She tapped her glass against his. ‘This is better than anything I thought I’d be doing tonight.’ Nicholas didn’t need to ask what that would have been. She would have been packing, making last-minute preparations, and saying goodbye. ‘You were supposed to be gone. I’m glad you’re not.’
‘Me, too.’ Nicholas smiled softly, his gaze lingering on her mouth. He meant it. He’d had far more fun putting together this impromptu birthday celebration for Annorah than he would have had at the opera.
She raised her glass. ‘I believe it’s customary for the recipient of a toast to offer the next one. To you, Nicholas. This is beyond any of my imaginings.’
He was touched. Annorah’s appreciation of those efforts was far more meaningful than Lady Burnham’s desire to show him off to all her friends. ‘If this is beyond your imagining, wait until after dinner, my dear. The night is young and so are we.’
He’d expected her to laugh at the little joke, but Annorah cocked her head and studied him, becoming serious. ‘I’m turning thirty-three. How old are you?’
‘Twenty-eight,’ he said truthfully, although there’d been a split second where he’d considered lying and saying thirty-three.
She looked down at her glass. ‘I’m not so young any more.’
‘Is thirty-three old?’
Annorah shrugged. ‘Society thinks it is. My aunt thinks it is. It means I’ll never have children of my own. I might manage to snare a widower and raise his children if I’m lucky.’
The similarity he’d felt with her that first night surfaced again. He knew what it was to give up hopes of that magnitude. Nicholas reached for her hand. ‘There will be no more of that talk. We can’t know what the future holds. It does us little good to worry over it.’ Worry could no more change the future than it could prevent it.
Nicholas reached into his pocket, hoping to use his gift as a diversion. His fingers tightened over the little box. ‘Where I come from, birthdays are often commemorated with a gift.’ He put the box in her lap.
‘How?’ she asked with no small amount of awe. ‘How could you do all this and come up with a gift? I wasn’t gone that long.’
Nicholas smiled. ‘Haven’t you learned not to ask? Let the impossible take care of itself. You don’t need to know everything, it ruins all the fun. Besides, you haven’t opened it yet.’
He held his breath as Annorah unfastened the lid. He watched her eyes light up and found himself smiling along with her. The cameo pendant dangled from her fingers, the filigree of the thin chain catching the light. ‘It’s gorgeous.’ She paused, studying the detail work on the cameo engraving. ‘It’s too much. I can’t possibly accept it.’
‘Yes, you can.’ Nicholas took the cameo from her and stepped behind her. He undid the clasp, surprised to find his fingers trembling a bit, and slid it about her neck, his hands resting on her shoulders. ‘It’s my mother’s. She gave it to me when I left home and now I want you to have it, as a personal gift from me, apart from any other arrangement we have.’ He kissed her neck, breathing in the lemon-citrus scent of her. He could feel her pulse quicken beneath his lips where he touched her.
Her hand covered the cameo where it lay against her throat. ‘I don’t know what to say.’ He could hear the catch in her voice. The gift had moved her. He was glad he’d taken the risk.
‘Then say nothing. I want tonight to be for us alone, a night apart from all else. Can it be that, Annorah, or have I presumed too much?’
Her eyes were closed as she leaned into him, her lips reaching up to brush his cheek, her neck arched, her throat exposed. His mother’s cameo had never looked lovelier or more right than it did around Annorah’s neck.
‘Yes, Nicholas,’ she breathed, ‘we can have tonight.’ They were not out of the woods yet and they both knew it. A fiancé was a different thing than a husband. But he could not saddle her with himself permanently without telling her all that he was.
* * *
Whenever she’d imagined decadent fantasies, she’d always imagined something like this, but this was better, far better. They ate dinner, they drank champagne, he fed her strawberries and cake over candlelight with the moon coming up outside. No wonder women swooned over him. He could make even the fantasy seem brilliantly real. When he stood and said her favourite three words, ‘Come with me’, she didn’t hesitate.
