“Cynthia.” Lenore’s hands grabbed her arms from behind. “Cynthia, I think it’s him. With Mother!”
“Where?” She spun around and the crowd parted to reveal Nick. He strolled across the lobby, hands clasped behind his back as he leaned politely down to hear her aunt’s words. His gaze flashed up to Cynthia, sparkling with mischief.
“Nick,” she whispered.
Lenore glanced at her. “What?”
“Nothing.”
“Oh, this is so exciting!”
Cynthia nodded. It was. It was so exciting she thought she might collapse right there in the middle of the lobby. But Nick looked perfectly composed as he stopped before them.
“Lord Lancaster,” her aunt gushed. “I am so pleased to introduce you to my daughter, Miss Rossburg, and my niece, Miss Merrithorpe. Girls, this is Viscount Lancaster.” Her voice rose in a little trill at the end.
“An honor, Miss Rossburg,” he said with a bow. Lenore bounced into an exuberant curtsy.
Then he turned to Cynthia. “And I have actually had the pleasure of making your niece’s acquaintance in England, Mrs. Rossburg.”
Cynthia stared, openmouthed.
Nick cocked his head to the side. “Perhaps she doesn’t remember me?”
The air whistled through her throat as she bobbed a stiff curtsy. “Lord Lancaster.”
Lenore hopped on the balls of her feet. “This is so exciting!” she repeated.
Her mother nodded. “This is exciting! Lord Lancaster, I insist you join us for dinner tomorrow evening.”
He bowed again, perfectly calm and charming as if they hadn’t been separated for 110 days. Cynthia drank in the sight of his smile.
“Mrs. Rossburg, I’d be delighted. What a kind people you Americans are, to take interest in a lonely stranger.”
Her aunt giggled like a girl while Cynthia’s shock twisted into irritation. A lonely stranger? What kind of poppycock was this? And why was he acting like a mere acquaintance? “Lord Lancaster,” she snapped, but Nick held out his arm for her aunt’s hand.
“If you would indulge me by writing down your direction, Mrs. Rossburg, I’m not yet familiar with your lovely city. Miss Rossburg. Miss Merrithorpe. A pleasure. I’ll count the minutes until tomorrow.”
And he led her aunt away without a look back.
Cynthia stared in shock. Then she panted in rage.
The bells chimed, calling the patrons back to their seats. Cynthia stood stock-still among the flow, fists clenched. When she caught a glimpse of Nick moving away with a group of gentlemen, she stormed toward him.
She caught him just before he stepped into a stairway, and wrapped her fist around his sleeve. “What do you think you’re about?” she whispered.
He turned gracefully toward her, a delighted smile already in place. “Miss Merrithorpe! What a lovely surprise!”
“Nicholas Cantry, you either explain yourself or I will stand right here in front of you and scream out the vilest curse I can think of.”
“Oh, my. What would that be, I wonder? Something truly shocking, I suppose.” He held up a hand when she drew in a deep breath. “Calm down, Cyn.” He leaned closer. “I’m courting you.”
“You…What?”
“I’m courting you properly, remember?”
“Remember?” Heat rose up her face, and when it reached her eyes, they overflowed with tears. “I sent letters, and you hardly wrote anything back, and it’s been months since I’ve seen you, and I was so frightened. I missed you, Nick.”
“Ah, love. Don’t cry.” His eyes lost their bright charm and went soft and warm. “Please.”
Her face crumpled.
“Here, Cyn.” Nick tugged her gently to the side, leading her to a narrow alcove that would shield them from the inattentive, at least. He pressed a handkerchief to her face, nearly smothering her before Cynthia batted his hand away.
She wiped her eyes and scowled. “You’ve made my acquaintance?”
“What did you want me to say? That I’ve known you biblically?”
“Well…What are you doing here? What has happened?”
“I’m sure we’ll have time to speak tomorrow.” He glanced toward a passing man who sent them a curious look. “We are being inappropriate again. Come, let me return you to your family.”
