A Wedding by Dawn (23 page)

But suddenly India couldn’t speak.

“Nicholas,”
Emilie said, pronouncing it the French way.
Nee-koh-la.
“I love...
Nicholas.
”

“Oui, je sais,”
India said, pulling her into a hug.
I know.
“And he loves you, too.”

“And you,” Emilie said, looking up at her.

India looked away quickly. No, no he did not. She squeezed Emilie’s shoulders and pointed at the ducks. “Look, I think they’re having an argument.”

Emilie smiled at the ducks’ antics, and India breathed a little easier.

Love.

She chatted with Emilie about the ducks and what they might be saying to each other, and about the scenery and the grounds and everything they’d seen on their journey, even as Emilie’s innocent words took hold inside her.

Nicholas didn’t love her. He couldn’t, not after he’d seen her dressed in her tricorne and breeches in Malta, watched her climb the yards aboard William’s ship, found her hiding in a hayloft covered in straw just to escape him.

But she...heaven help her, because she...

She
loved
him.

* * *

“Y
E
’
RE
OUT
OF
yer bloody mind. Do I look like I know the first thing about bein’ a lady’s maid?”

India stopped short halfway through Taggart’s front door a while later, startled by the gravelly female voice booming through the entrance.

“I’m not asking you to be anyone’s maid,” came Nicholas’s remarkably calm voice. “Only to make up the rooms.”

“And then ye’re going to bring out Mrs. Potts to cook,” the woman accused. “I can cook.” And then, “Who’s that?”

It was much brighter outside than in, but India saw the two of them standing at the foot of the stairs, and now she realized they were looking at her and Emilie.

“This is...Lady India,” Nicholas said. Lady India, not Lady Taggart. “And Emilie.” He made the introduction. “Miss Ursula, Taggart’s caretaker.”

This
was Miss Ursula? She took Emilie’s hand and walked forward, seeing now that the person standing with Nicholas was almost certainly the same gardener she’d seen earlier—and was definitely not a man. Curly gray hair puffed out from beneath a woven cap. A dirty old jacket was buttoned over a dark waistcoat and a pair of smudged brown breeches with dark stockings. On her feet she wore a bulky pair of scuffed brown shoes.

And perhaps Nicholas did not want to be married to her, and perhaps she wouldn’t be allowed to stay—not at Taggart and not in Nicholas’s life—but she
was
his wife.

And she loved him. And looking at him knowing that, hurt much more than she’d guessed it would.

“Lady
Taggart,
” India corrected. She ignored Nicholas’s quick frown and offered her hand the way she might have done aboard the ship. Let Miss Ursula think what she would. “I’m very happy to meet you.”

Bright blue eyes peered skeptically at India from a ruddy face softened with peach fuzz. “Ye didn’t say anything about getting married,” Miss Ursula accused, scowling now at Nicholas.

“That’s because I feared a jealous rage,” he said drily.

“Stuff!” She brushed her hands vigorously on her jacket. “Couldn’t you have stayed away longer? Now you’re tracking mud through the hall, and it’s me that’s going to have to sweep it.”

India glanced down, but there wasn’t a speck of mud to be seen.

“Very well, I’ll make up the beds.” Miss Ursula pointed at him. “But don’t expect me to be doin’ hair and the like—roses I’ll coif, but not a lady’s hair.” With that, she harrumphed up the stairs.

India looked at Nicholas. And right there, at the base of the stairs, she made a decision.

She would not let him send her away.

He could scowl all he liked, but she wasn’t going.

“Should I be worried about a jealous rage?” she asked now, feeling a little giddy over her decision.

He looked up the stairs in the direction Miss Ursula had gone. “Miss Ursula has been in my employ for twelve years. I haven’t yet told her about the sale...I would appreciate it if you wouldn’t say anything.”

The giddiness faded a little. Poor Miss Ursula would be at the mercy of the new owner for her employ. And Nicholas would be without any help at the cottage.

She reached for Emilie’s hand. “Come, Emilie—let us go upstairs and find our rooms.”
And help Miss Ursula with the linens,
but she kept that part to herself.

Upstairs, India found Miss Ursula grumbling to herself with an armload of bedsheets. “I could put out me back this way—egad, don’t ye take those!” But it was already too late, and India plucked half the stack from Miss Ursula’s arms, ignoring her.

“Emilie and I will make up the bed in here.” She swept into the nearest room. Immediately she spotted Nicholas’s trunk on the floor. Her gaze flew to the bed.

His
bed. The one he’d always slept in here at Taggart.