Only he didn’t take her to bed as she anticipated. He took her to the porch of the summerhouse overlooking the lake. ‘Have you ever swum naked? Have you ever worn moonlight and only moonlight?’ His voice was a decadent caress at her ear. ‘Tonight you shall do both.’
He undressed her then, until she stood naked before him, and she was not ashamed. She was proud that his eyes glittered like dark sapphires when he looked at her, that her body pleased him. What a glorious, splendid thing honest sexuality was. It was one of the many gifts he’d given her. Nicholas stripped out of his clothes in record time and gave her a wink. ‘Last one in is a rotten egg.’ He executed a perfect dive off the porch and she followed him.
They swam and splashed. She revelled in the play of the moonlight over his sleek muscles. He pulled her into his arms and their play took on a more seductive cast. She wrapped her legs about him, letting him carry her back to the porch and boost her up.
‘Now for the second part,’ Nicholas flirted. ‘Time to wear the moonlight.’
‘I thought we’d already done that.’ Annorah heard the desire in her own voice as she flirted back.
‘Not like this we haven’t. Wrap your legs about me again,’ he ordered, his own voice husky. He lifted her and bore her back to the wall. She was starting to have some idea of how they’d wear the moonlight and her body thrummed with the thrill of it. They’d been intimate in the outdoors before, but not like this, not with a certain rush of heat, coming hot and fast between them.
He came into her hard and fast, balancing her against the wall. She cried out and gripped him tight. This was ecstasy at its finest. The sheer power and strength of him was on display, the moonlight falling across his dark hair. ‘Scream for me, Annorah,’ he rasped, withdrawing and plunging again and again until she had no choice to do anything other than that. ‘Howl at the moon.’
Howl she did. Release was upon her and she let loose her cries into the night, a celebration of life and perhaps even a celebration of love or something that passed very, very close to it. For tonight that was enough. Nicholas had given her exactly what she needed. She could howl at the moon and for a while the madness of her world was held at bay.
Chapter Fourteen
This was madness. Absolute madness! Irrational panic gripped Annorah as the carriage rolled to a stop on the gravel drive of her aunt’s home. She was about to pass off the likes of Nicholas D’Arcy as a fiancé in the hopes of saving both the estate and her freedom. If her ruse was discovered, the consequences would be devastating. They would put paid to any future matrimonial hopes, or any chance of saving the estate. In the forty-eight hours since she’d made her rash proposal to Nicholas, she’d not allowed herself to dwell on the consequences. But now they hit her full force.
She took a deep breath to steady her nerves and silently repeated the mantra she’d formed: she was perfectly safe, she was risking nothing except her pride. She would not be caught. It was true. She could believe this. Nicholas knew his job. He could be trusted to execute his role flawlessly. No one would recognise him.
She’d have to find a way to explain the lack of a wedding in a year and she still had to have an answer to the dilemma that would resurface then, but that seemed a small detail to weigh in the balance of avoiding Bartholomew Redding. The past had not been kind to her when it came to intrigues of the heart, Bartholomew Redding not the least in that regard. She’d not been entirely truthful with Nicholas when it came to her situation. Bartholomew Redding was not a new suitor her aunt
was throwing at her, but rather a piece of her past, an old suitor come again to stake his claim. Redding wasn’t the only thing she hadn’t told him. She hadn’t told him about the settlements either. She hoped he wouldn’t hate her once he figured out exactly how much she was worth to a husband.
‘Nervous?’ Nicholas asked. She could hear the coachman outside getting down and setting the steps. There were only seconds left before all this became real.
‘A little. Are you?’
Nicholas smiled lazily. ‘No. You shouldn’t be either. People will believe what we tell them to believe and see what we tell them to see.’ Annorah wished she had half of his optimism. She made a joke in her head: he only knew half of it. If he knew everything, his optimism might fade. He didn’t know Redding, he didn’t know about the settlements and he didn’t know her aunt. Aunt Georgina would be very disappointed at the latest flanking movement to her plans.
