“So I’m to what?” Ethan shoved to his feet. “Serve as some sort of Cupid? A fairy godmother to my little brother in his Society marriage? You know I wouldn’t promise any such thing. Nick has more experience dealing with ladies than I will ever have.”
Than he ever hoped to have, come to that.
“You are simply to be his friend,” the earl said, sitting back with a sigh that was the embodiment of subtle parental histrionics. “Don’t let the estrangement I created keep you from each other, not when Nick will be dealing with my death, his eternally dear but squealing sisters, a new wife, and that pack of buffoons we refer to as the Lords. Nick will find a title brings with it a peculiar brand of loneliness, and he’ll need you every bit as much as he did as a boy.”
The earl’s words held no posturing or attempt at manipulation. He was just a papa, trying to see to his children’s happiness in a future they would face without him. And in truth, the earl had read both sons accurately.
“I will be Nick’s devoted brother, to the extent he will allow it.”
“Perishing lawyer.” The earl scowled at his son with what Ethan knew damned well was affection. “Fair enough. Now go scare him and tell him I want to see him, and I don’t have all night.”
“Pressing engagements?”
The earl grimaced. “Wait until you are old, boy. You’ll learn the tyranny of the chamber pot, see if you don’t.”
And now, Ethan did not want to go. Not even so far as the comfortable chambers down the hall. “I’ll be leaving in the morning.”
“Off to Town, no doubt,” the earl said briskly.
“Would you like to be closer to the fire?”
“I would. Why don’t you bring the fireplace over here?”
“That would likely be less trouble than getting you to accept assistance,” Ethan muttered. “Up you go.” He took his father’s arm and boosted him to his feet with a hand under the opposite elbow, then kept his arm around his father’s waist as the old man tottered across the room.
“There is no accurately conveying the bitter depths of the indignities that befall a proud man in old age,” the earl said, pausing before the cushioned chair at the hearth. “I know I should be grateful for each day…”
“But it’s a qualified gratitude,” Ethan suggested. “Like many of life’s blessings are qualified.”
“Just so.” The earl weaved a little on his feet and clutched Ethan’s hand. He weaved more and reached his bony arms around Ethan’s waist. “But don’t worry about me, boy, and don’t worry for yourself. You’ll do fine in this life, and I am proud of you.” He held on in Ethan’s embrace with a ferocity belied by his frailness, before repeating, “You’ll be fine. I know you’ll be just fine.”
“Guard those miniatures for me,” Ethan said, carefully lowering his father to the chair.
“Oh, of course.” The earl wheezed a laugh. “With my life, you may depend upon it. My very life. Now be gone, and fetch Wee Nick.”
“Good night, Papa.”
The earl’s lips quirked as he withdrew the miniatures from his pocket. “Good night, Son. Safe journey.”
* * *
Nick and Ethan pushed the horses, and they made Town by early afternoon, bringing the sun with them, much to Nick’s relief. He declined Ethan’s invitation for lunch and barely tarried in his own mews long enough to pass the reins of his mare to a groom, before taking off at a brisk pace for the park.
He was going to be quite early, at least an hour, but he needed the time to gather his thoughts. At his town house there would be correspondence to deal with, bills to pay, petty squabbles to sort out between the maids and the footmen, menus to look at, invitations to sort, and God knew what other trivia to take up his time and clutter his mind.
Leah would put him out of the misery of his uncertainty one way or another, and he needed to think.
Nick found his usual bench and settled himself upon it. His favorite duck waddled over, honked at him, and waddled away in disgust when it became apparent no food would be forthcoming. A breeze stirred the water, the swan glided by, and gradually, impression by impression, the peace of the day seeped into him.
There were nice spring days, and then there were glorious spring days. Somewhere between Kent and London, the day had turned glorious. The temperature was perfect—neither hot nor chilly, but just comfortably, agreeably right. Colors were brilliantly clear, in the flowers, the shimmery green expanses of lawn, the reflections on the pond, the greening trees. No creature could dwell in such a day without feeling blessed, and Nick was no exception. His gaze fell on various aspects of his surroundings—children chasing a ball, a loose dog chasing the children, governesses in their drab attire trying to visit while keeping their eyes on their charges. He shifted to take in more of the passing scene and became aware of something not quite in harmony with the tranquility of the whole.
