Читать книгу How to Tame a Lady - Кейси Майклс, Kasey Michaels - Страница 10

NICOLE TOOK HER TIME combing through her thick black hair, carefully working out a few tangles caused by having it all anchored up and off her neck. She could allow her new maid, the estimable Renée, the chore. But, since Renée seemed to be of the opinion that a woman should suffer for her beauty, Nicole had set her to pressing the hem of her peach gown instead.

Looking into the mirror of her dressing table, she studied her sister as Lydia sat in a slipper chair, her head buried in a book. There was nothing unusual about that. Depressing, certainly, as they were in the middle of the most exciting city on earth, but most definitely not unusual.

Nicole loved her twin more than she did anyone else in the world, but this past year had been very difficult. And so terribly sad.

When their brother, Rafe, had returned from the war to take over the reins of the dukedom, he had brought with him his good friend Captain Swain Fitzgerald.

And Lydia, quiet, levelheaded, studious Lydia, had tumbled head over heels into love with the man, only to lose him when Bonaparte escaped his prison and forced one last battle on the Allies.

Even now, Nicole could see occasional hints of sadness in her sister’s huge blue eyes during quiet moments.

Some might argue that Lydia, at seventeen, had been too young to really know her own mind, and that Captain Fitzgerald had been years too old for her. But Nicole would never say any such thing. Not when she’d held her sister in her grief, fearful that Lydia’s very heart would break inside her and she’d lose her best friend, the other half of herself.

That terrible day, when the Duke of Malvern had come to this very house to inform them all of the captain’s death, Nicole had promised herself that she would never open herself to such devastating heartbreak. Life was to be enjoyed, gloried in, celebrated. Allowing one’s happiness to depend on someone else was to invite not only a chaotic mind but a vulnerability to pain that Nicole refused to consider.

No, Nicole would never allow anyone else, any man, to have so much power over her, and had stated that fact quite firmly to both her sister and her sister-in-law, Charlotte.

And they had only smiled indulgently. After all, what was a young lady of Nicole’s station to do but marry? As a sister to a duke, her options were limited, if, to many, all quite wonderful. A husband. Children. She would be mistress of a grand estate, an arbiter of fashion, become a successful and sought-after hostess. It wasn’t as if she could take to the high seas, or fight in wars or sit in Parliament…not that Nicole wished to do any of those things, either.

In truth, she didn’t know what she wanted to do with her life or what she wanted out of that life.

She only knew what she didn’t want.

Mostly, she didn’t want to be desperate, like her mother. Mostly, she didn’t want to be heartbroken, like her sister.

Mostly, she wanted to be left to her own devices so that she could someday answer that question as to what she wanted out of life. And in the meantime, if she thought the idea of some harmless flirtation and exercising of her charms to be a delicious entertainment, surely that wasn’t so terrible?

She loved her family, desperately. She needed no one else. Although not the prodigious student her sister was, Nicole had not been above quoting Francis Bacon to Lydia. “He that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune; for they are impediments to great enterprises, either of virtue or mischief.”

Yes, Lydia had reasonably pointed out that Nicole was not a man (which often chafed Nicole, as she believed men enjoyed much more freedom than women), and that she, Lydia, had never suspected that Nicole had aspirations to great virtuous enterprises. To her sister’s already known propensity for mischievous enterprises, Lydia’s response was only to roll her eyes and sigh in affectionate resignation.

They were so different, she and Lydia. Her sister obeyed the rules, accepted her place in the world, caused not a smidgeon of trouble to anyone, while Nicole strained against every leash, saw every rule as a challenge and, although never purposely, had occasionally caused more than her sister to breathe resigned sighs.

Nicole and Lydia had settled into their very different roles early in life, and Nicole realized now that she had allowed herself to become comfortable with always knowing her sister was dependable if sometimes boring, clearheaded if perhaps too intense, and always a model of propriety.

Which did not explain what had happened earlier that day.

“Lydia?”

“In a moment, please, Nicole,” her sister said as she turned a page in her book and continued to read for several moments before closing the book over her finger. “I’m just reading the most interesting and rather bizarre argument.”

