by Nicholas
“We will not share a roof again,” Leah said, “and you cannot think to leave for London in this downpour, at this hour. Stay with me tonight, Nicholas, please.”
That last word, offered with such longing and sadness, please, it stole under Nick’s defenses, tempted him to folly, and brushed aside rational processes.
Nick was an expert on good-bye sex and the comfort and condolence it could offer. He knew about the tenderness and gratitude an intimate parting could convey, and he knew how to make the experience dear and memorable, and the very best way to slip away from a liaison. He knew all that only because, in the past, he’d been the one to decide the timing of each final encounter, and now Leah had taken the initiative from him.
Leah deserved that at least. She deserved to torture him, and she deserved to have her pleasure of him. Within reason.
“I will need some privacy first, Leah.”
She started to nod, then her eyes narrowed. “Oh, no, you don’t,” she said with soft menace. “You will not ease yourself in private then come to me spent and safe, Nicholas. You will show me how to pleasure you and what you had envisioned for us were we not to part. That, or we sleep apart.”
She had him, and Nick knew it. He surrendered with good grace. “Come to bed then. It shall be as you wish.”
The nights at Belle Maison had given them a certain practical ease with each other that served well when they’d closed the bedroom door. Nick unfastened Leah’s dress; Leah relieved him of cravat pin, watch, and boots. He took down her hair; she untied his cravat and fetched his robe while he stripped off his riding attire. She brushed out and rebraided her hair while he used the wash water, then he took Leah’s robe from her so she could follow suit.
The only variation in their nocturnal routine was that Nick tossed the used wash water out a window then refilled the basin and set it on the night table. He also put both of his handkerchiefs on the table beside the basin and towel.
“You’re not going to blow out the candles?” Leah asked, climbing across the bed before taking her robe off again.
“Soon,” Nick said, shrugging out of his robe and settling on the bed, his back against the pillows. Leah drew the covers up to her chin and only then eased off her robe. “You are having a sudden attack of modesty, Wife? Not five minutes ago, you were naked and washing between your legs.”
Leah scowled at him and tugged the covers up higher. “Five minutes ago you were not naked or regarding me with that… anticipatory look in your eyes, and I was behind a privacy screen.”
He was going to miss her until his dying day. “So I am naked, and you must cover up. Interesting.”
A silence fell while Nick considered his next step. Just watching Leah disappear behind the screen with the basin and towel, knowing she’d invited him to be intimate with her, had set his blood galloping around in his groin.
“Maybe this wasn’t a good idea,” Leah muttered, flopping over onto her side, her back to Nick.
“It was a fine idea,” Nick said, “one of your best, but you’re going to have to come here, Leah, for matters to get under way.”
“Oh, very well.” Leah tossed the covers up and scooted closer to Nick, then settled back down on the pillows. “Now what?”
“I think we need to talk a little more,” Nick said, revising his first set of plans for the evening.
“Talk?” The notion apparently did not comport with her plans. “About what?”
“Come here, lovey.” Nick held out an arm. “And I’ll tell you.”
Leah visually measured the distance to him, her frown deepening. Then she seemed to come to some internal decision and laid herself down along Nick’s side, letting his arm encircle her shoulders. “I’m here.”
“I rejoice,” Nick said, not even half teasing despite the lightness of his tone. His hand came to rest on her shoulders, where he traced the pattern of her bones until he felt Leah’s weight relaxing against him. “We must give some thought to your finances.”
“Finances?” Leah’s brows went up, as Nick’s choice of pillow topics was clearly unexpected.
“I want you to be able to function independently of me,” Nick said. “Nothing aggravates me more than husbands who control their wives through the purse strings but ignore them otherwise. You need to know there’s a strongbox in the bottom drawer of the library desk, with a considerable sum of cash in it. The key is on the mantel under the lathed candlestick on the left. Are you paying attention?”
“Of course,” Leah said, snatching her hand from Nick’s chest as if caught stealing an extra tea cake.
