“What do you mean?” he said slowly.
“This does seem to be a continuing problem between us. Neither of us quite understanding what the other has said. I thought I was clear, but perhaps not.” She stepped through the open door and glanced back at him. “Dear Nicholas, as it’s more than likely impossible to beat you in this game you do seem to so enjoy playing, I shall join you.”
“What?” His brow furrowed in confusion.
“And I shall have a great deal of fun in the process.” She flashed him a brilliant smile and shut the door firmly in his face. And tried very hard not to laugh aloud.
Elizabeth sailed down the steps and walked briskly along the walk toward her own door. There was no one about at this hour, but even if there had been she didn’t particularly care about her reputation at the moment.
She had quite turned the tables on Nicholas Collingsworth. Certainly he was in charge of her finances, but, in point of fact, there was nothing she could do to prevent that anyway. And perhaps he had given her the very weapon to use against him.
While her records were meticulous, and every transaction was documented on paper, she also kept a running calculation in her head of exactly what she had down to the very last penny. She had never doubted her own intelligence, but this was a gift she had not suspected until she’d started managing her own affairs, and it had thus far served her well. Right now she knew precisely what was available for the sole purpose of persuading Nicholas to abandon the idea of marriage, at least to her. Partnership. Hah!
Her door opened at her approach and she stepped inside. Although she had returned home late on occasion, she had never been out all night before. Still, her butler didn’t so much as raise a brow at her untimely appearance. Hammond was exceptionally well trained. She murmured a greeting, handed him her cloak and gloves, and started up the stairs.
Nicholas, of all people, should well understand why she wasn’t interested in marriage. He valued his independence, indeed he had always followed his own path. Why shouldn’t she value hers as well? Simply because she was a woman? Nonsense. A woman ran the country. Why couldn’t a woman run her own life?
Certainly, Elizabeth might be willing to give up the condition about not seeing him again after Christmas. Indeed following last night, she rather liked the idea of continuing their arrangement well into the future.
I want your heart, your love, and I want you as my wife.
Her step slowed. He wanted her love? Did he truly mean that, or was it just something to say that he thought might sway her position? Love was an entirely separate issue from marriage.
She had spent ten years firmly believing she hadn’t loved Nicholas. Even now she refused to consider the possibility that she’d been wrong. If she’d been wrong about loving Nicholas, then perhaps she’d been wrong about loving Charles as well. And if she’d been wrong not to follow Nicholas in spite of his words, had her marriage been a mistake as well?
Had she married the wrong man? Married the man who probably should never have been more than a dear friend while she’d allowed the grand passion of her life to slip away?
No, of course not. She pushed the thought aside. It was an absurd idea. Why, it would mean much of her life had been based on a lie. A pleasant, comfortable lie, but a lie nonetheless. And that she could never accept.
This was precisely why she was willing to share Nicholas’s bed for a time but not his life. Never his life. It would be best for all concerned and much, much easier if they simply had a passionate liaison, sated their respective desires, then went their separate ways. Prurient desire and unbridled lust and nothing more than that.
Elizabeth didn’t love Nicholas then and she refused to love him now. Loving him would beg the question of whether she loved him again.
Or worse.
Loved him still.
Chapter 13
“Have you spoken to your sister of late?” Nick said, his gaze fixed firmly on the bills and receipts piled on the desk before him.
“What? No ‘Good day to you, Jonathon’? No ‘Felicitations of the season, your lordship’? No thank you for forgoing your own concerns and rushing over here in response to my urgent message?”
“Good day to you, Jonathon. Felicitations of the season, your lordship. Thank you for forgoing your own concerns and rushing over here in response to my urgent message.” Nick glanced up. “Have you spoken to your sister?”
“My sister? The sister who lives one door down?” Jonathon grinned and lounged against the doorframe. “I suspect there is an interesting tale to tell about your acquisition of this house and the purpose behind the purchase.”
“It’s a good location and a good investment,” Nick murmured.
“Yes, I thought that was it.”
Nick ignored him. “Your sister is apparently avoiding me in hopes that I shall vanish from the face of the earth. However, if you have spoken—”
“I haven’t seen Lizzie since your uncle’s party, and that”—Jonathon stopped in his tracks—“was four days ago.” An odd sort of stunned expression appeared on his face.
In spite of his current foul mood, Nick grinned. He suspected that very same look had crossed his face upon stepping over the threshold to this room. “It’s quite impressive, isn’t it?”
“Impressive is not exactly the word I would use.” Jonathon straightened and stared.
“I believe it was originally intended to be a library.” Nick glanced around ruefully. “It has shelves at any rate and a fair amount of books.”
“One almost feels sorry for the books. Being so outnumbered, that is.” Jonathon stepped cautiously into the room, under an arch formed by the crossed spears of two larger-than-life Nubian statues.
Lord Halstrom’s library was as packed as every other room in the house, perhaps more so. Indeed, the chamber seemed to have become a repository for all manner of bizarre items the old gentleman had not been able to squeeze into another room.
