Nicola and the Viscount Read online

  Nathaniel, who wasn't much of an athlete—oh, he rode, Nicola knew, but he wasn't fond of shooting, and he was even less fond of bagatelle—and who seemed to think that a good day was one spent adding up long columns of numbers on behalf of his father's estate manager, would naturally dislike a fellow like Lord Sebastian, if only because their natures were so very disparate. It was, as Nicola had said to Eleanor, entirely a matter of prejudice. Nathaniel was prejudiced against the God for the simple reason that the God was so unlike him. It would, she assured Eleanor, pass, as Nathaniel and the God got to know one another better.

  But until it did, things were not going to be pleasant between Nicola and her best friend's brother. This became clear the very next night, when Nicola happened to run into Nathaniel Sheridan at—where else?—Almack's.

  He was getting punch. Nicola, who'd already had her three dances with the God that evening, had not felt right accepting invitations from anyone else for the next set—after all, she was virtually a married woman—and had instead gone to find something to drink, as the room was hotter even than usual. She spied Nathaniel at the refreshment table. Otherwise, she would not have ventured near it. Her engagement was still so new, she felt protective of it. She did not want to hear it—or her future husband—maligned by anyone, even in a teasing manner.

  She needn't have worried. Nathaniel saw her—she was quite sure he saw her. Their gazes met above the crystal punch bowl. And yet he did not say a word. He merely lifted the two glasses he held—apparently he'd been getting punch for someone else in addition to himself—and walked away, his well-tailored black evening coat melting into a sea of similar coats, until Nicola could not make him out anymore.

  Stunned, Nicola stood where she was for a full minute before the enormity of what had just happened sank in fully: Nathaniel Sheridan had cut her!

  Nicola had heard about cutting before, of course. Madame had warned them most seriously about the dangers of cutting—or socially ignoring another person with whom one was very much acquainted. Cutting was ill-mannered, immature, and just about the crudest thing one person could do to another.

  Even so, sometimes cutting was necessary. Overzealous suitors sometimes had to be cut in order for a lady to preserve her reputation. And of course if one girl was spreading slanderous rumors about the other, the girl about whom the rumors were focused had every right to cut her slanderess.

  But for Nathaniel Sheridan to cut her, Nicola Sparks, his sister's most particular friend? There was no excuse for such behavior!

  Well, if he thought he was going to get away with it, he had another think coming entirely. Nicola was not the type of girl to meekly accept such a slight.

  Accordingly, setting down her punch glass, Nicola flung herself into the sea of black coats into which Nathaniel had just disappeared, determined to find him, and then make him apologize for his unspeakably rude behavior. This was not the course of action Madame Vieuxvincent recommended to her pupils who found themselves in the ignominious position of being cut. Confronting the cutter was not the prescribed method for solving the problem. But Nicola was too angry to think what Madame would have wanted her to do. All she could think was that Nathaniel Sheridan was going to rue the day he'd ever cut Nicola Sparks.

  Which might have been why, when the God came up to her a second later, she brushed him off with a curt, "Not now, my lord." She had no time for gods just then. She had a mortal she needed to set straight about a few things.

  She found him standing by a window, chatting amiably with Miss Stella Ashton, who wore a dress in a hideous shade of yellow that made her skin look far more sallow than it actually was. It was for Miss Ashton that he'd brought the punch glass. They were both looking down at something on the street below, and laughing.

  Laughing! Nicola felt as if she might burst into flames on the spot, she was so angry.

  "I beg your pardon," she said, intruding upon a private conversation (Madame would most certainly not have approved).

  Stella Ashton looked up from her punch glass and said sweetly, "Oh, Miss Sparks. Good evening."

  "Good evening, Miss Ashton," Nicola said with a nod. To Nathaniel, who was looking at her as if she were a madwoman, she said, "May I have a word with you, Mr. Sheridan? Alone!"

  Nathaniel lifted one of his dark eyebrows in obvious amusement But all he said was, "Certainly." He set his punch glass down upon the windowsill, and bowed to the sallow-faced Stella. "Would you excuse me for a moment please, Miss Ashton?"

  Stella blinked her big—and, in Nicola's opinion, vapid—eyes and said, "Why, of course," in a confused manner, as if Nicola, instead of asking permission to steal away her escort for a moment, had announced that the room were on fire.