She stopped him with a hand on his arm. “Wait. Come to my window tonight. It’s in the east corner on the second floor—”
“I certainly will not.”
“There’s a balcony. If you—”
He stepped back. “I treated you shamefully before. I was betrothed to another woman and without any prospects and I dishonored you. I shan’t behave that way again.”
“Don’t be an idiot!”
Outrage flashed briefly in his eyes. He bowed. “Good evening, Miss Merrithorpe.”
Before she could protest, he turned and disappeared into the theater, and all she could do was blow her nose and calculate how many hours would pass until tomorrow’s dinner.
Bastard, she shouted in her mind. He was a thoughtless, cruel bounder. A heartless cad.
And he was here.
Pressing a hand over her wide grin, Cynthia slipped out of the alcove and floated back to her seat.
Her gasp echoed through the room so loudly that everyone turned toward her. “I’m sorry,” Cynthia managed, then patted her throat as if she’d swallowed her wine too quickly. Nick watched her carefully.
Had he just said he was part-owner of a shipping company?
Her uncle grunted. “I thought you Englishmen had an aversion to honest work.”
“So we do. Rather shameful, I admit. But even the lordliest among us believes in investment. The majority owner of Huntington Shipping is the Duke of Somerhart.”
“I’d heard that,” her uncle said.
Her aunt perked up. “Is there any chance the duke might come for a visit?”
Nick’s eyes watched Cynthia with rare seriousness as she hovered at the edge of the crowd. He’d invested with Somerhart? Where had he found that kind of money? It made no sense.
She had so many questions, and he was so very carefully keeping his distance. She stalked him, drawing closer.
Her aunt had invited three other families, of course. No point in having a viscount to dinner if you could not show him off. The others crowded around Nick, and she could not edge closer. When she caught his gaze again, she narrowed her eyes at him.
In England, she’d been so confident in her position. She’d nobly refused to marry him and ruin his family. But something was different inside her now. She was in America. A new land that let her see things in a new way. People made their own destinies here. Why shouldn’t she?
Here, they believed in the pursuit of happiness. They believed in a greater destiny. And both her happiness and destiny were with Nick. She was sure of it.
He’d called her strong and brave when they were in England. She hadn’t believed it then. But standing on the deck of that ship, sailing across the ocean, she’d felt brave. With the salt wind whipping her skirts and the sun glinting off thousands of miles of water, she’d felt strong.
And now she felt like a vengeful goddess, resolved to have her way. Perhaps that had something to do with the dowry her aunt had gifted her with. “It’s only what your father would have wanted,” she’d said.
A thousand pounds.
Not a fortune, but here in America, they could turn it into something. Or perhaps she would invest in Huntington Shipping.
Cynthia threw a suspicious glare in Nick’s direction. A part-owner?
Whatever her suspicions, her glare lasted only a moment. Then she was caught up in the movement of Nick’s hands as he said something to amuse the people gathered around him. He laughed, throwing his head back to reveal his throat. She couldn’t see the scar, but she thought of it.
It would be better for him to marry a rich woman. His life would be better. But who would understand him the way Cynthia did?
Dread
rolled through her gut when she thought of how careful he was with his body. How protective. Another woman wouldn’t understand that. She might touch his hair and hurt him. She might not want her hands held down, might degrade him for doing so.
How could Cynthia willingly give him over to someone else?
She couldn’t. She set her jaw in determination.
“Shall we proceed to the dining room?” her aunt announced with a clap. “Lord Lancaster, I’ve put you with Miss Merrithorpe so you won’t feel quite so beset by strangers.”
Triumph roared to life in Cynthia’s chest. Finally, she’d have him in her clutches. Armed with her excuse, she approached. “Lord Lancaster. A pleasure to see you again. It’s been an honor to watch you from across the room.”
“Miss Merrithorpe,” he said warily. But then his eyes focused on her mouth. “Your beauty amazes. As always.” He held out his arm.
