by Lady Vixen
Robert was quick to sense her constraint, but putting it down to another reason, before she could compose a reply, he asked harshly, "Is it true then? You are to marry Christopher?"
Nicole's complexion went white and her eyes were two huge topaz jewels in her face as she whispered, "Marry Christopher?"
Looking ahead at his horse's ears, he said savagely, "Oh, yes, haven't they informed you yet? My dear aunt made certain I knew, that night at Vauxhall Gardens!"
For several seconds Nicole was speechless, divided between a wave of blind fury and a surge of exquisite hope. Fury won out, unfortunately, and grasping Robert's arm tightly, her face stormy with temper, she demanded, "What are you talking about? Christopher is the last man I would marry! How dare they say that I will wed him! I know nothing—no one has said a word to me!"
Robert shot her a calculating look, his eyes lingering on the angrily heaving bosom and the wrathful slant to the full mouth. Relaxing slightly, eminently pleased and reassured by her reaction, he drawled, "So it would appear." His gaze sharpening with curiosity, he asked, "You had no inkling? No hint that my aunt and, I must assume, my father had already worked out a marriage agreement with Christopher?"
Her jaw tensing, Nicole snapped, "Absolutely not! Why they must be insane to think that I would . . . And Christopher, why he barely tolerates the sight of me!"
"Oh, I wouldn't say that," Robert muttered dryly. "Last night at Almack's he seemed to do more than tolerate you!"
Nicole dismissed his statement with a vehement shake of her head. "Christopher is capable of pretending whatever emotion he feels is necessary at the moment. Don't you be fooled by him!"
"Very well, my dear. But what are you going to do? Regina says the marriage is all arranged."
"We'll just see about that!" Nicole spat furiously. "Take me to Galena. I intend to discover what has been going on behind my back immediately! Your aunt and your father will explain to me precisely what they have planned, and I shall enjoy informing them that they can just unplan it!"
Robert shrugged his shoulders and complied without further comment. He didn't envy Regina and Simon the coming interview, and some of the tight ball of rage that had been his companion these past weeks lessened. Nicole had been too angry, too surprised not to be telling the truth. Obviously she had known nothing of what Regina had claimed, and just as obviously, she wanted no part of marriage with his nephew. Feeling more sanguine than he had in weeks, he watched with satisfaction as she and Galena set off in the direction of Cavendish Square.
Nicole literally marched along the street, so angry she paid no attention to Galena's plaintive pleas for her to slow down. Angrier than she could ever recall being in her life, she swept up the stone steps of the house, and after flashing Twickham a fiery glance of sheer fury, she snapped, "Where is Lord Saxon? I wish to see him at once!"
Slightly taken aback by this glittering-eyed young virago, Twickham fumbled for a reply and finally said, "Lord Saxon has taken Mrs. Eggleston to meet with the Bishop." And unable to contain himself, his lofty, haughty exterior melting instantly, he beamed, "Miss, they are to be married—on Sunday!"
For a moment Nicole didn't quite believe him; then some of her anger fading before the rush of delight that spread through her body, she repeated in a stupefied tone, "Lord Saxon is marrying Mrs. Eggleston?"
Nodding vigorously, Twickham fairly burbled, "Oh, yes, miss! It is so romantic! He proposed to her not more than an hour ago and she accepted. I can tell you, that I couldn't be more pleased." Then hastily recalling himself, he said in a more stilted voice, "They have gone to see about a special license and Lady Darby is at the engraver's hoping to find a suitable announcement to send to their many friends." Then forgetting himself again, he said earnestly, "It will be a small wedding, you know. There is absolutely no time to prepare for more than just a few friends and relatives."
Slightly dumbfounded, Nicole nodded in unspoken agreement and like one in a trance slowly walked up the stairs to her rooms. Mrs. Eggleston and Lord Saxon married! It came as no surprise and yet in another way she was almost numb with astonishment. To think of someone of their age falling in love and marrying was somewhat difficult, but the more she considered the idea the more logical it became. What could be more reasonable than Lord Saxon wishing to claim his long-lost love as his bride? What did age have to do with love? At least their future loomed bright and beckoning before them, she thought with a small sigh, and with an angry start she remembered why she had come home in such a furious rush.
