by Nicholas
Gently, he eased his tongue over the seam of her lips and tasted the surprise his boldness gave her. He persisted, but at an undemanding pace, one that reassured as it teased. Her lips parted, and Nick felt a lick of desire course down past his gut.
Ah, women… He sampled the plush heat of her mouth and felt a tentative caress of her tongue against his. The sweetness of the brandy lingered, blending with her fragrance and the taste of wonder. Slowly, Nick eased back, lightening the kiss gradually, reluctant to end it but knowing arousal wouldn’t serve either of them when the likes of Miss Eulie and Lady What’s-Her-Title were patrolling the corridors.
He kissed her eyes and her cheek, then tucked an arm around her back, drawing her to lean against him.
“If that is somewhat skilled,” the lady whispered against his side, “then your version of an expert kiss would surely inspire me to swoon.” She eased away. Nick dropped his arm and passed her a drink.
His drink, if he weren’t mistaken.
“My thanks, my lady.” He cradled her brandy in his hands, thinking of the taste of that kiss. “Won’t you tell me your name?”
“Are you sure you want to know?” The question was devoid of her characteristic lilt.
“I have been advised one shouldn’t go around kissing strangers.” Though he’d disregarded the warning often and enthusiastically. “Based on the past few minutes, I must eschew this guidance altogether.”
“You are kind, Lord Reston. There is kindness even in your kisses.”
He wanted to touch her again, almost as badly as he’d wanted to escape the ballroom.
“Kindness? I can’t say that particular descriptor has been applied to me or my kisses.” Though there were far worse things a lady could say about a fellow’s attentions.
His companion rose, keeping her back to him, a long, graceful back full of resolution and sorrow. He wanted to touch her back too, to learn the contour of those shoulder blades and the curve of her nape. “I am going to leave you here, my lord. You will wait a few minutes before you leave?”
“Of course, but I will miss your company.”
He meant it, too, as their odd, partly anonymous interlude had pleasantly surprised him and put warmth into an otherwise bleak and boring night.
“Our paths might one day cross again,” the lady said, “but if they don’t, I will always be grateful for these few minutes with you.”
Nick kept his seat and let her move away without showing him her face in any measurable light. She paused at the door, and just before she opened it and slipped through, she went still again.
“It’s Leah,” she said softly. “My name is Leah.”
Then she was gone, her name reverberating in the room silently, like the aural equivalent of a glass slipper.
***
A man of Nick’s proportions did not fit easily into life in many ways, not the least of which was the physical. His horse, Buttercup, was a golden behemoth, her gender overlooked in favor of her ability to carry such a large rider with ease. Nick’s beds were built to his measurements, and when he was forced to spend a night between residences, he often chose to sleep on the ground rather than in beds made for much smaller people.
He ate prodigious quantities of food, and could drink more spirits than most mere mortals could safely consume. All of his appetites, in fact, were in proportion to his size. But so too were his conveyances, and thus he frequently took up his friends and acquaintances when they were in need of transportation.
Nick was in the card room, where he’d be safe from all but the oldest females, when Lord Valentine Windham found him lurking in the shadows near a game of whist.
“I am free,” Val informed him with a grin. “What say we take ourselves off?”
“None too soon for me,” Nick replied, shoving away from the mantel he’d propped his elbow on. “What are you in the mood for?”
They ambled off amid cheery, drunken good-byes, and Nick knew a gut-deep sense of relief to be leaving.
“In truth?”
“No, Valentine. You are my friend, it’s well past midnight, and we are both only more or less sober. Why don’t you take up lying to me?”
“I’m in the mood to spend some time with that Broadwood of yours,” Val said. “Not well done of me, I know, but as the weather moderates, your pianoforte is developing the most gorgeous middle register.”
“You are incorrigible, Valentine.”
“I am besotted, is what I am. A good instrument is a precious find.”
