* * *
Nick had left Clover Down intent only on ending the misery of parting for Leah. On the short journey to Darius’s estate, he assured himself he’d done the only thing he could under the circumstances, and Leah would be much, much happier without her sorry excuse for a husband lurking about, lusting for her, and resenting—for the first time in his life—the burden of desiring a lovely woman.
When he reached the Lindsey holding, he was in a foul, unconvinced mood, ready to frighten small animals and intimidate the hell out of anybody who crossed him. Darius himself met him at the door, the creaky butler nowhere in evidence.
Nick nodded curtly, scowling down at Leah’s brother. “Lindsey.”
“Reston.” Darius stepped back. “Or it’s Bellefonte now. My profound condolences. Can I offer you a drink?”
“You may.” Nick stepped over the threshold and saw there was no footman at attention in the front foyer. “Was that Lady Cowell’s carriage I passed on your driveway?”
“Yes.” Darius ran a hand through his hair. “I was not nor will I ever be again home to her here, but if you’re going to lecture me about the company I keep, why aren’t you keeping company with my sister?”
Well, damn. Lindsey had obviously eyed the saddlebags on Nick’s mare as she’d been led away, and realized this was not strictly a social call.
“That drink?” Nick arched an eyebrow, unwilling to confess his sins in the foyer. And come to that, Lindsey looked like he could use a drink too. “Though I don’t promise you won’t get a lecture as well,” Nick went on as Darius led the way through the house. “What can you possibly see in that woman?”
“My bloody miserable fate,” Darius said. “Brandy or whiskey?”
“Whiskey.” Nick decided on the libation that suited his harsh, volatile mood. “I’ve left your sister.”
Darius went still in the act of removing a glass stopper from a decanter, but then carefully set the stopper down on the sideboard. “Did she send you away?”
“She did not, and she has not in any way displeased me, nor does she deserve the talk that will undoubtedly ensue in time.”
“I see.” Lindsey poured one drink, very rudely tossed it back before pouring another for himself, then pouring a third and passing it to his guest. “Shall I call you out, Bellefonte?”
“Don’t call me that.” Nick accepted the drink, downed it, and passed his glass back for a refill.
“What shall I call you?” Darius inquired in lethally soft tones. Nick surveyed him and saw a man who was several inches shorter than he, maybe a year younger, and decades better acquainted with bitterness.
“Leah would kill us both for dueling,” Nick said as he accepted the second drink from his host and tossed that one back as well.
“I will not suffer my sister to be hurt,” Darius said, “but losing one of us in a duel would no doubt hurt more than weathering some gossip. So…” Darius looked around the room. “Shall we sit and blast away at each other with civilized insults and veiled threats, or can you tell me why you’re being such an ass?”
If he hadn’t liked the man before, and respected him for his championing of Leah, Nick liked him thoroughly in that moment.
“We sit and enjoy your surprisingly fine spirits.”
Darius gestured to the couch for Nick, and took a well-cushioned chair for himself, letting silence stretch while Nick took a seat.
“You will look in on Leah?” Nick set his empty glass down on the table, wondering if Lindsey possessed enough decent spirits to get them both drunk.
“Of course,” Darius replied, his expression hooded. “But why are you doing this, if you can tell me? I suspected your affection for Leah was genuine.” There was a hint of sympathy in the man’s tone, and Nick dropped his gaze to his empty glass rather than face compassion head on.
“My affection for your sister is genuine,” Nick said, “but have you never made a decision, Lindsey, that rippled out across your life, having repercussions you could not possibly have foreseen? Have you never given a promise in good faith you lived to regret?”
“I don’t promise anybody much of anything,” Darius replied with a snort of humorless laughter. “I have regrets, though. I most assuredly do have substantial, relentless regrets.” He lifted his drink to sip, when the door to the library burst open, and a little boy came barreling straight for Darius. Darius quickly set the drink down and caught the child up in his arms.
