A Visit from Sir Nicholas Read online

  “I would not put it so crudely as that.”

  “You just did!”

  He shrugged. “My apologies. Again.”

  “They are not accepted! Not for your behavior tonight. Not for ten years ago. Not today, not ever. Now.” She jerked her head toward the door. “Do be so kind as to leave my house. Immediately.”

  “You’re quite right. The hour is late and our business for the moment is completed. Indeed, I still have a few other matters to attend to this evening.”

  “What other matters?” Suspicion sounded in her voice.

  “Correspondence, for the most part. I have long found my mind clearest for such work late at night after the”—he cleared his throat—“temptations of the day are laid to rest.”

  “Good evening, Sir Nicholas,” she said through clenched teeth.

  “Good evening, Lady Langley.” He turned toward the door, then turned back. “Oh, I would like to establish a regular schedule for the inspection of your daily accounts. I should think half-past-two would be an agreeable time.”

  “Do you actually intend to inspect my accounts on a daily basis?”

  “I most certainly do.” He cast her a pleasant smile. “And I should very much like to meet your sons tomorrow as well.”

  “Why?”

  “I have been charged with the responsibility of the management of their inheritance even if, at the moment, you are serving in that capacity.”

  “Only under your watchful eye.” Disgust sounded in her voice.

  “Be that as it may, an introduction seems only proper.”

  “They are children, Sir Nicholas.”

  “One is a viscount and the other is his heir. Regardless of their youth, they deserve to meet those to whom their financial futures are entrusted.”

  “They have met me.” She fairly spit the words at him. “I am their mother.”

  “And you will be their mother always. However,” he shook his head in a regretful manner, “whether you will always administer their affairs remains to be seen.”

  “Is that a threat, Sir Nicholas?”

  “Probably not, but,” he flashed her a wicked smile, “one never knows. Until tomorrow then.” Once more he started for the door.

  This evening hadn’t gone at all as he’d expected. Up until the very moment the words had fallen from his lips he’d had no plan to confess his revelation about their past, nor had he intended to declare his intentions. Not that he had done any of that especially well. Still, if he knew nothing else at this point, he was certain she still detested him, which was far better than indifference, and certain as well that the spark that had once simmered between them still burned. Both discoveries boosted his confidence. It would not be easy to win Elizabeth’s heart and hand, but nothing he had achieved thus far in his life had been easy.

  He reached the door, pulled it open, stepped over the threshold, then glanced back at her. “One more matter before I take my leave, Lady Langley.”

  “What is it now?” she snapped.

  “You should know I have accomplished everything I have set my mind to in the last decade. I have never failed and do not intend to do so now.”

  “Your intentions are of no particular concern to me.” She shrugged in an offhand manner.

  “I would be disappointed if they were. However, I would be remiss if I failed to mention one last thing.” Nick cast his gaze over her in a forward and most appreciative manner, then grinned. “You would indeed have kissed me back.”

  He pulled the door closed behind him and waited no more than a fraction of a second. A crash sounded in the library and he stifled a grin.

  No, this evening hadn’t gone at all as he’d expected.

  It may have gone much, much better.

  Chapter 8

  “I have never felt so blasted helpless in my life.” Elizabeth paced across the width of her breakfast room, barely avoiding her sister, who paced in the opposite direction.

  “I cannot believe Charles would do something like this to you.” Indignation colored Jules’s voice. “If my husband dared to put such stipulations on my life after his passing, I vow I would dig him up for the simple pleasure of wringing his neck.”

  “As he would be dead, that would be rather pointless,” Elizabeth murmured even if the satisfaction of such a symbolic act certainly held a great deal of appeal.

  “Although I daresay I would never find myself in such a situation,” Jules said firmly.

  Elizabeth stopped in mid-step and stared at her sister. “This is not something I brought about myself. Nor did Charles feel it necessary to discuss the matter with me. How on earth do you think you could avoid all this?”

