Nicola and the Viscount (20 page)

In any case, being kissed by Nathaniel Sheridan, even on the back of a horse in the middle of a public street, was quite the most exciting thing that had ever happened to Nicola.

At least until Nathaniel lifted his head to say, in a raw voice, “Nicky, I love you so,” and then proceeded to kiss her even more deeply.

And really
that
, Nicola decided, was the most exciting thing that had ever happened to her. At least until he said it again.

“Well, Nana,” Nicola said, as she plucked a piece of ginger cake from its plate and popped it into her mouth, forgetting, for the moment, Madame's warning against speaking with one's mouth full. “What do you think of him?”

Nana looked up from the pitcher of lemonade she was preparing—from lemons supplied by Lady Sheridan's sea-faring brother—with a broad smile on her plump face.

“Oh, Miss Nicky,” she said, her blue eyes glittering. “He's a rum 'un, that one. Ye couldn't've picked better if ye'd've held a husband contest.”

“Yes,” Nicola said with some satisfaction. “I think so, too. And Puddy? Does Puddy like him?”

“Why, of course he does!” The old woman, the closest thing Nicola had ever known to a grandmother, crinkled her eyes merrily. “Your young man's already shown 'im a better way to figure out the accounts from the milk and the sheep's wool.”

“Nathaniel's quite good with numbers,” Nicola said.

“He's a fine young man,” Nana informed her approvingly. “You've done well, Miss Nicky.”

Nicola could not help agreeing. She
had
done well. More than well, as a matter of fact. She was quite the luckiest girl in the world…something Eleanor appeared only too eager to concede when Nicola, a few moments later, found her at the picnic blanket they'd spread across the abbey lawn.

“Oh, Nicky.” Eleanor sighed, looking up at the cloudless blue sky above them. “You're so lucky.”

Nicola, refilling her friend's cup from the pitcher Nana had provided her, followed her gaze. The summer sky really was a stunning shade of azure. One couldn't see a single sign of the clouds of smoke from the colliery ten miles away.

“Because I'm an orphan?” Nicola asked.

“No, not because of that.” Eleanor sat up. “Because of all this.” She threw out an arm, seeming to wish to encompass the green pasture all around them, the arc of blue above them, and the quaint manor house behind them all in one gesture. “It's so beautiful!”

“And to think,” Nicola said, lying down on the blanket beside her friend. “They were going to put a train through it.”

“I'm so glad you didn't let them,” Eleanor said seriously. “I mean, I am all for progress, Nicky, but not—”

“—when it's going straight through your parlor,” Nicola finished for her. “I know. I feel the same way. Stockton and Darlington can build all the railroads they want, so long as they don't do so on
my
property.”

“At least they apologized,” Eleanor reminded her. “I mean, Mr. Pease didn't know you were opposed to selling. Lord Renshaw told him you'd be delighted to part with the abbey.”

“I think the Grouser's learned the error of his ways,” Nicola said, rolling over onto her stomach and reaching for a nearby daisy. “Don't you?”

“Considering he's currently residing in Newgate Prison, you mean?” Eleanor let out a gentle laugh. “Yes, I think so. I hope he and Lord Farelly are enjoying their new accommodations.”

“And Lord Sebastian,” Nicola said, plucking a petal from the daisy she'd picked.
He loves me.
“Don't forget Lord Sebastian.”

“Oh, Lord Sebastian.” Eleanor lay down beside her friend, resting her chin in one hand. “How could I forget? Still, it seems a shame, all that manly beauty locked up in a prison cell.”

“He ought to have thought about that,” Nicola said, plucking another petal, “before he agreed to go along with his father's scheme.”
He loves me not.

“Without a doubt. And did I tell you, Nick? Lady Farelly's had to decamp for the Continent, she's become so unpopular because of all this. Not a soul in London would have her in their home, after the papers got hold of what her husband had tried to do to you.”

“Better the Continent,” Nicola said, “than prison.”
He loves me.

“True. But, oh, Nicky! I very nearly forgot. I heard the strangest thing just before we left. Lady Honoria! What do you think? They say she ran off to America.
America
, of all places, Nicky! And you'll never guess with whom.”

“Oh, I think I can guess,” Nicola said.
He loves me not.
“My cousin Harold?”

Eleanor let out a little shriek. “Yes! Isn't it the strangest thing you've ever heard? Lady Honoria and the Milksop! I can't imagine how he talked her into doing it…though I don't suppose it was probably very hard, given the alternative. Certainly, like her mother, she was done in London. But still. To choose the Milksop over one's own mother—she must really have hated Lady Farelly. Why, I thought I should never stop laughing when I heard it.”

“I think it's a good thing,” Nicola said. “So long as he keeps her away from feathers.”
He loves me.

“Where do you think the others have gone off to?” Eleanor sat up again and, shading her eyes, peered off into the distance. “Oh, Lord, Nicky. You'll never guess what Hugh and Nat are up to now.”

