“And I am humbled to agree, though it is I who must demonstrate my trust in you.”
“Isn’t that what you just did?”
In her words, Nick heard a whole separate universe of reasons to love her—not just for the passion and ferocity of her sexual loving, but also for the feminine wisdom and generosity that sustained her regard for him when he was too unworthy. Too pigheaded, too stubborn, too…
“Nicholas.” Leah shifted up on his chest and regarded him steadily. “Whatever it is, you must not fret. We’ll deal with it together. I’ll not abandon you just when you’ve found me.”
He closed his eyes and held her fiercely as she put her dainty finger on his most dreaded fear and his most carefully treasured hope.
* * *
“So where are we off to?” Leah asked her oddly silent husband while they waited for their horses. He’d held her and cuddled her and rubbed her back and murmured all manner of sweet nothings, but the restlessness had been upon him again, and Leah had suggested they rise as the afternoon began to shift toward evening.
“We’re going to have a late tea with the neighbors,” Nick said, though his tone was evasive to Leah’s ears.
“Any particular neighbors?” Leah pressed as Nick gave her a leg up onto Casper.
“They dwell at Blossom Court,” Nick said, swinging onto Buttercup. They turned their horses down the drive, and for many minutes, Leah was silent as they cantered along.
“I’ve seen them,” Leah said as they approached the Blossom Court drive. “Two ladies, one quite a bit younger than the other.”
Nick kept his gaze on the lane before them. “Where have you seen them?”
“In their own garden, as I walked up among the trees on the hilltop. You were visiting with the blond.”
“It isn’t what you think, Leah, though that will hardly reassure you, I know.”
“You love her,” Leah said, unable to keep bewilderment from her tone, “or you at least care a great deal for her.”
“I love her. I love my horse, my sisters, and Della. It isn’t a love you need to fear, Leah—or I hope it won’t be.”
Now Leah was the one staring at the lane. “Can’t you just explain this situation in the King’s English?”
“If words were easy, I would have found the right ones weeks ago, Leah, maybe even years ago.”
Leah stopped interrogating him after that, not sure she’d be able to bear the answers he gave her.
A groom trotted out from the stables when they arrived to Blossom Court, and waited while Nick assisted Leah from her horse.
“Loosen the girths,” Nick said. “Put them up with some hay and water, but don’t take off the saddles. I don’t know how long we’ll be.”
“Aye, guv.” The man disappeared with the horses.
“We’ll probably find our hostess in the garden at this time of day,” Nick said. “The older woman is Mrs. Waverly and the younger I usually address simply as Leonie.”
And he wasn’t going to say more, so Leah didn’t press him. She did, however, note that for once, Nick had not taken her arm or her hand or in any way made an effort to touch her. It rattled her, as the closer they came to this introduction to the neighbors, the more quiet and distant Nick became.
On instinct, Leah slid her hand through his. Nick looked up, startled, but closed his fingers around hers.
“Mrs. Waverly,” Nick called as they passed through a rose arbor. “I believe you might be expecting us?”
“Indeed, my lord.” The woman rose from her bench, but the tall blond lady beside her rocketed across the garden with a shriek of glee.
“Nickie!” Oblivious to Leah’s presence, she flung her arms around Nick’s neck. “Oh, Nick! You came, you came. I am ever so glad to see you, and you brought your wife to see me too. Hullo.” She paused in her chatter and flung a curtsy at Leah. “I am Leonie, and you are Nick’s wife. Will you have tea with us?”
Leah stopped short as she surveyed the little table set up before the bench where Leonie had been sitting. There was a doll seated at the table, and a stuffed horse. Both were well worn, veterans of long years of service.
“Tea would be delightful,” Leah replied, studying Leonie carefully. Her age was hard to determine. She was quite tall and possessed of womanly curves, though her movements were coltish and her hair up in a simple knot, as if she were a young girl. Her complexion was lovely, also like a young girl, and her movements were somehow… unrestrained as she gamboled along on Nick’s other side.
