One Golden Ring

by Cheryl Bolen

  Fiona! Surely no one would try to harm her! Nick would kill with his bare hands anyone who ever threatened his wife. He stiffened, his hands fisting as he eyed Warwick. “Birminghams take care of their own.”

  “But no one’s better trained than the Guards.”

  “Be that as it may, can you vouch for their complete integrity?” Nick’s simmering gaze locked with Warwick’s. “A careless word from one of them could jeopardize my wife’s safety.”

  Warwick’s face blanched, which did not surprise Nick. Of course he would worry about Fiona. He was in love with her. “We’re speaking of his majesty’s finest soldiers,” Warwick protested.

  “I don’t care who we’re speaking of !” Nick snapped. “The fewer people who know of my involvement with you, the better.”

  Warwick watched him with narrowed eyes. “I must insist that Lady Fiona be guarded at all times.”

  “She will be, dammit! I’m perfectly capable of seeing to my wife’s every need.” A pity their most well-trained men were on the continent. Nevertheless, before he returned home tonight, he would detail a pair of trusted employees to guard Fiona day and night.

  The next few minutes were tense. Both men feigned a high degree of interest in the flames dancing in the room’s fireplace.

  “Where does your brother go now?” Lord Warwick finally asked.

  “To Naples.”

  “A brave man,” Warwick said, “given the fact that city’s a French stronghold.”

  Nick’s gaze flicked to Warwick, silently cursing the man’s exceptionally broad chest. “I’m hoping my brother’s friendship with Napoleon’s brother there will provide him immunity from danger.”

  “Since Bonaparte rules the city, your faith is likely not misplaced.”

  Nick’s dark eyes sparkled. “Plus, my brother is adept at greasing the right palms.”

  “Bribery’s good,” Warwick said, grinning.

  “Ale?” Nick asked.

  “I believe I will.”

  After a bumper of ale was placed on the well-worn table in front of Warwick, Nick drew in his breath. “As I was driving down The Strand today, I saw you with my wife.” Nick’s eyes narrowed. “Do you care to explain?”

  Stiffening, Warwick did not answer for a moment. Then he said, “I suggest you ask Lady Fiona.”

  With a mumbled curse, Nick slammed his bumper onto the table and stalked from the establishment.

  His fury with Fiona did not keep him from driving to James Hutchinson’s establishment in Cheapside. Even if the man was asleep, Nick would have no compunction about waking him. The sixty-year-old Hutchinson owed his comfortable circumstances to the Birmingham coffers. It was Nick’s father who had hired the former dragoon, who was as skilled with weaponry as he was with pugilism.

  That a light shone at Hutchinson’s upstairs window pleased Nick. He would not have to awaken him. Dismounting, Nick’s gaze flicked over the establishment’s bay window and up to the suspended placard that read, “Hutchinson’s School of Fencing.” Paying students, of course, were never accepted. The school was a training ground for the Birmingham’s private army of skilled guards, men who were paid generously enough to ensure their allegiance to the Birminghams, men who passed Hutchinson’s rigorous tests.

  “Mr. Birmingham! To what do I owe the pleasure?” asked Hutchinson as he swept open the rough timber door.

  Nick would not answer until he was satisfied that no one could overhear them. Once he had divested himself of his coat, climbed steep wooden stairs to Hutchinson’s living quarters, and sat in a comfortable chair facing Hutchinson’s hearth, he answered. “I have urgent need for your men—our men—to guard Mrs. Birmingham at all times.”

  From the grave look on Hutchinson’s face, it was obvious to Nick that the man thought Nick distrusted his bride. “A man in my position makes many enemies,” Nick explained. “I should not like an enemy of mine to seek retribution on my innocent wife.” As angry as he was with her, the very idea of anyone injuring Fiona was unbearable to contemplate.

  Hutchinson’s bushy gray brows lowered. “Have there been any threats against Mrs. Birmingham?”

  “No, but a good defense can unhinge the most aggressive offensive. Hasn’t that always been our belief?”