He loves me not.
“You're right. I couldn't guess. What are they up to?”

“Well, they're rather far away…but I think…Lord, Nicky, I think they're teaching Phillip to swim.”

Nicola sat up at once and followed her friend's gaze. “Are they naked?”

“No,” was Eleanor's disappointing answer. “Still, I hope Mama can't see them from the house. You know Phil's supposed to be being punished for slipping those duck eggs into the henhouse.”

Nicola had rather found the sight of so many ducklings straggling after a very confused-looking chicken secretly amusing, but had not admitted so in front of her guests, Lord and Lady Sheridan, who'd been furious with their youngest son.

“Two years,” Eleanor murmured, still gazing toward the stream. “It seems ages, doesn't it? I think it quite unfair of Mama to make you and Nat wait so long, as well. It isn't as if you're her daughter.”

Nicola, turning back to her daisy, shrugged. Like Phil's trick with the duck eggs, Nicola secretly liked Lady Sheridan's mandate that Nathaniel and she wait to marry until she'd turned eighteen. Having never had a mother of her own, Nicola rather enjoyed having Lady Sheridan boss her about. It was like being back at Madame Vieuxvincent's…except with the added bonus of being kissed, soundly and often, by the man she loved.
He loves me.

Suddenly Eleanor reached out and grabbed one of the monogrammed tea towels in which their picnic luncheon had been wrapped.

“Why, Nicky!” she cried. “I'd completely forgotten till now. But how delightful! Your initials aren't going to change. Nicola Sparks. Nicola Sheridan. Why, you don't even have to have new towels made.”

“Yes,” Nicola said in a pleased voice. “I know.”
He loves me not.

“And did you ever think that when Papa dies, Nat will become viscount in his place?” Eleanor wanted to know. “So in the end, Nicky, you're going to be a viscountess after all. Really.” Eleanor shook her head until her brown curls swayed. “But you simply have to be the luckiest girl alive!”

“Yes, I am, aren't I?” Nicola mused.

She looked up as she heard Nathaniel, coming toward them, call her name. The stray lock of hair that was always falling into his eyes was plastered wetly to his forehead.

“Nicky,” he called. “Come on. The water's perfect!”

He loves me.

An excerpt:

“Lady Victoria?”

Victoria turned her head at the sound of her name being called so softly from across the ship deck. The moon was full. She could see the person calling to her quite clearly by its silver light…but she doubted that he, in turn, would be able to perceive the blush that suffused her cheeks at the sight of him.

Yet how could she help but blush? The sight of the tall, flaxen-haired lord nearly always brought color to her cheeks—not to mention a curious flutter to her pulse. He was so handsome. What woman would
not
blush when such a good-looking man happened to glance her way?

And tonight Lord Malfrey was doing a good deal more than glancing. Indeed, he was crossing the deck to come and stand beside her at the ship railing, where she'd leaned for the past half hour staring at the hypnotic band of light that the moon was casting upon the water, and listening to the gentle lap of waves upon the sides of the
Harmony
, the ship that had carried them all from India.

“Good evening, my lord,”Victoria murmured demurely, when the earl reached her side.

“You are well, Lady Victoria?” Lord Malfrey asked with just a hint of anxiety in his deep voice. “Forgive me for asking, but you hardly touched your dinner. And then you left the table before dessert was served.”

Victoria did not think it would be at all romantic, standing as they were beneath that lush silver moon, to inform the earl that she'd left the table because the roast had been so scandalously underdone that she'd felt it her duty to go to the galley and have words about it with the cook.

It was not her place, of course, to have done so. Mrs. White, the captain's wife, was the one who ought properly to have taken the ship's cook to task.

But Mrs. White, in Victoria's opinion, would not know a roux from a bearnaise, and quite probably
liked
her meat undercooked. Victoria had never been able to abide slovenly cooking. And it was so simple to do a roast properly!

But this was hardly the kind of thing one brought up before a young man like Lord Malfrey. Not under a night sky like the one above them. Besides, one simply did not speak of underdone meat in front of an earl.

And so instead Victoria said, stretching a hand eloquently toward the moon, “Why, I only wanted a breath of fresh air and happened upon this view. It was so lovely, how could I return below and miss such a breathtaking sight?”

This was, Victoria thought to herself, a bit of a high-flown speech. There were those on board, she knew, who might well make retching noises had they happened to have overheard it.

Fortunately, Hugo Rothschild, the ninth Earl of Malfrey, was not one of those people. His blue-eyed gaze followed the graceful arc of her arm, and he said reverently, “Indeed. I have never seen such a beautiful moon. But”—and here his gaze returned to Victoria—“it is not the only breathtaking sight to be seen here on deck.”

Victoria knew she was blushing quite hard now—but from pleasure, not embarrassment. Why, the earl was flirting with her! How perfectly delightful. Her ayah back in Jaipur had warned her that men might try to flirt with her, but Victoria had hardly expected someone as handsome as Lord Malfrey to pay her such civilities. It was beginning to seem as if the evening, which had looked rather dismal in light of the disastrous roast, was shaping up very nicely indeed.

