“Why?” he demanded, though he knew he ought not. He ought to leave her here with her friends, and where was bloody Anson, anyway? He ought to be back by now.
“Why?” Her voice grew soft and Nic sensed danger, but it was far too late. “Because I wanted something I could not have. The world would expect me to marry some titled man who could never make me feel as you do, and I’d have to do it, because you would never let yourself fall in love with me, even though I know you could.”
Nic froze. She was staring up at him like… like he was her every dream come true, the foolish, mad, impossible girl. The desire for him to kiss her was written in her eyes with such clarity he couldn’t breathe. If he kissed her, there would be no going back. He might as well brand her perfect skin property of Nicolas Alexandre Demarteau, for he would not be able to let her go. He would drag her down, and she would ever be tainted by association. Once the novelty had worn off, she would regret it, she would realise what she’d done, and the gravity of her mistake, and she would regret that she’d not married a man of whom she could be proud.
“That’s not what you want, not really,” he said, willing himself to believe it was true too, before she tempted him into doing something reprehensible. “You're just infatuated with the idea of me, the kind of man you’ve never known before, someone who has lived a life you could not begin to imagine.”
She smiled at that, soft and amused, but not daunted, not afraid as she ought to be. “Yes, certainly I’m infatuated, and it's true I cannot imagine, but you could show me.”
Nic blanched at the idea. “Non, jamais! You idiotic girl! What you feel is desire. You’re tempted by the excitement of it, of me, by the fact I’m forbidden to you. It is nothing more than that.”
“Perhaps,” she said thoughtfully. “But I think it is more than that. Shouldn’t we find out?”
“Non.”
“You won’t even try?”
“Non!”
“I could love you, Nic. So easily. And I think you could love me. I know you could.”
Nic’s heart was crashing about behind his ribs like the north sea battering itself against a cliff face. Panic, longing, and absolute terror warred in his chest, making it hard to breathe. Though speaking the words hurt more than he could have imagined, he forced them out, a lie greater than he’d ever told before in a life that had been full of them.
“You’re wrong, Eliza. I could never love anyone, and certainly not you.”
He pulled free of her embrace, avoiding her eyes, unable to face what he might see there. Nic stepped back, careful that she was supported against the balustrade, and then he turned and walked away.
“Look after your friend,” he said to Miss Anson, who was watching the crowds inside the ballroom. She turned and opened her mouth to say something, but Nic leapt up onto the stone balustrade and jumped down into the garden below, before disappearing into the night.
Chapter 4
Dearest Florence,
I know I can trust you to keep a secret, but if I don’t speak of this to someone – other than Ash – I shall burst. You’ll never guess what happened at Mrs Manning’s rout party…
―Excerpt of a letter from Miss Vivien Anson (Daughter of Lady Aashini Cavendish & Lord Silas Cavendish) to Miss Florence Knight (Daughter of Lady Helena & Mr Gabriel Knight)
21st March 1839, the morning after the night before.
Nic grunted and shifted away from the foot that had prodded him.
“Nicolas, why are you sleeping on the floor and… Mon Dieu, just how much did you drink last night?”
There was the clink of bottles and Nic squeezed his eyes shut, trying to ignore his brother, and wanting to slip back into the oblivion of sleep. Waking up would mean pain of more than one variety. The foot gave him another prod. Nic set his jaw and cracked one eye open to see Louis’s shiny boot lifting to give it another go. He clamped his hand around Louis’s ankle.
“Once more and you’ll be sitting on your arse.”
“Well, really, Nic. What the devil have you been up to? I hear tales of you carrying Lady Elizabeth off like some knight errant, and then you disappear off the face of the earth. Then I find you passed out cold and surrounded by empty bottles.”
“Va-t'en,” Nic said with feeling.
“I will not go away. Not until I have an explanation. What happened last night?”
Nic groaned, utterly miserable as the memory he’d tried so hard to drown in a sea of brandy swam to the surface with far too much clarity.
