An image flitted forward, bringing a smile to Nolan’s lips. Of Sybil as she would have been; a young, bespectacled girl with plump cheeks and speaking animatedly about the details on that board.
“On her chart, she had plotted out all the reasons a lady should not marry.” He lifted a finger with each item he enumerated. “She feared losing her freedom, her right to read books and attend lectures. My wife, Lady Lovell, did not sleep for a week, fearful that Sybil would grow to be an unwed spinster who never found a husband.” A distant glimmer twinkled in the viscount’s eye; a man who saw that long ago memory play out, still, in his mind. “Do you know how afraid I was, Webb?”
Nolan shook his head once. If he was a father with a daughter, his greatest fear wouldn’t be that the girl wouldn’t wed, but rather, the bounders who might prey on her.
“Not at all. Those seven days were the best seven days I’d ever slept, because I knew my Sybil had too much of a head to ever give her heart over to a scoundrel who’d not appreciate her.” Her father chuckled. “I didn’t care if she married a servant, sailor, or lord. I cared that she found someone who loved her and appreciated her as she deserved.”
There was a question and statement there all at the same time. Nolan’s throat worked and, unable to meet the man’s piercing gaze, he looked to the frozen Serpentine once more. Then the viscount asked it. “Do you care about her?”
Do you care about her? No. I love her. The air lodged in his lungs.
It defied the logic and reason Sybil spoke of and lauded. They were two strangers, meeting for less than a week’s time. And yet, those hours, such fragmental moments in his life, had been filled with joy and laughter unlike any he’d ever known. Good God, what have I done? He’d gone and fallen in love with the lady. He loved her spirit and her quick wit and her endearing habit of prattling on about obscure details and facts. He loved her for seeing more than the careful image he’d crafted for the world. And more, he loved her for her directness that didn’t waste precious time.
He wanted her, when he had nothing to offer her. When he’d only ever taken and, with his selfishness, hurt his siblings and he’d not add her to the long list of those he’d failed.
Nolan briefly closed his eyes as a wave of longing assailed him.
“Yes, well, love does have that effect on a person,” the viscount murmured, stealing another sip of his spirits. He handed it over to Nolan who took a long swallow.
“I have nothing to offer her,” he answered, handing back the drink. He’d never hated the truth of his circumstances more than he did in this moment. Again, it spoke to the self-centeredness of his soul that, of the siblings he’d failed and their beloved parents he’d let down, it was Sybil whom he’d known in six days’ time who’d cracked down the walls he’d built about his heart and made him wish he had more. For her.
“Finances?”
Nolan hesitated and then gave a curt nod. What had he to offer her?
The viscount tucked away his flask and then adjusted his hat. “But that isn’t what I asked you.” No, it hadn’t been. But it was the most he could give, for ultimately his worth was tied into his inability to pursue anything more with Sybil. The viscount patted him on the back. “All of that works itself out, my boy. The finances and monetary nonsense.”
“Nonsense?” An empty, hollow laugh rumbled from his chest. “You are an optimist.” The viscount couldn’t know the depth of Nolan’s financial failings. If he did, the older gent would surely be less amiable to any talk linking his and Sybil’s names.
“I am a realist,” the viscount corrected. “I did not pay you a visit, as my wife asked, to demand you marry Sybil. I’d never have her marry a man that way.” With a bow, he started back down the trail marked by his boot steps. Nolan stared after him, when the viscount suddenly turned back. “It did not escape my notice that you did not deny your love. You merely spoke of not having enough to offer her. I expect if you think about it, you’ll find that the only thing that matters is love. And if you do not come to that realization?” The viscount gave a wry grin. “Then you were never deserving of her, anyway.” Sybil’s father touched the brim of his hat.
“My lord,” Nolan murmured, bowing. He stood there long after Lord Lovell left. Stood in silence staring at the Serpentine until the cold numbed his fingers. And then he made the journey home.
