Читать книгу How to Tame a Lady - Кейси Майклс, Kasey Michaels - Страница 11

AS IF TO PUNISH NICOLE for what she knew to be her outrageous behavior the night of the dinner party, there was such a downpour for the next two days that no sane person in London ventured outdoors, let alone took drives to Richmond or anywhere else.

In desperation, she had picked up Lydia’s copy of Jane Austen’s Emma, and hidden herself away in her room until all of the characters were nicely settled with their soul mates and Emma had finally opened her eyes to the charms of Mr. Knightley.

She hadn’t enjoyed the story very much. All this upset about matching this one to that one and keeping another one from making a mistake by bracketing herself to a clearly unsuitable person seemed silly.

Was there really nothing else for women to do but concern themselves with such mundane matters? Clearly her own decision never to marry would save her from a life of such nonsense, for which she’d be eternally grateful.

Although, considering herself more talented in the area than the fictional Emma, Nicole did think it might be fun to find a suitable husband for Lydia. For, although she saw no need to dip her own toe in matrimonial waters, clearly her sister needed to be loved, needed to love in return.

Nicole thought about the Viscount Yalding, who seemed a nice enough man, if rather nervous. Would he be a good match for Lydia? She hadn’t mentioned him, not even once, since the dinner party.

Lydia had, however, spoken often about the Marquess of Basingstoke. He’d been a soldier, like Captain Fitzgerald. He read Thomas Paine, like Captain Fitzgerald. He treated her kindly and obviously admired her intelligence. Like Captain Fitzgerald. But what did that mean, other than that Lydia still thought and spoke often of poor dead Fitz?

By the morning of the third day, marked by a thin, watery sun and with their escorts just arriving in Grosvenor Square in a pair of lovely curricles, Nicole had convinced herself that Lucas Paine was a man just like any other man, and that her intense reaction to him had been merely an aberration. She had more worlds to conquer than just this one man, and he could not be allowed to invade her mind to the degree that he had thus far, in only two brief meetings.

Nicole prided herself on being in charge of her own life, her own mind—and most definitely her own heart. So why did just the thought of seeing the man again turn her insides into jelly?

Well, enough of that sort of missish silliness! Today she would make certain that she was the one in charge.

So thinking, as she watched Lydia tie the strings of her bonnet beneath her chin—the blue ribbon picked out for her most expressly by Captain Fitzgerald the previous year—Nicole tried to imagine her sister married to the Marquess of Basingstoke.

She bit her bottom lip between her teeth for a moment as she felt a slight, unidentifiable pang, but then pushed on with the idea.

“Lydia?” she asked her as they walked toward the staircase, for they’d been warned by Rafe and Charlotte both that it was not polite to allow their lordships’ horses to stand waiting too long. “What do you think of the marquess?”

Lydia stopped with her hand just on the railing of the staircase. “What do I think of him? I’m sorry, Nicole, but I don’t believe I think of him at all, not in any way that matters. What do you think of him?”

Nicole avoided the question by asking another of her own. “You don’t find him handsome?”

Lydia took hold of Nicole’s arm and steered her away from the stairs. “Nicole, what’s wrong? I thought you liked the man. You seemed to the day we met him, and he certainly was a delightful dinner companion. Rafe likes him. Charlotte likes him. Are you going to be contrary and decide to dislike him now, because everyone else likes him?”

“I don’t do things like that,” Nicole protested. “Do I?”

“No, I suppose not, except maybe for needlepoint. And turnips. But you do worry me sometimes. You don’t have to conquer every man you meet, you know. If you’ve decided that his lordship isn’t going to be your first…conquest, as you call it, then please, don’t feel you need to continue seeing him. Not that I approved of the idea in any case.”

“I don’t feel as if I have to conquer every—Do you know something, Lydia? Sometimes I don’t like me very much. This Season was supposed to be fun. London, the parties, the gaiety. I’ve lived for this moment ever since I can remember wanting anything. I didn’t have to think about the rest of my life, as everyone said I should do. And then he came along. If I could cry off from our drive, I would. He’s a most disconcerting man.”

Lydia looked at her for a long moment, and then a slow smile lit her face. “Why, Nicole, you like him.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“I’m not being ridiculous, although I think someone standing here is. All your plans, your boasts—and all it takes is one man to scatter those plans to the four winds. Now do you understand, Nicole? You don’t choose. Fate chooses for you.”