A woman was walking across the green from Nick’s bench—but she moved too quickly, her head down, her body radiating tension. She was well dressed, but on either side of her were men garbed in the rough wool of the working class, each man with a hand clamped on the lady’s upper arm.
Trouble in paradise, Nick thought, just as his mind registered what his eyes were trying to tell him: Leah!
He was on his feet, bellowing, pelting across the grass and turning all heads. Anger that Leah should be handled roughly right in public warred with gut-clenching fear that Nick wouldn’t reach her in time.
The men trying to drag Leah with them stepped up their pace, but hearing Nick’s voice, she began to resist more strenuously. He reached her just at the gate nearest the street and hooked a massive arm around the neck of her closest assailant.
He would not do murder while Leah looked on, but it was a near thing.
“Don’t make me break your bloody neck,” Nick hissed, heaving the man away from Leah, leaving her only one escort to wrestle with. Nick clipped the second man in the jaw and sent him crashing to the walk, then turned on a third man—a simian specimen who’d come lumbering forth from the trees—trying to hustle Leah toward an unmarked town coach.
“Not bloody likely,” Nick muttered just as the idiot backhanded Leah and attempted to toss her over his shoulder. Nick grabbed the brute by his shirt and walloped him in turn—right off his feet. Two more men came racing up from the coach, and Nick went into a crouch, fists raised, body slightly turned to present a smaller target.
“Leah,” Nick growled, “get behind me and start screaming.”
She scrambled to comply, emitting a series of ear-piercing shrieks. The reinforcements slowed their charge, eyed Nick and the shrieking woman behind him, and stopped dead in their tracks.
“You get Ollie,” the larger of the two said, “I’ll get Sykes and hope that big bastard don’t give chase.”
The big bastard couldn’t give chase, since he knew damned good and well Leah would be left undefended. As their attackers scrambled off and disappeared into the town coach, dragging their injured with them, Nick turned to wrap his arms around Leah.
“You’re safe,” he said, though his own heart continued to pound. “I’ve got you. You’re safe, Leah. They’re gone.”
She was weeping and shaking too hard to even clutch Nick’s handkerchief securely, so he scooped her up and carried her to a bench in the shade. “They tried to take the lady’s purse,” Nick explained to the milling onlookers, “and were threatening her person. She’d appreciate some privacy.”
It took a few minutes, but the crowd dispersed, leaving Leah sitting beside Nick, pale and weepy. He kept an arm around her shoulders, despite their public location, because he was haunted by the same thought Leah no doubt was: What if he hadn’t been there?
What if he’d said one more farewell this morning to his father?
Lingered over a pot of tea, hoping the clouds would lift?
Heeded Ethan’s suggestion that they grab luncheon before parting?
“God’s hairy toes.” Nick wrap
ped his arm more tightly around her. “I’m taking you home with me.” This merited him only a shaky nod of assent. “I’d like to carry you, but you’ll feel better if you can walk. We’ll take it as slowly as you need to.”
Nick stayed glued to her side, her left hand in his left, his right arm anchored snugly around her shoulders.
“Nick?” Crying had left her voice husky.
He bent his head to hear her, even as he kept them moving. “Lovey?”
“Th… thank you.” A shudder passed through her, and right in the middle of the walk, Nick stopped and wrapped both arms around her again, resting his chin on the top of her head. He held her tight. She clung to him too, until he felt her breathing calm and her tremors cease.
“I’m all right now,” Leah murmured against his sternum.
“I am not,” Nick said, but he resumed their promenade nonetheless and felt marginally better when they’d gained the busy streets and left the open spaces of the park behind them. As he escorted Leah the several blocks to his town house, his nerves did calm somewhat, coalescing into unshakable resolve.
