Читать книгу One Golden Ring - Cheryl Bolen - Страница 9

Chapter 4

He made it to the bank before it closed for the day, demanding that Adam—and not one of Adam’s employees—personally handle his sizeable withdrawal.

“You want FIFTY thousand pounds?” an incredulous Adam asked.

“Half of it to secure the release of my future brother-in-law—”

Adam’s eyes rounded. “Then . . . you’re going to marry the lady?”

“Tomorrow. St. George’s Hanover. You’re invited.”

A slow smile spread across Adam’s admiring face. “I shall be there. Felicitations and all that, dear fellow. I’m convinced you’ve made the right decision.”

“Would that I were,” Nick mumbled. Of course, if Lady Fiona was half as passionate in bed as she was in the drawing room in a few minutes earlier, then he had struck a very fine bargain indeed. The very memory of her lips opening beneath his caused his breath to grow short.

Even when he had first taken up with Diane, her kisses had not affected him as profoundly as did Lady Fiona’s. It suddenly occurred to him that bedding Diane would hold no allure after making Lady Fiona his wife. “Actually,” he added, “I’ll need ten thousand more.”

“Surely you don’t mean SIXTY thousand?” Adam said.

Nick directed an impatient glance at his brother. “Surely I do.”

“But I thought the ransom was for only twenty-five.”

“My dear brother, I wish you wouldn’t use the word only in connection with twenty-five thousand pounds!”

“You know what I mean. What’s the other thirty-five thousand for?”

“Twenty-five for William to purchase francs when he travels to Portugal.”

“So you’re sending Will to negotiate with the bandits? And you’ve decided to help Lord Warwick after all?”

“Yes to both,” Nick said. “You don’t think I’d trust fifty thousand pounds with someone who wasn’t family, do you?”

“Have you told Will yet?”

Nick flicked a glance at the clock on the wall behind Adam’s well-ordered desk. His brother’s business establishment with its fine walnut wainscoting, tasteful decor, and stunning brass chandeliers bore no resemblance to Nick’s austere office that had been his father’s before him and that Nick had no desire to change. “Not yet. I expect him here at any moment.”

“What’s the other ten thousand for?”

Nick’s lips went taut. “For Diane’s settlement.”

Adam gave his brother yet another incredulous look. “You’re going to spurn the loveliest actress on the London stage simply because you’re going to marry a blueblood? How . . . puritanical.”

“I don’t take vows of any kind lightly.”

Adam’s eyes narrowed. “I believe you’re smitten with Lady Fiona.”

“Believe what you will,” Nick said with a careless shrug. “It’s nothing to me. I merely felt I owe my wife-to-be a clean slate.”

“Does she know about Emmie, then?”

Nick cursed. “I should have told her! I had so much on my mind I completely forgot.”

“Yes, you should have told her.” Adam eyed his brother warily, then shrugged. “I suppose you could send Emmie off somewhere.”

“You think I should send the child back to the whore who gave birth to her?” Nick asked angrily.

“I know how distasteful that is to you. What about one of those girls’ schools around Bath?”

“I should pretend my child does not exist rather than acknowledge her to my aristocratic wife?” This was the first time he’d voiced the word wife in connection with Fiona, and it gave him a not unpleasant feeling of possession.

“Now, don’t get so ruffled! I’m only trying to prepare you, to warn you. Lady Fiona will not have an illegitimate child under her roof—much less take on the role of mother to the child.”

His brother was likely right, Nick realized, his gut roiling. As far as the child was concerned, he had already gone over and above that which was expected of a gentleman toward his bastard. Still . . .

The door to Adam’s office flew open, and the third and youngest Birmingham brother stormed in. It was as if the mold that created the two elder brothers had been retired when William Birmingham was conceived. Where the two elder brothers were tall and dark, William was only barely past medium height, with golden hair and a more muscular torso than his lean brothers. “What the devil was so important that you sent a messenger to Newmarket to fetch me?” William demanded. “Do you know how much I could have won on the final race?”