  A moment later, standing some feet away in a darkened corner of the room, out of the range of the dancers and at some distance from the musicians, so the noise was not quite as oppressive, Nicola whirled to face Nathaniel. She was a bit alarmed to find, when she did so, that Nathaniel's face was only a few inches from hers. She had not been aware he'd been standing quite so close to her. Still, backing down would look as if she were intimidated by him, which she most certainly was not.

  "Just who," she demanded in a voice just loud enough to be heard above the music, but not loud enough for Stella Ashton, who was looking at them very intently indeed, to overhear, "do you think you are, Nathaniel Sheridan, to cut me?"

  He had the decency to blush, at least. Looking abashed, that familiar lock of hair falling over his eyes so that she could not read them, he said, "I didn't cut you, Nicky. I mean, Miss Sparks."

  "You most certainly did," Nicola declared. "You looked right at me at the punch bowl just now, and then turned around and walked away without saying a word!"

  "Because I couldn't," Nathaniel said, "think of anything to say."

  "Oh, and I suppose 'Good evening, Miss Sparks' would have been too banal for someone of your great mental prowess?" She felt quite proud of herself over that one. Nathaniel Sheridan was too impressed with himself by half. Imagine thinking poetry a waste of time!

  "I ought to have said good evening," came Nathaniel's unexpected reply. "You're quite right."

  Nicola, having anticipated a battle of much longer and more heated duration, was taken aback by this sudden capitulation. She had never known Nathaniel to agree so readily to an accusation she'd put to him.

  "Are you quite well?" she asked a bit worriedly.

  Nathaniel regarded her steadily, his eyes still shadowed so that she could not read them. "Of course I am," he replied. "Why do you ask?"

  "Well, because it isn't like you to actually let me win an argument." Nicola studied him through narrowed eyes. "Are you sure you aren't suffering from an ague?"

  "Yes," Nathaniel said, and he suddenly tossed his head so that the lock of dark hair was flung back, and Nicola saw, all too well, what was in his eyes. And what was in them, she saw, was anger. "But I wonder if I oughtn't be asking the same of you. What can you be thinking, agreeing to marry that bounder?"

  Nicola sucked in her breath. She ought to have known it was coming. Still, she hadn't expected him to be quite that up-front about it.

  "If it is Lord Sebastian to whom you are referring in that rude manner, Mr. Sheridan," she said haughtily, "then the answer to your question—not, of course, that it is any of your business—is that I happen to love him. And he loves me."

  "Does he?" Nathaniel asked in a cold voice, a single eyebrow raised. "Does he indeed?"

  Nicola, as shocked as if he'd slapped her, cried, "Of course he does! Nat, really! Why on earth should he have asked me to marry him if he didn't?"

  "I don't know," Nathaniel said in the same chilly voice. "Did he tell you so?"

  "Did he tell me what?" Nicola was aware that Stella Ashton wasn't the only one in the room who was looking at them curiously. Several people nearby had broken off their own conversations and were staring at Nicola, who'd been unable to keep her voice from rising to tremulous levels, sh
e was so outraged. Madame Vieuxvincent, she knew, would object, as ladies never made scenes. But under the circumstances, Nicola felt she was justified.

  "That he loved you," Nathaniel said, with obviously forced patience.

  Nicola longed with every fiber of her being to snap that he had—that he'd told her so a hundred times a day since their engagement. But of course the truth was that Lord Sebastian was quite casual, as far as lovers went. He had never once mentioned the word love . . . at least in connection with Nicola. He loved his new hunter, eighteen hands high with a neck as curved as a swan's. And he loved his new taupe waistcoat, which Nicola had made for him out of some leftover material from an opera cape she'd been disassembling to turn into a charming little bed jacket.

  But he had never once said he loved her.

  But what did mere words matter between two people who felt for one another the strong and undying attachment she and Lord Sebastian shared? He showed her he loved her in myriad ways. Wasn't the diamond engagement ring on her left hand proof enough of that?

  But before she could utter any of this, Nathaniel said, very nastily indeed, "So he hasn't said it. I thought as much. Ask him, Nicola—or, God forbid, ask yourself—why a man in Bartholomew's position would agree to marry a girl—an orphaned girl—with only a hundred pounds a year."