“That’s nice, Lydia. Then I take it you are not still reading Miss Austen’s latest inspired bit of silliness?”

Lydia shook her head. “I finished that yesterday. Today is for something Captain Fitzgerald recommended to me, written by one Thomas Paine. This volume is called The Rights of Man and—well, listen to this.”

It was Nicole’s turn to sigh in resignation. “If it sounds anything like a sermon, please don’t bother.”

“No, no, I just want to read you this one thing Mr. Paine wrote. Here it is. He states quite firmly how necessary it is at all times to watch against the attempted encroachment of power, and to prevent its running to excess. Shall I read you his exact words?”

Nicole bit back a smile. “No, I think I understand his point. Lydia, far be it from me to declare myself a scholar, but you do realize that your Mr. Paine could be thought by some to be fomenting revolution and the overthrowing of governments, don’t you?”

“I choose to think he is only warning us to always remain vigilant,” her sister said, closing the book once more. “But I suppose you could be right. That’s what America did to us, and France did to its king.”

Nicole put down her comb. “Nobody is going to do that here, if that’s what this is all about. We have a good king.”

“Do we, Nicole? Then why did I find this in my maid’s apron pocket when I went searching for the button she promised to sew back onto my blue pelisse? Which is why I’m reading Mr. Paine’s warnings.”

So saying, Lydia took a much-folded broadsheet from her own pocket and handed it to Nicole, who first looked to her sister, and then to the poorly printed call for everyone to join the “Citizens for Justice” and to “take up arms against an oppressive government determin’d to starve our children and screw honest men into the ground.”

She quickly read the rest, and could see why Lydia might be alarmed. “And you found this in your maid’s apron?”

Lydia nodded. “I’m going to show it to Rafe tomorrow. He may know what it all means. Revolution is terrible, Nicole, even when it is necessary. And it isn’t all that far-fetched, you know. It happened here.”

“I remember from our lessons, yes,” Nicole said, more concerned by the broadsheet than she’d allow Lydia to see. “But do you really think that—”

“Oh. Oh, no, I suppose not. Not when I say it all out loud. And I know you’re not interested, in any event. I…I wish Captain Fitzgerald could be here. He’d know just what to say to me.”

Nicole winced inwardly. “I didn’t say I wasn’t interested, Lydia. Or do you think I’m selfish, and care only for myself? That I couldn’t be concerned about oppressed classes or whoever it is who raise these revolutions? Because that’s not fair, Lydia, it really isn’t.”

Her sister was quick to agree, perhaps too quick to agree, and Nicole wondered if everyone saw her as shallow and more concerned with enjoying herself than she was with anything or anyone else. Was that the price a person had to pay for preferring a life without complications? Besides, was selfishness really a crime, if you were only selfish about protecting yourself?

Yes, she supposed many would see it that way. The conclusion didn’t sit well with her.

“Nicole? Don’t pout. I didn’t mean to say you aren’t the best of sisters, humoring me when I turn bluestocking, as Mama calls it each time she sees me with a book. If it were up to her, neither of us would have any conversation above commenting on the weather, as if anyone could say more than that they wished the rain would go away and the sun come back.”

Delighted to have any awkwardness passed over so easily, Nicole changed the subject—to the one she’d attempted to broach a full ten minutes earlier. “What made you invite the marquess and the viscount to dinner tonight, Lydia? Not that I wasn’t delighted down to my toes, but it was so unlike you.”

Lydia got to her feet after glancing at the mantel clock and seeing the hour. “Yes, it was, wasn’t it? I have no idea why I did that. Except that I believed I could sense that you wished to see the marquess again. It was no secret that he wishes to see you again. There’s never been a man who has seen you and not longed for more.”

“More what, Lydia?” Nicole teased, although inwardly, her stomach was doing a series of small flips. “So you saw it, too? The marquess’s interest, that is?”

“I did, the poor flustered Viscount Yalding did. You did, and then purposely set out to torment the man.”

Had she done that? Nicole didn’t wish to admit it, but she could barely recall a word she’d said to the marquess. She’d been much too busy simply looking at him.

“Do you plan his to be the first heart you break while we’re here?”