She would marry him, and she would be safe in his care. There was no other acceptable outcome. None.
And threading through that resolve, in the aftermath of battle, was an incongruous arousal. Possessiveness played a part, as did animal excitement, but Nick’s reasoning mind could barely wrestle into submission the tightening in his groin, the heat under his skin, and the urge to lay Leah down and cover her body with his own.
When he’d closed the door of his home solidly behind them, Nick was in no condition for Leah to plaster herself against his chest, grab him by the back of the head, and drag his mouth down to hers.
“For the love of God, Nick,” she groaned against his mouth. “Please… just…”
He gathered her close, bent his body over hers, and fused his mouth to hers. She tightened the grip of her fingers in his hair, and Nick felt her breasts straining against his chest. Simmering lust exploded into the full-blown need to spend as Nick sent his tongue plunging into Leah’s mouth.
“Not here,” he muttered against her lips. “Not…” Then he realized what he’d just said. Not here, not anywhere, for the love of God. He groaned and gentled the kiss, though the shift in intensity took torturous seconds to register with Leah. When she drew back to rest her forehead on Nick’s chest, her breath was heaving in and out, and her hands were shaking again.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. His arms settled around her gently, and he angled his body slightly away from hers, so the evidence of his arousal wasn’t as apparent.
“I’m not,” Nick countered, rueful humor in those two words. “I believe we experienced the same impulse that sends soldiers pillaging through conquered cities after a battle.” He stroked his hand slowly over her hair, willing them both to calm, to find some peace and sanity. It was absolute hell to be so close to her, but it would be worse to let her go.
“If you will steady me,” Nick teased gently, “I think I could get as far as the family parlor.”
She nodded, keeping an arm around his waist even as his arm stayed across her shoulders. A startled footman met them outside the parlor, and Nick quietly ordered tea and a late lunch and asked that the running footman be sent to him, as well as a groom.
Nick dealt with the groom first, scribbling a note and directing him to make all haste to Willowbrook, the Marquis of Heathgate’s estate. As the groom decamped on his appointed task, another knock sounded on the door.
Nick sent the runner off to the fashionable address of investigator Benjamin Hazlit, and from there to the houses of Lady Della, Darius Lindsey, and Trenton Lindsey, specific messages memorized for each. The tea tray arrived shortly thereafter, followed by a cart laden with food, and all the while, Nick stayed seated at Leah’s hip.
“Drink, lamb,” Nick urged, putting a cup of tea in her hands and wrapping her cold fingers around it. “And blessed, benighted Jesus, we need ice for your jaw.” He rose and went to the door, bellowing for shaved ice, arnica, and a towel.
“You have ice?” Leah marveled, though to Nick it was a curiously mundane thing to focus on.
“It’s not yet May. Of course we have ice. I have Jennings’s warehouse deliver it. Drink your tea, to settle my nerves if nothing else.”
Leah sipped obediently, her expression disturbingly blank.
“Talk to me, lovey,” Nick said, putting all the reassurance he could into his voice. “Say anything. Tell me about your journey from Kent, what you had for breakfast, what you were doing in the park so much before the appointed hour.”
He reached over and stroked her back in slow, rhythmic circles. She might not have been aware of his touch for all she seemed to heed it, but touching her soothed Nick.
Leah cocked her head. “It wasn’t before the appointed hour. You sent a note telling me when to meet you there.”
“Did you see the note?” Nick asked, his hand going still between her shoulder blades.
“I did not. William told me a boy brought it to the kitchen door, though he thought it was from Darius. But you’re telling me you didn’t send it?”
“I did not,” Nick said, his hand moving over her back again. “Who knew you were going to the park, Leah?” His tone was curious and relaxed, but inside his skin, he felt the urge to bellow with rage. Leah’s disclosure eliminated any possibility the attack had been random mischief.
“Emily knew, Darius, and my lady’s maid, who reports directly to Wilton. Anybody those people talked to, you, whomever you told, and Lady Della. I’m always strolling there. It’s the only place where I can go and think in peace.”