  She drew in an indignant breath. Why, Nathaniel sounded exactly like the Milksop!

  "Go ahead," Nathaniel said. "I dare you. Ask him."

  "What do you suppose he's going to say? Obviously you know, or you wouldn't be so confident about it," she sputtered furiously. "Well, if you know something you aren't telling me, just say it. I can't imagine why you haven't done so already. You've never felt very squeamish about sparing my feelings before now."

  This last remark caused, for some reason, a muscle Nicola had never before noticed to leap in Nathaniel's jaw.

  "Fine," he said. "You don't want your feelings spared? Then ask your light o' love about Pease."

  "Peas?" Nicola echoed. "What on earth do garden vegetables have to do with Lord Sebastian?"

  "Not peas the vegetable," Nathaniel scoffed. "Pease the name. Ask your precious Lord Sebastian about Edward Pease, and see what he has to say."

  "And who," Nicola demanded, "is Edward Pease?"

  "Lord Sebastian will tell you," Nathaniel said knowingly. "That is, if he's even half the man you seem to think he is."

  "He'll tell me," Nicola said with a confidence she didn't feel. "Lord Sebastian tells me everything. There isn't a single secret between us. We are both of us open as blank pages."

  "Then you haven't anything to worry about," Nathaniel said. "Have you?"

  "No," Nicola responded haughtily. "I haven't. I'm happy as a lark."

  "I couldn't," Nathaniel said, "be more pleased to hear it. Don't forget to ask him."

  "About Edward Pease," Nicola said. "I won't. I'll ask him tonight. Or at the very least, first thing in the morning."

  "Fine," Nathaniel said. "You do that."

  "Fine," she said. "I will."

  "Fine," he said.

  "Fine," she said.

  Then, realizing that they could conceivably go on in that manner for hours, Nicola spun around and began to stalk from the room. She hadn't gotten very far, however, before her gaze fell upon Stella Ashton, who was still staring at her with a dumbfounded look upon her pretty face.

  Nicola, though she would have liked to have made as dramatic an exit as possible, could not keep herself from pausing and turning toward the other girl to whisper, "Really, Miss Ashton, but that shade of yellow doesn't suit you at all. Do dye that gown another color. A nice rich burgundy or blue would do very nicely, I think."

  Then, before Stella could utter a word, Nicola darted from the room, to flee as quickly as she could the penetrating gaze of Eleanor's brother.

  CHAPTER NINE

  "Who is Edward Pease?" Nicola asked the next morning at the breakfast table.

  Lord Farelly, who'd been buttering a piece of toast, promptly dropped both his knife and the toast, eliciting from him a curse that burned the ears of all the ladies present.

  "Jarvis!" Lady Farelly cried. "Really! Such language, and at breakfast, of all places."

  Lord Farelly, looking very red in the face, muttered an apology, and accepted from a waiting footman a new knife before reaching for a new piece of toast.

  "Now," Lady Farelly said, "where were we? Oh, yes. Honoria, my love, I was meaning to ask you. Was that gown you wore to Almack's last night a new one? Because I don't think I've ever seen it before. I know you had one in a similar shade, but it was trimmed with ostrich feathers, I thought, and not gold braid."

  "It's the same gown, Mama," Honoria said lightly, as she spooned a bit of sugar into her coffee. "Nicola felt the feathers were too much, and would detract from my natural beauty."

  "Really?" Lady Farelly looked surprised. "Well, Miss Sparks, I must congratulate you. The gold braid was a definite improvement."

  "Thank you, my lady," Nicola said politely.

  But the politeness was feigned. Nicola was not actually feeling very polite at all. She was not unaware that her question had not been answered. Not only had it not been answered, it had been quite firmly ignored . . . swept under the rug, one might even say, like the crumbs from Lord Farelly's dropped piece of toast.

  Stuff, Nicola thought, and bother.

  Up until that moment, she'd put down the Edward Pease remark as nonsense, something Nathaniel had invented on the spur of the moment, due to his extreme jealousy of Lord Sebastian—not, of course, that Nicola suspected Nathaniel of feeling anything for her but the same sort of brotherly affection he felt for Eleanor; but what young man wouldn't be jealous of Lord Sebastian, who was a living god?

