elisa picked up a snuff box. Swiftly, she threw it at him.
He caught it with ease and then looked down at the object before looking at her. “Why did you throw this at me?”
She shrugged. “You seemed so prepared for danger. I thought to give it to you.”
She laughed at his confused expression.
“A snuff box will not kill me,” he said.
She doubted anything could. “And neither will I. I am waving a white flag, General.” She took out her handkerchief and waved it in the air. “There? You see? No danger.”
When he continued to glare, Elisa blew out a breath. Perhaps, there was no breaking the man.
“What do the other letters say?”
“Words of encouragement, praise, and gratitude. I worked very hard to make each one different.” There were twelve men. It had not been easy.
Astger leaned back in his chair and looked away. His brows were still drawn down, but then he looked at her. “You say you do this out of kindness? To make the soldiers happy?”
“My uncle used to let me write to the patients at Bedlam. I wrote the guards as well. The missives were always small. Sometimes, nothing more than two or three lines, but I was informed that it could be sunlight on even the most dreary of days.”
Astger looked down at the note in his hand. “It was a very nice letter.”
She moved back to the tea table, taking her letters with her. “When is the last time someone wrote to you?”
When he caught her eyes again, his were guarded. “What do you hope to accomplish by giving me this?”
She wanted to shake him. “Peace. That is all.”
Another soldier walked in.
It was young Wade. “Good morning, my lady. I’ve been assigned to watch you this morning.”
She smiled. He was the only soldier whose name she knew. She’d written him a special letter. “Come. I h
ave something for you.”
Wade looked at his general.
Astger looked concerned but nodded.
Wade stopped before her, and Elisa handed him his letter. It was folded with his name on the front. “This is for you.”
He took it and stared at his name. Then he opened it and scanned the page before he closed it. Pain flashed in his eyes. “Thank you.” He turned away.
Disappointment struck Elisa’s heart. “Well, you can read it in your own time.”
“I… will.” He looked at the front of the missive again and his fingers brushed over each letter in his name.
A thought came to Elisa’s mind, but she dismissed it… before she allowed it to return. Then she pondered on it and finally said, “Oh, Wade! That’s the wrong missive. It says someone else’s name. Let me get yours.”
He turned and glared at her. “I recognize my name when I see it, my lady.”
She knew the reason for his pain now and his anger. “You recognize it, but can you read it?”
He straightened. “My inability to read will not prevent me from protecting you.”
She smiled. “I have no doubt that you are more than capable of protecting me. Otherwise, there is no way General Astger would have allowed you to come.” She turned to the general. “Isn’t that right?”
Astger nodded, but he remained silent. He was observing them, her more so.
She turned back to Wade. “The letter I wrote to you is special. I would like for you to read it. Can you?”
Wade held her eyes. “No. I was never given a formal education.”
She moved closer to him. “Then I shall teach you to read it. I have taught men to read before.”
“You have?” Astger suddenly asked.
She nodded but decided not to say those men had been patients at Bedlam.
“Perhaps, you can read it to me,” Wade suggested. “That way I do not waste your time.”
She touched his arm. “So long as you try, it will never be a waste of my time.” She grabbed his other arm. “I am so thankful for what you are doing for me. Reading shall be my second gift to you so that one day you will be able to enjoy the first. Please, allow me to give this to you.”
A Knight of Vengeance: (The Valiant Love Regency Romance) (A Historical Romance Book) Page 5