“You’ll get no sympathy from Nick,” Adam said.

“If you did a decent day’s work,” Nick chided, “you’d have no need to throw away your money at gaming hells and horse races.”

Adam shrugged. “You know what Nick always says. His livelihood provides all the risks he needs.”

“I don’t believe Nick’s ever thrown dice in his entire life,” William said.

Nick’s brows nudged down. “Why would I want to? I lose and win fortunes every day—no dice or pasteboards needed.”

Dust still clinging to his Hessians, William sank into a chair. “What’s so bloody urgent?”

“Nick’s getting married tomorrow,” Adam announced.

William bolted up. “The hell you say!”

“He truly is,” Adam said.

“But tomorrow’s Christmas Eve!”

“A perfectly good day for a wedding,” Nick said.

“Who are you marrying?” William asked.

Adam met his younger brother’s gaze. “Have you ever heard of Lady Fiona Hollingsworth?”

“I don’t believe you . . .” William shook his head, his shocked gaze darting from one brother to the other. “She’s a viscount’s daughter. And she’s beautiful. I don’t care how legendary Nick’s bedchamber prowess is, he couldn’t coax an aristocrat—an aristocrat I’ll vow he doesn’t even know—into his marriage bed.”

The very thought of sharing his bedchamber with Lady Fiona sent blood thundering to Nick’s loins. Had someone told him yesterday that he would be marrying Lady Fiona Hollingsworth he would have thought that person a raving lunatic. Yet here he was on the eve of their wedding—oddly with no regrets. In fact, tomorrow couldn’t come soon enough to please him.

“It wasn’t his bedchamber charms—but his pockets—that attracted the lady,” Adam explained.

“Why Nick?” William asked. “She could snare any peer of the realm she wanted—except Warwick.”

Damn. Did everyone know of that scoundrel Warwick’s mistreatment of Lady Fiona, Nick wondered. He did not at all like to be aiding the man. But Warwick was foreign secretary. And Nick was a patriot.

“Personally, I think she fancies our brother,” Adam said.

Nick remembered how she had watched him at the theatre last night and wished to God what Adam was saying were true. But, of course, it wasn’t. One had only to see her this morning with that damn Warwick to know it was that man whom she still loved.

“She fancies the twenty-five thousand I’ll spend to free her brother.” He turned to William to explain.

When Nick was finished telling him about the kidnapping, Will said, “So I’m to deal with the bandits?”

“You’ll be well protected. You can ride your coach-and-four onto my yacht for the crossing, and on land you’ll have four armed postilions, as well as four more armed men in and on the coach.” That should sweeten the pot for his youngest brother, Nick thought. Will was happiest when operating under the threat of danger. No position in an indoor establishment would ever appeal to Will.

“Sounds very much like the time I smuggled bullion out of Frankfurt,” Will said, his green eyes sparkling.

Nick smiled. “Let’s hope you do as fine a job this time.”

“No one at the bank knows of the substantial withdrawal since I’m taking care of it myself,” Adam said, “so I wouldn’t expect any trouble this side of the channel.”

“What’s the other matter you wish me to attend to?” William asked Nick.

“I wish you to begin buying up as many francs as you can.”

William quirked a brow.

“The foreign secretary has asked for our assistance in crushing the French,” Adam said. “Actually, he approached Nick.”

Nick shrugged. “We were at Cambridge together, though not well acquainted.”

“I never knew you had such aristocratic connections,” William said. “How did you make the acquaintance of Lady Fiona?”

“Actually, I met her at Tat’s.”

“The hell you say!” William gave his brother an are-you-out-of-your-mind glance. “Women don’t go to Tat’s!”

“She was with her brother, who was rather forced to introduce us.”

Adam directed his attention at William. “Methinks the lady was taken with Nick.”

Oddly, Nick wished his brothers were right. “Hardly,” he said. “I didn’t see her again until last night, two years after the first meeting.”

“You went to her last night?” William asked.

“No. She came to me. This morning.”

Adam and William exchanged amused glances.