Momentarily thwarted from venting her furious objections about marriage to Christopher by their absence, she paced her room. How dare they! And Christopher! Just wait until she saw him! Just wait! Suddenly, her eyes narrowing, she stopped her indignant pacing. Lord Saxon and Lady Darby might be out of her reach at the moment, but by heaven, Christopher wasn't!
Her mind made up in an instant, she rang once again for her cloak, and not stopping to consider the wisdom of her actions, she ignored Twickham's startled protest and flew out the front door.
With her chin set stubbornly, and hot, angry, irrational thoughts clouding her brain, she set out for Christopher's lodgings on Ryder Street with a belligerent stride. The perfidy of which he was capable enraged her beyond belief. To think that while treating her to his sneering comments, and after ignoring her for months and acting as if she were some money-grubbing little tart, he should have agreed to marry her was like tinder to flame, and Nicole was in a rage by the time she reached Ryder Street.
It was a flabbergasted Higgins who opened the door and admitted her into Christopher's rooms.
"Why, Miss Nicole, whatever are you doing here? You should not be here! Especially unescorted—is no one with you? No maid? No servant?"
Nicole threw down her reticule on a large overstuffed leather chair. "I want to see Christopher! And I want to see him now! What I have to say to him is private, and I am sick and tired of being escorted everywhere I go!" Her eyes kindling with further injustice, she continued heatedly, "I am perfectly capable of finding my way about the city, as you well know! Now, where is Christopher?"
Quite truthfully Higgins answered, "I have no idea. He left this morning to call upon his grandfather, and from there he gave no indication where he would be going. He did say not to have dinner prepared for him, so I do not expect him back until late this evening."
Balked, but still furious, she faced Higgins, and in a voice that quivered with outrage she demanded, "What do you know about this absurd notion that Christopher is to marry me?"
Higgins's rather round eyes went even rounder, his face wore an expression of the utmost astonishment, and he gaped at her. "You and Christopher are to marry?" he finally asked, a note of undisguised pleasure in his tone.
Nicole flashed him a look filled with scorn. "Absolutely not! But Robert Saxon told me this morning that a marriage agreement between Christopher and I had already been settled, and I mean to make it clear that under no circumstances would I consent to such a match!"
Dimly, somewhere beyond her flaming temper, Nicole was aware she was guilty of cutting off her nose to spite her face, but at the moment she was in the grip of such scarlet, unthinking rage that it mattered little to her.
"Well? Do you know anything?" she snapped at the staggered Higgins.
Higgins rapidly recovered himself, and at the mention of Robert's name a displeased frown wrinkled his forehead. "Robert Saxon told you this tale?"
And Nicole, forgetting that she was Miss Nicole Ashford, the heiress, and that Higgins was nothing more than a valet, found herself answering automatically, "Yes. I met him this morning by accident in Hyde Park, and he told me that Lady Darby had informed him some time ago that the match was all settled, that Lord Saxon had given his permission."
Higgins cast her a look of mingled disappointment and disgust. "And you believed him?" he inquired caustically.
A flicker of doubt in her eyes, the first hint of uncertainty in her voice
, Nicole replied, "Why shouldn't I? Why would he lie about something like that? He is Christopher's uncle you know, not some gossipy scoundrel!"
Higgins eyed her thoughtfully, suddenly very pleased at the way events were turning out. For a moment he had been inclined to believe that Christopher had not confided in him about his marital arrangements, but the instant Robert's name had entered the conversation, he knew otherwise. He decided in that moment that it was time he enlightened Nick about several things. Telling her about her mother was going to be a bit difficult, but it had to be done. After all, he reminded himself silently, Annabelle had been dead now for about seven years, and Nick had only been a child when she had lost her mother, so time should have blunted her emotions somewhat.
Adopting the authoritative manner of the first mate aboard La Belle Garce, Higgins ordered Nicole to sit down and to stop prowling about the room like a half-scalded cat. After a silent contest of wills, with something resembling a snort, Nicole sat down, her body rigid against the comfortable padding of the small sofa in Christopher's sitting room. With the light of battle still flaming in the topaz eyes, she said stiffly, "Why should I disbelieve Robert Saxon? He has been all that is kindness to me—something that I can't say about Christopher!"
