Nicola and the Viscount Page 14

  . . . was not all that I thought he was, Nicola settled for writing. But you mustn't fear that I am unhappy. Well, I was unhappy—desperately so—but I have since come to realize that sometimes these things happen for the better. So, while it looks like I shan't be a viscountess anymore, I am pleased to say that I am still your, and yours alone, Nicky.

  There, she diought, as she read the letter over. That was just the right tone, too, not too sad, but not too silly, either. She would just add a few things about the Sheridans—especially Nathaniel, who had been so kind to her lately. Not, of course, because she suspected that someday he and Nana might meet. Far from it! Nathaniel was about as likely to propose to Nicola as he was to walk upon the moon, given the way the two of them bickered nearly constantly.

  Stealing a glance at Eleanor's brother as he sat across the morning room, reading the newspaper, Nicola wondered how, after all the glowing things she'd written about the viscount, she could ever get Nana to believe that she suspected she had never loved Lord Sebastian in the first place. Oh, certainly she'd been infatuated with him! There was no doubt about that. But how could she ever have thought she loved him, when she had never even really known him? Why, she didn't have the first idea how Lord Sebastian liked his tea, or what his opinions were on the Decree of Fontainebleau, or whether he thought Mozart a genius or an opportunist.

  She knew Nathaniel Sheridan's opinion on all three matters, as well as many, many more. Why, she knew that Nathaniel liked plays, but hated opera. That he enjoyed fishing, but disliked fish. That he could read the whole of a book in a single evening—even a very long, dull one—but could be just as happy to spend that evening instead assisting his younger brother in making a fortress out of the dining room chairs and his mother's best tablecloths.

  As if he sensed Nicola's gaze on him, Nathaniel lowered the paper he was reading and regarded her questioningly, that dark lock of hair falling over, as it often did, his right eye.

  "Have I grown horns of a sudden, Miss Sparks?' Nathaniel asked in a dry tone.

  "No," Nicola said quickly, and ducked back over her letter, as much to hide her flaming cheeks as to avoid having to meet his penetrating gaze.

  "Horns," said young Phillip Sheridan with a chuckle, as he played with one of the dogs. "I should like to see that."

  "Nathaniel," Lady Sheridan, bent over a letter of her own, said in a warning tone. "Leave Nicola alone."

  "Gladly," Eleanor's brother said as he turned a page of his paper.

  Stuff and bother, Nicola thought, as she bit the end of her quill. Now he probably thinks I'm in love with him And I'm not I'm not.

  Only . . .

  Well, Nathaniel Sheridan did look very nice in an evening coat. This could not be denied. Could she write that, she wondered, in her letter to Nana? Or was it more important to mention that Nathaniel had received a first in mathematics from Oxford? Which would impress Nana more favorably in his favor, in the event that the two of them ever did happen to meet? The evening coat, or the first in mathematics? Or should she mention neither, and write instead that the eldest Sheridan had eyes the color of the river Tweed in autumn?

  The Sheridans' butler entered the morning room with a letter on a silver salver.

  "This just arrived," Winters intoned dully, "for Miss Sparks, madam."

  Lady Sheridan waved the butler away, being absorbed in a long letter to her sister describing why now was not the best time for a visit from her and her seven children.

  Winters bowed, and presented Nicola with the salver. As Nicola did not, as a rule, receive many letters by special delivery, she was conscious of both Eleanor's as well as her brother's gazes upon her as she tore open the seal and read the following:

  My dearest Miss Sparks,

  I am in a fix from which only you, with your keen eye for fashion, can rescue me. I want to purchase a shawl for Eleanor, but am in a quandary over the pattern and color. I am at Grafton House. Be an angel and help a man desperate to surprise his one and only love? I hope I need not add that your discretion is required, as the shawl is to he a surprise fir our one-month anniversary. Come at once?

  Beseechingly,

  Sir Hugh

  It was all Nicola could do not to rush at once from her chair. She had always known she liked Sir Hugh, but this . . . well, this forever sealed for him a place in her heart. Imagine, a man so much in love that he remembered a one-month anniversary! And wished to mark the occasion with a shawl! Never mind that such a personal gift would surely be confiscated by Lady Sheridan, who, being old-fashioned, thought the only acceptable presents between men and women who were not married were flowers, candy, and books.