Nicole slipped her hands beneath her hair and lifted it up from her nape, piling it all on top of her head for a moment before allowing the heavy mass of waves to fall once more, shaking her head so that it tumbled free all around her face and shoulders. With any luck, Lydia would watch the gesture, and not pay attention to the flash of uncertainty her words had undoubtedly sent into her sister’s eyes. She had been doing her best all afternoon to not think about the Marquess of Basingstoke and his unexpected effect on her.

“Truth, Lydia? I had selected the Duke of Malvern for my initial conquest. After all, Rafe is friends with him, and the man has already met us, knows us. And there’s no denying how handsome the duke is. He seemed perfect for me to practice on.”

Lydia fairly leaped to her feet, her cheeks suddenly ashen. “The Duke of Malvern? Nicole, no! He’s the most loathsome creature alive. How could you even consider such a thing? I don’t think I want to talk about your silly plans anymore. I’m going to take a nap.”

Nicole wanted to kick herself for forgetting, even for a moment, the duke’s effect on her sister, that to Lydia he was a living reminder of everything she had lost. She could lay the blame for that lapse on the Marquess of Basingstoke, who seemed to muddle her brains every time she thought about him and their short but singular exchange that afternoon.

“Lydia, wait—” she said, but her sister had already run toward the connecting door between their bedchambers.

“How can I be so stupid!” Nicole berated herself, sinking back onto the low dressing table bench and dropping her chin into her hands as she contemplated her reflection. “I’ll have to apologize later. Perhaps offer to accompany her to Hatchard’s Book Repository again, and stand about for hours while she oohs and aahs over every other volume. Heaven knows that’s penance enough.”

That decided, she tipped her head to one side, wondering what it was that the Marquess of Basingstoke had seen when he’d looked at her that had seemingly upset him so much. Her eyes? Even she thought they were a pretty color, as well as unusual. Nicole liked to think of herself as unusual, singular.

She didn’t think he’d necessarily been put off by her freckles, the bane of her existence, especially since her mama, when she deigned to notice her daughters at all, had begun insisting Nicole spread crushed strawberries and clotted cream on them twice a week.

Yet if she had to choose between skin as creamy and blemish-free as Lydia’s and the freedom of riding Juliet across the fields of Ashurst Hall sans a hat, with the wind blowing her hair, well, she’d learn to live with the spots, and so would everyone else.

Although if she could rid herself of the childish habit of biting her bottom lip whenever she felt unsure of herself she would be happier, as it didn’t exactly seem the sort of thing polished London debutantes did.

In any case, the marquess had thought her attractive, she wasn’t such a ninny that she didn’t know that. And he was handsome, and sophisticated, very much a London gentleman, which was quite exciting. He’d make a delicious first conquest.

Unless he thought her vain, and stupid. Frivolous.

“Stop that!” she told herself. “It doesn’t matter what he thinks of you. You’re here to enjoy yourself, not to end up like Lydia.”

Still, before she rang for Renée to have a bath prepared for her, Nicole picked up the slim volume her sister had left behind and sat down on the slipper chair, hoping to improve her mind.

LUCAS STOPPED JUST INSIDE the doors of the drawing room in Grosvenor Square and said quietly, “Well, damn me for a fool. She said Rafael, didn’t she? Captain Rafe Daughtry. Of course.”

Rafael Daughtry, Duke of Ashurst this past year, a man who only recently had been a poor relation who, with no other prospects, had served with Wellington for half a dozen years, favored the marquess with a lazy salute. “Major. Good evening, sir,” he said, smiling.

“What’s this?” Viscount Yalding said, confused. “You two know each other? Why didn’t you tell me?”

“That should be obvious, Fletcher. I didn’t realize.” Lucas moved forward, holding out his right hand. “Rafe Daughtry. My God, how long has it been? The last time I saw you, you and your Irish friend were marching away from Paris just as I was marching in. What was his name again? Ah, I remember. Fitzgerald. One of the fiercest soldiers I’d ever seen. Completely fearless. He’s well?”

Rafe shook his head slowly, looking past Lucas to the ladies just entering the drawing room. “We lost Fitz at Quatre Bras. He was about to be betrothed to my sister Lydia.”