The steps were set and the door opened. Nicholas gave her a wink and exited first, turning back to give her a hand down. His grip was warm and reassuring. Annorah looked up at the house and pressed a hand to her stomach. Badger Place had never inspired positive images for her. It was her aunt’s husband’s home and it was smaller than Hartshaven, although still large enough to impressively entertain with its tall, sharp roof lines and enormous bay windows. Her uncle had inherited it shortly before they’d left Hartshaven, but it had never felt like home to Annorah. The worst years, the worst scenes of her life, had played out in these halls.
Nicholas shot her a sly sideways glance and murmured, ‘I suppose it’s nice enough, if you like this sort of thing.’
She smiled back and felt the knot in her stomach ease. How it was that he could know her very thoughts was beyond her, but she was grateful for it just as she had been last night.
‘Annorah, you’re here!’ Aunt Georgina sailed out of the door and down the shallow set of front steps to the drive, her arms open wide for an embrace, giving a good imitation of familial affection. Uncle Andrew was right behind her, his usual stiff self. One did not hug Uncle Andrew, which was fine by her. He was a gruff man who held himself apart from others, clinging to every scrap of social status he could muster from his position in the community as its squire and magistrate.
Annorah allowed the embrace and the kiss on the cheek that followed. Her aunt stood back. ‘Just look at you, my dear! Has it been a year already? Oh, that reminds me, happy birthday.’ Her aunt smiled. ‘Speaking of birthdays, I have a birthday present for you, someone I’d like you to meet. I wrote about him in the letter, Mr Bartholomew Redding—’
Annorah cut her aunt off politely. ‘I have someone I’d like you to meet, a birthday surprise of my own.’ She was becoming accomplished at these vague truths. There wasn’t a single word of untruth in that statement. She gestured to Nicholas, who’d had the good grace to step back while the brief reunion took place. He came forwards now, all handsome smiles, stunning her aunt into absolute silence. ‘Aunt Georgina, Uncle Andrew, this is Mister Nicholas D’Arcy, my fiancé.’
A flicker of unfriendly disbelief crossed Aunt Georgina’s features for the briefest of moments before it was carefully masked with a more appropriate response. ‘Annorah, dear, how long have you been engaged? Why didn’t you say anything? We would have thrown you an engagement ball.’ I doubt it, Annorah thought uncharitably. There’d be no gain in it for you. She ought to have been thinking of an answer. It wouldn’t do to falter so early in the ruse, but her mind was most inconveniently blank.
It was Nicholas who answered, putting a quietly possessive hand at her elbow. ‘We decided it very recently, didn’t we, Annorah?’
‘Yes.’ Annorah’s brain was starting to work again. ‘It hardly made sense to write to you, when we’d be seeing you in person so soon.’ She could see her aunt’s mind reeling with a million questions and a thousand schemes. This was an unexpected turn of events that cut her aunt’s favourite, Redding, out of the picture.
‘Well, this is news indeed.’ Uncle Andrew stepped forwards at last and shook Nicholas’s hand, albeit reluctantly. ‘We should go inside so we don’t neglect our other guests. There will be plenty of time for you to tell us everything, Annorah.’ He shot a sharp, assessing eye at Nicholas. ‘And to get to know you as well. Welcome to Badger Place, Mr D’Arcy.’ The words were correct, all that ritual politeness required, but Annorah couldn’t help feeling Badger Place was about to live up to its name.
Guests had been arriving all afternoon and were assembled in chatty little groups throughout the drawing room, sipping on tea and eating tiny frosted cakes. Done in pale shades of a limey green and finished with crisp white mouldings, the drawing room was her aunt’s pride and joy. Two large, expensive carpets by Thomas Whitty adorned the hardwood floors. The one near the fireplace bore a specially woven depiction of Uncle Andrew’s family coat of arms—a badger armed with a sword and an axe and the motto stitched above him: Audemus jura nostra defendere. ‘We dare to defend our rights.’ Annorah used to take a childish pleasure in covertly stepping on the badger’s face when she was frustrated.