“It’s NOT what you two think!” Nick said.

“Well, tell me this,” William said. “Are you going to sleep with her?”

Nick’s heart seemed to be racing right out of his chest. “Of course I’m going to sleep with her! This time tomorrow, she’ll be my wife.”

My wife. He still could scarcely credit it.

Dismissing a mistress was at the top of the list of Nick’s most hated duties. Heretofore he had managed to sever these affairs in a most amiable fashion. He was still friends with Yvonne some six years after their parting. Of course it helped that as a parting gift he had purchased her one of the finest mansions on Paris’s Avenue Foch. She had been so utterly grateful to return to the city of her birth she had pledged fealty to Nick for as long as he lived. “Nickee,” she had said, “no matter how many years pass, if ever I can help you, you have only ask.”

If only Diane would be as agreeable as her French predecessor. Diane’s butler had admitted Nick to the Marylebone townhouse he had set her up in, and as he climbed the stairs to her bedchamber, a heavy sense of dread surged through him.

After he tapped on her door, he drew in a deep breath and entered. Standing before her dressing table, she smiled up at him. His gaze lazily traveled over the luscious curves of her body. She wore absolutely nothing beneath the sheer, snow white gown. Before today—before he had become betrothed to Lady Fiona Hollingsworth—the sight of Diane’s rosy nipples beneath the gauzy fabric or the thatch of flaming hair between her thighs would have set his pulse racing. But not this evening.

He strolled to her dressing table and plopped two sacks of coins on its gilded surface.

“What’s that, love?” she asked.

“Ten thousand pounds.”

She whirled around to face him, her ruby lips lifting into a smile. “Pray, for whom?”

“For you.”

Her hands flew to her breasts. “ ’Tis a fortune! Why do I merit so much?”

“Because I’ve been well satisfied with you.” Would she notice his use of the past tense?

She moved to him, her eyes seductive as she began to snake her arms around him, the smell of her too-heavy perfume sickening. “I shall satisfy you tonight as you’ve never been satisfied before, Nicholas darling.”

He removed her arms, quickly brushed his mouth across the back of one hand, then dropped it. “Actually, the money’s a parting gift, Diane.”

She gasped. Her eyes watered. “Whatever do you mean?” she asked in a quivering voice.

“I’m getting married tomorrow.”

“No!” she shrieked. Tears began to gush. “Why not me? Did I not please you?”

“You pleased me very much.”

“But it’s not as if you’re some lord,” she sobbed, “who must marry his own kind. I thought we s-s-s-uited.”

“We suited very well, but I cannot continue with you, to hold my wife up to ridicule.”

Diane launched herself at him, though Nick refused to put his arms around her. “I don’t care about the money, my darling,” she whimpered. “All I want is you.” She draped her arms around him, planting soft kisses along his neck and moving up to his chin as he stiffened. “Can we not continue after you marry?” she begged. “I’ll be discreet.”

He clasped her shoulders and held her out at arm’s length. “Tomorrow I take wedding vows—vows I’ll not be breaking.”

He had seen Diane cry on stage, but it was nothing like seeing her really cry. Her lovely face stained red, ravaged with tears. He had not realized the actress cared so deeply for him. To his amazement, she seemed more interested in him than in the ten thousand pounds.

“Who are you marrying?” she asked between sobs.

“Lady Fiona Hollingsworth.” Acknowledging that Fiona really was going to become his wife brought back that odd feeling of well being.

Diane’s sobs—a mixture of weeping and moaning—grew louder. “So that’s it! I ca-a-a-an’t compete with a fine lady.” She swiped away her tears with the back of her hand and eyed him. “You’ve fallen in love with her, haven’t you?”

“I’m not going to discuss my future wife with you.”

Why, he asked himself as he took his leave, did everyone think he had fallen in love with Fiona?

That night—the eve of her wedding—Fiona’s melancholy kept her from sleeping. Christmas without her family, the prospect of a loveless marriage, and worry over Randy all heaped upon her shoulders like a leaden mantle.

