At the picnic grounds, the situation did not improve. Groups were formed to walk up to the fort and they were swept along in the social tide. If she was not next to him, she was never far from him. He threw her an occasional smile as if to say all was well. He was a very good sport, she had to give him that. He fitted right in and she was having a good time talking with her cousins right up to the point where Bartholomew Redding inserted himself into their little cohort.
‘D’Arcy is a popular one, isn’t he?’ Redding smiled in what he probably thought was a congenial manner. Annorah thought otherwise. She knew his true measure.
‘Yes, he’s a hit wherever we go,’ Annorah said in reserved agreement. She didn’t want to give Redding the impression she was open to conversation or open to anything with him.
Redding didn’t take the hint. ‘You’re a generous woman, then. I don’t know that I’d be open to sharing someone so dear to me, especially if they attracted so much attention.’
She did not care for the leer in his gaze or the tone in his voice. ‘What are you implying?’ The chagrin she felt over the suggestion was very real in spite of the fiction of her arrangement. There was something surreal about defending the fidelity of a paid escort.
‘Your fiancé is a handsome man. Women will be interested in him wherever you go. But perhaps you intend to have a casual understanding with him?’
She’d had enough of this conversation. Redding had separated her from the group and it was making her nervous. ‘Our private lives are none of your concern,’ Annorah answered sharply, angling to move away, but Redding wasn’t done.
‘What do you suppose he sees in you, Annorah? Pretty isn’t enough for a man like him. He can have pretty any day of the week. Of course, your kind of pretty comes with pound notes behind it. Perhaps you can hold him with your money. That can be a convenient leash at times, quite the effective way to keep him tied down.’ He winked. ‘Do you suppose he’d like that or does he prefer real ropes?’
‘You’ve overstepped yourself,’ Annorah warned. That was putting it mildly. If she was a man, she’d have recourse in a duel for this vulgar talk. As it was, she had no option other than to listen until she could walk away.
‘What you call disgusting, I call honest. There’d probably be a lot more happy marriages if someone had told people the truth from the start.’ He moved closer and she stepped back. ‘As for truth, there is some of that between us already. We have a history between us. We understand one another. You are not a green girl any more. I’ve not stopped thinking of you in all the years we’ve spent apart.’
‘You’ve had two wives, sir,’ Annorah scolded. She wouldn’t let him see the fear he raised in her. Surely no harm would come to her. They were surrounded by people and Nicholas was here somewhere.
He shrugged as if the others were of no consequence. ‘Place holders for you, my dear. It’s always been you I’ve wanted. I’ve waited quite a while for you and now you’re engaged to another man. I am sure there’s something we can do about that.’
‘No!’ Annorah said fiercely, her fear for herself transmuting into fear for Nicholas. ‘Don’t you dare lay a hand on him.’
‘Or you’ll what?’ Redding snorted. ‘How can you possibly protect him? He doesn’t know, does he? He doesn’t know about you and me.’
‘There was never any you and me. There was you bullying a young girl into a very compromising position.’
‘Nuance.’ Redding smirked. ‘Shall I ruin him? Would you have him then? Every man has a weakness. I’ll find his and then where will you be?’ He leaned close. ‘I know about the deadline, Annorah. Are you willing to lose everything over him?’ He stepped back. ‘Think about it. I am willing to cut you a very good deal to save him and save your fortune. You only have your body to bargain with, but fortunately, that’s exactly what I’m after.’
‘Good day, Mr Redding.’ She no longer cared how rude her departure looked or how it sounded. She wanted to reach Nicholas’s side with a single-minded determination. She should have told him. She’d not thought Redding would go after Nicholas, but she should have. It seemed so obvious now in hindsight. She was not the only one on a deadline. He was, too. He stood to lose if she slipped away from him again.
Her emotions must have been written all over her face. Nicholas broke away from his group and came to her. He slipped his hand around hers with no questions. ‘Come on, let’s go. We’ve an hour before lunch is ready. No one will miss us. There’s a little path just to the right. We can walk quite a way and still be in plain sight, but out of hearing. Now, whatever is the matter? You look like you want to destroy something.’
‘Not something, someone.’ Her voice trembled with emotion.
‘Redding? I saw you with him. I was trying to keep an eye on that,’ Nicholas surmised, running his thumb over the back of her hand in a soothing gesture. ‘What did he say?’
‘He hates you.’
‘Because I have you,’ Nicholas supplied.
‘In part. I think he’d hate you anyway,’ Annorah said with a flash of insight. ‘I don’t think he likes attractive men.’
Nicholas cocked an eyebrow. ‘That’s probably for the best.’
Annorah laughed for the first time that morning. ‘That’s not what I meant. He tried to convince me what an awful husband you’ll make and, when that failed, he threatened to harm you.’
A contemplative look crossed Nicholas’s features. ‘I find that extremely interesting since your aunt spent most of last night trying to convince me what a terrible wife you’ll make. Why do you suppose that is?’ Nick tipped her chin up to meet his gaze. ‘What haven’t you told me, Annorah?’