“Nick has to sit on the bench,” Leonie explained to Leah. “He is quite, quite tall, like me, but taller. You may have the rocking chair because you are his wife, and I will sit on the little chair. Mrs. W. says I am getting too grown-up for the little chair, but I still fit, don’t I?” She turned huge blue eyes on Nick, and Leah was pained to see a wealth of tenderness in Nick’s gaze.
“You are getting quite grown-up, Leonie mine,” Nick said. “I think you might consider inviting another friend to your tea parties, say that furry little cat who sleeps on your pillow.”
“Mr. Cat will not sit at table with Mrs. Crumpet,” Leonie reminded Nick. “Though he will share a brandy with Lord Steed when it’s nippy out.”
Leonie chattered on, her prattle confirming Leah’s growing suspicion that though Leonie had the appearance of a young lady, she was a child still in her mind, and likely in her heart as well.
But what was she to Leah’s husband? Surely he would not have used Leonie in any carnal sense? That notion was too absurd to entertain. Nick loved this Leonie, and Leonie obviously loved her Nick.
“How do you take your tea?” Leonie asked very properly. Leah glanced over at Nick, but his expression was watchful, giving nothing away.
“I am rather spoiled in this regard,” Leah said. “I like plenty of cream and at least two lumps of sugar.”
“Papa has a sweet tooth as well,” Leonie confided, beaming at Nick. “Don’t you?”
“I have a sweet tooth in proportion to the rest of me,” Nick admitted, his guarded eyes belying his easy tone. “What about Lord Steed? I’ve known others of his ilk to be fond of sugar.”
Leonie turned to the stuffed horse. “He says we can’t very well put carrots in his tea.”
As the sun set slowly, tea passed in a pleasant childish amalgam of make-believe, let’s pretend, and social banter. Leonie was peculiarly intuitive, sensing currents around her more accurately than would others her age.
And yet… As Leah watched Nick taking tea with his daughter and her stuffed animals, saw the fathomless love and concern for her in his eyes, Leah realized that here was the reason Nick Haddonfield still had a capacity for whimsy.
Leonie was the reason Nick was so affectionate, so devoted to his family, so tenderhearted, protective, and responsible—Leonie and her need for him. When another in Nick’s position might have become just one more strutting young lordling, Leonie had instead given Nick the impetus to turn himself into a man anyone would be proud to call friend.
As Leah took in blond hair, blue eyes, significant height, and a host of mannerisms shared between parent and child, she tried to absorb the fact that this lovely, fey, childlike young woman was Nick’s very own daughter. Nick had loved her for her entire life and would love her until his dying breath and beyond.
And yet, it was a love that only enhanced the regard Leah felt for her husband.
“As it is nigh dark,” Mrs. Waverly said, “we’d best be retiring, Miss Leonie. I’m sure your papa needs to seek his own bed.”
Leonie shook her head vigorously, which had a few more tendrils of blond hair tumbling loose. “Not Papa. He’s allowed to stay up late.”
“That I am, Leonie mine.” Nick rose and drew Leonie to her feet with a flourishy bow. “But young ladies need their beauty sleep.”
“Good night, Papa.” Leonie flung her arms around Nick’s waist and hugged him tightly. He bent over her, wrapping his arms around her gently and kissing her b
row. “Will you come see me again soon?”
Nick smiled down at her. “As soon as I can, princess.”
“Will you bring Mrs. Nick? Can we have another tea party?”
Nick’s smile became subtly pained. “Perhaps. If one plans a tea party, it has a tendency to provoke the heavens into raining, but we’ll see.”
“Of course we’ll come for another tea party,” Leah interjected, smiling at Leonie. “I am new to the neighborhood, so I will be out making calls, and it will be nice to share a cup with some friendly faces. Perhaps next time I can meet Mr. Cat?”
“He should love to meet you,” Leonie assured her earnestly, disentangling herself from Nick’s embrace. “Good night, Mrs. Nick.” She startled Leah no end by flinging her arms around Leah’s neck as well, a dicey proposition, when Leonie had several inches of height over Leah and was an enthusiastic hugger.