All the while, the viscount’s words echoed around the chambers of his mind. Haunting him late into the night, when the house slept and he sat in his barren office, with the fire’s shadows his only company. Fingers steepled under his chin, Nolan sat on the cold floor, legs drawn up to his chest. How simple he had made it seem. The gentleman had spoken as though finances were not an issue. And even with a dowry that Sybil brought, it would not be enough to right his family’s circumstances and, more, he’d never touch the money that belonged to her.
Then, marriage to Sybil would never be about one person…but rather a partnership. A wistful smile pulled at his lips and he briefly allowed himself the dream of a life with Sybil at his side. There would never be a want for laughter or learning or excitement. He grabbed the fireplace poker and jabbed at one of the dried logs. Sparks crackled and hissed.
From behind him, the door opened and then closed. By the soft tread, he didn’t even need to glance back to know who his nighttime interloper was. “It’s past your bedtime, brat.”
Josephine snorted. “You’re a good deal less wicked than you let on, if you naively believe I ever kept a proper bedtime.” His sister slid down, claiming the spot beside him. “Unable to sleep?”
He grunted and jabbed at the log once more.
“Henry came by earlier this morn, while you were out.”
“Yes.” His butler had handed him the card indicating he’d missed Henry’s unexpected business. Because while Henry is off saving the estates, I was off to meet the woman who has occupied my every thought since she stormed this very room.
“He believes you were at your clubs.”
Nolan started. “Did he say as much?” That went against the straitlaced, honorable brother he’d always known.
“No.” Josephine grinned. “But I well knew what he was thinking.”
It was what all would likely assume. And for years, he’d reveled in that ill-opinion. Those low expectations had kept him safe and insulated him from people probing and seeing who he was inside.
“Do you know what I believe?”
Nolan avoided her eyes. She’d probe too close. She’d always been too clever by half. Certainly more clever than he’d ever been, even before his accident. He braced for the onslaught of shame…that did not come. Sybil had shown him there was no shame from what had happened to him. “What is that, poppet?” he murmured, setting aside the wrought iron prod.
“I believe you met a lady,” she ventured softly. Her tone was absent of the usual lightheartedness.
He froze. Had he been so very transparent?
“You were,” Josephine confirmed with a nod.
Nolan gave thanks for the heavy shadows and cover of darkness that concealed the heat burning his neck and face.
“The morning escapades were what did it,” Josephine went on to explain. “Everyone knows a rake and rogue spend their evenings out, but you’ve not gone to your clubs once this entire week.”
He dusted a hand over his face. “You’re too clever for your own good.” Certainly for his own good.
Josephine beamed. “Though, in truth, it wasn’t just your morning trips. There was the meeting with Henry you nearly missed and the singing. Mustn’t forget that.”
Nolan managed a sheepish grin. “You’ve found me out,” he confided. “Just don’t go saying as much or you’ll ruin my reputation.”
His sister dropped her legs before her and leaned back on her elbows. “Your lady is the one responsible for that. And it’s called reforming a rake, not ruining you.”
They sat in silence, with only the crack of the flame filling the quiet. “Do you l
ove her?”
And for the second time, another soul had asked him that question. If he’d been a proper rake, Josephine and the viscount’s talks of love would have set him running in the opposite direction. But he was no rake. He was simply a man in love with a woman. “I do,” he said quietly, his voice hoarse.
“Then you must marry her,” she said with a stoic logicality.
“I…” His words trailed off. Speaking about how he’d lost his heart to Sybil Cunning was revealing enough. Subsequently sharing the financial state he found himself in with Josephine was a truth she needed to be protected from. Protected, when he’d already failed her in every way.
“Does she care that we’re in dun territory?”
He whipped his gaze over, meeting Josephine’s wise-before-her-own-years expression.