They fell silent as they gained the drive, the April air nippy. Nick’s town coach rolled up, to Nick’s eye resembling Cinderella’s pumpkin carriage. The thing was huge, opulently appointed, and pulled by a foursome of equally gargantuan bay horses. It fit him wonderfully, but rendered any hope of discretion laughable.
“How many women have you seduced in this rolling seraglio?” Val asked, settling onto the well-padded seat.
Nick felt a twinge of irritation that his grand conveyance raised questions only about his equally grand reputation with the demimonde. “Enough. Would you like to borrow it?”
Val glanced around as Nick lowered himself beside him. “I could fit a tidy little cottage piano in here.”
“You are not right in the head, Valentine. Or in some other parts.”
“I am right enough. When I first came south from wintering with my brother in Yorkshire, I tended to the obvious priorities, and now it’s my music that calls to me. What about your other parts? Did you find a prospective bride tonight?”
“What do you know of Lord Hellerington?” Nick ignored Val’s question. On first mention, such an inquiry deserved no consideration whatsoever.
Val grimaced. “Unappetizing shift of topics. He is often referred to as Lord Hell-raiser, an epithet he takes pride in. Old as dirt, rackety as hell, and forever trying to knock up his mistresses and trollops. Word is that various social diseases have rendered him incapable of impregnating a female, if not half mad.”
Beelzebub’s balls, no wonder the woman had been crying. “Wealth?”
“Enough for appearances. Nothing of great merit, or he’d have lured some sweet young thing to the altar by now.”
“He’s never married?”
“Three times, and wore them all out.” Val paused to yawn broadly. “Why the sudden interest?”
“Somebody mentioned him in conversation this evening. Does he gamble?”
Val cocked his head and considered Nick by the passing light of streetlamps and porch lights. “He whores, duels, and drinks to frequent excess. He abuses opium, absinthe, and women, and one hears of children coming to harm in his care. His horses are invariably crazy, or they are when he’s done with them. All in all, a stunning exponent of the titled set, and he’s a mere baron.”
“I want his vowels,” Nick said, frowning out the window. The words were unplanned, but they emerged with conviction. “I want his secrets, but I’ll start with his gambling markers.”
“Has he crossed you?” From a friend, the question was reasonable, for Nick was generally known for a live-and-let-live approach to his fellow man. He’d learned long ago to cultivate such a reputation, lest his peace be constantly shredded by those seeking to challenge him physically. The biblical figure of Sampson had always struck Nick as an upstart pest.
But what should Nick say now, when he felt the stirrings of temper on the strength of a mere passing encounter with a woman named Leah?
Who had the softest skin and kisses that tasted of wonder—and courage.
“You describe Hellerington as an embarrassment to good society in general. Perhaps I’m embarking on a public service.”
“Of course. You, who single-handedly—if that’s the appropriate appendage—support at least three of the best brothels in London, have taken a notion to torment one old reprobate who wouldn’t be allowed through the doors of any of them.”
Nick smiled slightly at his companion. “Three brothels, Valentine?”
; “For now—according to rumor. You’ll not be frequenting the brothels once you’re married,” Val predicted, crossing his arms. “You won’t disgrace your wife that way, and you know it.”
“I would not disgrace a woman I loved that way, but I have no intention of acquiring a wife for any romantic purposes whatsoever.”
“Then how are you going to get your heirs on the girl?” Val shot back. “Your temperament is such that you at least like the females you bed in such quantity, Nicholas. You aren’t capable of treating a woman coldly, and wives, I am told, have a habit of entangling themselves in a man’s life.”
“I appreciate women, Val,” Nick said, but he was fatigued of the topic, of the night, and of much else in life. “That is not the same thing at all as loving one woman.”
“So refine your tastes,” Val suggested gently. “I know the issue is a sore one, but to see you attempting a calculating approach to your bride search rankles exceedingly.”
Rankle—such a delicate term for unbridled loathing. Rather than endure more interrogation, Nick remained silent until the coach rocked to a halt.