“Why, Lord Malfrey,”Victoria said, lowering her sooty eyelashes—though they were not
really
sooty, of course, as Victoria was a scrupulous bather. But they were, or so her ayah had informed her, as black as soot, anyway. “I can't think what you mean.”

“Can't you?” Lord Malfrey reached out and suddenly took the hand that she'd purposefully left lying upon the ship's railing, temptingly close to his. “Victoria—may I call you Victoria?”

He could have called her Bertha and Victoria would not have minded in the least. Not when he was pressing her hand so tightly, as if it were the most precious thing in the world, against his chest. She could feel his heart drumming, strong and vibrant, beneath the cream-colored satin of his waistcoat.
Goodness
, she thought with some astonishment.
I believe he is about to propose!

Which he promptly did.

“Victoria,” Lord Malfrey said, the moonlight bringing into high relief the planes of his regularly featured face. He was such a handsome man, with his square jaw and broad shoulders. He would, Victoria decided with some satisfaction, make a very dashing husband indeed. “I know we have not been acquainted long—just under three months—but these past few weeks…well, they've been the happiest I've ever known. It breaks my heart that tomorrow I shall have to leave you to travel on to England alone, for I have business to attend to in Lisbon….”

Dreadful Lisbon! How Victoria hated the sound of that foul city, stealing away this excessively charming young man! Lucky Lisbon, that it should get to bask in the glow of the delightful Lord Malfrey.

“Oh, well,” she said, trying to sound airily unconcerned. “Perhaps we shall meet again in London by and by—”

“Not by and by,” Lord Malfrey said, flattening her palm against his heart with both hands. “Never say by and by when it concerns us! For I never met a girl quite like you, Victoria, so beautiful…so intelligent…so competent with the help. I cannot imagine what a perfect creature like you could ever see in a pitiful wastrel like myself, but I promise that if, whilst I am in Lisbon, you will wait for me, and then upon my return deign to give me your hand in marriage, I will love you until the day I die, and do nothing but try to make myself worthy of you!”

La
, Victoria thought, very pleased at this turn of events.
How jolly this is! A girl goes to chastise a cook for underdoing the roast, and comes back to the table a bride-to-be!
Her uncle John would be quite put out when he heard about it, however. He'd wagered Victoria wouldn't get a proposal until she'd been at least a year in England, and here she was getting one before even setting foot on shore. He wouldn't be at all happy about owing her uncles Henry and Jasper a fiver.

The three of them would be taught a sharp lesson indeed! Imagine them sending her off to England so unceremoniously, simply because she had suggested—merely suggested, mind you—that one of them marry her dear friend Miss…Oh, what was her name again, anyway? Well, it was simply ridiculous, not one of them agreeing to marry poor Miss Whatever-Her-Name-Was, when Victoria had had such a lovely wedding planned. Now it was her own wedding she'd be planning instead! Perhaps when her uncles caught a glimpse of her own wedded bliss, they'd give Miss Whatever-Her-Name-Was a second look….

“Oh, dear,” Victoria said in tones of great—and completely feigned—distress, batting those sooty lashes as her ayah had recommended. “This is all so terribly sudden, Lord Malfrey.”

“Please,” Lord Malfrey said, clutching her hand even more tightly, if such a thing were possible. “Call me Hugo.”

“Very well…Hugo,” Victoria said in her most womanly voice. “I…”

It was always a good idea, Victoria's ayah had told her, to leave young men in some suspense as to your true feelings for them. Accordingly, Victoria was about to tell young Lord Malfrey that his ardor had taken her completely unawares, and that as she was but sixteen and hardly yet ready for matrimony, she'd have to turn down his kind proposal…for now. With any luck, this answer would throw the poor young man into such a fit of passion that he might do something rash, such as heave himself overboard, which would be very exciting indeed. And if he survived the dunking, Victoria would be assured of a good many more proposals from him when he returned from Portugal, which would give her something to look forward to whilst she was staying with her horrid aunt and uncle Gardiner.

All of her hopes for a dramatic—and hopefully very damp—climax to this tender scene were dashed, however, when, just as Victoria was about to turn down Lord Malfrey's proposal, a deep and all-too-familiar voice reached her from across the ship's deck, its accents, as always, dripping with sarcasm.

“There you two are,” Jacob Carstairs drawled as he stepped out of the shadows by the rigging and into the silver puddle of light thrown by the moon. “The captain was wondering—Oh, I say, I'm not
interrupting
anything, am I?”

Victoria snatched her hand out from beneath the earl's grip. “Certainly not,” she said quickly.

Stuff and bother!
What a tiresome young man this Jacob Carstairs was! Since he'd joined the
Harmony
at the Cape of Good Hope six weeks earlier, he seemed always to be appearing at the most inopportune times, such as whenever Victoria and the earl happened to find a rare moment alone together.