“Drink your tea,” Nick said, downing his at one gulp. “I cannot like this, Leah. It implies somebody in your own household colluded to have you attacked. I don’t want to let you go back to Wilton’s household.”
Her father might be behind the attack, a notion that acquainted Nick with the sensation of his blood running cold.
“I don’t want to go back there.”
“Leah, tell me what you’re thinking.”
“Those men told me that where I was going I’d be taught respect, because the rough trade was always eager for haughty bitches like me, even if I was slightly used goods.”
Nick’s voice was much steadier than he felt. “I want to hold you, but I also want to treat the bruise on your jaw. I’m sure there’s ice and arnica waiting just outside the door, and you will bruise less and hurt less if we see to you now.”
“All right.”
“There’s my girl.” Nick gave her an approving nod—though she wasn’t his girl, wasn’t his anything, yet—and rose to fetch the ice. “If you’d sit on the table? You are lucky,” Nick said as he hunkered before her a moment later. He had the towel over his shoulder, the bowl of ice in his hand. “This could have easily laid you open.”
He blotted some cold water on a corner of the towel and dabbed carefully at her chin. “You’re going to be sore. The bruise is rising from here”—he grazed the point of her chin with his finger—“to here, and then back along your jaw to here.”
“Soft food,” Leah said. “Soups, fresh bread and butter, and willow-bark tea for the ache.”
“And ice,” Nick reminded her, gently applying the freezing towel to her jaw. He rose and stood beside her so she could lean against his hip while he held the ice against her face. “I am sorry,” Nick said. “So sorry, Leah.”
“You didn’t cause this.”
“We will find out who did. That’s a promise.”
A knock on the door interrupted his assurances but didn’t move Nick from his post. “Enter.”
Benjamin Hazlit walked in, taking in the scene with a frown. “I beg your pardon, Reston.” His dark gaze shifted to Leah. “Lady Leah, I presume?”
“Hazlit.” Nick didn’t move away from Leah. “I am pleased to see you.”
Hazlit smiled sardonically. “And astonished, no doubt. While I will invariably ignore a summons
, I will honor the occasional request, particularly when violence to innocent ladies is involved. How are you, Lady Leah?”
“I have all of one bruise,” Leah reported. “Nicholas, would you introduce us?”
“My apologies.” He would have danced on his head and spit pennies had she asked it, though how the civilities would add to the situation, he did not know or care. “Lady Leah Lindsey, may I make known to you the Honorable Benjamin Hazlit. Benjamin, Lady Leah.”
“A pleasure.” Hazlit bowed. “Even under the circumstances.”
“Likewise.”
“I took the liberty of intruding on Reston’s home because I wanted to discuss matters before your memory of them has faded.” He glanced at Nick, who gave tacit assent to an interview. “May I be seated?”
“Of course. Nick?”
“Five more minutes,” Nick replied, moving the ice a little against her jaw as he glanced at the clock. “Help yourself to tea, Benjamin, and we ordered a late lunch, but the lady wasn’t equal to that challenge. It will go to waste otherwise, and I’ve graced your table often enough.”
“My breakfast table,” Hazlit allowed, pouring himself tea. “Lady Leah? Can you tell me what happened?”
He let her get through one telling of the entire story, addressing her need to put the sorry business into words, then he went back and began to color in the gaps with her. Did her attackers have any accent? Did she notice any particular scents? Did they address each other as familiars or by name?
On and on he questioned, drawing from her things she no doubt hadn’t realized she knew. He’d begun making notes, and somewhere during the interview, Nick had brought a rocking chair for Leah and lowered himself to the arm of the sofa so he didn’t quite sit beside her but remained propped near at hand, keeping silent watch.
In truth, Hazlit’s arrival was an unlooked-for blessing, because his calm, methodical questioning was creating results Nick, in his anger and upset, could not have.
“And what did you see of the coach?”
“Was there a tiger holding the leaders?”
Nicholas: Lord of Secrets ll-2 Page 14