“Off to bed with you, favorite brat,” Nick chided playfully. “Set a good example for Lord Steed and Mrs. Crumpet.”
“Yes, Papa.” Leonie beamed at them in the waning light, blew Nick a noisy kiss good night, then turned and scampered into the house.
Or scampered as well as someone could who was quite tall for an adult woman.
Nick offered Leah his arm and escorted her to the stables in complete silence. The horses were brought out, and when Nick would have boosted Leah into the saddle, she leaned in close to read his expression.
Nothing. Nick’s face gave away not one thing. Not relief, not fatigue, not resignation, nothing.
“Do you mind if we walk back to Clover Down?” Leah suggested on impulse. She wanted to be touching Nick when they finally got around to discussing his daughter, not stealing glances at him from atop her horse.
“It’s a pleasant night.” Nick handed the reins to the groom, who led the horses off without a word. Leah accompanied her husband to the foot of the lane before Nick’s voice pierced the gathering gloom.
“For God’s sake, Leah, say something.”
Eighteen
What to say?
“That Mrs. Crumpet is rather a dull thing,” Leah managed. “Makes you wonder upon whom Leonie modeled her.”
“Her previous companion,” Nick replied. “It took me almost a year to comprehend the dratted woman threatened to hide Leonie’s stuffed animals if Leonie complained to me of anything.”
“How old is your daughter?”
“She just turned sixteen,” Nick said on a soft exhalation. “Physically she’s sixteen, but mentally…”
“I’m not sure mentally matters a great deal. We can all be reduced to mewling infancy under the wrong circumstances. Tell me about her, Nicholas. You are clearly a devoted papa, and she adores you.”
“She adores anyone,” Nick said, wearily to Leah’s ears, maybe guardedly as well. “It scares the hell out of me, if you want the truth. Someday, some bloody young swain will come along, delivering the eggs, and walk off with her heart if not her virtue.”
He went on, pouring out a litany of every father’s hopes and fears for his daughter, his fondest memories and most harrowing moments. Leah listened, leading Nick around to the back gardens at Clover Down as the words continued to flow from him, haltingly at first, but then more steadily, until his voice was a rumbling torrent of paternal devotion.
When it had been full dark for more than an hour and the crickets were chirping at the moon, Leah sat beside Nick among the newly blooming roses, holding his hand and hoping she was reading the situation correctly.
“So how did she come to be as she is?”
“Fevers, though I didn’t realize it until my old nurse informed me of it this week. I thought Leonie was born that way.”
“It must have been quite a shock,” Leah said, “to be what, fifteen years old, and a father?”
“It was a shock. I didn’t find out about Leonie until I was seventeen. I’d been dallying for several years at that point and had come to comprehend the precautions that must be taken. As a very young fellow, though, I was heedless.”
“You got somebody with child. I can’t understand why the young lady didn’t simply apply to you for support.”
“She was a relation of Magda’s,” Nick said. “Daughter to a tenant, and she went to Magda first, thinking to rid herself of the child. Even the heir to an earldom is a poor bet for one’s future when he’s fifteen years of age.”
“Your father pensioned her off?” Leah suggested, drawing Nick’s hand through hers.
“Magda sent the girl to live with cousins here in Kent,” Nick said. “Then announced her own retirement about a year later. No one thought anything of it, given that Magda is older than dirt.”
“And you would have been sixteen when your nurse left Belle Maison.”
“Sixteen, and as is the case at that age, a very different heir than I would have been at fourteen or fifteen. I charged off to university, full of my considerable self, ready to have at adult life.”
“What happened?”
“When I was seventeen, Leonie’s mother died,” Nick said, his arm stealing around Leah’s waist. “Of influenza or high fevers, I’m not sure exactly what, but Magda thought at that point I was old enough to intervene. Her own little pension wasn’t going to be sufficient to raise an earl’s by-blow, and I had grown up enough in her opinion to do the right thing. Magda is, after all, elderly, and she didn’t want Leonie getting attached to her just as her own health failed—or worse.”
In other words, Magda had not wanted Leonie embarking on the series of losses that had marked Nick’s early upbringing.