“I’ll ring for coffee,” Louis said with a resigned sigh. “I have a feeling this might take some time.”
Nic clambered to his hands and knees and stayed there for a moment, staring at the carpet while his stomach rebelled and his head span.
“Merde,” he muttered, and sprinted in the direction of the nearest chamber pot.
After drinking as much coffee as one large man could reasonably be expected to hold, Nic was feeling a little less like death, but much not much more cheerful. He’d fobbed Louis off with a line about being sick of mingling with the nobs and pretending to be a gentleman which he knew his brother did not believe. Nonetheless, it was time he remembered who he was, where he came from, and what that meant. Once his head felt like it belonged to him again anyway. So, tomorrow—or possibly the day after—he would pay a visit to some friends. A visit to the world he’d once inhabited ought to go some way to planting his feet back on the ground where they were supposed to be. Eliza made him feel like that fool Icarus, with his wings made from feathers and wax, trying for something that was against the laws of nature. Perhaps if Nic reminded himself of the truth, he could keep away from her, instead of being drawn into danger, too close to the sun and an inevitable plummet into oblivion.
23rd March 1839
On reflection, it was a good thing Elspeth and Greer were staying with Eliza’s family whilst their parents were away. They were only two years younger than her, the eldest daughters of her mother’s friends, Bonnie and Jerome Cadogan. Though their bickering was somewhat tiresome, Elspeth was intelligent company and Greer so funny that it was impossible to be always melancholy, though Eliza had to admit she’d given it a good try.
Her spirits had tumbled into gloom ever since the night of Mrs Manning’s rout party, though the memories of that night also lingered in her mind, bittersweet. She closed her eyes and remembered the way it had felt to stand with her arms about Nic, her head on his chest. His heart had thudded beneath her ear, harder and faster than was normal, she was certain.
She had not believed his words, his refusal to admit he could ever love her, though perhaps she was just being stupid and blind to the truth. It would hardly be the first time she’d failed to see what was obvious, but also evident had been how he’d found his way to her side when she’d needed him. He had been as protective as always, gentle and caring despite his gruff manner. She did not believe he was always cross and angry, but that it was a kind of armour he wore. What purpose it served she wasn’t entirely certain, for she was sure he was lonely, and his provoking manner kept people at a distance.
Well, everyone but her.
What could she do now, though? How would she see him again if he disappeared from society? He would, she knew that. She could hardly turn up on his doorstep, even if she knew where his doorstep was. That would be… well, so scandalous it made her chest grow tight with anxiety. If anyone discovered she’d done such a thing, she’d be ruined beyond mending. Despite the nauseous feeling that curled in her belly, her hand found its way into the pocket in her skirts and the little slip of paper she’d been carrying about. The dare seemed to burn a hole in her pocket like a child with a precious coin to spend on bonbons. It enticed her, taunted her, whispered wickedness when she was at her most despondent. Her sister’s dare had challenged Lottie to be wicked. She had been too, stripping off for the man she loved so he could complete a nude painting of her.
How Lottie had dared, Eliza could not fathom, b
ut then she’d known herself to beloved by Cassius, a man who had been her friend all her life and whom she trusted to never hurt her. Eliza could hardly say the same of Nic. She knew nothing about him, nothing of his life before he’d come to England, and little enough of what there was to know since then.
She took the dare out under the cover of the table she sat at and surreptitiously stared at it for a moment. The paper was old and yellowed, the writing all but illegible, for it was one of the original dares that her mother and her Peculiar Ladies had written in the days when they were all unwed and nigh unmarriageable. The dares had brought them friendships that endured to this day, and husbands who were the envy of all those who’d not been so fortunate. Eliza wasn’t certain her daring mama’s boldness had found its way into her blood, though. Her sister, Lottie, had always been daring and had needed no encouragement to put her hand into the old top hat. Eliza was different. Mama had always considered her a cuckoo in the nest, she knew. Not that she was loved any less, or any differently, but her mama had been puzzled by her desire to be always well-behaved and to stay safe behind the rules of propriety and good behaviour.