“So where is the key to your strongbox, Wife?”
“Under the candlestick on the left side of the mantel,” Leah repeated, though Nick suspected she was half guessing. “What else would you tell me about finances?”
“I’ll forward to you a quarterly sum adequate for your personal needs,” Nick said, “and fill out some bank drafts as well, so you’ll have them in an emergency. If you want some excitement, I suggest you apply to David, Lord Fairly, to invest your excess funds for you. The man is beyond canny about mercantile matters, and he has a way of discussing business that is very unlike his titled peers.”
“Your titled peers,” Leah corrected him, her hand smoothing over his belly again.
“My peers?” Nick sucked in a breath as Leah’s thumb traced his navel.
“You’re Bellefonte.” Leah yawned and snuggled closer. “You outrank most of the friends who showed up at your father’s funeral.” She circled his navel lazily again. “Greymoor is an earl, but Lady Della told me yours is the older title.”
Nick marshaled his scattered thoughts. “In any case, you will not be in need of funds. Would you like to manage Clover Down?”
That stopped her hand from wandering any lower, much to Nick’s relief. His cock was throbbing to life and would soon be pointing due north if he couldn’t distract Leah and her infernally busy hand.
“Would you like to manage this place?” Nick asked again. “It’s in tidy shape as we speak, and I can add it to your dower estate so it will pass to you upon my death.”
“I have no dower estate.”
No dower estate, no husband worth the name, no children. Hurt for her was going to crush him.
“Lady Della would have it otherwise,” Nick said. “I don’t know all the details, for she deals with her own solicitors, but she put a nest egg aside for you, and at the time, I had no authority to comment on it or disclose it to you.”
“Do my brothers know?”
She didn’t even ask how much.
“I doubt Nana consulted anybody, save the Almighty and her own conscience, not in that order,” Nick replied. “I’ll have her man of business send you the particulars.”
“Nicholas?”
“Lovey?”
“Are you finished discussing finances with me?”
“I suppose.” Nick nearly gulped as he felt Leah’s hand brush across the head of his cock. “There’s nothing that won’t keep if you’d like to discuss something else.”
“Good.” Leah nodded complacently but then nigh caused Nick to vault off the bed as her hand closed around his shaft. “I find I’d like to change the subject.” She flipped the covers back and frankly surveyed Nick’s erection. “In fact, I know I would.”
***
Morning arrived for Leah with an abrupt awareness of brilliant sunshine and Nick’s warmth swaddling her right side. Pleasurable sensations piled upon one another from there—his sandalwood scent washing through the crisp air, a slight soreness between Leah’s thighs from where Nick’s beard had rasped against her skin, a kind of awareness low inside her body in a place Leah hadn’t thought of since she’d realized she was carrying a child.
One more thing to miss into a healthy old age.
And in addition to those memories, Nick’s eyes regarding her solemnly from where his face was turned toward her on the pillow—for the last time.
He leaves me today
, was her first fully formed thought, and it pierced the haze of physical pleasure and emotional lassitude like a javelin hurled with deadly intent.
“I leave you this day.” Nick’s hand cradled Leah’s jaw. “But you will not leave my protection, Leah, or my heart. If you need me, I will come, and I will come gladly and quickly. Agreed?”
A little palliative tossed to the part of Leah that feared she would never see him again, a kindness in the midst of a cruel undertaking. She nodded, turned her face into Nick’s palm, and closed her eyes. Immediately, she felt him shift on the bed and cover her with his body.
Not again, Leah thought as she clung and let the tears seep from her eyes. Nick held her—as he had last night after bringing her such unbelievable pleasure—and let her cry and silently curse and rail against this decision; but ultimately, now as then, her arms loosened their hold, and her tears ceased.