“You became Papa to a two-year-old at seventeen.”
“Nearer three,” Nick recalled, “and she was gorgeous, all blond curls, smiles, and big blue eyes. I understood when I first held her what it was that drove my father to be so fierce sometimes, so irrationally protective. Leonie is the most tenderhearted, dear person…”
“Like her papa.” Leah laid her head on Nick’s shoulder and heard a great, heartfelt sigh go out of him. “Nicholas, did you really think I would censor you or your daughter because she hasn’t the same kind of intelligence as the empty-headed twits you danced with all spring?”
“I was cautious,” Nick said slowly, resting his cheek against Leah’s temple, “but I’m trying to tell myself it wasn’t without some reason.”
Leah waited, sensing they were reaching the most difficult part for Nicholas.
“I mentioned I did not know Leonie’s ailment was caused by fevers until recently,” Nick said. “I assumed she was born simple, that it was tainted blood causing her mind to remain that of a child. I had an uncle who was the same way, and we never talked about him, but he was still sailing boats and climbing trees as his hair turned gray.”
“You probably got on well with him.”
“The one time I met him, yes, but he was kept hidden away on some little estate in Shropshire, and I understand why.”
“He was an embarrassment?”
“I honestly don’t think so. I think it was the only way Grandpapa could protect his son from ridicule. Leonie could play with children her own age when she was very young, but even then, she was taunted for her height. Children being what they are, the taunts soon included her mental abilities, and she withdrew to her dolls and toys, and storybooks.”
“So she can read a little. Reading has always been one of my secret comforts.”
Nick’s hand began the gentle caress along the length of her spine Leah loved.
Leonie taught him that gentleness, too. Leah had observed it in his every interaction with his daughter.
“I am so lucky Leonie’s a female, a creature who can dwell in peace at home. If my heir had been similarly afflicted, a young man who’d be forced to socialize and be seen—I cannot bear to see Leonie cry. How could I have kept the next Viscount Reston safe and happy?”
* * *
The question had haunted Nick for years, for as long as he’d known he had a daughter. How would he keep an he
ir to an earldom safe? Who would love his children, should they all turn out to have Leonie’s limitations?
Except, he knew the answers to those questions now, or knew enough of them. With the Countess of Bellefonte snuggled into his arms, Nick knew she would have managed those difficulties with him and made it look easy.
Nick went silent, trying to find a name for the feeling that was expanding from his chest to his vitals and outward. It was more than relief at Leah’s reaction, more than gratitude to be able to envision a future that included his wife and his daughter. He turned to straddle the bench and drew Leah against his chest.
Hope, he thought with a flash of insight. Hope that set tears seeping from his closed eyes, and joy sang through him in the very coursing of his life’s blood.
“I was afraid,” he finally got out. “I was afraid for my children, for my brothers and sisters, afraid for you. I was afraid…” He’d been terrified, and he was still daunted, but his fears were no longer going to dictate the limits of his happiness or those of the people he loved.
“Any father would be concerned,” Leah said against his chest. “But you’ve kept Leonie safe, and she’s happy, too. She has her papa’s love, and that has been enough.”
“Enough.” Nick nodded against Leah’s hair. “Enough for my youthful by-blow, but I could not see how to protect my heir had he similarly been afflicted, or my legitimate daughters, who would be expected to make come outs and good matches, and bear children of their own. Society is so…”
“Mean,” Leah interjected. “Judgmental, petty, spiteful, and in the end, stupid. You know this, because you are so wonderfully grand in your proportions, including the proportions of your heart.”
“I’m too damned big,” Nick corrected her tersely. “Which has resulted in my being a freak, albeit one popular with the ladies.”
“Ladies can be discerning. This explains why you were willing to nip off to the shires for a few years and forgo your place in Society.”
“And travel frequently,” Nick said, “and bury myself in commerce before my father’s demise, and trot from one family holding to another. My idea of hell is to endure Polite Society for any length of time, and then too, moving around so much allows me to drop in on Leonie frequently.”
Nicholas: Lord of Secrets ll-2 Page 29