Everything had changed after Eliza had discovered Lottie and Cassius were in love. She’d been angry, and then wretched, and then… and then so restless. The sense of being caught behind walls of a prison she’d made all by herself had been enough to make her choke with the desire for freedom.
Somehow, Nic represented everything that freedom meant. He had seemed so utterly free, free even of the laws that kept men upright on the earth as she’d watched him that day. Such feats of strength and acrobatics as you’d never see outside of Astley’s Amphitheatre.
She’d been nervous when they’d arrived at Bayham Abbey after their pell mell ride. Eliza did not know why she’d led him there, or why he had followed her. It had been a glorious day and it still lived now, not just a memory but like a something she’d seen in a play, or had dreamt, too vivid and bright to be quite real.
“You ought not be here with me.”
Eliza nodded. “I know.”
‘But there is nowhere I would rather be,’ she did not say.
They walked in silence around the ruins. The birds sang, busy and joyous as they walked the broken walls, moving from the deepest gloom of shade into the startling glare of sunlight.
“You look very serious,” he observed.
She nodded. “People always tell me that, but life seems a serious business. I am always….”
“Always what?”
She forced the admission back down. It was inappropriate to speak to him so.
“Well?”
Eliza hesitated, wanting to tell him even though she knew she must not. She never spoke her mind, rarely shared her true feelings with anyone. He should be forbidden such confidences, yet she longed to tell him more than anyone else.
“Tell me.”
There was a command behind the words that ought to have irked her, yet instead it unlocked something coiled tight inside, freeing her.
“I am always afraid.”
He paused, staring at her in consternation.
“Afraid of what?”
Eliza swallowed, feeling foolish, wondering if he would mock her.
“Everything,” she admitted. “Of making a mistake, of being ridiculed… of being hurt.”
“Fear can be managed, Eliza. Do not stop it from letting you live.”
“How?” she demanded, wanting to know the secret.
He grinned at her, so sudden and so startling an expression upon his usually grim features that her heart skipped about in shock. “By facing it, accepting it, and defying it.”
“But—” she began, but he was moving, striding towards the walls.
“When I was a very small boy, I was afraid of heights,” he said, and Eliza watched in alarm as he stripped off his coat and waistcoat, rolling up his sleeves.
She stared at his arms, thick and powerful and covered with dark, coarse hair. Her breath hitched in her throat.
Before she could accustom herself to the sight, if such a thing were even possible, he was climbing. Eliza watched as if in a daze as he reached the highest point, sent her another wicked grin that forced a startled laugh from her, and then stood upon his hands, there, on top of the wall.
Eliza gasped, covering her mouth with her hand, and watched as he turned in a circle, then balanced on one hand, the power in his frame something she could only revere, watching him with awe. He returned his weight to both hands and stood again, before running to the end of the wall with what seemed reckless speed and somersaulting to the ground.
Why had he done it? What did it mean? It seemed he was sharing something of himself, something he hid from the world. He was giving her a glimpse of a secret part of himself he would never have shown anyone else in her exclusive circle, of that she was certain, and the knowledge rocked her to her core. Such an exhibition from a man so naturally taciturn in her presence had been nothing short of miraculous, more so because of the glint of devilry in his eyes as he’d done it, as if he’d been waiting for the chance. He had dared to take a chance on her trust, he had made himself vulnerable to ridicule, and yet there he stood, magnificent, strong, and utterly himself.
Eliza sighed.
“Well, Eliza?”
Eliza turned back to the table, suddenly remembering she was not alone. She stuffed the dare back into her pocket. “I beg your pardon, Elspeth, I’m afraid I was wool gathering.”
“I’m not surprised, we’ve been at this for hours,” Greer complained, giving a most unladylike yawn to illustrate the fact. Her sister regarded her with a jaundiced eye.