  Hutchinson’s florid face brightened. “Indeed it has. On that, my dear sir, we are in perfect agreement.”

  “Is anyone available?”

  “As it so happens I’ve a pair of talented young men who’ve just completed their training. They’re shrewd, good with their fists, and skilled with pistols and swords.”

  Nick stood up. “I should like to see that they guard my wife day and night.”

  It had been a wretched night. Fiona had been so obviously upset at dinner that Adam and Trevor departed as soon as the plates had been removed. Even Verity—who was the most amiable of creatures—had sensed Fiona’s distress and leaped at the first opportunity to excuse herself from her sister’s company. “If you should need someone to listen,” Verity had said in a grave voice, “I stand at the ready.”

  Fiona’s heart softened even more toward her sister. In her wisdom, Verity had not asked if Fiona were ill, nor had she intruded on Fiona’s privacy by demanding to know the source of her misery. Intrinsically, she had connected Nick’s absence to Fiona’s sulkiness.

  Fiona had thanked her, then went to her own bedchamber, weighed down by the almost unbearable grief of Nick’s absence and the hostility of their parting.

  Had he gone to Miss Foley or to the Duchess of Glastonbury? Dismissing her maid, Fiona collapsed on her bed. As hard as she had tried to be a loving, dutiful wife, she had failed. She could not even hold Nick’s affection long enough to get her with child.

  Before her own marriage, she had complacently accepted the fact that married men of the ton had their lady birds. Her own father had several over the course of his marriage, and her mother had known the identity of most of them. Even her mother had taken the occasional lover while maintaining a perfectly harmonious, affectionate relationship with her husband.

  But Fiona was obviously not cut from the same cloth as her parents. Under no circumstances could she ever accept her husband taking a lover. The very thought was like a vise crushing and twisting her bleeding heart.

  She wished to be angry with Nick, but how could she when love had never been part of their marriage? He had neither promised to love her nor asked for her love. He had fulfilled his part of the agreement by supplying the twenty-five thousand pounds for Randy’s release and by giving Fiona his name and access to his vast wealth. In return, the house of Birmingham was uniting in every way with the prestigious Agar family. She sobbed. Was siring a child with Agar blood the only reason Nick had bed her?

  Had he not shared that all-consuming hunger that had devoured her? A pity she lacked bedroom experience. How was she to know if his desire to make love to her was genuine? He had certainly given every indication that his hunger for her matched hers for him.

  From her desk she took the slender volume that Nick had given her on Christmas morning. She clutched it to her breast for a moment before turning to the page featuring “The Garden of Love,” a morose poem she knew by heart, and with tears gathering in her eyes she read.

  I went to the Garden of Love,

  And saw what I never had seen:

  A Chapel was built in the midst,

  Where I used to play on the green.

  And the gates of this Chapel were shut,

  And Thou shalt not writ over the door;

  So I turn’d to the Garden of Love,

  That so many sweet flowers bore.

  And I saw it was filled with graves,

  And tomb-stones where flowers should be;

  And Priests in black gowns, were walking their rounds,

  And binding with briars, my joys and desires.

  Now weeping, she extinguished all the candles and climbed upon her lonely bed. As she lay in the darkness of her bedchamber she wondered if her hus
band was lying beside Miss Foley or Hortense at this very moment. Would he remark on their beauty as he had on hers? Would his hands skim over their heated flesh while he proclaimed his affection? Would his lips taste the other woman’s lips and neck; would his mouth close over her nipple in the same way he had tasted Fiona? The very memory of it made her throb deep and low.

  She rued the day she had allowed herself to become his wife. Marriage to Nick had profoundly changed her life. And not for the better. Because she had married him, she had lost so much. She had lost her brother’s affection; lost her own pride; and most of all, lost her heart, completely and irrevocably.

  Yet had she to do it all over again, she would still marry him, still give him her body and her heart. Despite the near-debilitating pain that now consumed her, she had never been more alive.