  And how sweet that Sir Hugh should recognize that, of all people, Nicola really was the most appropriate to appeal to when purchasing a gift of clothing. For who knew more about clothing than Nicola? No one in the whole of London.

  "I hope it isn't bad news, Nicky," Eleanor said worriedly from the chair in which she sat reading.

  "You can tell by her face that it isn't," Nathaniel said with some amusement. "She looks like a cat that's got into the creamery."

  Casually, Nicola folded the letter, slipped it into her sleeve, and rose.

  "Oh," she said, in a tone she hoped they'd consider airy and unconcerned. "It's from Stella Ashton. She's in fits over what to wear to the theater tonight. She wants me to come to her house and help her decide."

  Eleanor, nodding, turned back to her book. "Well, that's hardly surprising. After all, if it weren't for you, she'd still be wearing that dreadful yellow."

  "You aren't actually going to go, are you?" Nathaniel asked, looking astonished.

  "Of course I am," Nicola said. "She quite needs me."

  "To help her get dressed?"

  "Of course not," Nicola said scornfully. "She has a maid for that. She needs me to help her decide what to put on in the first place."

  Astonishment changing to disgust, Nathaniel put down his paper, stood up, and, with a shake of his head that seemed clearly to say, Women, left the room.

  Nicola, thinking that Nathaniel might learn a thing from Sir Hugh, who was now her ideal of all that was manly, asked, "May I go, Lady Sheridan?"

  "Of course, my dear," Lady Sheridan said, not looking up from her letter. "But do be home in time for luncheon."

  "I'll be home long before luncheon," Nicola assured her. And then she went to fetch her bonnet and gloves.

  Her escape secured, Nicola was somewhat at a loss as how to proceed once she'd reached the street For Sir Hugh had said nothing of how she was to get to Grafton House. Young ladies did not, as a general thing, go about London—even the fashionable parts—unescorted.

  But there seemed to be no help for it. Sir Hugh would doubtless drive her home, but it was up to Nicola to find her own way to the shop, which fortunately wasn't far from where the Sheridans lived.

  Still, Nicola did not think that a girl in her position—with a recently broken engagement—could very well afford to be seen walking alone along the street. Snide comments might be made by those who were already all too willing to find fault with the behavior of a girl who would slight so esteemable a personage as the Viscount Farnsworth.

  And so, after having examined the contents of her reticule, and finding in it money enough to hire a hansom cab, Nicola decided to do just that.

  Fortunately there was one coming her way that appeared to be empty. Indeed, as Nicola held up her hand to signal to it, the driver slowed down his horse. She was in luck.

  Accepting the drivers help into the hansom, Nicola settled upon the leather seat and said crisply, "Grafton House, please."

  "As you wish, miss," the driver said, and he chirruped to his horse.

  Nicola leaned back and thought to herself how surprised Eleanor was going to be when she received her shawl. For even though Nicola had not yet seen the shawls between which Sir Hugh was apparently trying to decide, she already knew precisely the one Eleanor was going to get a bright yellow one of
Chinese silk, decorated with blue and green peacocks. The two girls had already seen and exclaimed over it the last time they had been in the store. It was monstrously expensive, but Sir Hugh, Nicola thought, could afford it. Besides, he would want to get Eleanor the best, wouldn't he? And the peacock green would bring out the emerald in Eleanor's hazel eyes.

  It was as Nicola was imagining a pleasant scenario in which Nathaniel, having observed the great joy of his sister as she opened her gift from her beau, turned to Nicola and said, "Well, how about it, Nicky? Should we give it a go, as well?" that she realized she did not recognize her surroundings. They were not heading toward the part of London where Grafton House was located. In fact, Nicola could not even say what part of London she was in, save that it was not a part to which she had ever been before.

  "I say," Nicola said, leaning forward to speak to the driver. "Perhaps you didn't understand. I said Grafton House. You do know where that is, don't you? Because I don't believe you're going the right way."