Jonathon made his way toward Nick, maneuvering around a large armillary mounted on a marble column and several ancient urns, to a nearly as ancient overstuffed armchair wedged in a clearing in front of Nick’s desk. Jonathon settled gingerly in the chair and spotted a plate of fruit tarts perched on what appeared to serve as a table but looked suspiciously like the dried leg of an elephant. “May I?”
“Be my guest. Take them all if you’d like.”
“I would, but that would be rude.” Jonathon selected a tart. “I love tarts.”
“It obviously runs in the family,” Nick muttered.
Jonathon took a large bite, appreciation widening his eyes. “Nothing like a good tart to put a man right with the world, and these are superb. Your cook is to be commended.”
“My cook had nothing to do with them. Your sister sent them.”
“Lizzie?” Jonathon turned the tart suspiciously. “Are they poisoned?”
“We shall see, won’t we?” Nick said wryly.
“Death by tarts?” Jonathon studied the tart, then shrugged and took another bite. “It’s not a bad way to go, I suppose. With sugar on your lips and the taste of cherry on your tongue. Rather thoughtful of Lizzie really, especially as she is ignoring you.”
“It’s a message.” Nick narrowed his gaze at the tarts as if they truly were lethal. “It started with sugar plums. Next it was butterscotch. Yesterday, toffee, and now tarts.”
“What precisely is she trying to say?” Jonathon popped the rest of the pastry in his mouth.
“She’s trying to show me what I am missing.”
“Well, you needn’t miss anything,” Jonathon said, taking another pastry. “There are plenty of tarts.”
“Tarts are not the problem. These are the problem.” Nick waved impatiently at the papers before him. “Bills run up by your sister in the past few days. Extravagant, silly purchases for the most part.”
“Don’t be absurd.” Jonathon scoffed. “While she’s not especially frugal, I have never known her to be the least bit
extravagant or silly in her purchasing.”
“She is now. Look at these.” Nick rifled through the receipts. “There are charges here from jewelers, milliners, dressmakers, antiquities dealers, cabinet makers.” He pawed through the papers. “It appears she’s commissioned an entirely new wardrobe. And here.” He picked up a paper and waved it. “She’s ordered two new carriages as well. Two!”
“Perhaps she needed two new carriages?” Jonathon said helpfully.
Nick snorted. “One possibly, but not two.”
“How very odd and completely unlike her. Even when Charles was alive she was never especially irresponsible in her spending. And since she’s been managing her own affairs—” He paused and studied his friend. “She is still managing her own affairs, isn’t she?”
“Not exactly.”
“Then I am confused.” Jonathon furrowed his brow. “It was my understanding that you had agreed to simply oversee her accounts.”
“Yes, well, that didn’t work out quite as I had expected.”
Jonathon’s gaze slid from Nick’s to the tart in his hand to the papers on the desk. “I gather that is a message as well.”
“Most definitely.”
“Do you understand this one as well as you do the tarts?”
“I’m afraid so.” Nick blew a long, frustrated breath. “Your sister is trying to convince me that she is not the woman I thought she was.”
“And she’s doing that by driving herself deeply into debt? How very clever of her,” Jonathon murmured.
“It is clever. Even diabolical.” Nick leaned back in his chair and stared at the papers before him. “As much as she has squandered thus far, it is no more than she can afford to spend, although it took me a bit of work with her figures to realize that. Indeed, her finances are so sound that she can continue on this way for months without serious consequences.”
“That long?”
“Perhaps as long as a year,” Nick said grimly.
“All in an effort to prove to you she is not the woman you thought she was?”
“Exactly.” Nick blew a frustrated breath. “Not the kind of woman I wish to marry.”
Jonathon narrowed his gaze. “You wish to marry her?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Why?” Nick drew his brows together. “I don’t know, because I do.” He shook his head. “She is intelligent and amusing. Every conversation with her is either a level exchange or a battle of wits, and all are most challenging. The blasted woman makes my blood flow. Did you hear her comments at dinner about Scrooge?”
Jonathon nodded.
“Elizabeth is the only person I have ever known that I feel a kindred spirit with. As if we were both not exactly alike, mind you, but rather perfectly matched. Two separate gears that mesh together to form a flawless union.”
“Flawless?” Jonathon raised a brow.
“Flawless probably isn’t the right word but,” Nick thought for a moment, “right nonetheless.”
“I see,” Jonathon said slowly. “In many ways, however, she is exactly the same person she was ten years ago. She simply no longer hides her true nature.”
Nick toyed absently with his pen. “Yes, I know.”
“Of course, you knew her true nature then.”
“Yes, I suppose I did.”
“And, even today, you still love her.”
“Of course, I still love her. I have never stopped loving her. I—” His gaze jerked to Jonathon’s. “I’ve never said a word to you about loving your sister.”
“I am exceptionally perceptive.”
“Hardly.” Nick scoffed. “Why did you say that?”
“I saw the look in your eye that first day when she walked in on us. Furthermore.” Jonathon shrugged. “Ten years ago you turned Lizzie away in a manner that guaranteed she would marry Charles.”