“Dare!” the child cried. “She’s gone! I can come out now, and we can go for a ride!” Darius’s arms tightened around the child’s squirming body, and his gaze over the child’s shoulder became so fierce Nick felt relief they wouldn’t meet over pistols or swords.
Darius Lindsey’s gaze promised death to Nick, right then and there, should Nick offer any hurt or insult to the child.
“She is gone,” Darius said quietly to the child in his lap, “but we have another guest, John, so why don’t you make your bow?”
The bottom of Nick’s stomach dropped out as he gazed into young eyes so like Leah’s.
“John Cowperthwaite Lindsey,” the child piped cheerfully as he scrambled to his feet and bowed to Nick. “At your service, good sir.”
Nick rose and bowed to the child. “Bellefonte. Pleased to make your acquaintance.” Then he squatted when he saw wee John’s stunned reaction to his great height. “But you can call me Nick, with mine host’s permission, as Bellefonte is not so friendly, young John, and I should like to make a new friend today.”
“Are you a giant?”
“Of course not,” Nick scoffed, still hunkered at the child’s eye level. “I am merely a fellow who ate all his vegetables, went to bed without a fuss every night, and bathed when nurse said I must. Darius was not quite as well behaved as I, at least when he was a boy.”
John eyed Darius, who was sitting as still and attentive as a hungry papa wolf. “Is that why Dare isn’t so big as you?”
“Quite possibly, though as grown fellows go, he’s on the tall side,” Nick said. “We mustn’t hurt his feelings when it’s too late for him to grow any more. Sit you down, John, and we will impress Darius with our conversation.” Nick hoisted the child onto his lap. “Now, my good fellow, tell me about your pony.”
John chattered on with the bright, happy oblivion of a well-loved child before a new audience, and Nick let go of some anxiety. Every child deserved to be loved, and this one had at least that in his favor.
Nick interrupted John’s description of his latest tumble from his pony. “Don’t you suppose if you’re to go riding, you’d best don appropriate attire?”
John looked for a translation from Darius, who’d been silent and watchful throughout the entire exchange.
“Put on your boots and breeches,” Darius said, “and grab a carrot or two from Cook, but take a proper leave of Lord Bellefonte first.” John executed a perfect little bow of parting and scampered off, leaving an enormous silence in his wake.
“It seems we have more to discuss than I thought, Lindsey.” For a wretched, uncomfortable suspicion had bloomed in the back of Nick’s mind.
“Leah will kill us both if you call me out,” Darius said with bitter humor. “There is an explanation for why matters stand as they do, but I’ve been trying to convince Trent that because Leah’s circumstances have changed, perhaps it’s time to change John’s circumstances as well.”
“No perhaps about it,” Nick shot back. “That boy deserves his mother’s love, to say nothing of what Leah deserves.”
Surprise crossed Darius’s features, surprise the man made no effort to mask. “You and the rest of Polite Society are supposed to conclude John is my by-blow.”
“He has Leah’s eyes, Lindsey. Beelzebub’s hairy balls, you can’t—”
Lindsey held up a hand. “John is my paternal half brother, our paternal half brother. His mother was a maid at Wilton Acres who walked here from the Lindsey family seat in Hampshire just to seek my aid. Wilton had discarded
her when she couldn’t hide her condition any longer and scoffed at the notion she might be carrying his child. If Wilton knew of the boy’s existence, the consequences to the child would be unthinkable. Leah doesn’t know of him. She’s had enough to deal with, and the time was never right.”
Another secret kept from Leah, by another man who professed to love her. The idea should have assuaged Nick’s guilt, when in fact it did the opposite.
“You won’t tell Leah?” Darius asked, his manner softening a little.
“I won’t tell Leah, yet,” Nick said, “but she is going to know soon, and you’d best use the time to make sure John is prepared for that day. She lost a child, Lindsey, and her marriage will not provide any opportunities to replace that loss with joy. I will be very surprised if she doesn’t snatch the boy from you the moment she learns of him.”