“Because if she does,” his sister said with increasing vehemence, “then she is certainly not someone we’d want in the Pratt fam—”
“I haven’t asked her if it matters.” His sister puzzled her brow. “I didn’t offer for her, because of…because…of that. My finances.” Our finances. Most lords and ladies came from cold, unfeeling families. Whereas Nolan found himself with a brother who worked to set their circumstances to rights and a sister who did not hold Nolan to blame for his mistakes. Instead of upbraiding him, they rallied behind him, claiming the financial issues as theirs. Something stung his eyes and he blinked it back. Must be dust from the hearth. There was no other accounting for it.
His sister grunted. “Well, then given your cowardice, sulking in your office in the dead of night, making sad eyes at the fireplace, I’d say you don’t belong in the Pratt family.”
He chuckled and knocked his shoulder lightly against his sister’s. His quiet amusement faded. “I’m sorry for the state we find ourselves in.”
“I’m not worried about it,” she said with a simple shrug of her shoulders.
Yet another member of the peerage, his sister, now claiming those essential details that sustained families and tenants didn’t matter. “I don’t want you to worry about it.”
“What I am worried about, Noel, is that you give up whoever your lady is out of some misbegotten sense of guilt for trusting Father’s man-of-affairs.”
How much she’d seen over the years. More than he himself had. “Henry hasn’t wed Lady Alice because of our circumstances. How could I—?”
“Pfft,” Josephine interrupted. “Henry’s a different matter altogether. His not marrying his Alice has nothing to do with how you kept or didn’t keep the books and his own determination to rise inside that blasted law firm. And if he’d expect you to forsake your happiness and love, then he isn’t worthy of the Pratt name, either.”
Nolan rested his chin atop his knees and stared into the fire. His sister was still innocent enough that she saw life in absolutes. To Josephine, there was black and there was white, and she could not see the shades in between.
“Noel?”
He glanced over.
“Don’t make a mistake you’ll regret for the remainder of your life.” With those sage words from his youngest sibling, she hopped to her feet. “Now, I must be going.” She waggled her eyebrows. “It is now past my bedtime.”
They shared a smile.
“Josephine,” he called out, staying her when she reached the door.
She glanced back.
“Thank you.”
She winked. “Do not thank me. Thank the lady who snuck inside our house earlier in the week for thawing your heart.”
He started.
“She is the one, isn’t she?”
“She is,” he murmured to himself. She had been the one since the moment she’d sailed in his office and commandeered a meeting.
Josephine flashed him a crooked-toothed smile, bringing him back to the moment. “A bold lady who defies conventions and manages to steal your heart? I do say, I love her already.” With a jaunty wave, she was then off.
Nolan leveled himself to a stand and stalked over to his desk. He dropped into his chair. How simple Lord Lovell and Josephine made it seem. They acted as though all he and Sybil would need was love and that all their problems could be overcome.
Tugging out the drawer, he fished out a small, velvet sack, cradling it in his palm. And that was assuming the lady even wished to have a life with him. If she was as clever as he knew she was, Sybil Holly Cunning would steer clear of any further dealings with him.
Nolan remained in his office long into the night. Until the nighttime hours gave way to morn. And then opening his desk drawer, he pulled out several sheets of parchment and reached for his pen.
Chapter 13
The house was bustling.
Of course, given Sybil’s scandalous meetings with Nolan, Mother had descended into a state of panic and fear that it would come to light and the family would be ruined. Or, as Mother referred to it each time: “Ruined. Ruuined. Ruuuuined.” With varying degrees of timbre and pitch, but it was all the same.
She sat at the edge of her bed while her maid rushed about packing the final pieces for their travels. The girl was careful to avoid her eyes. Just as she’d been for the past two days, when Sybil’s joyous interlude had been so painfully cut into.
With shaking fingers, she picked up one of the skates on her coverlet. She trailed her fingertips along the cool, metal edge.
…That was not romantic, Sybil. This is romantic…
Pain, regret, and longing all stuck in her throat, strangling her. For in the end, her research had proved disastrous in ways she could have never imagined. Nolan had not only revealed the joy that had previously been missing in her life. He’d also dangled the dream of something more—the whimsical hope of love with a good, honorable gentleman.