She’d planned to torment him this evening if she could, but when Cynthia curled her hand slowly around his forearm and spread her fingers wide, pleasure wound through her gut so quickly that it hurt. She was the one tormented. Still, Nick closed his eyes and inhaled.
When she’d caught her breath again, she whispered, “I need to speak with you privately.”
He shook his head. “That wouldn’t be proper.”
“I am not proper and well you know it.”
Alarm showed on his face as he glanced around, but no one was paying any mind. She took deliberately small steps to draw out this private moment.
“I have questions,” she insisted. “If you won’t come to my room, meet me in the library after dinner. I’ll excuse myself from the drawing room. No one will miss us.”
“I won’t risk your reputation. We’ll have plenty of time to talk when I come for tea tomorrow.”
“I don’t wish to speak of bonnets and books!”
Nick leaned slightly toward her. “I am a new man, Cynthia. I am determined to no longer take the easy way. And if there is anything in my life I mean to do correctly, it is this. I will be in New York for a full month. Please allow me to do this properly.”
For a brief heartbeat, she felt sympathy for him. Understanding. And then she looked down to his hand, to the tanned skin of his wrist and the golden hair that glinted against it. She’d waited so long already. She was strong and brave. She was resolved.
“I have a beau.”
“Liar.”
“You’d better not dawdle. He could propose at any moment.”
“Too bad you’re in love with me. Poor fellow will be heartbroken.”
Well, what was she to say to that? She wouldn’t deny loving him, not even to hurry him up. But she knew his weakness. She knew how to get him alone.
Cynthia edged her chin up, inching her mouth nearer his ear. “I declined to wear drawers this evening, Lord Lancaster.”
His shoe seemed to catch on the smooth wood of the hallway, and Nick nearly tumbled to the floor. He caught himself and jerked upright, face flaming. “You never wear them. It’s hardly a surprise.”
“I do wear drawers now. Pink ones. Finished in lace and embroidered with naked harem girls.”
“That’s not true!”
“Come to my room tonight and I’ll show you.”
She was smiling when he held her chair at the dinner table. And Nick couldn’t keep his eyes off her.
Damn her. Damn her all to hell.
Lancaster paced across the bedroom of his rented suite.
She’d done her best to torment him all evening. Flashing him naughty smiles. Leaning toward him each time she spoke to the lady on his opposite side. She’d even trailed her fingers up his thigh once, and it had felt…good. Exquisitely good.
Flirting with him. Mocking him with her eyes. And speaking about her drawers. In public.
When Lancaster had arrived in London, when he’d finally had some distance from Cynthia, he’d been horrified by his own behavior. To have so recklessly given into his lust with a sheltered young woman. To have even considered it when he was engaged to another. To have endangered her reputation and future…He’d behaved reprehensibly.
After coming to that clarity, Lancaster had resolved to behave with the utmost honor to prove to her that he could. To prove that she could trust him in every way.
It had seemed an easy vow out on the ocean. But now he was near her again and he’d missed her so much and she was so damned lovely. His body felt a husk. Dried out and wanting to be filled with her.
When she’d cried for him in the theater it had taken everything he had not to pick her up and whisk her to his carriage and…and what? Ravish her? In a carriage on a city street?
This was not going the way he’d planned.
Lancaster resumed his pacing, faced with an ugly truth. He couldn’t resist her. She’d run her fingers up his leg for a count of four seconds, and he’d suffered in too tight trousers for a full thirty minutes.
Just the memory of it and he was suffering again.
He glanced at the clock. It was nearly eleven-thirty. Her last words to him hung like an ax over his head.
If you do not find a way to my room by midnight, I will find a way to yours.
She wouldn’t really go traipsing about the city in the middle of the night, would she? Except that he had mentioned his hotel in passing over dinner. And Cynthia was damned stubborn.
“Bloody hell,” he muttered, looking to the clock again.