  To which the driver's only response was to whip his horse into a canter.

  Nicola, jolted by the sudden increase in speed, fell back against the seat. Good Lord! What was happening? Was the man drunk? It would be just her luck to have hired a drunken hansom cab driver.

  "Sir," Nicola cried as the unfamiliar—and not very nice-looking, for they seemed to be growing seedier with every acre—houses whizzed past. "I think there has been some mistake. I said Grafton House. Grafton House!"

  But the driver paid not the slightest heed.

  Nicola, for the first time, began to feel a little afraid. Wherever was he taking her? And why? She could not help thinking about a story Martine had once told her about a man who'd lost his wife, and missed her so much that when he happened to chance upon a woman who resembled her, he kidnapped her and brought her to his home, and ordered her about as if she were his wife in truth. The girl had gotten away in the end, but only after suffering the indignity of having to do the entire family's laundry.

  Nicola did not want to do this man's laundry—or anyone's laundry, for that matter. How positively odious!

  Then, as the houses they passed grew ever more questionable, it began to occur to Nicola that the driver might have something a good deal more nefarious in mind than forcing her to do his laundry.

  And so she leaned forward—difficult given the speed with which the carriage was hurtling down the narrow streets—and did the only thing she could think of, which was to jab her fingers into the driver's eyes.

  Only her valiant action did not have the desired effect. For instead of howling in pain and pulling up on the reins, forcing the cab to slow down and affording Nicola a chance to escape, the driver, with a curse, reached up and pushed Nicola, by the face, unceremoniously back into her seat.

  "Any more of that," the driver snarled at her, "and I'll bind and gag you. See if I don't!"

  This was alarming information, to say the very least. Nicola lay where the driver had pushed her, her bonnet irreparably dented, and her reticule quite lost. But she gave no particular thought to these two incidentals. All she could think was, Why, I am being kidnapped! Kidnapped, in broad daylight!

  She thought about screaming, but remembered the warning about him gagging her. The last thing that Nicola wanted was some foul-smelling article of the driver's clothing being stuffed into her mouth. She knew it would be foul-smelling because the man's hand, as it had flattened across her face and shoved her, had smelled quite bad. She highly doubted he possessed, much less carried with him, a clean handkerchief. And so undoubtedly the object that would be used to silence her would be a nasty, dirty one. Nicola would not have been able to abide anything of the sort.

  Besides, Nicola thought bleakly, as the carriage thundered down the twisting, narrow road, it wasn't very likely that, even if she did get out a few screams, anyone in this neighborhood would come rushing to her rescue. The few people she happened to glimpse looked about as seedy as the houses did. She was most certainly not in Mayfair anymore, where a woman's scream would bring a Bow Street Runner, and very likely a half dozen stalwart footmen, running. More likely, in this neighborhood a scream would bring a throng of onlookers, eager to witness the murder of a young society miss.

  And if she were to jump? Make a spectacular leap from the carriage, and to safety? She would surely dash her brains upon the cobblestones below, if she managed to avoid being trampled to death beneath the hooves of the horse, or cut in half by the vehicle's wheels.

  Oh! And what, Nicola could not help wondering, were her chances of being rescued? Quite small, actually, as no one had the slightest idea where she'd gone. There was a chance that Sir Hugh, when she failed to show up to meet him, would go to the Sheridans' to investigate. But who was to say, given the current circumstances, that Sir Hugh really had written that note? It could easily have been forged. Nicola was not at all familiar with the handwriting of Eleanor's fiance. How could she be?

  But if Sir Hugh had not written that note, who had?

  And then, all too soon, Nicola had an answer to that question. Because the driver was hauling on the reins, bringing his animal to a halt. Nicola, half-collapsed against the bottom of the cab—which was quite grimy, having seen the bottom of a good number of shoes in the recent past—struggled to sit up, and perhaps make an escape. . . .

  But the driver seemed to know what she was thinking, and in a trice had reached into the carriage and hauled her out as roughly as if she were a sack of potatoes.

  "Unhand me, sir!" Nicola cried with spirit—though it had to be admitted that her voice shook a little. "How dare you mistreat me in this manner? I will see you imprisoned for this!"