  She would not go to his room tonight. Even though he had said he wished to sleep with her every night, he must not have meant it. He’d been so utterly short tempered with her earlier tonight she was convinced any shred of affection he might have had for her had now been destroyed.

  But why? Why had he been so angry with her? She had done nothing to deserve his wrath. And what had happened to his big heart—that she’d once told Emmie was big enough to embrace all those people he cared about?

  Ever since Hortense had begun to throw herself at Nick, he no longer seemed to hold Fiona in affection.

  She lay there on her bed, listening to but not really hearing the sounds of the fire crackling, of the wind howling beyond her windows. She tortured herself by imagining her husband languidly making love to Hortense. Would they make love all through the night like he had done with Fiona in the early days of their marriage?

  As she lay there she thought she heard his footfall on the corridor outside her door, and she jerked up, the counterpane slipping from her bare shoulders. She held her breath as she listened. It couldn’t be Nick for—at just past eleven o’clock—it was far too early. She crept from her bed and quietly went to their adjoining dressing rooms to assure herself that the sound she had heard was Nick. As much as she wished to rush to him and feel his lips on hers, feel his arms closing around her, she wished to maintain some semblance of control over her racing emotions, to maintain some semblance of pride.

  When the door to his dressing room eased open, though, she found herself staring into her husband’s flashing black eyes.

  “Have you come to sleep with me, my dear?” he asked in a brittle voice that was at odds with the genial man she knew him to be. He had just shed his coat and was still holding it as he faced her.

  Her glance skimmed over the lean planes of his distinctly male body. “I . . . I don’t believe so. I was merely assuring myself that you’ve made it home safely.”

  He snorted. “Forgive me if I doubt your concern.”

  She stiffened. “Suit yourself.” She went to turn around, to return to her bedchamber, when she felt his hand banding around the flesh of her upper arm as he whirled her to face him.

  “Come, my dear,” he said in an icy voice, “have a glass of brandy with me. I have not had the opportunity to ask you about your day.”

  Pain seared through her arm. “There’s nothing to tell, Nick.”

  His hands relaxed. “Humor me.”

  She saw that he had brought a decanter with him. “As you wish.” She came to sit in one of a pair of chairs near the fire.

  “I hope you don’t object to sharing my glass,” he said.

  “We share everything else,” she said with a shrug, taking the snifter he handed her and sipping from it.

  “So what did you do today?” he asked, sinking into the chair beside her.

  Nick’s voice was so altered she wondered if he might be drunk. She recalled Randy telling her there were good drunkards and bad drunkards. Nick, she admitted ruefully, was obviously a bad drunkard. She glared at him. This harsh man wasn’t the man she had fallen in love with. “My day was decidedly dull,” she began. “I wrote letters this morning, then the Duchess of Glastonbury came and stayed for quite a while. After she left, it was time for me to begin dressing for dinner.”

  “You did not go anywhere all day?” he asked, a single brow raised.

  She could not tell him she had gone to find Randy, for she did not want Nick to know she missed her brother. An intelligent man like Nick was sure to realize he was the cause of the estrangement between the brother and sister, and this straining marriage could not sustain any more blows. Besides, she had not found Randy at home that afternoon. “No.”

  He downed the rest of the glass of brandy and stood up.

  A chill ran down her spine as she watched him, his back to the fire, an altogether different fire lighting his angry eyes. “Will you come to my bed?” he asked.

  “I think not,” she said in a grave voice.

  Having convinced herself any marriage would be better than spending the rest of her life buried at Great Acres, Verity Birmingham had come to London with high hopes. As much as she loved her mother, she could not say being with Dolina Birmingham day in and day out was not taxing. Sad to say, her mother had more in common with her servants than she had with her own daughter. In everything from reading material to the fabric for a new dress, Dolina Birmingham’s taste was bourgeois. Her grammar was deplorable, and her temperament harsh.

  In London Verity had thought to find a man whose interests mirrored her own, a man she could happily spend the rest of her life with. But after coming in contact with her blond Adonis at Hyde Park, she knew she would no longer be satisfied with a comfortable relationship when every cell in her body cried out for a grand passion.