The one where, if they were truly husband and wife, he might—

“Ye’ll not be making up ’is lordship’s bed,” came Miss Ursula’s gravelly voice as she stalked into the room, waving her hands at India. “Shoo! Go on with ye.”

India plopped the linens onto a chair and didn’t leave. “I’ve made beds before—” well, her own bed aboard the ship, and only rarely “—I know what to do.” Sort of.

“Don’t make no difference if ye know what to do. Ladies don’t make beds.” Miss Ursula pushed past India and yanked the covers away from the mattress.

India debated whether to press the issue or—

“Well?” Miss Ursula fisted her hands on her hips. “Do ye plan on standing there holding it all day or are ye going to help put it on?”

—or help.

India unfolded the sheet, and together the three of them smoothed it across the mattress, while Miss Ursula muttered about ladies making beds and working as if they were common folk.

“I did a lot more than this when I lived aboard a ship,” India told her. “Although it’s a sight easier in breeches.”

“The devil ye wore britches.”

“Only ask Lord Taggart.”

Miss Ursula snorted in disbelief.

But India only made up her mind even more firmly that she would not be made to leave. Nicholas would not be able to afford to keep servants. He did not need a wife on a pedestal. He would need a helpmeet. She had too much experience in the world to be put off by making up beds and washing linens and cooking, even though she’d never cooked a day in her life—

“Miss Ursula,” she said as they moved to the next room to make up Emilie’s bed. “Would you teach me to cook?”

“Cook! Egad no, I won’t teach ye to cook. Ladies don’t cook.”

But she wasn’t going to
be
a lady. She was going to be a
wife.
Just an ordinary wife. Nicholas’s wife.

How could he be ashamed of her then? It would be exactly as he’d once said—there would be no soirées, no balls, no dinner parties. No public life in which her history would bring him shame.

And if she could be enough help at the cottage, perhaps he would overlook her inability to read.

He would have to overlook it, because she wasn’t going to give him a choice. He could use the nastiest tone, give her the coldest looks, but she was going with him and Emilie to the cottage. If she could pull lines and rig sails and swab decks, she could feed chickens and make boiled potatoes and scrub floors.

He needed her. He did. Only let her prove it, and he would see it, too.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

“I
TOLD
YOU
I did not want you to help Miss Ursula make up the beds,” Nicholas told her later when she found him in the library, going through paperwork at his desk.

“I wasn’t going to stand by and watch her do it alone, when Emilie and I are perfectly capable—”

“I don’t want Emilie making up beds,” he said sharply.

“So what do you expect us to do? Sit and drink tea while Miss Ursula does everything alone? Except we can’t even do that, as all the furniture is covered—or do we have your permission to remove
those
linens so that we may sit?”

He raised his eyes—only his eyes—and his hand stilled. She narrowed her gaze, refusing to look away. “There must be something I can do to help.”

She watched him and felt the weight of what needed to be done here.
I wish you didn’t have to endure this,
she wanted to say
. I wish my father had been here so that you could keep this place.

And even after everything he’d done, everything she’d endured herself because of him...she meant it.

“All right, then,” he finally said. “If you want to help...” He reached for several sheets of paper, glanced through them and held them out to her. “Take this list. Make sure everything is accounted for. If you find anything that isn’t already listed, write it at the bottom.”

India stared at the papers in his hand.

“Or perhaps you didn’t contemplate doing
that
much work,” he commented.

She took the papers. “Of course I did.” She leafed through them the way he had, as if she was skimming through the words. But her heart was pounding, and all she could think of was whether he could tell she wasn’t really skimming. Her nerves stretched tighter and tighter, and reading was impossible now—even the words she did know, of which certainly there must be some.

“Mark everything off as you find it,” he told her. “If the numbers are different—forty forks instead of thirty-five, for example, make the correction.”

India nodded, still staring at the paper, terrified now that something in her demeanor would give her away. There was nobody here but Nicholas and Emilie—nobody she could secretly go to for help. Except, possibly, Miss Ursula, and it was too easy to imagine her booming voice announcing India’s failings to the entire county.

Ye want me to read this to ye? Can’t ye read it yerself?

She inhaled, looked up and tried to smile. And Nicholas was so handsome that her heart ached just looking at him, wishing he wanted to keep her half as much as he wanted to keep Taggart.

* * *

T
HERE
WERE
A
few words on the list India did know.
Fork
was there, and
spoon.
Perhaps a dozen others—short, single words. The kind that were easy to remember. But there were so many other longer ones she wasn’t sure of. She could guess, but what if she was wrong? If only there’d been more time for visits to the young Mr. Wiggins in London.