Rather than rant and rail to the contrary—and wouldn’t a rousing argument suit Nick’s mood wonderfully?—Darius’s gaze turned pensive.
“You’re an earl now, Wilton’s peer,” he said. “Leah would dote on the boy.”
Behind dark eyes, the mill wheel of Lindsey’s brain was turning at a great rate, and Nick suspected he knew exactly the direction of Lindsey’s thoughts. “You and John can ride a few miles with me in the direction of town. We’ll talk.”
And talk they did.
Sixteen
Leah took a dinner tray to the back gardens hours later, trying to make sense of her husband’s flight—but as the day had worn on, she’d concluded it made little sense to Nick himself.
As Leah’s thoughts continued to ramble, she noticed a groom on a lathered horse trotting up the drive. Others took the horse to walk it out, the groom slipped off, and Leah went back to her musings. Her mind was functioning on two levels, as she knew it would for some time. Part of her could rationally process information and plan the next day to write to her sister or to Nita, to map out a little ride around the neighborhood, to draft a note to send to the local vicar’s wife.
Another part of her mind wailed in silent, unceasing, passionate grief for the loss of her husband. That part of her was on its feet and heading for the library in search of an illicit tumbler of brandy when a footman approached in the waning evening light.
“Letter for you, your ladyship, from his lordship.” The footman offered a sealed epistle on a salver.
Leah’s heart leaped in concern first, but Nick would not be writing to her if he’d come to harm. She took the letter and, with a pounding heart, continued her progress toward the library.
Something had to be wrong for Nick to be communicating with her so soon after leaving her side. Something had to be terribly wrong.
Several minutes later, Leah stared at Nick’s missive, puzzled but a little cheered as well.
Dearest Lovey Wife,
Because you might need to contact me, please be informed I will breakfast with Hazlit tomorrow, then call on Lady Della. The solicitors have told me they will read Papa’s will at noon, and Beck and Ethan will be on hand for that as well. I expect we will dine at my club, after which I must closet myself with my man of business to make further inroads on the reams of correspondence that arrived while I was at Belle Maison. I am looking into a polyglot amanuensis, for your suggestion has increasing merit.
I hope this finds you well and apologize for the manner of my leave-taking earlier this day. There is no pleasant way to part from one’s dear spouse, regardless that the whole sorry business is my doing. Forgive me, though, as I am blundering close to another apology, which you’ve told me I must not do as long as I will not also explain.
I miss you, Wife, and require your assurances you need nothing from me but perhaps a little silence. Tell me how you go on, or I shall fret unbecomingly.
Nicholas,
Bellefonte
Nicholas had an odd way of going about an estrangement, but then, he was kind, and perhaps he was merely easing her into it, using the little courtesy of a note to reinforce his willingness to remain cordial.
The next evening, however, there was another late-night epistle, hurried out from Town on a lathered horse.
Lovey Mine,
You will be surprised to learn my papa left a contribution to your dower estate sizeable enough to make my untimely demise loom before you with some appeal. The details will be forwarded by the weasels swarming over the will, no doubt in language it will take an Oxford don to decipher. Della has threatened to disown me for our estrangement, and I cut my visit to her short lest she hurt herself boxing my ears.
Tomorrow I call upon the late lamented Frommer’s oldest brother, who had the great misfortune to have inherited the marquessate two years ago. Because I’ve recently inherited my own father’s title, he and I can perhaps commiserate. Hazlit claims the man acted as Aaron’s second, and from him, I am hoping to learn who seconded Wilton. Valentine has managed the domestics here in my absence, and while he sympathizes with my loss, he is playing rather a lot of finger exercises when I’m underfoot. He claims I try his patience, if you can imagine such a thing.
I slept badly last night, tired though I was. Perhaps you are faring better?
Yours,
Nicholas,
Bellefonte
When Leah also received an epistle on Wednesday night, she considered that maybe Nick was not going to be quite as successful at being estranged as he might have initially hoped.