  “For one thing,” Jules paused and leveled her sister a pointed look, “I have never felt it necessary to hide my intelligence. Therefore no one, but particularly not the man I chose to marry, has ever underestimated my abilities. For another, I have learned from your mistakes.”

  Elizabeth raised a brow. “Oh?”

  Jules nodded. “Since Charles’s death, I have made it my purpose to be well versed on the state of my own family’s finances, investments, estate management and so forth. Oddly enough, my husband has been rather pleased by my interest.”

  “How wonderful for you both,” Elizabeth said wryly. “Why have you never mentioned this before now?”

  Jules shrugged. “There was no need. Besides, it seemed rather smug of me to say anything.”

  “That has never stopped you before.”

  “Perhaps I have at long last conquered at least one flaw in my character.” Jules grinned.

  In spite of Elizabeth’s foul mood, her sister’s grin was infectious, and she grudgingly returned her smile.

  “Now then, to the matter before us.” Jules clasped her hands behind her back and resumed her pacing. “What are we—or rather you—going to do about Sir Nicholas?”

  “I don’t know that there is anything I can do.” A weary note sounded in Elizabeth’s voice, and she again took up her own trek to and fro across the small room. “Believe me, I have thought of nothing else since last night.”

  It had been a very long night with very little sleep. Elizabeth had gone over and over her meeting with Nicholas and had come to no conclusions whatsoever. There was, of course, a fair amount of satisfaction in his admission that leaving her was a mistake and more than a bit of shock in realizing the truth of his parting comment. She would indeed have kissed him back.

  Her fury at the revelation of Charles’s actions and Nicholas’s subsequent arrogance had sustained her through much of the evening. But when Nicholas had left, and she’d thrown a particularly valuable vase that she was exceedingly fond of against the wall and not felt much better for it, her anger had mellowed to a state of utter confusion. Feelings she’d thought were long past had arisen with a vengeance.

  Nicholas wanted her?

  He wanted her now, and it was apparent he had indeed wanted her ten years ago. Why then had he chosen to toss her aside in so callous a manner? Surely he had realized his words would wound her deeply. So deeply she might never forgive him. He’d said he’d had his reasons, but still it made no sense to her at all and simply added to the confusion that muddled her mind.

  “It seems to me,” Jules began thoughtfully, “that Sir Nicholas has indeed offered you a means of escape. You simply have to continue to manage your money in the manner in which you have and you will be free of him by Christmas. It’s not a terribly long time, and certainly you can be civil to him until then.”

  “It’s rather more complicated than that.” Elizabeth sighed. “He seems to want to control my finances not nearly as much as he seems to want, well, me.”

  “You?” Jules stopped and stared at her sister. “What do you mean he wants you?”

  “What do you think I mean?” Elizabeth blew a long breath. “Unless I am sadly mistaken, and I think the look in his eye eliminated any misunderstanding on my part, he wants me in the manner in which a man wants a wom
an.”

  “Good Lord, the sheer nerve of the man.” Jules’s eyes widened in utter disbelief. “The fact that he has the right to manage your money does not give him the right to anything of a more personal nature. How can he possibly think he can walk into your life and propose such liberties, especially as, while he was Jonathon’s friend, he was never more than a mere acquaintence of yours in the first place?”

  “He may not recall it exactly that way,” Elizabeth murmured.

  Jules narrowed her eyes. “He was never more than a mere acquaintance, was he?”

  “Well.” Elizabeth wrung her hands together. “Perhaps a bit more.”

  “Lizzie!”

  “Have I never mentioned that?” Elizabeth said innocently.

  “No, never, not a single word.” Jules crossed her arms over her chest. “Do feel free to tell me now. And tell me everything.”

  “It was all very long ago, ten years to be exact and before I married Charles.” Although it no longer seemed very long ago at all. Indeed, it seemed as recent as yesterday. “Nicholas and I…we…that is to say…”

  “You what?” Jules’s voice rose.

