“You do not sneer at me or disbelieve me.”
“I don't. I saw you disarm a bandit on the road. I can imagine you capable of many things, Lydia.”
“I hope I am.”
They ate in silence for a few moments, lost to their own worlds. Nicholas knew that he was going to make the offer before he said it. He had never been one to turn away from an intrigue, and frankly, he hadn't met anyone as intriguing as Lydia in some time.
“Tell me what's going on. Maybe I can help.”
For a moment, he feared she would refuse. She watched him warily, setting down her fork as she did so. Even though the fare was simple stuff, bread and cheese and stew, she ate it as delicately as if she were at the finest table.
“Why would you?”
There was something naked in her words, and it occurred to Nicholas to wonder how often she had needed help and been denied.
“Because I'm curious. Because I'm fascinated. Because it's not every day I see a young lady utterly demolish a bandit. Many reasons. You can have your choice of them if you like. But I do want to help.”
Lydia wavered for another moment, and then she nodded. She looked at the strew as if she had lost her appetite and set her hands in her lap. When she spoke, her voice was as level as if she had ironed it, but there was a tremor of real emotion beneath it.
“All right. My older brother is—was—my father's heir. He was three years older than me, and even when we should have grown apart as children, we never did. He was the most important person in the world to me, and the idea of him dueling… Well. I suppose that none of that is really important. He was my brother, and now he is dead.
“He went to London six months ago. My father has some business interests in London, and as it turned out, they were being badly mismanaged. My brother guessed that his being in town might make our representatives more attentive to their duty.”
“I take a guess that that is not what happened.”
“The truth is, we don't know what happened. He wrote back at first, every few days, and I read every one. Then the letters slowed down, and then they stopped altogether. I told myself that he had simply gotten busy.”
“But you know that wasn't the case.”
“I suppose I did.”
Lydia sat quietly for a moment, and when she started to speak again, her voice was more distant. It was as if she had pulled herself back from the pain she must have felt. Nicholas felt his heart give an unaccustomed twinge at her grief. Along with that pang of sympathy, however, there was a suspicion rising in his chest. He tamped it down because the chances of it being true were high, so high that they should have been laughable. However, Nicholas had never felt less like laughing in his life as he listened to Lydia.
“My brother, the man I knew, would never have gotten too busy for me. He would never have decided that it wasn't important to keep me informed about what was going on. My father tried to tell me that he was busy, in a man's sphere at last, but I knew in my heart he was wrong.”
Lydia's hand tightened convulsively into a fist. Nicholas had an impression of a deep and vast well of anger and grief that had been closed off to allow Lydia to function, perhaps even to live.
“My doubts worried at me, but they never allowed me to move forward, to find out. Then we received word that he had died, gunned down like a dog in some wooded grove, and I will never, ever see him again.”
She took a tremulous breath.
“And there it is, Nicholas, the whole sad and sorry story. My brother died, and now I need to go find out what happened to him.”
“That is surely not a woman's job.”
“My father is indisposed. He would not be able to make the journey to London, and we have no close kin. It falls to me.”
“Such a burden on such narrow shoulders.”
Lydia looked up, her eyes fierce and bright. It occurred to Nicholas that he would far rather have her angry with him than see her in tears.
“Do not underestimate me, Nicholas. I made my own arrangements to come to London, and I fended off that bandit with some verve, if I do say so myself. I am going to London to find out what happened to my brother. I know where he lived, what business he was seeing to, and most importantly, I know who was at the duel with him that morning.”
Nicholas could feel something cold settle in his heart even as he kept his face perfectly still.
“You have a name, then.”
“I do. I need to find Baron Farring. The season is in full swing, and he is a baron. He must be in London, and when I find him, there will be a reckoning.”
She uttered the words with such dark purpose that Nicholas had no doubt she meant them, but his thoughts whirred at her pronouncement.
He was Duke of Winnefield, but the Winnefield estate was far from his only responsibility. He was also the Marquess of Deering, the Earl of Maitland. And, of course, he was Baron Farring.
* * *
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CHAPTER FOUR
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Lydia wasn't sure what she expected when the candles grew shorter and the shadows lengthened. Perhaps she had expected that Nicholas would sneak off to some other room that he had rented, or perhaps that he would stretch out on the floor. When he saw her hesitation, he grinned, showing teeth that were certainly too sharp and white.
"Duke I might be, but I'm no one's idea of a gentleman."
"Surely, you don't think that we are going to share our bed!"
"I think that there is a single bed in this room, and I would wager that there is no bed free at all in this town. I know that I am sleeping in it. You can decide what you want."
Lydia was more tired than she had ever been. The days in the coach followed by the incident with the highwayman had left her drained, and now that she was fed and warm, all she wanted to do was to crawl between the covers on the bed. She nearly agreed, but then she saw Nicholas’ amused gaze, and she straightened hastily.
"I don't need you to be a gentleman. I just need you to be a decent human being."