Lucas felt the too-familiar punch to the midsection that overtook him whenever he heard of the loss of another brave soldier. Even now, with nearly a year gone by, those blows remained too frequent. “My most sincere condolences, Rafe. I’ll not say another word.” He then quickly introduced Fletcher, and, together, they all turned to bow to the ladies.

There were three of them. Lady Lydia, along with Rafe’s clearly pregnant young wife, Charlotte, and Lady Nicole. Lucas bowed over Her Grace’s hand, begging her not to bother to curtsy to a gentleman who should be leading her to a chair and not allowing her to stand about, and then smiled to the younger ladies.

At least he hoped he’d smiled to both, as it was only Lady Nicole that he really saw.

If she’d been appealing that afternoon, this evening she was positively bewitching. He’d wanted to see her hair sans her bonnet, but he hadn’t been prepared for the impact of those thick black tresses, arranged with artless simplicity in the latest French mode, wondrously framing that perfect heart-shaped face and accenting the deep violet of her eyes.

Her pale peach gown was simple, as befitted a debutante, but there was nothing simple about the body beneath that gown. Her breasts were lush above the thin silken sash tied just below the bodice, and the sprinkling of freckles across the expanse of skin visible above that bodice made it impossible for him to think anything else save how he needed to know—had to know, would know—if the freckles extended everywhere, even to where the sun did not reach her.

Over drinks—wine for the gentlemen, lemonade for the ladies—Rafe told them all how he and Lucas had met many times on the Peninsula. He kept the telling light, relating an amusing incident involving a captured pack of supply mules and a shared meal fit for a king—but meant for the enemy.

“And you, of course, husband, only observed during this grand adventure in thievery,” Charlotte said, her eyes sparkling.

Rafe took his wife’s hand, raising it to his lips in a way that told Lucas the man was comfortable in allowing the world to see he was besotted with his lovely wife. “Oh, yes, certainly. I was always a pattern card of respectability, even while cold, halfstarved and in mud up to my knees.”

“No, you weren’t,” Charlotte corrected. “And I think we should applaud your ingenuity, all of you who had to deal with such extraordinary hardships.”

“Why, thank you, darling. But it was Lucas here who masterminded the raid on the supply train, and it was brilliant. He even kidnapped the man’s cook while he was about it. The cook spoke no English, we spoke no Spanish, but we managed. We hadn’t eaten so well in months.”

“I kept him for most of that summer, as I recall,” Lucas told them. “Until we understood each other sufficiently for him to inform me that he had a wife and, as I remember it, a dozen children in a village just over the hill. At which point we said our farewells. I still miss his way with a chicken. At the time, I mostly missed the chickens he stole when he left.”

By the time the majordomo announced that dinner was served, the small party had agreed to dispense with the formality of titles, and it was a fairly merry group that sat down to bowls of hot, clear consommé.

“Chicken,” Nicole pointed out as Lucas lifted his spoon. “Feel free to wax nostalgic once more about your Spanish cook.”

Lucas looked at her inquiringly. “You didn’t enjoy our small story?”

“I did, yes,” she told him quietly, her attention seemingly on her dish. “But I could not help but wonder, for all the stories you and Rafe told, that Captain Fitzgerald played no part in them. You know, don’t you?”

“Your brother was kind enough to warn me off,”

Lucas said, chancing a look across the table to where Lady Lydia appeared to be listening with rapt attention as Fletcher spoke just as quietly, gesturing with his hands in that way his friend had about him. “He becomes excited enough about his subject,” he said, indicating Fletcher, “and someone might be prudent to move those wineglasses. Once, when he was describing a boxing match he’d been to in Epsom, he knocked a candlestick into Lady Hertford’s lap. She was not amused.”

“I’d have been highly amused, and it will do no good to attempt to change the subject. I think my brother is entirely too protective of my sister. How will she heal if everyone continues to coddle her, to hide their memories of Captain Fitzgerald from her? To elevate him to sainthood, put his memory on a pedestal where he is no longer human, no longer real, is a disservice to the captain as well as to Lydia. He was a flesh-and-blood man, very much so. She will always love him, always remember him, but it’s time she smiled when she said his name. It’s time she makes him more than the dream he was to her.”