Oh, he’d never seen himself, nor would he likely ever see himself, in that light. But that was ultimately what Nolan Pratt, Baron Webb, was. A secretly loving, loyal brother who worried after his siblings’ futures and who blamed himself for mistakes that had nothing to do with recklessness and everything to do with a long-ago accident and his fears of the world knowing of it. A single tear streaked down her cheek.
“Egads, are you crying?”
The skate slipped from her fingers and landed with a noisy thwack at her feet. “No,” Sybil said quickly, dusting the back of her hand over the lone drop.
Her sister stood in the open doorway, hands on hips, fury in her eyes. It was that fury that pulled her back from the edge of despair. For only Aria could ever be so outraged and not pitying about her elder sister doing something as shameful as crying.
Apparently mollified, Aria came over. She fixed a brief glare on Hannah. “Traitor,” she muttered and the girl’s eyes welled with tears. “Off with you now. I wish to speak to my sister.”
“Aria,” Sybil chided. Bending, she retrieved the skate and dropped it atop her bed. “Hannah,” she called after the servant. Her maid turned slowly back, still not meeting her eyes. “It is not your fault,” she said quietly, at last offering that belated but deserved forgiveness. As a bluestocking, nearly thirty years of age, Sybil was not oblivious to the plight all women faced. For those outside of the nobility, their fates were even more fickle and precarious. Hadn’t Rosaleen reminded Sybil of that very fact on the eve of her wedding to stodgy Lord Hamilton with his deep pockets and stern countenance?
“Thank you, miss,” Hannah’s breathless words barely reached across the room.
As soon as she’d gone, Aria turned to Sybil. “Mother is looking for you. Some such nonsense about rooms that still need reviewing.”
She sighed. This was to be her life. The stolen pleasures to be had in the pages of her books, and during the day…this. Mistress of her mother’s household and helper of her father’s books.
Her sister wandered over to the bed and picked up that precious skate, turning it over in her hands. “She asked why you’d not gathered the books from the library yet, for our travels.”
Sybil cocked her head. “Mother a
sked that?” Of all the things their mother had worried after over the years—of which there were many—the impressive stack of leather volumes Sybil often carted about had never been at the top of any proverbial list.
“Indeed,” Aria concurred. “That was my very thought. But you really should go there, you know. To the library,” she clarified. “Mustn’t leave behind the only happiness you’ll ever know, forgotten.”
Her heart cracked. How humbling to know her sixteen-year-old sister had been right about life, love, and laughter, all along. “I’ll see to it shortly,” she managed past a thick tongue.
“Sybil.”
Oh, blast.
They looked as one. Mother stood framed in the doorway. Eyes still red, the viscountess was not, at present, weeping, which was a vast improvement these two days. “We are very nearly ready to depart. Have you seen to the final preparations?”
“I have,” she replied automatically, finding some small relief that this exchange with her sad-eyed mama hadn’t included the ‘Ruined. Ruuined. Ruuuuined’ nonsense.
“The library?” her mother demanded.
“Enough with the bloody library,” Sybil cried. She tossed her hands into the air. “I am tired of seeing to your household and being dutiful and being bloody proper.” I want to be who I was those five glorious days with Nolan. Laughing. Teasing. Happy. His visage slid forward, sharpening the pain. “I will gather my blasted books before we leave. But for the love of all that is holy, please, do not ask me again.”
Shock rounded out the eyes and mouths of the Cunning women.
“And it is a dreadful name,” Sybil shouted, feeling invigorated for yelling and cursing and simply being alive…if even just to rail at the dreary life she’d lived these past thirty years.
“Well,” the viscountess snapped, patting the back of her elegant coiffure. “Mark my words, Sybil Holly Cunning, you will owe me an apology.”
A Little Winter Scandal: A Regency Christmas Collection Page 44