"Well, I may be depended on for that. Do you need help with your gown?"
"You must think me helpless indeed if you think I can't get out of my clothes without aid."
"Less aid than pleasure, but suit yourself."
Lydia shivered a little when she heard the way his mouth caressed the word pleasure, but he turned away to give her some privacy as she undressed. She managed her buttons well enough, and she could sleep in her shift and stockings. It would have to do, she decided, as she wrapped a blanket around her body and went to lie down on the wool rug. It would provide her with some protection from the hard wooden floor at least.
Nicholas had stripped out of his jacket, waistcoat, and trousers, leaving him only in his own shirt. He lounged on the bed, watching her with some amusement.
"Are you sure that I cannot entice you to bed? I'll even promise to be on my best behavior."
"No promise necessary," Lydia said, turning over on the rug. It was less protection from the wooden floor than she had assumed, but it was better than nothing. Probably. "I am fine where I am."
"Suit yourself then."
* * *
It seemed to take her hours to get to sleep, and even then, she kept waking up. Lydia rolled over yet again, wondering if there was actually a bruise forming on her hip and shoulder. She certainly wasn't making any noise, and she knew she wasn't whimpering when she heard an irritated sound from the bed.
Lydia rolled over to see Nicholas stalking over to her, shaking his head. In the very last of the candlelight, he looked positively demonic in the darkness.
"What?" she squeaked.
"You're a damned plague," he informed her. "Come on. You'll keep us both awake with your whimpering."
"I wasn't whimpering!"
"Yes, you were. Now come here and stop fussing."
&nb
sp; He left her wrapped in her blanket and rolled her close to his body, throwing his own blanket over them both. With her head pillowed on his arm and her back to his chest, Lydia sighed at the rush of warmth.
"There. Now sleep."
Lydia was certain that she had something tart to say about imperious lords and men who dragged women to their beds in the middle of the night, but it simply felt too good to be in a proper bed and with his warm body nestled against hers. Her tirade turned into a yawn, and faster than she would have believed, she fell into a deep sleep.
Her dreams were dark and strange. She was a girl again, looking for her brother through the corridors of some grim old school. She wandered the halls, opening one door after another and still not finding him. Even though she could hear his voice echoing through the corridors, she never saw him, and finally, she started to cry.
Lydia's eyes flew open, her hand already over her mouth to stop herself from crying out loud. She wasn't in that building at all, but her circumstances were hardly less strange. At some point in the night, her death grip on her blanket cocoon had lessened, and now she and Nicholas were both under it, curled up next to each other.
I can't do this. My reputation is all I have. Even that thought was far less frantic than it should have been. It was too easy to let her eyes drift closed and to feel the warmth of his body next to her, how very good the weight of his arm felt around her waist.
It occurred to her in a sleepy kind of way that he was holding her tighter than he was before, and then she felt his lips brush against the nape of her neck. The gentle kiss sent a thrill of sensation through her body, and her eyes snapped open in the dark.
"Nicholas!" She nearly cried his name out loud to wake him, but what would happen if that cry brought others? The idea of someone breaking in to see them like this was terrifying, and she kept her voice down.
"Mm, Catherine, lovely girl," he murmured, pressing himself closer to her, and Lydia froze in shock.
It seemed unlikely in the extreme that someone like Nicholas was married, and she had never met a properly brought up lady named Catherine! The idea that he had mistaken her for his mistress sent a curl of shame through her, but at the same time, there was a heat there she couldn't explain.
She remembered a friend's mother telling them at a luncheon that men treated their wives and their mistresses differently. Wives received respectability, the sanctuary of hearth and home as well as the privilege of raising the man's heirs. On the other hand, the mistress received a man's carnal lusts. At the age of fifteen, Lydia couldn't imagine why a woman might choose to be a man's mistress, forsaking the path of the wife. Now, though, in the dark and with Nicholas’ mouth tracing maddening patterns along her neck, she realized she might have an idea.
I should wake him up, she realized, but when she felt his bare legs rubbing against hers, she closed her eyes and sighed instead. It had never occurred to her how vivid the difference between men and women would be in bed. She could feel the bristle of the hair on his legs against her smooth ones, and it was an oddly delicious feeling.
"Beautiful Catherine, I have missed you so much," he murmured in her ear.
"Have you?" she asked, keeping her voice low. Lydia knew it was wrong to pretend to be his mistress, but her curiosity burned so bright she wasn't sure she could stop herself.
"So much. I'll stay with you for weeks, until you are so exhausted you'll send me away."
Lydia blushed at his soft words, but then he started whispering about how he was going to exhaust her, and she felt her cheeks flame bright red in the darkness.
"I'm going to kiss you everywhere, I want to slide my hands all over you until you can't resist. I'm going to open your legs, Catherine, and I'll touch you until you scream…"
She should end the game now, but Nicholas was sliding his hands along her rear, lifting the hem of her shift up until her legs were quite bare to his touch.