  The driver, unimpressed, dragged her by the arm into a mean, low-ceilinged building next to which he'd pulled up. Nicola had time only to glance around and see that, much to her surprise, she was by the water—seagulls sat on casks all around, while, behind them, loomed the masts of sailing ships. The tang of salt was in the air, and a rigorous breeze whipped her cheeks.

  Then the driver was pushing her through a narrow door. It took Nicola's eyes a moment to adjust to the darkness of the interior after the bright sunshine outdoors. But when she finally could see, it was not the driver's nine children and mounds of washing that greeted her, as she'd almost come to expect.

  No, it was the familiar—and not particularly welcome—face of someone she knew only too well, smiling at her from a small, bare table, at which he sat with his plump hands resting atop a silver-tipped cane.

  "Hello, Nicola," said Lord Farelly.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  "You!" Nicola burst out.

  "Yes," Lord Farelly said pleasantly. "It is I. Thank you so much for joining us. I apologize for the ignominious manner in which you were conducted here. But you will understand, of course, that we did not think an invitation would do the trick."

  "Stubborn," came another all-too-familiar voice. "She was always horribly stubborn. Takes after her father in that way."

  Nicola, blinking in the dim light, turned her head toward the voice.

  "Lord Renshaw," she said, recognizing the nattily garbed figure without much surprise. "I should have known."

  "Yes." The Grouser scooted back his chair and stood up. "All that money wasted on a fancy education that really does not seem to have done you a bit of good, does it? We ought just to have thrown it down the well."

  Nicola, now that her vision had at last cleared, was able to see that she stood in what appeared to be an abandoned taproom. There was a long bar to one side, over which hung a warped and not very clean mirror. A rickety-looking staircase leading to a second floor ran along the opposite wall. Gathered at the various grimy tables along the taproom floor were a number of individuals with whom Nicola was more than a little acquainted. Lord Farelly, of course, was one, as was the Grouser. But Lord Sebastian, she soon saw, was there as well, lolling with his long legs stretched out before him, looking quite pleased with himself.

  And th
ere, at a table quite in the back of the room, sat another person Nicola knew, but had hardly expected to see in a situation such as this.

  "Harold!" she cried, really feeling as if the breath had been taken right out of her. "How could you?"

  Harold—looking, it had to be admitted, quite miserable, though whether due to the circumstances in which he found himself or the horrid vermilion waistcoat he wore beneath a powder-blue morning coat, Nicola couldn't say—slumped in his chair, and said, "I'm sorry, Nicola. I'm so sorry. I did try to warn you—"

  "Yes." Lord Farelly stood up, his own waistcoat, of a delicate combination of pink and green, straining a bit beneath his fairly prominent belly. "And I can't say we thank you very much for that, Mr. Blenkenship . . . though luckily no harm was done."

  The Milksop, looking close to tears, rose with such abruptness that his own chair fell over backward behind him with a clatter.

  "Animals!" he shouted, his pale face looking round as the moon in the dismal lighting. "That's all you are! Horrible, disgusting animals!"

  "For God's sake, Harold," the Grouser said from beneath his handkerchief, which he'd brought out and laid across his nose. "Shut up. And be still, won't you? You're raising all sorts of dust. Whoever owns this place, Farelly, ought to be shot. Such scandalous housekeeping I've never before seen in my life. A man could choke on all this dust—"

  "Where's my guinea?" the driver of Nicolas hansom cab interrupted gutturally.

  "Never mind about your pay," Lord Farelly said. "You'll get it in good time. Now be a good lad, and make sure no one comes in."

  The driver grunted and opened the front door—letting in a bar of sunlight—then slammed it closed behind him, raising another cloud of dust, and causing the Grouser to begin coughing.

  "A guinea?" Nicola, despite her fear, glared at Lord Farelly. "That's all you had to put up for my abduction? One guinea?"

  "I am a man," Lord Farelly said, leaning lightly upon his decorative cane, "who appreciates a bargain when he sees one. Surely you can't hold that against me, Miss Sparks. Thrift is generally considered a virtue, you know."