She had known spending Christmas at Windmere Abbey without her loved ones would not have been tolerable. Trevor had understood that, too, and had succeeded in persuading her that coming to London for Christmas would be far less depressing. Her little brother must also have realized how bleak Windmere Abbey would have been this year with Papa now dead and Randy gone, for he had opted to spend the holiday with the family of his dearest friend from Cambridge.

Now that Christmas was less than two days away, memories of the many joyous Christmases spent at Windmere flooded her. She and her brothers had always gathered up holly and mistletoe and helped Mama decorate the house with them. Randy helped Papa hang the kissing bough, and Randy and Stephen had taken great pride in finding and carrying in the huge yule log.

She fought back a sob when she realized this was her first Christmas ever that she had no loved one to whom she could give a Christmas present. At least she had contrived—through the greatest economies—to gather up enough funds to give her servants their Christmas “package.”

Spending Christmas in foggy, gray London held no allure.

As she lay in the darkness listening to her sputtering fire and the howl of wind outside her window, her thoughts turned to her marriage. She had told Trevor and Nick the truth when she said she no longer loved Edward, Lord Warwick. So why did she lay there in her bed thinking about Edward? She remembered how thoroughly she had loved him. How could she have so completely extinguished those profound feelings—feelings that had once stripped her of every shred of pride?

She recalled that blustery afternoon last year when she and Edward had walked the moors and she had ducked into an abandoned crofter’s hut, begging him to make love to her. Only too vividly she remembered the humiliation she felt when he had rejected her.

She had so keenly wanted to lie with him that day. And now she had no feelings whatsoever for him, only a huge void in her heart, in the place Edward had occupied for half her life.

Only one other day in her life had Fiona been a captive to passions like those roused in her that day on the moors with Edward: Today. When Nicholas Birmingham had kissed her.

Mama would roll over in her grave if she knew what a strumpet her daughter had become! Was there some kind of prurient bent in her that made her behave so wantonly? So unladylike? What must Mr. . . . Nick think of the hungry way she kissed him?

When she recalled his satisfaction, her breath grew ragged. He had not seemed at all displeased over her passionate nature. Could it be that the man she would wed tomorrow was not averse to marrying a woman who so eagerly looked forward to learning about carnal pleasures?

Carnal pleasures Diane Foley would know all about.

For the first time in her life Fiona regretted she had been born an aristocrat. She envied the slack morals of a woman of Diane Foley’s class, morals that smoothed the way for her to take Nick into her bed without the sanctity of marriage. Just thinking about Nick making love with the actress made Fiona’s breath come hot and heavy, made her sting inside.

Then the sudden realization that Nick would continue sharing a bed with Diane Foley after their marriage sent Fiona into a deep funk. Not because she would be embarrassed for the ton to know of her husband’s lady bird. And certainly not because she possessed any romantic feelings for Nicholas Birmingham herself. But because she was jealous.

She wasn’t jealous for the usual reasons. Fiona was well satisfied with her own appearance (which she knew to be far above average), so she wasn’t jealous of Miss Foley’s beauty. She did not resent that Nick was likely in love with his paramour. How could Fiona possibly care when she had no intentions of claiming his affection for herself?

Her jealousy was for the affectionate intimacy Nick and Miss Foley were sure to share, an intimacy that would always be denied Fiona. She wanted affection, and she wanted intimacy—and she most especially wanted both those things with the same man, a man who would reciprocate her feelings.

She had hoped for such intimacy that day on the moors, but even if Edward had made love to her, the affection would have been only on one side: hers.

And now she would be intimate with a man who was a stranger, a man who had no more affection for her than she had for him. They would have the intimacy without the affection because his affections would be lavished on the beautiful actress.

So Fiona sulked.

As she lay there in her bed, the vision of Nicholas Birmingham, tall and lean and dark—and seductive—pushed every other thought from her mind, sent searing heat thundering through her, arrested the thin breath struggling through her lungs.

This time tomorrow night she would be lying with him, no longer a virgin.

Liquid heat pooled between her thighs.