It would have been so much easier to help with the linens, or perhaps packing away whatever Nicholas planned to take with him, or even helping Miss Ursula outside.

A letter had arrived from Paris. India had recognized Millie’s handwriting. She was able to hide the letter away before Nicholas asked her about it—thank goodness Miss Ursula had been the one to receive it. But there hadn’t been time to do more than study it and apply a few of the techniques the young Mr. Wiggins had begun teaching her. Her priority was the inventory list.

Over the next day, India started with the things she could read. Emilie followed her from room to room, helping her count. And the more time she spent inside this house—old as it was, and in so much need of care—the more she wished they could stay here.

She sat now in a storage room on the very top floor, counting sheets. Small windows overlooked the grounds. From here, she could see the treetops, the pond, the flower garden at the front. It was perfectly quiet.

Safe. Peaceful.

And then...footsteps. Heavy ones that she recognized instantly as belonging to Nicholas. She stepped away from the window and resumed her work, but lost count immediately, focused entirely on the
thump-thump-thump
of his approaching footsteps.

And then he was there, in the doorway. He had to duck through the door, and his head nearly touched the low, slanted ceiling.

“How is the inventory coming?” A hint of roughness touched his voice.

“Well.” He seemed to fill the room, watching her with troubled eyes, green like the sea on a stormy day. “Very well,” she added. He wasn’t close enough to touch her, but she felt him on her skin as if his hands pressed into her flesh.

“I need to check something on the list,” he said.

“Oh.” She looked down at the pages in her hand. Held them out to him.

He stepped forward and took them, and now he was even closer.

He studied the list, leafing to the second page. She watched his hands—those strong, sure fingers that had touched her so intimately in France. And it was impossible not to imagine, now, what might happen if he touched her again. Perhaps even here. Now.

Her breathing turned shallow.

“The candelabras are in the dining room,” he said suddenly, looking up. “I saw them only this morning.”

Candelabras? Her attention shot to the list in his hand. “Yes...I saw them, as well.” Candelabras.

“You inventoried the dining room yesterday,” he said. “You didn’t count everything?”

“I must have forgotten to mark them.” She kept her eyes fixed on the pages he held. “I’ll check them again as soon as I’m finished here.”

Her insides felt suspended while he glanced over the list. “I saw the silver braziers, as well. And—for God’s sake, India. No wonder this is taking so long. You didn’t finish the pantry, either, or the downstairs linens.”

Oh, God. She backed up a step.

“Now look here,” he said with irritation.

Numb. She felt herself going numb.

“I expect this finished by the end of tomorrow. If you’re not going to do this efficiently—”

Then you’ll stay here without any supper until you do.

“—then return the list to me and I’ll do it myself.”

She stared at him.

He frowned and held out the papers. “Are you feeling unwell?”

Was she— “No. No, not at all. Of course I’ll finish by tomorrow,” she said, taking the list and setting it aside. “I told you I would do it.” Now she raised her chin, even as a knot twisted on the inside. “But of course if you would prefer to do it yourself, you have only to say the word, and I’m quite certain Miss Ursula can find a way to keep me busy in the gardens. Or the kitchen.”

“You’re not going to work in the goddamned kitchen.”

She couldn’t even do the one task he’d given her. Only think how much more he would regret her staying when he found out how little help she really was.

Then suddenly he looked past her, toward the small window. “A rider.”

* * *

I
NDIA
EXHALED
WHEN
he left, shaking with relief. She counted the rest of what she knew to count in the storage room, then returned to the dining room and counted the candelabras and silver braziers, writing the numbers very small on the bottom corner of the list since she didn’t know exactly where to put them.

The rider had left, but India had heard nothing of what he wanted.

Just as India was leaving the dining room, Emilie came from downstairs. “Where is my brother?” she asked.

India didn’t know, so they looked in the library and walked out to the stables, but he wasn’t there, so they decided on a visit to the pond.

They spotted him through the trees, standing where the path broke into the open, with his arms hanging at his sides. Motionless. Saying his goodbyes, she supposed, to this beautiful place he must love more than anywhere on earth.

She slowed, held Emilie back, suddenly feeling as if they were intruding. But he must have heard them, because he turned.

Emilie waved at him.

He smiled a little at her—at Emilie, not at India—and they started forward again, joining him in the sunshine. India hardly dared look at him. Her mind raced for something appropriate to say, something that would not make it all worse.

Emilie took his hand. India glanced down, watched his large fingers curl around Emilie’s small ones. Her own fingers tingled with wanting to take his other hand. She made a fist instead.