"It's going to feel so good, Catherine, so very good. I always make it good for you, don't I?"
"You do?" she whispered.
He chuckled.
"I do."
His fingers traced soft patterns over her thighs, so hypnotic and seductive that her eyes drifted shut. It felt as if he were tracing fire on her skin, making her warm and pliant and receptive to his actions. There was no pain or brutishness here. It was all pleasure, and Lydia knew that she wanted more.
Then he eased her onto her back, urging her legs to part, and Lydia's eyes flew open. The soft touches he had given her until now could practically be called innocent. This certainly was not!
"Nicholas! I'm not Catherine!"
"Oh, I figured that, but you didn't seem to mind being called by her name, so I decided I would indulge you."
Lydia's gaze flew to Nicholas’ face, in shock, but he was intent on tracing a finger from her knee up her leg to her inner thigh. She blushed and shoved his hand away, sitting up and pulling her shift down to her knees. To her relief— disappointment? —Nicholas withdrew to sit up himself. At some point, he had lost his shirt, and she could tell from how the blanket draped low over his hips that he was naked. The blush it brought to her cheeks was purely embarrassment, or at least that was what she told herself.
"You were awake that whole time?"
"Most of it. If there was something before I told you I missed you, you should tell me. It would be the only ladylike thing to do."
"Ladylike!"
"I'll admit that I don't know all that much about ladies. Tell me, is it common for ladies to impersonate a man's mistress and curl up so sweetly next to him that he thinks—"
"No! Nicholas, stop this!"
He had been smiling that infernal grin at her, but at the sound of her cry, it dropped off his face.
"Lydia."
"No, stop, don't humiliate me any more than this," she said, covering her face with her hands. "I am less than a week from home, and I am nearly seduced by a man who calls me by his mistress’ name."
"Lydia, please, I did not mean anything by it."
"Of course, you didn't! And somewhere I knew it, and somewhere… Oh, Nicholas, I'm humiliated."
He looked at her for a long moment before sighing. She flinched a little when he pressed closer to her, but it was only to kiss her on the forehead.
"All right. Get to sleep. I can see that we have a lot to talk about in the morning."
"Nicholas?"
To her surprise, he dragged a blanket off the bed and went to lie down on the rug she had vacated earlier.
"Get some sleep," he said gruffly. "We still have a few hours until dawn."
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CHAPTER FIVE
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Lydia looked like one of those cats who had embarrassed herself and then acts completely nonchalant about it in the hopes that no one else will notice. When Nicholas rose the next morning, she was up and in that dull black again, looking out at the lightening sky with her hands folded in her lap.
Nicholas dressed hastily and went out for few moments, returning with a tray of sliced apples, a thin porridge, and two mugs of water.
“I heard the guard from the coach say that a suitable replacement for the driver has been found,” Nicholas offered. “We can be on our way in an hour or so.”
“That is good,” Lydia responded mechanically.
With a frown, Nicholas touched her chin, making her raise her eyes to meet his.
“Lydia? You mustn't be ashamed of what happened last night.”
“But I am!” she burst out. She looked up at him, and he was once again struck by those magnificent green eyes. “I-I have to find out what really happened to my brother! I have thought about nothing ever since he died, and then—"
“And then for a few minutes, you were allowed to think of something else,” Nicholas said, his voice soft. “That's all right
, Lydia. It's fine. Even prisoners are allowed out of their cells once a day.”
He had hoped that it would make her laugh, but instead, she looked stricken.
“That's-that's how it's been. For so long. I've been alone with this grief, a prisoner.”
Nicholas spared a moment for her father. He was really the last person to be criticizing negligent fathers, given how many wayward daughters he had enjoyed, but he couldn't help feeling a stab of reproach for the man.
“You're not alone now. I'm here, and I do not think the lesser of you for your natural response.”
Her cheeks colored again when he mentioned her response, and he hurried forward.
“You should eat your food. And when you are done, we should talk about what comes next.”
She looked up at him alarmed.
“What do you mean, what comes next?”
“Eat, and we'll discuss it.”
She shot him a mutinous look, reminding him of her unquenched spirit, but she ate the food he had provided. While they ate in silence, Nicholas had time to think about what he would have to do. Finally, when the plates were empty, he looked at her, leaning back in his chair with his arms over his chest.
“You should let me escort you back to your father. Under no circumstances should you be wandering the damned countryside like a grieving mendicant nun.”
She stiffened.
“I'm not wandering; I am a woman with a destination in mind.”
“And little money, no companionship, and a marked tendency for mayhem.”
“If you are referring to the bandit that I dispatched…”
“I'm referring to the fact that you shouldn't have had to dispatch him at all. I'm referring to how very inappropriate it is for a young lady of breeding to be gallivanting around the countryside at her own pleasure.”
Christin's Splendid Spinster's Society (The Spinster’s Society) (A Regency Romance Book) Page 23