“After you.” The fewer people in the coach when Nick rose, the more room he had to maneuver. Val obligingly hopped out of the coach and waited for Nick under the porte cochere.
“You were going to finish your thought, Nicholas.”
“I am going to listen to you play me a lullaby,” Nick informed him, “while we both get sentimental over some of my best brandy.”
“Of course. My very thoughts, but, Nick?”
“Hmm?” Nick passed off hat, cape, gloves, and cane to a footman, and Val waited until they were again alone to continue.
“You should marry only for love,” Val said, oddly serious. “Another man, even I, might be able to carry off the typical cordial war that passes for a Society marriage, but it will destroy you to make such a compromise.”
Nick settled an arm around his friend’s shoulders and steered him toward the cozy confines of the family parlor. “Valentine, you are a dear man, with artistic sensibilities and a paucity of single brothers. Spare me your pronouncements about matrimony until the reality looms a little closer to your own experience, hmm? There’s a lad. Tell me, how many bottles will it take before you play me some of that stuff you make up on the spot but don’t write down? You’ve a name for it.”
“Improvisation,” Val said, letting Nick lead him toward the Broadwood. “Because you’re being contrary and stubborn, you’ll get only Scarlatti from me tonight.”
“Scarlatti it is.” Nick signaled his butler for an extra bottle of the good stuff anyway.
***
“Darius?” Lady Leah Lindsey stifled a yawn as the horses swung into a trot.
“Hmm?” Darius Lindsey was not so polite and exercised a brother’s prerogative by yawning audibly and rolling his neck.
“What do you know of Viscount Reston?” Leah asked, glad for the lack of light in the coach and for a brother who would join her on the forward-facing seat.
“I know he’s quite, quite tall, and in vulgarly good physical condition.” Darius peered at her with a brother’s inconvenient curiosity. “Built like a Viking, and blond like one.”
“So you’ve seen him. But what do you know of him?”
“He’s not married,” Darius said musingly, “and a certain type of woman lines up to offer him her wares, according to gossip. Some say he was rusticating for the past few years. Others say he was taking the cure for years of mischief. He has friends in odd places, high and low, and he’s rumored to be looking for a bride, because old Bellefonte is approaching his last prayers. He doesn’t gamble to excess, and there’s no mention of public displays of temper or inebriation. Lots of speculation about the man, but little real fact.”
Leah said nothing, while she privately concluded Reston must be a decent enough fellow, because as she well knew, vices were pounced upon and dissected by the gossips without mercy.
“Finances?” Leah asked, thinking of Reston’s casual offer to buy up Hellerington’s markers.
“Finances…” Darius tipped back his head to rest on the squabs—he was in demand as dancing partner, and the night had no doubt been long for him. “Word when we left for Italy was that Bellefonte was all but rolled up, and with all those daughters to launch, the gossip was probably accurate. Reston is rumored to have taken over the reins and set things to rights rather quickly. He isn’t seen to be in trade, so one wonders how he’s done it.”
“You could ask him,” Leah said, sinking down a little more against the cushions.
“I could.” Darius’s tone was sardonic. “Just sidle up to a man who could snap my neck with his bare hands and ask how he’s pulled his family out of dun territory with no one the wiser. Do you comprehend what that question implies?”
Smuggling, though an older brother would turn that admission into even more of a scold. “I do, though I would not for anything risk my brothers. Still, it would be nice to know.” Nice, too, to have an excuse to converse with the man again—to kiss him again.
The thought was useless—also harmless, because there would be no opportunity to indulge it.
Darius propped a foot on the opposite seat. “So you ask him. He’s looking for a bride, you’re available, and an acquaintance between you would not be so unusual, at least in proper social settings. I’ve been introduced to him, so I can see to the proprieties.”
“You said he’s a womanizer. Is that whom you want me consorting with?”
Darius’s tone became lazy. “My dear, I am a womanizer. Every man who can get away with it, practically, is a womanizer. You ladies inspire us to it.”