“How did you—”
Jonathon waved off the question. “How I know scarcely matters. Suffice it to say, I do.” He met Nick’s gaze directly. “I should have realized it long ago, but it takes a great deal of love to sacrifice your own desires for the good of someone else.”
“Is that what I did? It seemed so at the time, but now I am no longer sure.” Nick shook his head and leaned back in his chair. “I have tried, through the years, not to think of Elizabeth at all, and for the most part I have succeeded, but on those occasions when I could not push her from my mind I have wondered if I gave her up because it was best for her or because it was the easiest course for me. Maybe it wasn’t love as much as it was the selfish action of a foolish young man.” Nick smiled wryly. “It no longer sounds as noble as it did a moment ago, does it?”
“What it sounds like is that, with the passage of years, you have given your actions a motive they did not have at the time. Perhaps it eases any sense of regret to believe a mistake is the result of bad intentions rather than good. After all,” Jonathon pointed his half-eaten tart at Nick, “if you gave up Lizzie for selfish reasons, why, you deserved to lose her.”
Nick stared for a moment, then chuckled. “Convoluted logic, but it makes a certain amount of sense, I suppose.”
“Thank you.” Jonathon started to take another bite of his pastry, then apparently thought better of it and tossed the remainder of the tart back on the plate. “As it seems to be an afternoon of confession, let me make mine now. At the time, I too thought your actions were correct. I thought the best thing for my sister would be for her to marry Charles.”
“And now?”
“Now I know how very much I don’t know. Dreadful to admit and probably a sign of maturity, as I used to think I knew everything, but there you have it.” Jonathon sighed. “Lizzie always appeared content with Charles, but then he always appeared content with her and we know that isn’t entirely accurate. I wonder now if perhaps she would have been happier with you.”
“Perhaps we might well have suited better then than now,” Nick murmured, ignoring the sharp sense of regret that had engulfed him from the moment she’d stormed back into his life. Still, regret had its benefits. It fueled his determination to win her back. “It does not lessen my resolve, mind you, but now I fear we will drive one another mad.”
“Ah, but what a grand madness it will be.”
“A grand madness.” Nick grinned. “I rather like the way that sounds.”
“Good.” Jonathon nodded firmly. “Then what is your plan?”
“My plan?”
“Surely you have a plan.”
“I have no plan.”
“Oh, you should definitely have a plan.”
“Yes, I suppose I should.”
What was wrong with him anyway? Of course he should have a plan. He’d never gone into any kind of negotiation without a plan. And he’d certainly never let anyone get the upper hand with him the way Elizabeth had, over and over again. Just when he would think he had her exactly where he wanted her, she’d turn the tables on him.
“You could cut off her credit, close her accounts—that sort of thing.”
“It’s really not necessary. As I said, she could continue in this manner for a long time without posing a serious threat to the solidity of her finances.” Nick shrugged. “Closing her accounts would serve no real purpose save to annoy her.”
Jonathon grinned wickedly. “And attract her attention. She could scarcely ignore you then.”
Nick raised a brow. “You’re very good at this.”
Jonathon lifted a shoulder in a modest shrug. “She is my sister. I have been provoking her almost since the day she was born.”
Nick laughed. “Very well then, I shall force her attention by cutting off her funds. Perhaps I will give her an allowance, what with Christmas coming and all that.”
“You can afford to be gracious.”
“However, simply getting her attention does not seem like much of a plan.” Nick drummed his fingers on the table.
“The problem with Lizzie is that she spent so many years being less th
an who she really was, she now thoroughly enjoys being exactly who she is.”
“Hence her keen desire to maintain her independence.”
“Exactly.” Jonathon thought for a moment. “It seems to me your best course is to show her the price for that independence. Show her how very much she is missing.”
“I have made a few attempts in that direction,” Nick murmured.
“I’m not sure I want to know precisely what you mean by that. I am her brother, after all.”
“Yes, of course. So.” Nick pulled his brows together. “What is she missing?”
“Excellent question. I’m not sure I have an excellent, or even an acceptable, answer.” Jonathon fell silent for a long moment, then shook his head. “We shall have to consider that point further. However, in the meantime, you should court the boys, I think. She is exceptionally fond of them.”
Nick snorted. “I don’t know anything about children.”
“You used to be a child.”
“It’s been a long time.”
“Not that long.” Jonathon shook his head. “Good Lord, Nicholas, have you really noticed nothing about this house beyond the fact that it is next door to my sister’s?”
“Certainly. It’s a respectable size.” Nick glanced around the room. “It’s an excellent investment and location.”
Jonathon groaned.
“And it’s exceptionally full.”
“Look again.”
Nick cast his gaze around the room and shrugged. “It’s still exceptionally full. There’s scarcely room to move.”
“Although there are any number of places to hide.”
Nick drew his brows together in confusion. “Probably.”
“I can’t believe you could have made all that money and still be this obtuse.” Jonathon rolled his gaze toward the ceiling. “Look at this room again. This time through the eyes of a child. A boy child if you will.”
A Visit from Sir Nicholas Page 20