  “It’s not as bad as all that.” Elizabeth waved an impatient hand. “We shared a certain…friendship, I suppose I would call it. We used to seek each other out at parties or gatherings to meet privately—”

  “Privately? Alone, you mean?”

  “Private does generally mean alone, yes.”

  “Dear Lord,” Jules said under her breath. “No one ever knew about these clandestine meetings of yours?”

  “I wouldn’t call them clandestine exactly.”

  “If no one knows, then they are secret, which generally does mean—”

  “Very well then, clandestine, but to talk, Jules, only to talk. We had long, fascinating discussions on any number of interesting topics. Art and politics and hopes for the future.” Elizabeth shrugged. “That sort of thing.”

  “You had long talks with a man about politics? You?” Jules shook her head in a skeptical manner. “Such a thing would not surprise me today, but a decade ago you rarely talked to a man about anything that was not—”

  “Frivolous?” Elizabeth wrinkled her nose. “I know. I was firmly convinced that a woman should not display her intelligence if she wished to be attractive to men.”

  Jules snorted. “Yet another mistake of yours that I learned from.”

  “Yes, well, in that regard, you’re probably smarter than I was,” Elizabeth snapped. “I fully admit it was a rather dim-witted attitude, and in many ways it’s precisely what has placed me in the predicament I’m in today.”

  “Not entirely, Lizzie.” Jules sighed. “To give credit where credit is due, Charles, of all people, should have known you better.”

  “I should have known him better as well.” Elizabeth’s gaze met her sister’s. Jules was the only one in the world Elizabeth had told about Charles’s indiscretions.

  Elizabeth had discovered the existence of Charles’s mistress a scant two days before he’d died. For the first time in her life, she had not known what to do and had delayed confronting him until it was too late. She’d been furious, of course, her anger coupled with a deep sense of betrayal, as well as a surprising amount of guilt and the uneasy feeling that somehow this was her fault. That she had not been a good enough wife. Or she had not loved him enough. But she had loved him, had always loved him, even if it had not been the grand passion her brother had described. And perhaps in that had lain her failure.

  Up until the moment she’d found the letters written by the woman Charles had been involved with, she’d not had a doubt in the world about the perfect nature of their marriage. Certainly, in many respects, they went their own way and lived their own lives. He was busy with matters of finance and the types of things gentlemen of his station in life typically occupied themselves with, and she was concerned with family and charitable endeavors and social obligations. And if they did not always attend a particular dinner or party or play together, why, what married couple did? It didn’t mean that they were not happy with one another. She’d never suspected for a moment that hers was not the only bed he frequented. Up until the very end, she’d thought that too, like every other aspect of their marriage, was relatively perfect.

  Perhaps the comfortable, warm, pleasant type of love they’d shared had simply not been enough for him. Perhaps what Charles had needed was a grand passion, and possibly he had found it with someone else.

  Was it past time she found it as well?

  “I suppose that’s neither here nor there at the moment. To my way of thinking, Charles betrayed you in life and now has done so again in death.” Jules’s voice was hard. “I would give serious consideration to my suggestion of digging him up if I were you.”

  “As appealing as that sounds, I have other matters on my mind at the moment.”

  “Ah, yes,” Jules grinned wickedly. “Sir Nicholas. Mr. Collingsworth. Nicholas.” Jules seated herself at the table and refilled her teacup. “You have not finished telling me about the two of you.”

  “There is little more to tell.” Elizabeth sat down and poured a cup of her own.

  “Did he kiss you?”

  Elizabeth nodded. “Twice.”

  “And?”

  “And…” And he’d curled her toes and made her ache with newly discovered desire and touched her soul. And in spite of her denial last night, she hadn’t forgotten so much as a single word they’d spoken or a moment they’d shared. She had simply stored the memories of him in a disused portion of her mind as one would pack away summer linens or winter blankets in the bottom of a chest.