Higgins sat opposite her, his hands resting lightly on his thighs, the elbows at right angles to his wiry frame. Leaning forward, a stern glint in the usually merry brown eyes, he started almost gently, "Now I'm going to tell you something I don't think you know. You're not going to like it, and I can't say as I'll blame you. It happened a long time ago, and maybe once you know about it you won't be so eager to speak so highly of Robert Saxon. Or, I might add, think so badly of Christopher."
Nicole couldn't help looking skeptical, yet respect for the little man across from her kept her silent. She trusted Higgins. He had never lied to her, had always treated her fairly and justly. And so she waited for what Higgins would tell her, positive he would tell her no lies, and yet when he began, when he first mentioned her mother, her mother and Robert, she recoiled and fought against his unemotional declaration that her mother and the man she herself had considered marrying had been adulterous lovers. It left an ugly burning taste in her mouth, but after a grim painful struggle within herself she accepted Higgins's word.
She had to. It explained the suddenness and single-mindedness of Robert's pursuit, that queer glitter that frequently entered the sea-green eyes, and the intensity of that passionate declaration at Vauxhall Gardens. Feeling slightly sick to know she must have been a substitute for the illicit desire he had held for her mother, she fixed her eyes unhappily on Higgins's sympathetic face. In a tight little voice she said, "Go on. I suppose it gets worse?"
"That it does, Nick, that it does," Higgins answered sadly, and with a curious uncertain gesture he absently rubbed his hand over the thinning patch of graying brown hair, as if at a loss how to continue. Finally apparently steeling himself, he looked directly at Nicole and bluntly told her the remainder of the tale—of Christopher's seduction by her mother, of the way Robert and she had used him as a shield, and ending with Robert's final monstrous act.
There was silence when he finished, and unable to look any longer at Nicole's frozen, stricken features, he got up and nervously busied himself, shuffling a few bills and vouchers that rested on the mahogany sideboard. "You see now why Robert Saxon is not to be trusted. And do you understand now why Christopher often appears to act irrationally where you are concerned?"
There was no censure in his voice, only a sort of sad pity, and lost in her own obscene nightmare, Nicole barely heard him. She tried to speak, but no words came; they were locked at the back of her throat. She swallowed convulsively, attempting to push away the ugly, monstrous things that Higgins had said about her mother and Christopher and the vileness of Robert's actions. But the grotesque thoughts kept crowding back, leaving her no peace, stabbing like little knives, as she sat there, her face white and strained, her eyes begging Higgins to call back those damning words. A shudder of revulsion shook her at the repulsive knowledge that her own mother had lain with Christopher and had known that dark magic of his body moving on hers, had, in fact, taught it to him. Her mouth trembling, she tried once again to speak, to denounce what Higgins had told her, but the words would not come. They would never come, she realized sickly, because deep in her heart she knew that Higgins told the truth. It had to be the truth, no lie could be so monstrous and abhorrent. It gave the reasons for so many unexplained things—the barely leashed animosity between Robert and Christopher, the queer times Christopher had looked at her as if he hated her. It revealed the motivation behind those moments of deliberate brutality between them . . . Christopher had been punishing her for her mother's actions.
With an anguished little moan she buried her head in her hands, and Higgins, deeply troubled by her obvious distress, hurriedly poured a small goblet of brandy and with rough fondness forced her to take it.
"Now, Nick, there is no cause for you to take on like this. It happened long ago and you are not to blame," Higgins said gently, regretting now that he had ever decided upon this course.
After forcing herself to take a sip or two of the brandy, she stared into Higgins's kindly face and said dully, "Christopher blames me."
Higgins sighed. "Aye, that I don't doubt," he admitted heavily. "But don't you see, Nick," he began eagerly. "Now that you know the truth, perhaps you won't be quite so inclined to think of Christopher as such a brute. And when you think better of him, you'll act better toward him, and he, well, Nick, you must confess that when you are fair with Christopher, he meets you halfway."
The numbness was receding somewhat from Nicole and wryly she asked, "Higgins, are you by chance trying your hand at matchmaking?"
Higgins had the grace to look guilty. "Well, now, Nick, you can't deny that you and Christopher make a most handsome couple," he said brazenly.