  And only one man could spur her to such an alliance: the blond lord she could never again meet.

  Even though she had yet to officially come out, Verity was stunned over her own popularity. Or the popularity of her generous dowry. Fiona had, of course, been right. Women with large dowries were well sought after by gentlemen of the ton.

  One gentleman in particular had determined he must secure her hand: Sir Reginald Balfour, who now sat across from her and Fiona in the blue saloon.

  She knew him to be Nick’s age because he had been at Cambridge when Nick was there. She knew, too, that Nick was not particularly fond of the baronet—most likely because he was a blatant fortune hunter. It was no secret Miss Glenda MacTavish—heiress to her father’s immense beer fortune—had spurned him last month.

  As Fiona engaged him in conversation, Verity studied him. He was of medium height, which gave him almost no advantage—more’s the pity. His complexion was so fair she was convinced his brown hair had likely been blond when he was a youth. He dressed with excellent taste, influenced by his friendship with Brummel, a connection he never failed to mention.

  Since the first time he had danced with her at Almack’s, Sir Reginald had made no secret of his desire to secure her hand—and her fortune. He scowled at and disparaged any other man who deigned to seek her for a dancing partner. His excessive flattery of her extended to writing exceedingly bad poetry in her honor, and he persisted in boasting of his lofty connections, both familial and social.

  She told herself she should be flattered over Sir Reginald’s interest in her. After all, many young ladies at Almack’s had been attracted by his fair good looks.

  But not Verity. It was not just Nick’s pronouncement that Sir Reginald did not have a feather to fly with that made her skeptical of his devotion. Try as she might, she could not like the man. Even if she had not lost her heart to her mysterious peer, she could never have been comfortable with the pompous Sir Reginald.

  She wistfully thought of her single meeting with the man who owned her heart. She had never been so comfortable, so relaxed with a man before.

  “I’m getting together a party of twenty or so to go to Vauxhall Gardens next Thursday night,” Sir Reginald told Fiona. “Nothing would give me greater pleasure than having you and Mr. Birmingham—” He turned to smile at Verity. “And Miss Birmingham amon
g my party.”

  Fiona’s brows lowered. “My husband is not fond of Vauxhall.”

  He shrugged. “I admit it has an unsavory reputation, but I give you my word as a gentleman that we shall keep to the well-lighted paths.”

  If she heard him declare himself a gentleman one more time, Verity would gag.

  Before she could comment about Vauxhall, Biddles showed in a pair of young men who were no older than Verity, one of whom brought her flowers.

  After introducing the men to Sir Reginald, Verity lifted her newly received nosegay to her nose for a deep whiff. “How very kind of you,” she told Mr. Merriweather, who had given it to her.

  Sir Reginald looked down his aristocratic nose at the younger men. “Thoughtful lads, aren’t they? I’m sure that when I was that young I couldn’t think past the next race at Newmarket.” Then he flicked his gaze to Verity. “Now all I seem able to think about is settling down at Stoneleigh and starting a family.”

  She did not believe him for a moment. From everything she had heard about him, the races at Newmarket still held vast appeal.

  Thank goodness she had Fiona to masterfully direct the conversation and miraculously keep the three visitors from drawing daggers on one another.

  Meanwhile, Verity’s thoughts drifted to her handsome soul mate. She could not deny there had been something special between them. She would vow he had known it, too.

  A pity she could never see him again.

  Chapter 22

  This was the night of his sister’s come-out, the night his wife had been laboring toward for weeks, the night he would be hung on display like a new portrait at the National Gallery. Drawing in his breath, Nick stepped up to Fiona’s dressing room door and tapped it with his knuckle.

  “Nick?” she asked.

  He still had not become immune to the possessive rush he felt at the intimacy of his Christian name on her lips. “Yes.” He opened the door and strolled into her bedchamber, his careless arrogance belying the tumult within him. This was his first visit to his wife’s chambers in several weeks.