  “And,” Elizabeth shrugged, “and that was it. There was nothing more to it than that.”

  Jules gasped. “You’re lying. I can see it on your face.”

  “I am not,” Elizabeth said quickly and met her sister’s gaze defiantly. “I’d been kissed before, you know,” she sighed in surrender. “But not like that. Never like that.”

  “Not even by Charles?”

  Elizabeth blew a long breath. “Not even by Charles.”

  Jules’s eyes widened. “My, my, this is a revelation. And juicy enough that I shall forgive you for taking a decade to tell me about it.”

  “I do appreciate that.”

  “So,” Jules took a sip of tea and adopted a casual tone. “How is Nicholas after all these years? Still as grim and serious as I recall?”

  “Not at all. He’s actually rather charming when he’s not being terribly arrogant or annoyingly high-handed. He was quite gracious, especially given as I was not particularly pleasant to him.” She picked absently at the lace table covering. “I did not expect to encounter him yesterday or ever again really. His appearance came as something of a shock.”

  “As well it would.” Jules studied her sister curiously. “Is he as handsome as ever?”

  “Handsomer I think. He has aged nicely.”

  The smoldering quality of his dark eyes was as intense as she’d remembered, perhaps more so. Indeed, in nearly every aspect Nicholas was more than she’d remembered. The moment he entered a room it seemed entirely too small for his presence. The brooding nature she recalled had vanished, and the confident manner that had replaced it was compelling, even perhaps irresistible. This was a man who enjoyed life. A man one wanted to be in the company of. A man who could weaken her knees with a single look and, as much as she was confident she had not let him know, had done just that last night.

  “He’s still the heir to a respectable title and he’s become terribly rich as well, hasn’t he?”

  Elizabeth nodded. “Terribly.”

  Jules pulled her brows together. “Does he have a wife?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “A mistress then?”

  “He’s barely arrived back in London. I daresay he hasn’t had the opportunity to acquire a mistress.”

  Jules snorted. Charles’s infidelity had affected his sister-in-law as deeply as
it had affected his wife. Jules was now firmly convinced that no man, with the possible exception of her own husband, was completely trustworthy.

  “Are his intentions honorable?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Does it matter?”

  “Certainly. I—” Elizabeth stared at her sister. “I don’t know that either.”

  “How very interesting,” Jules murmured. “Let’s see then. Nicholas is rich, handsome, charming, and interested in you with intentions that might or might not be honorable.” Jules ran her finger around the edge of her teacup. “Aside from that annoying problem of his involvement in your financial affairs, which may not last especially long, I fear I don’t understand your problem.”

  “Jules!”

  “Unless, of course,” Jules raised a brow, “there’s more you haven’t told me.”

  “There might be a little more.” Elizabeth got to her feet and meandered aimlessly around the room. “The night before he left—”

  “The night of the Christmas ball?”

  Elizabeth nodded.

  “Ten years ago this upcoming Christmas ball?”

  “Yes.”

  “My, that is an interesting twist,” Jules murmured.

  “I offered to go with him and,” Elizabeth looked at her sister, “he didn’t want me.”

  “I see.”

  “You’re not shocked?” Elizabeth sank back down in her chair and studied her sister nervously.

  “I should be, I suppose, and I would have been at the time, but no, I’m not especially shocked. As you’ve said, it was years ago and nothing really came of it.” Jules thought for a moment. “So Nicholas rejected your offer and you proceeded to marry Charles.”

  “I loved Charles,” Elizabeth said simply.

  “Everyone loved Charles.” Jules’s tone was wry. “I believe that was his problem.” She paused and considered her sister. “Did you love Nicholas as well?”

  “No. What an absurd thought,” Elizabeth said quickly. “How could I have married Charles if I loved someone else?”

  “I’m not saying you didn’t love Charles. You had loved Charles in some fashion for much of your life,” Jules said slowly. “But I wonder if what you felt for Nicholas wasn’t love as well. You did offer to run off with him.”