Nicole swallowed the rest of the brandy and, standing up, remarked grimly, "Handsome is as handsome does and even you will admit that what Christopher and I do is not handsome! I think you have been drinking a little too much of Christopher's wine, Higgins."
As he said nothing, she said tiredly, "Never mind, I shouldn't have made such a poor jest. I don't know whether to thank you or curse you. I think for the moment I shall thank you though, because if nothing else, the reasons behind a lot of things are now understandable to me." She stopped speaking, a little frown creasing her forehead. Almost apologetically she muttered, "I can see why Robert's word is suspect, but, Higgins, I believe in this case he was telling me the truth. The truth as he knows it, and I mean to get to the bottom of it. Someone must have told him there was to be a marriage." She paused, trying to remember Robert's exact words. "Lady Darby," she said slowly at last.
She and Higgins had been too intent on their own conversation to pay a great deal of attention to what was happening around them, and consequently they were both startled when the door to Christopher's rooms swung open and Christopher himself walked in.
To say which of the three occupants in the room was the most startled would be impossible. Certainly Nicole and Higgins had not expected him, and from the expression on Christopher's face he clearly was astonished to find Nicole in his rooms. It was equally clear that he was extremely displeased with what he found.
"What in hell's name are you doing here?" he demanded forthrightly, casting an inquiring glance around, obviously searching for either Lady Darby or Mrs. Eggleston.
Nicole licked her lips, frantically groping for the right words. Higgins very meanly suddenly thought of something that required his urgent attention, and with a mumbled excuse he bolted out the door. The two faced each other and Christopher demanded again, "Well? Would you kindly explain yourself?"
Wishing she weren't so very conscious of him as a male, a male seduced by her own mother and one who held an almost irresistible appeal for herself, Nicole hesitated, and as those gold eyes regarded her with growing impatience, sh
e blurted out, "I spoke to Robert this morning and he says that it is arranged that you are to marry me."
Thunderstruck, Christopher stared at her, dozens of wild improbabilities racing through his brain. "Don't be ridiculous!" he snapped finally. "Believe me, there is no agreement, at least," he added truthfully, "none that I know of."
Fighting back the knowledge of his past that shrieked like a whirlwind through her mind, she persisted stubbornly, "Robert said Lady Darby told him that it is all arranged. Even your grandfather has given his consent."
His lip curling derisively, Christopher remarked skeptically, "Now that I rather doubt! Simon may be overbearing, he may want his way in everything, but he is not without common sense! And only someone totally without any sense at all would be so foolhardy as to arrange a marriage between us!"
Nicole swallowed the hot retort that sprang to her lips and muttered, "That may be, but Robert was quite positive about what Lady Darby had told him."
Resigning himself to the inevitable, Christopher motioned for Nicole to sit down, and after she had done so, he asked levelly, "Suppose you start at the beginning and tell me what you know? When did Regina tell Robert?"
Nicole hesitated, suddenly not wanting to continue this awkward conversation. Her eyes did not meet his as she said jerkily, "A few weeks ago we were at Vauxhall Gardens for the evening. Lady Darby had a few moments alone with Robert and she told him then."
His eyes narrowing, he leaned negligently against the mahogany sideboard, his arms crossed loosely over his chest, and regarded Nicole's averted face intently. "Now why did she do that, do you suppose?" he queried in a dangerously silky tone.
"I have no idea!"
Apparently not satisfied with her answer, Christopher reached over, and his fingers tightening about her chin, he forced her to look at him. "It couldn't be that she had found you two in a compromising position, hmmm? And perhaps wanted to warn Robert off?"
Nicole's flaming cheeks were answer enough, and with something like disgust leaping to his eyes, he released her chin abruptly, as if her skin suddenly burned him. His voice was cold as he said, "Knowing my great-aunt, if she caught you and Robert acting indiscreetly, she would be perfectly capable of lying to suit her own purposes. I have been aware now for several weeks that for some unknown reason she would like to see us married! And I suspect she said the first thing she thought of. Rest assured that at the moment I have no intention of marrying you! So you can put Robert's tale from your petty little mind and in the future pay no attention to gossip!" His eyes hard and mocking, he taunted, "Believe me, if I wanted to marry you, you would know it—I'd make damn sure of that!"