He had to go, if only for her safety. And when he was near her, he couldn’t resist.
Oh, this was not going to go honorably at all.
Cynthia glared at the clock. Eleven fifty-five and no Nick.
She’d suffered a great conundrum an hour earlier when she’d come to her room. Call the maid to dress her in her finest new negligee so that Nick would see her at her best? Or assume he wouldn’t come and remain in her formal clothing? Her bright blue dress probably would not have been practical attire for climbing down the balcony, but it would’ve been better than the pale peach silk she wore now.
Damn him. She was going to have to sneak into the Ledbetter Hotel in her nightdress.
She stalked over to her bed to snatch the matching wrap off the mattress. Not that it covered much.
She was reaching for her cloak when her door opened. Her balcony door.
She froze, hardly believing he might be there. But then Nick walked in, his face tight with fury and his trousers ripped at the knee.
He pointed at the cloak in her hand. “You were actually going to do it, weren’t you?”
“I said so, didn’t I?”
Nick took a step toward her. “You manipulative, stubborn, impossible woman. I am trying to court you honorably and decently and you—”
“Oh, stuff it, Nick.” Cynthia dropped the cloak to the floor and shrugged off her wrap. When his eyes swept down she knew exactly what he was seeing. The pale silk did nothing to disguise the shape of her nipples or the dark thatch of hair between her thighs.
His eyes glittered.
Cynthia reached for the material at her hips and began to inch it up.
“Stop!” he whispered furiously.
“I want you.”
“We have to wait.”
“No.”
“There are things we need to discuss. Serious things that I wished to ease into—”
“Oh, for God’s sake, just ask me to marry you and be done with it!”
Nick gasped, his mouth falling wide with shock. Then he cursed. Then crossed his arms. Finally he pointed at a chair in the corner of the room. “Sit down.”
“No.”
“Sit down or I will change hotels and you won’t see me again for weeks.”
“Hm.” She studied his face, trying to gauge his level of commitment. He did have a different sort of determination about him now.
Nick tugged at his cuff and offered her a casual smile. “I’ve another trip to America scheduled in four months. Perhaps I’ll see you then.”
“Oh, blast,” she huffed and flounced into the chair, making sure her gown rose enough to expose her ankles.
First, he checked to be sure her door was locked—as if she wouldn’t have thought of that. Then he paced to the open balcony door and looked into the midnight sky for a long while.
Finally, he turned back to her. “I went to see Imogene Brandiss and her father the moment I set foot in London. I did not even stop at my home. I want you to know that.”
“Was it difficult? Was she relieved?”
“It was…as difficult as would be expected.”
Cynthia cringed. “I’m sorry.”
“But she looked thankful, I think. I hope. And it was done. Of course, then I had to break the news to my mother.”
“Oh, no.” She’d been so consumed with her yearning for him, she’d forgotten all the difficulties he’d been suffering. “She must have been…disturbed.”
“Yes, she was. But there was more difficult news for her to bear. The news I wish to discuss with you also.”
Cynthia sat up from her slump. “What is it?”
“First, I’ve taken some economies. I’ve cut my brother’s allowance by more than half and sold my mother’s London home—”
“Ouch.”
“And I’ve petitioned the crown to remove the entail from my own town home. It’s a great monstrosity and will likely bring in an impressive amount if the crown agrees. I’ll pay off my debts and invest the money in improvements on my other properties and in a few years, my income should improve. As for my mother…I’ll rent a home in London for my family during the Season, and they may retire to the country as always during the winter.”
“I see. And where will you live during the Season?”
He glanced at her through his lashes, then down to the floor. “This is what I wished to discuss with you.”
Her pulse increased at his nervousness.
“I will not…I will not lead the life I had expected. Or that you had expected.” He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “It’s a difficult subject.”
“Nick, where in the world did you get money to invest?”
“I didn’t.”
She waited, but Nick said nothing. “Please tell me so we can get past this.”
One Week As Lovers Page 27