“Blaming the women, Darius?” Leah’s tone was cool.
“Oh, now.” Darius looped an arm across her shoulders. “Hellerington has rattled you. He’s rattled me, too. I cannot bear to think of you with that man, Leah.”
“Then don’t think of it,” she said, letting her head rest on his shoulder. Of all the considerations her brothers showed her, this one—this casual affection—meant the most. She’d felt cast out, judged, unclean, and unforgivably stupid as a younger woman, and Society had done its cruel best to reinforce her opinion. Her brothers, though, had stood by her, and eventually the scandal had been faced down.
There were good men in the world, Leah reassured herself. Her brothers were good men.
Lord Reston… was a puzzle. His kiss lingered in Leah’s memory like a bonfire on a hill, a bright, riveting, but isolated event that drew her attention even while she should be figuring out how to tolerate a life as Lady Hellerington.
Reston was kind. She’d felt it in his touch, heard it in his voice, tasted it in his kiss and in the way he’d assumed an unthreatening, companionable honesty with her from the first moment. He was also stunningly, spectacularly masculine in that kindness. He wore some kind of Eastern scent, sturdy like sandalwood but sweetened with an exotic note of spices. His hands had been gentle, for all their size, but they’d also been undeniably knowing.
So he was kind, handsome, and single, but he was also—and most especially—wrong for her.
He would never take from a woman by plunder. He’d seduce instead, and make a lady grateful for the privilege of giving to him what he had not earned and would not treasure past a fleeting moment.
Two
Nick punched his pillow, the strains of Val’s soft music drifting to him through the darkness. Val played like this only when he was alone with a good instrument, the music flowing up from his soul, out across the keys, and off into the night air, never to be heard again. Nick was in awe of such a gift, such an endless flow of creativity and sheer beauty from inside one generally quiet man.
And if there was a price for such talent, Nick hadn’t yet puzzled it out. Usually, when Val conjured lullabies, sleep came to heel like a biddable spaniel.
Tonight, though, Nick was preoccupied with a single kiss.
In his thirty-some years on earth, Nick had done more kissing
than he could remember. Kissing was fun, sweet, and harmless. He enjoyed it; the ladies enjoyed it; he suspected even his horse enjoyed it.
But kissing was also meant to be forgettable. No more worthy of recall than a pleasant meal, a good book, an enjoyable walk in the garden. Nick kissed his lovers, his sisters, his friends, his grandmother. Lately, he’d kissed his father a time or two, hoping each one was not a kiss good-bye. Nick kissed babies—babies were particularly fun to nuzzle and kiss and tickle—he kissed his horses and his cats and his cousins.
So why should it matter that he’d stolen a kiss from this Leah person, who was bound for holy matrimony with the odious Hellerington? He’d meant it as a little gesture of encouragement to her and himself both, a kiss for luck, as he’d said.
Nonetheless, lying in the acreage of his bed, surrounded by mountains of silk-covered pillows and the softest of linen sheets, Nick felt a growing unwillingness to let a disgusting old man have a taste of the lady, much less a husband’s claim on her. From the place inside Nick that would have killed to protect a sister or a friend, a place that had been tempted to violence on behalf of beaten animals, Nick felt a growing desire to spare the woman the fate that had moved her to tears.
His fate was sealed. He would marry a calculating little jade, and that was that.
Her fate, however, he could still influence.
Tossing aside the covers, Nick got up and found a dressing gown to cover his nakedness. The room was cold—Nick liked it cold. He lit some candles and found writing supplies in his escritoire. A note to his solicitors came first, asking them to attend him at their earliest convenience.
Then a note to Benjamin Hazlit, discreet investigator for the privileged few who could afford him. If anyone could bring Nick what he sought regarding old Hellerington, it would be Hazlit.
Those decisions made, Nick returned to his bed and let Valentine’s music drift over him once more. Val was sad about something; that was as clear as the tones of the piano’s lovely middle register.