“Well, a charitable school is a serious subject, Greer. It’s no wonder you’ve not been able to sit still for the last hour or more.”
Sensing a new row in the offing, Eliza hurried to intervene.
“Well, we have made great strides today, Elspeth, which is marvellous. I’m so grateful to both of you for your help and ideas on how to raise funds. You’ve been wonderful. Perhaps we ought to take a break, though.”
“Oh, yes, let’s,” Greer said at once, clapping her hands together in delight. “I’m so fed up with being cooped up indoors. It’s rained for two days without cease and we’ve not even been in the garden. I shall run mad.”
Elspeth murmured something under her breath, and Eliza coughed to cover up the less than complimentary sentiment.
“How about a trip to Astley’s?” she suggested.
The two young women gazed at her, Greer with delight, Elspeth with obvious surprise.
“Astley’s? Really?” she asked.
“Oh, yes, let’s go!” Greer crowed, thrilled by the prospect.
Eliza grinned.
Nic watched as his old mentor, Ducrow, made the women gasp and titter. Hardly surprising, as he appeared to be barely dressed. A well-made man, heavily muscled, and dressed in fleshings that left little to the imagination, was enough to make any woman give a sharp intake of breath. Seeing that same man riding bareback and performing the most extraordinary displays of skill and strength had some fragile types swooning where they sat. Ducrow was performing the Flying Wardrobe, an act where he entered the stage, eccentrically dressed, and flew from his horse, pretending to fall whilst drunk, much to the crowd’s delight. He tumbled, falling with a comic flailing of limbs to begin with, and then vaulted clumsily back onto his horse. Again and again he did it, yet each time with increasing grace and skill as he divested himself of his peculiar layers. With the gradual stripping of his clothes, and after many false falls, Ducrow would reveal himself to be the star rider with his many daring feats of acrobatic trick riding.
The smell of sawdust, horses, and greasepaint filled Nic’s nose, so familiar that he felt a sudden pang of homesickness, which was so ridiculous… well, he was a fool on too many counts to tally these days.
Ducrow rode from the circle to roars of excited cheering and clapping and leaped down, handing his sweating horse over t
o a lad to be taken care of.
“Good evening, you old devil.”
“Nic?” the fellow said, blinking in astonishment. “Nic!”
He held his arm open and the two men embraced, though Nic did so a little gingerly as he didn’t especially want sweat and greasepaint marring his coat.
“Still performing the same tired old tricks, then?”
Ducrow put up his fists and took a jaunty swipe at Nic, who dodged easily.
“Ah, as quick on your feet as you always were, and yes, why not? Listen to them. I could perform that act ten times a day to the same audience and they’d still be cheering on the last go round. You’re just jealous. You never managed to do it as well as I did. Almost,” the fellow said, wagging an amused finger at him, “but not quite.”
Nic snorted and fell into step with him, aware that Ducrow needed to change for his next performance.
“So, to what do we owe the pleasure? I thought you were too good for the likes of us these days. If you want those rumours to die, this is the last place you want to be, eh?”
“I suppose,” Nic said with a shrug. “Though it’s Louis that needs to be above reproach. I could live the life of a damned monk and still never be thought respectable.”
“Tainted by association, though. It’s a risk, coming here. Why bother?”
They’d reached Ducrow’s dressing room. Nic tossed his hat onto a table littered with playbills, empty plates, and bottles that jostled with odds and ends of costumes. He pulled up a chair, turning it and leaning his arms on the back as he sat.
“I don’t know,” Nic admitted, frowning.
“Do you miss it after all this time?”
Nic shrugged. “No. Yes. Well, not really. I’m too out of practice now, and I’m getting too old for all that.”
“Too old!” Ducrow, who was perhaps five or six years Nic’s senior, exclaimed in outrage.
Dare to be Brazen (Daring Daughters Book 2) Page 5