“You will be all right, Leah,” Nick assured her, raising his body up but crouching over her. “A few weeks ago, we hadn’t met, and you were managing just fine. A few weeks from now, you’ll be settled in here, and you will be managing just fine again. I’m really not worth missing for long. You’ll see.” He kissed her eyes and tucked her face into the crook of his neck.
“You are wrong,” Leah said. “I will miss you and miss you, Nicholas. You are wrong to leave me, and you are wrong to think I won’t miss you.”
Above her, Nick’s muscular frame heaved with a great sigh, and Leah’s hands fell away from him.
“I meant what I said, Leah,” Nick rumbled against her neck. “If you have need of my protection, my funds, my name, my houses, anything, send word to me, and the matter will have my most prompt attention. Promise me you will.”
“I will, Nicholas.” She kissed his cheek. Her only alternative would be her brothers, and she was no longer their affair to worry about. “I promise.”
Some tension went out of him at her words, maybe some guilt and shame as well. Nicholas was stubborn and wrongheaded, but Leah was in no doubt that he suffered with his decision as much as she did.
“We have things to do this morning,” Nick said, easing back a few inches. “I’ll leave after luncheon, if the roads dry out. I want to introduce you to the steward who takes care of this estate and some other holdings for me. I also want to introduce you to the tenants and make sure you know how to reach my solicitors, Ethan and Beckman.” He shifted back farther, then straightened his arms, so he was looking down at her broodingly.
“I’ll also want you to have the directions of several others,” Nick informed her. “Matthew Belmont; Andrew, Lord Greymoor; and Valentine Windham, of course. You already know how to reach Lady Della and my sisters. If all else fails, apply to Gareth, Marquis of Heathgate. He can lack charm, but he’s hell in a fast chariot if he thinks women and children are in harm’s way. Then too…”
“Nicholas.” Leah smoothed his blond hair back from his forehead, loving him, hating him, and heart breaking for him.
“Yes, lovey?”
“It’s time to get up.”
He swallowed, nodded, and remained right where he was, staring down at her as if to memorize the feel of her naked beneath him, her hand in his hair, her breathing against his body. Last night, they’d shared pleasure upon pleasure, as if this morning wouldn’t come.
Oh, but it had come.
“Please,” Leah added softly. “You aren’t leaving for hours yet, and it’s time to get out of this bed.”
He cradled her against him for one brief, fierce hug, then hoisted himself off of her and off the bed. As Leah followed, Nick stretched out a hand and brought her to her feet to stand naked in his embrace. They remained thus for just an instant, and then Nick was handing her a dressing gown and shrugging into his own.
A knock on the door, followed by Nick’s permission to enter, began the next step of their parting. A maid wheeled in a tea cart and quietly departed after building up the fire.
“For June, it’s remarkably chilly this morning.” Or maybe the chill was just in her heart.
“We are not going to discuss the weather, Wife. Come have some sustenance, and let us continue planning the day.”
“Let you continue your lecture, more like.” Leah offered him a wan smile. “Can’t you just enjoy the meal, Nicholas, and send me the rest of your admonitions and instructions in some epistle?” She took a seat on the sofa by the hearth and surveyed the selections on the tea cart. Tea, she was up to; food was too much of an effort.
“Eat something.” Nick lowered himself beside her. “Share a buttered scone with me, at least.” It seemed important to him that she eat, so Leah accepted the food from his hand after he’d slathered her portion with butter. Nick took his to the window and parted the curtain to eye the weather.
“Quite cool,” he said, “but sunny and breezy. The roads will dry easily.”
“And you will go,” Leah added, forcing herself to take a small bite.
“I will go.” Nick said, still staring out the window. “But not far, and I will come back if you sense any mischief afoot whatsoever. I’ll also let Darius know you are in residence here, and Trenton as well.”
He turned to face her again, and there was an intensity to his blue-eyed gaze Leah could not decipher, as if he were trying to discern her internal workings by visual inspection of her outer attributes. “I’ll also call on Lady Della. The funeral distracted me from asking her about something that’s been plaguing me.”