Lucas looked at her in some astonishment. Clearly polite dinner conversation, safe and innocuous, was not going to be the rule of the evening. “You may be right, Lady Nicole. But do you want to chance upsetting your sister?”

“No, I suppose not. Not right now. But I would think we need not tiptoe around the subject when we all meet again. To constantly avoid the captain’s name is cheating Lydia, and difficult for those around her.”

“When we meet again? Ah, a glimmer of hope invades my being. Then you have permission to drive out to Richmond tomorrow?”

The dimple appeared in her cheek as she smiled at him. “Rafe considers you harmless, yes. How does it feel, my lord, to be considered harmless? I’m only curious because no one has ever applied that description to me.”

“I can’t imagine why not,” Lucas said tongue in cheek as the soup plates were removed and the second course served. He had no appetite, unless it was for the woman sitting beside him, deliberately goading him, testing the boundaries to see how far she could go before she shocked him.

He’d like to know that, too.

“Lucas,” Fletcher said, leaning his elbows on the table. “You won’t believe this. Lady Lydia here has read Thomas Paine. Isn’t that beyond anything you’ve ever heard?”

“Is that so, Lady Lydia,” he said, truly interested, if mildly surprised. “His most famous Common Sense is thought by some to be the major goad for the then American colonies to rise up against us in the last century, did you know that?”

Lydia’s cheeks had gone quite pink, but she looked directly at Lucas. “But there are things that must be said, don’t you agree, wrongs that must be righted? As Mr. Paine wrote, we cannot allow ourselves to be complacent, and to never question authority.”

“Yes, I remember. ‘A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it a superficial appearance of being right.’”

“You’ve committed him to memory, Lucas?” Rafe remarked from the head of the table. “Don’t tell me you claim the man as family.”

“Not at all, although sharing a surname has caused my family to feel forced to defend his memory from time to time. I admire some of his writings, but I wish he’d stopped before he vented his spleen with The Rights of Man. For a time, it was a crime for an Englishman to possess a copy, did you know that?”

“Lydia possesses a copy,” Nicole said quietly. “I read some of it just this afternoon.”

Lucas raised an eyebrow. He’d known it would only be a matter of time before she’d shocked him, but he hadn’t expected that shock to come this soon. “Is that so? And have you read enough to form an opinion?”

Nicole bit her bottom lip for a moment and then nodded. “Truthfully? My sister may not agree with me, but for as much as I have so far read, I believe the man makes an incendiary argument consisting of a mixture of unpalatable truths and dangerous nonsense.”

Lucas threw back his head and laughed out loud. “Rafe! Did you hear that? I couldn’t have said it better myself.”

“You have said it yourself,” Fletcher pointed out, looking at Nicole curiously. “It’s almost eerie.”

Lucas caught out Rafe and his lovely wife exchanging rather confused looks, as if they’d never expected to hear Nicole say anything like what she’d just said. Yet they hadn’t seemed shocked to hear that her sister had read Paine’s works. Or was there more to it than that?

He decided to find out.

“As you read Thomas Paine,” he asked Nicole as they ate, “I would imagine you’ve also read some of the works of Wieland, Gibbon, Burke?”

“You most certainly can imagine that. You can imagine that all you wish,” she answered brightly, and he knew he had just been put very firmly in his place. By a young girl clearly not easily put out of countenance by clumsy buffoons like himself.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that,” he said, only to have her place her hand on his forearm and lean closer to him.

“And I should not have pretended to be someone I am not. Lydia stole all the brains, I believe, leaving me nothing but an only ordinary intelligence. But I did sound convincing, didn’t I? The use of incendiary was very nearly inspired, I think.”

And that was that. Beauty such as Nicole’s was not to be sneezed at and certainly he enjoyed looking at her, would like to possess her because of that beauty. But as he looked into those remarkable eyes, and saw what could only be a small imp of the devil looking back at him, Lucas was in serious danger of becoming completely and utterly lost. And he knew it.