She knew some of the people assembled. Her two cousins, Eva and Matthew, were there with their spouses, their children probably tucked up in the nursery. Others were neighbours. There was Vicar Stewart and his wife, delighted to have been invited to such a gathering, and the Hadleys, who were neighbouring gentry. The rest of her nerves started to melt away by the time introductions were nearly completed. Nicholas was right. No one here would know him. This gathering of folk hardly ever ventured to London.
Her aunt had saved the ‘best’ for last, however. A tall, solidly built blond man with the bluff, healthy features of a country gentleman stood at the fireplace, looking carefully posed with one hand on his hip drawing back, ever so slightly, the cut of his coat in order to reveal the waistcoat and gold watch chain beneath. The sight of him was almost paralysing. She regretted not telling Nicholas about him. But she needn’t have worried. Nicholas’s hand move possessively to the small of her back as they approached, a sign that he, too, guessed who the man was.
‘Annorah, you remember Mr Bartholomew Redding.’ Remember? The word was too tame. What he’d done to her haunted her to this day. He’d changed the way she’d viewed the world. In many ways, he’d been the cause for her retreat and the reason she was in this position today.
‘Annorah, it’s been for ever.’ Redding turned towards them, oozing charm, his hands outstretched as if he expected her take them. Annorah stopped at a distance that made touching moot. She would not tolerate his hands on her, not ever again if she could manage it.
Redding carried on as if Annorah’s snub was the grandest of greetings, as if he hadn’t abused her hospitality years ago.
‘Your aunt has been bringing me up to date on all the details of your life.’ He smiled and her skin crawled. ‘I’ve been out of touch since my second wife passed away a year ago.’
Annorah bit back a retort. She’d heard it had been a rather suspicious death, coming so swiftly on the heels of his first wife’s death and their rapid marriage. Nicholas’s hand tightened at her back in covert possession. She was not alone and it gave her courage. Annorah stiffened her spine. ‘May I present my fiancé, Mr Nicholas D’Arcy?’
‘Fiancé?’ Redding arched an eyebrow in a gesture of amused doubt. ‘I was unaware of such an arrangement.’ He cast a sharp look at Aunt Georgina. ‘I can see that your aunt has not kept me apprised of everything going on in your life. ‘
‘That’s entirely our fault,’ Nicholas put in congenially, drawing her a bit closer to him. ‘It’s new notice. So new, in fact, we hadn’t even written ahead to tell the family since there was every chance our arrival would have preceded a letter.’ He gave Aunt Georgina a dazzling smile. ‘Besides, this kind of news is best shared in person with family instead of an impersonal letter. The announcement will be featured in The Times tomo
rrow.’
Oh, it was masterful and, oh, it was hard not to gloat! Her aunt paled at the mention of The Times. Annorah felt a broad smile spread across her face. Nicholas had managed to answer Redding’s charge and scold Aunt Georgina while he charmed them. Well, maybe charmed was too strong a word to use in regards to Redding, but her aunt was certainly melting.
‘Have you had the banns called?’ Redding asked. Apparently the mention of The Times provoked other tests of reality.
Nicholas gave a disgusted look at the suggestion. ‘That’s a poor man’s avenue to the altar. We will be married by special licence.’
They would? He’d spend twenty-eight guineas to marry her? Annorah found herself blushing as if the fiction were truth. The mention of a special licence would speak volumes to those who dared to listen in about the kind of man Nicholas was. The answer was perfect for a gentleman of means. Annorah felt herself relax. It was going to be all right. Nicholas could absolutely carry this off and so could she. He had to be someone else entirely; she only had to be herself. How hard could that be, especially now that they were through the first obstacles?
Her confidence was high as she and Nicholas went upstairs to change for dinner. She’d been given her old room overlooking the garden, but Nicholas was an unexpected guest. His room was at the other end of the house. It was hard to tell whether or not that last was contrived. A room had been found for him while they’d gathered for tea and she was grateful for her aunt’s industry on the matter. Still, he could have been put a bit closer if her aunt had wanted to do so. Annorah might be confident in her ruse, but she was also confident her aunt wouldn’t cede the field without a fight, not when there was money on the line.
Secrets of a Gentleman Escort Page 13