“Burying one’s father is distracting,” Leah agreed, taking another bite of scone, though it tasted like so much buttered sawdust.
“I want to know who the seconds were at the duel where Frommer lost his life. It’s a detail, but I can’t shake the sense it’s an important detail.”
“You still think it matters?” Leah asked, putting down the rest of her scone.
“I think you are absolutely safe here,” Nick said. “I also think there are questions to which you still deserve an answer. You assume your father killed Frommer in a fair fight, but I’m not so sure. And if it’s not the case, then somebody can bring your father to justice.”
Leah didn’t argue that the matter should drop, largely because Nick seemed intent on pursuing it regardless of its seeming irrelevance. He would not be deterred, and it gave her a sense that his caring about her was genuine and not just a function of guilt.
So she capitulated—something she’d long since grown adept at.
“You’re not going to eat,” Nick said, eyeing her half-eaten scone.
“Not much appetite, I’m afraid.”
“Of course not,” Nick said in commiseration, but to Leah’s relief he kept his one thousand and seventeenth apology behind his teeth. “May I help you dress?”
She nodded and rose, and again they fell into the intimate, casual ritual of spouses attending each other’s mundane needs. To Leah, though, it seemed Nick’s touch on her hair and skin lingered, and he stood rather nearer than he needed to. And instead of letting her assist him, he brushed out and repinned her hair first, taking extraordinary care with the task, until Leah wanted to weep with frustration at the tenderness he showed her.
When they were both dressed and presentable, Leah could not manage to sashay through their bedroom door.
“I don’t want to leave this room,” she said, the dread she’d held at bay congealing in her chest.
“There’s nothing out there I’d allow to hurt you,” Nick said, obliquely admitting he was the cause of her pain. “And I cannot depart until after luncheon. Let’s find your farmers and your steward, Lady Bellefonte, and stroll in your garden.”
That feeling of dread inside Leah’s body sank down to her vitals and spread, like an illness taking over, until Nick’s proffered arm was not merely a courtesy but a real support.
The morning went, as Nick intended, with them trotting briskly from one farmstead to the next and spending more than an hour with the steward, reviewing the progress of the newly planted crops, the live
stock, and the upcoming harvest of hay.
Luncheon arrived, and Nick suggested they take their meal in the garden. They dined sheltered from the breeze by the high walls near the house, if pushing food around and nibbling the occasional bite could be called dining.
Nick called for his horse when the lunch cart was wheeled back into the house, and remained sitting beside Leah on her stone bench, his hand linked with hers.
“I don’t want you to go,” Leah said finally. She wasn’t crying—yet—but her chest ached terribly, and she had the feeling she was burying her marriage and any hope for her long-term happiness with it.
“But I leave because I care about you,” Nick said, “at least in part, and I can only urge you to be as happy as you can, Leah. That is what I want for you, though it might not seem like it.”
Leah looked at him curiously. “And for yourself? What do you want for yourself, Nicholas?”
“Honor would be nice,” Nick said, staring at their joined hands, “but not likely possible. Peace, perhaps. Mostly, I want the happiness of those I love.”
His tacit admission hung in the air between them a moment longer, then he rose to take her in his arms when Leah said nothing in reply.
“I am intent on my course, though I regret deeply its consequences to you,” Nick said by way of one thousand and eighteenth apology.
“Perhaps time will create greater understanding for us,” Leah offered, and in her words, she intended that he hear both acceptance and hope.
“Walk me to my horse?”
“Of course.” Leah slipped her hand into his and tugged him in the direction of the stables when he seemed content to remain rooted in the fragrant, flowery garden where the summer blooms were making a good effort. As they walked past a bed of forget-me-nots, Nick fished for a handkerchief and silently passed it to her.
Dratted man. Dear, dear, dratted man.
His mare was waiting, saddled and patient at the mounting block, a groom at her head. Nick turned again to Leah and drew her against him.