“Could we go in the boat?” Emilie asked, pointing to the rowboat.

“Bit windy today,” Nicholas told her.

“Only think if we had a small sailboat,” India said, “what fun that would be.”

Nicholas looked at her. Too late she realized her thoughtlessness. “Of course, a toy one would be much better,” she said quickly. “One would never get wet, and it could be the most magnificent ship ever, with three masts and fifty little guns, and you could take it wherever you go—even to a cottage.”

He was staring at the water again. A muscle in his jaw flexed.

“Must you sell this place?” Emilie asked him in French.

“Yes.” He looked down, touched Emilie’s cheek. “I must. But we shall have a cottage of our very own, snug and safe. You needn’t worry.”

“Only think how much fun a cottage will be, Emilie,” India said. “Perhaps there will be a giant tree, and Nicholas will fashion you a swing, and you can glide for hours upon hours watching the birds play in the branches. And we can plant beautiful flowers all around the house, and you will have a room all your very own where the sun will shine in. And on gloomy days, the smell of bread baking in the kitchen will fill every room.”

“Really?” Emilie said, looking up at Nicholas.

Can India come with us?
India imagined her asking. But Emilie didn’t know India would not be joining them—Nicholas hadn’t told her yet.

And now he was looking at India with an expression she couldn’t quite identify. Perhaps she’d made another mistake, describing cottage life that way.

But he put his arm around Emilie and rubbed her shoulder. “Yes, really. The cottage will be great fun. You’ll see.”

* * *

L
ATE
IN
THE
night, Nick stood in his bedroom in his shirt, breeches and stockings, rereading the note the rider had delivered, wondering what the devil his solicitor could want so urgently.

There wasn’t time for a trip to London, but he would have to make one tomorrow. He would go on horseback in the morning—early—and be back by evening.

Another wasted day, on top of so many others.

The business here needed to be finished quickly. Two days hence at the latest. Then they would return to London, and he would begin looking for a cottage, and India—

God. India.

She made cottage life sound so fantastical he almost believed it himself. Any other young lady would have been horrified by the state Taggart was in. Mortified by the task at hand and what it meant. Any other young lady would have wanted to stay at James’s house in London—would probably be begging for them to live there, just to keep up appearances.

But India had helped Miss Ursula change the sodding
linens
on the sodding
beds.

India wanted to
help.

And Nick wanted her so badly he’d considered shutting the door to that damned attic room and taking her right then, right there. And he wanted it even though he knew bloody well she didn’t want to be here. Even though he could see her fading before his eyes, just as he’d known she would.

Wandering about the house, taking a haphazard inventory hither and yon?

He thought about her blank stare when he’d questioned her about her methods. And perhaps she didn’t
want
to help at all. Perhaps she was only trying to find some way to occupy herself, absent the busy labor aboard a ship.

A sailing boat on the pond. Good God. Only imagine if he did have one, and if they were going to stay here. Only imagine her trapped forever on his little pond in a tiny sailboat.

But they weren’t staying. She wasn’t staying. She would return to Paris, and if nothing else, she could have excitement there. He might have the legal right to stop her, but he had only to think of her trapped in some gloomy cottage to know he could never, ever do that to her.

She was sunlight and freedom.

And he was a man with no home, no place, no name.

Yet somehow, now, he found himself tossing the letter onto his dresser and lifting a candle. Opening his door, padding barefoot across the corridor, knocking on hers...looking for some of that sunlight, even if only for right now.

Her door opened, just a little—just enough for him to see a long section of billowing white nightgown—and she looked up at him. Her eyes were so huge, so blue. And her lips—his tongue remembered her taste.

“Is something the matter?”

“No.” He barely recognized his own voice, thick with desire and need. “I’d like to come in.” Even though he knew better, even though he’d promised himself he wouldn’t touch her again because he shouldn’t—not after he’d ordered her to leave.

But he had to. He
had
to.

In the candlelight glow, comprehension darkened her eyes. Those lips parted, and—acquiescence. She stepped back, opened the door wider.

He stepped through it. Set his candle on a side table and faced her. She looked more like a virgin now, in her billowing nightgown and braid, than she’d looked that night she
had
been a virgin and he’d so mindlessly plundered her.

And it was wrong—so bloody wrong—but he wanted to make love to her with nothing between them.

He wanted to feel her bare skin against his.

He wanted her to part her legs for him, even knowing everything about him—his heritage, his financial embarrassment, his hopeless future.

And so he reached for her.

Kissed her.

And Christ—now she was kissing him back, not like she’d done at Madame Gravelle’s but more sweetly, more thoroughly, more...