  Now she could not help wondering just what, exactly, it was that he knew. Obviously he knew something. He had not pulled the name Edward Pease out of nowhere. Not if it elicited that kind of response from Lord Farelly.

  Only where had he heard it? And how had he come to connect it with her and the God?

  It was no use, Nicola knew, asking Eleanor, whose head was filled with Sir Hugh, and nothing but Sir Hugh. And pride kept Nicola from asking Nathaniel if he'd mind elaborating. He'd told her to ask Lord Sebastian, and she had.

  Except that, when she'd posed the question, he alone at the table—well, excepting Honoria—had gone right on eating, quite as if he hadn't the slightest idea what she was talking about.

  Later that morning, as he stood preparing to go for his daily ride, Nicola sidled up to her fiance and asked, after first making sure they were well out of earshot of the God's parents, "Lord Sebastian? I was wondering . . . do you know who Edward Pease is?"

  Tugging on his gloves, the God grinned fondly down at her. Nicola did not think she could be mistaken in this. The God positively looked fond of her.

  And certainly the kisses the two of them shared—only one a day, for propriety's sake, and that one only before they were each ready to retire for their separate bedrooms for the evening—seemed quite fond, as well. Whatever else Nathaniel might think, clearly Lord Sebastian was not marrying her against his will. He did like her. At least a little.

  "Pease again?" he asked, reaching out to give one of Nicolas glossy black curls, which had escaped from her coiffure, a tug. "Never heard of the fellow. What's he been doing? Not trying to steal my girl, I hope."

  Nicola felt a flood of relief course through her. He didn't know. She was quite positive of that. Lord Sebastian hadn't the slightest idea who Edward Pease was. So Nathaniel was wrong.

  Except. . . .

  Except Nathaniel Sheridan was never wrong. Well, about people, of course, he was often quite wrong. Look how wrong he was about the God. But Nathaniel Sheridan tended not to be wrong about things like this.

  It was only this fact that caused Nicola to do what she did next. And that was claim, a little bit after Lord Sebastian had left the house, to have a megrim, and retire to her bed.

 
Nicola was rarely, if ever, ill, so her headache was a cause for some concern in the Bartholomew household. Lady Farelly offered very nicely to put off her dress-fitting appointment and stay by Nicolas bedside, in case she needed ice chips or something. And Lady Honoria insisted she would not go to her picnic outing with Phillipa and Celestine Adams, not while Nicola was unwell. She too would stay at her dear friend's side during her time of need.

  Nicola, though touched by this sisterly gesture, was at the same time mightily vexed by it. For of course if both Lady Farelly and Honoria stayed by her bedside, she could not do what she had invented the headache for in the first place.

  And so she begged the ladies of the house to go about with their original plans . . . that she intended only to sleep. If she needed ice chips, Nicola informed them, she could send Martine for them. It would only distress her more to know that Lady Honoria and her mother were nutting off their plans for her. . . .

  It took some doing, but in the end, Nicola was finally able to convince them to leave her. The moment she heard the front door close, Nicola leaped up from her bed, giving Martine, who really had started to go for ice chips, quite a start.

  "It's all right, Martine," Nicola informed her maid, as she bent to lace up her slippers. "I'm right as rain. But be a love, will you, and whistle if you hear anyone coming back, particularly Lord Farelly?"

  Martine, very much shocked at her mistress's behavior, said she would do no such thing, and was in general being quite troublesome, until Nicola gave her a sovereign and told her to mind her own business. After that, Martine retired to a corner with her sewing box and a grim expression, muttering in French about little girls who stuck their noses where they didn't belong getting them cut off.

  Nicola, though she understood French perfectly well, ignored her maid, and slipped from her bedchamber with the full intention of sticking her nose exactly where it didn't belong . . . namely, Lord Farelly's private study. She wasn't at all certain what she expected to find there, but if ever there was a place where she might find a clue as to the identity of Edward Pease, she supposed that was it. Lord Farelly had clearly heard of the man, even if his son had not, and it was possible Mr. Pease and he had corresponded, and that that correspondence might even now lay openly on his lordship's desk, where Nicola might happen accidentally to spy it.