Most Stubborn Lovey and Dear Wife,
You are demonstrating a hint of the anger at me to which you are entitled. Either that, or you have broken your hand, for I have no word from you to indicate you yet breathe. You will please provide same, post haste. Lady Della is no ally to me, as she is not speaking to the “henwitted, clodpated embarrassment of a grandson of whom she used to be so proud.” I am lucky I am still quick enough to keep my backside from her reach—mostly. I didn’t see the first hefty swat coming.
I was astonished to learn from Frommer the Eldest that Hellerington seconded your father. Somebody fired too early, but as our man was tossing his accounts into the bushes at the precise moment when bullets flew, only Hellerington can attest for a certainty to the identity of the bad sport—or murderer—who fired early. Bad business, my dear, and I am sorry, because either way, somebody close to you behaved poorly.
I am pining for want of you, of course, and doing an abysmal job of keeping my temper. Beck and Ethan are leaving tomorrow in disgust. I’ve drunk all the good liquor, and my staff is too piqued with me to set much of a table. My horse is not speaking to me either, and her conversation is a real loss.
Valentine has condemned me to prancing little Haydn sonatas until I, in his words, “Come to my feeble senses.” So you really must write to me, love, truly you must.
Your Nicholas,
Bellefonte
What to write in response to that blather cum love letter, cum letter from school? Leah pared the tip of a pen and stared at the foolscap before her. She stared for a full fifteen minutes before deciding that “Dear Nicholas,” would do as a place to start. To reach that brilliant conclusion, she’d discarded a list of possibilities… Dearest Nicholas, Nicholas, Spouse, Errant Spouse, Henwitted Clodpate, Bellefonte, Dearest Clodpate…
“There you are.” Ethan’s voice sounded from the doorway, and Leah looked up to find him and Beckman smiling at her tentatively, two men who looked a good deal like Nick without quite matching him for handsomeness, charm, or—she was angry with the man—clodpatedness either.
“Gentlemen.” Leah rose, her own smile tentative as well. They looked so like Nick and they’d just been with him and they were so dear to call on her and her eyes were stinging.
“Oh, ye gods.” Beckman stepped around Ethan and enveloped Leah in a hug. He wasn’t as large as his oldest brother, but he was big enough and had the same muscular, masculine feel to his embrace, and he knew enough to carry a handkerchief into battle.
Though his scent was all wrong. Bergamot, like a cup of doctored tea.
“As if,” Beck said over the top of Leah’s head, “himself didn’t see to that first. She’s entitled to cry, after all, if not for lack of Nick, then for his lack of sense.”
Ethan nattered on in agreement, probably to give Leah time to compose herself. “Shall I ring for tea?” Leah suggested as she stepped out of Beck’s arms. “Or a late luncheon, perhaps?”
“Both,” Ethan said. “Beck wants to push south before nightfall, and I must hie back to London. Some sustenance and company would be appreciated. Now that Beckman has surrendered his white flag, how fare you?”
“Miserably,” Leah said, sensing honesty was the norm among Nick’s family. “I miss him, I don’t know why he does what he does, and though I am hurt and angry, I still worry that he is…”
“He’s what?”
“He’s doing what he must,” Leah said. “He can’t see another option. But tell me, did Nick put you up to this spying?”
“He’s too clever for that,” Ethan said. “Della put us up to spying, and Nick will interrogate me when I get back to Town. The sisters will no doubt question Beck by letter, but about you, Nick, Della, and myself.”
“Poor Beck,” Leah said. “Shall we sit?”
Her brothers-in-law charmed, entertained, and consumed great quantities of food, leaving Leah feeling a little breathless but pleased at the distraction they offered. When they rose to go, Ethan wandered around the room far enough to see the paper still on the escritoire by the window.
“Did we interrupt your effort to pen some remonstrance to Nick?” Ethan asked, eyeing the two words on the page.
“I was just getting started, but I doubt anything will come of it,” Leah said. “I seem to have too much to say, and nothing to say of merit.”
Nicholas: Lord of Secrets ll-2 Page 26