Chapter Seventeen
‘I don’t know,’ Annorah stammered, her eyes falling away from his face, a sure sign she was hiding something. A cold knot formed in his stomach. Her aunt Georgina’s words rushed back along with Westmore’s speculations and the fears of the night rose. What was she using him for? The defence he’d given Westmore on her behalf last night seemed feeble when confronted with this confession from her. How could he be so wrong about someone? Usually, he was a good judge of character. He could size up a person, moral code and all, with astonishing accuracy.
Nicholas stepped away from her and folded his arms. ‘I think you do. Why don’t you start talking and we’ll figure out the truth from here?’
Her eyes flashed at that. ‘I have not lied to you!’
He did believe that to a certain degree. ‘You have not twisted the facts or distorted them, but I think you’ve conveniently left out some inconvenient truths.’ He had her there. Her shoulders slumped and she put her forehead in her hand, rubbing at the space between her brows.
‘Please, it’s not like that.’
‘Yes, it is. It is exactly like that.’ He stepped forwards and pulled her hand away from her face, his voice softening. He dropped a kiss on her forehead and ran his hands down her arms. ‘Don’t let them see you upset. They’ll think we’ve had a quarrel. I’m not sure that’s what we want.’ A thought came to him. ‘I’d hate for them to think we could be so easily divided and conquered in the space of a day.’ It was a shot in the dark.
Annorah lifted her head, her green eyes sparkling with wet tears, and his heart lurched. He was mixing that business with pleasure Westmore had warned about. ‘They would like that.’
‘Then tell me, what I am really doing here? I can’t help if I don’t know how. What is Redding to you? You know him from before don’t you? Your aunt said “Do you remember Redding” yesterday when she introduced him.’
They started walking again, her arm back in his. Nicholas tried not to think of how right she felt beside him or how used he’d got to having her there. He needed all of his brain to follow her story.
‘Redding courted me years ago. He was my aunt’s choice. They had s
truck an alliance between them. She’d pave the way to courting me and he’d reward her once we married with generous access to the family fortune, which would fall under his purvey as my husband.’ Annorah shrugged. ‘Let us just say Redding was in earnest.’
Nicholas felt his anger rise. He knew very well what ‘earnestness’ meant in this context. ‘Did he force himself on you?’ Obviously, Redding had been unsuccessful. He’d been Annorah’s first lover. Knowing this, he took extra pride in the fact that it had been at her request and he’d done his best, far better of an encounter than any she would have had with Redding.
‘The worst of it was that it was my fault.’ Annorah shook her head. ‘At first, I believed him. I thought his sentiments were true, that he did care for me. He was a neighbour. He wasn’t like the other suitors, who were strangers I’d met at dances for the first time. At the time, I thought he was attractive enough. One day, I went out walking with him. He had been calling on me most of the summer and my aunt felt such privacy was acceptable for us. When we were out of sight, he kissed me. I let him. I confess to being curious. But he didn’t let it stop there. He wanted more than kisses.’
He could see the memories pained her. He absolutely despised men who didn’t know their limits. He’d like to call the bastard out. ‘You don’t have to say anything more,’ Nick assured her softly.
Annorah stopped walking and turned to face him. ‘But I do. He’s mean and he’s vindictive. You have to understand how ruthless he is. He threatened to ruin you if I didn’t come to him.’
‘I can take care of myself, Annorah. He wouldn’t be any worse than any other jealous husband,’ Nicholas said grimly.
‘I can’t allow it.’ Her face was pale, her concern tangible in her green eyes. ‘I release you. I shouldn’t have dragged you into this. I should have told you about Redding so you could have made a better decision. I didn’t think he’d come after you. I thought he would leave it as a battle between the two of us.’
‘And I can’t allow that,’ Nicholas said sternly. ‘I agreed to be in this and I don’t want out now.’ He could not leave Annorah to face this ghost from the past by herself. He knew how potent those ghosts could be and hers were in the flesh.
They began climbing the slope up to the prospect. ‘You don’t want to get messed up with me, Nicholas. You might think I’m perfect, but I’m not. Redding wasn’t the only suitor I refused, just the last. My aunt and uncle would not let this pass. When I told them about his advances, they said it was no more than I deserved for leading him on. A man was entitled to his urges.’
He was going to shoot the bastard and then he was going to shoot Aunt Georgina with her wandering hands. But he understood Annorah better and what had driven her to write that letter, what had driven her into seclusion in the first place. Bartholomew Redding wasn’t the first suitor to abuse her finer sentiments, but he’d been the final piece of evidence she needed to believe she was worth nothing to any man but her bank account.
‘That’s when you went back to Hartshaven?’ Nicholas prompted. All the pieces were fitting nicely now. Annorah would not have been more than twenty-one, maybe twenty-two. It was a young age to run an estate that size on her own. It was also a young age to shut oneself away from the world.
‘Yes, and each year I was there, I had less and less use for the social world beyond the village. My aunt and uncle could feel their access to the Price-Ellis fortune slipping away.’
Nicholas saw where this was going. ‘Hence, the summons to the house party.’
Annorah picked at the flower petals along the walk. ‘Exactly.’
They’d reached the top of the hill. Annorah gave a small smile and studied the view. They were high enough to afford them a prospect of the land. Below them, the picnickers looked small, nothing more than a colourful group of people out for an enjoyable afternoon. ‘Everything looks a lot less harmless at a distance. One would never guess what a viper’s pit it really is down there and that’s not even counting Mr Westmore.’
Nicholas shrugged. ‘Westmore is nothing to us.’ That didn’t mean he wasn’t a pain in the backside, but he posed no harm to the ruse and that was Annorah’s biggest concern. ‘He’s with the agency, but he’s not here working. He’s not going to expose us.’ He saw relief cross Annorah’s face. He felt some relief, too. If there was going to be trouble with Redding, Westmore would be good backup.
‘Well, that’s one less thing to worry about, thankfully, because my aunt and Mr Redding are enough trouble to manage without a third party interfering.’
Nicholas wanted to correct her on that point. He’d never said anything about Westmore not interfering. The man had raised plenty of interfering questions last night. Some of those had been allayed today. Every story had two sides and now that he’d heard Annorah’s side, he could return to his initial assessment of her character. Annorah had the misfortune of being a woman used for her money. She’d chosen to protect her principles by withdrawing from the social field, a choice which had drawn the wrath of her relatives. Her choice had been a difficult but admirable one and his regard for her rose another notch. She’d taken the high road even though it had cost her. There had been no such high road for him.
‘I suppose we should go back down. They’re setting out the picnic blankets.’ Annorah turned her head in a swift movement and he stepped back just in time to avoid being swatted with the wide brim of her hat. The new leghorns were pretty, but dangerous. A man had to be on his toes to avoid being hit. He had to be on his toes, too, if he wanted to steal a kiss beneath one. Nicholas wanted. He wanted it with a shocking amount of urgency, too. He kissed a lot of women because it was expected, but seldom did he want to.
‘Wait.’ Nicholas tugged at her hand, drawing her to him. ‘We aren’t leaving until I do this.’ He cupped her cheek with a hand and took her mouth with his in a sweet, lingering kiss. ‘It has been far too long since I’ve done that.’ Only a day, in truth, but it felt as if eons had passed since those lazy mornings lying abed at Hartshaven, or the long afternoons, or the passionate nights. Just as shocking as his need to kiss her had been was the sudden stab of longing for Hartshaven. He wanted to be back there, with her. He wanted it to be just the two of them living in their own world without conniving aunts and arrogant asses of suitors.
‘How soon do you think we can leave?’ Nicholas murmured carelessly. The words slipped out before he could rethink the wisdom of them and their underlying assumptions—the most important assumption being that she’d want him to return to Hartshaven with her.
‘After the ball. It’s tomorrow night. We could leave the day after.’ Her words brought them both up short. The careless conversation had backed them into a corner where they’d be forced to talk about the future and how to proceed with their sham engagement.
Annorah straightened and stepped back out of kissing range. Her hands smoothed her skirts in an anxious fidget. ‘Can you come back?’
Nick thought of Channing’s concern over Burroughs on a rampage. ‘My time is my own for a while.’ Nicholas reached for her hand and kissed it. She had enough to worry about without worrying about his problems, too. ‘Perhaps I’ll find a place to stay in the village, so I am not under your roof.’
She smiled, relaxing. ‘Thomas would like that.’
‘He would indeed.’ Nick laughed. The future was taking care of itself. This would do for now. He tucked her arm through his.
She was about to say something else and he feared he knew the words. He didn’t want to hear them. Nicholas moved in quickly, silencing her with a rough kiss. The speed had surprised her. But that had been his intention. He did not want to hear her say the words ‘I will pay you.’
As they walked down the hill towards the picnickers, Nicholas struggled with the knowledge that this had stopped being about getting paid. He wasn’t sure when that had happened. Maybe it had happened g
radually since the arrival of Channing’s note. Maybe it had happened all at once after Westmore’s inelegant challenges to Annorah’s suitability. It was quite possible, too, that this had all been brought on by an extreme fit of stubbornness on his part. He never had liked being wrong and he did tend to dig in his heels when confronted with a contrary opinion. Perhaps he could blame Westmore for that. This shift had happened because he was being contrary.
But that was the easy answer. The harder answer was that in enacting a facsimile of love for Annorah Price-Ellis, he’d actually fallen for his own fantasy. Too bad for him. Those were thoughts he’d have to keep to himself. There was no question of telling her. A real relationship would require he tell her other things, too. What would the point of that be? Eventually, this would all be over. Walking away when it was done was not optional. It was a requirement. He had to whether or not his emotions came with him. One of the primary tenets of the agency lay in the belief you were always better as a memory.
Annorah squeezed his hand as the picnic meadow came into view. ‘Promise me you’ll be on your guard?’
Nick gave her a laugh. ‘I’m more worried about your aunt’s hands than Redding. Yes, I’ll be careful.’ But he wasn’t being careful and he knew it. His emotions were exposed and his feelings engaged and that possessed its own kind of danger. He would embrace the danger and let it run its course, consequences be damned.
Secrets of a Gentleman Escort Page 16