“Maybe for some people. But not for me. Oh, come along. We shouldn’t keep the horses standing, remember?”

“I wouldn’t dream of it. Suddenly I’m quite looking forward to this afternoon,” Lydia said, turning back toward the stairs, but not before Nicole realized that her sister, seemingly asleep, wandering listlessly through life since last June, had a tiny bit of sparkle in her eyes once more.

“Well, I’m not!” Nicole groused, just to please her twin, and then followed her down the stairs.

LUCAS SLICED ANOTHER LOOK at Nicole, her profile all but hidden by the brim of her fetching straw bonnet.

She’d greeted him rather coolly, climbed up onto the seat almost before he could assist her and had said less than ten words to him as they wended their way toward Richmond.

Her sister and Fletcher were behind them in his friend’s curricle, and each time Lucas had looked back to make sure they weren’t going to be separated in the traffic, he could see that the two of them were happily chatting together as Fletcher pointed out the sights of the city.

Nicole acted as if she had no interest in the buildings, or the people walking along the flagways. And most especially, no interest in him. She kept her head faced forward, her gloved hands folded together in her lap, and answered him with either nods or in monosyllables each time he attempted to start a conversation.

Thirty minutes of this, and Lucas had had enough.

“Has your brother warned you to behave?”

She turned to him in obvious shock. “What? Why would you say such a thing?”

“I don’t know. If I were your brother—and, thankfully, I’m not, for that would be decidedly awkward, considering my less than brotherly attraction to you—I might not let you out at all.”

A small smile tugged at the corners of her mouth, but she refused to let it grow. “I don’t think you should have said that, my lord.”

“Clearly. But if you’ve decided to take me in dislike, I might as well be honest.”

“I haven’t taken you in dislike,” she said, lifting her chin. “If I had done that, my lord, I wouldn’t be sitting here beside you. I never do what I don’t want to do.”

He couldn’t resist teasing her.

“Ah, then you do want to be in my company today. I apologize for thinking you wanted me on the far side of the moon.”

She did that thing with her teeth and her bottom lip, and turned her head forward once more. “You can be rather annoying,” she said imperiously.

Lucas couldn’t remember the last time a woman had said something like that to him. Most probably because no woman had ever said that to him. Not his mother, not his nanny and certainly none of the young ladies of the ton who seemed to think they had to be pleasant and charming—and boring—in order to snag him into their matrimonial net.

“Then I apologize again,” Lucas said as they left the confines of London behind them and he gave his horses the office to step up the pace. “Is there anything else?”

“Anything else? Oh. You mean is there anything else about you that annoys me?”

Lucas was having some difficulty maintaining his composure. “I don’t know if I would have put it precisely that way. But, yes. Please, feel free to open your budget of dissatisfaction and pay all your insults to me at once. It would be kinder.”

He wouldn’t be surprised if he were to see steam coming out of her nostrils at any moment, but she only breathed rather quickly for several breaths before holding up her hands and ticking off the complaints on her gloved fingertips.

“One, you look at me strangely, which I find unsettling to my customary peace of mind. Two, I am in London for the Season, not to catch myself a husband, so how you may or may not feel about me doesn’t matter. Three, I don’t like the way I—No, that’s it. I’m done now.”

“Are you quite sure?” Lucas asked her. “I’m not certain, but I believe I might wish to hear more about your third reason.”

“In which case you’re doomed to disappointment,” Nicole told him firmly. Then she sighed. “Did you ever plan something, my lord? For a long time, thinking about that plan for, oh, months and months. Perhaps even years. Just how you would go on, just how it all would be, and it would unfold exactly as you supposed you wanted it to, because you were so sure of your plan, sure of yourself and your reasons. And then…and then it all goes horribly wrong.”

He had stumbled onto something she felt strongly about, obviously. So he answered as lightly as he could, deliberately keeping his father and his own plans and expectations out of the equation, or else his answer would be too serious for the day.

“Not really, no. I seem to have lived a rather charmed life. I never think I will be disappointed in what I want, and as I already have most everything I want, I don’t invest a lot of time in planning for anything else. That might seem greedy.”

She looked at him sharply, pain obvious in her marvelous eyes. “Is that it? Am I greedy? Well, of course I am. I care only for myself and my own pleasures. I consider only my own happiness. I want fun, and gaiety, and adventures, and to feel…to feel free. And—and I’m annoyed with you because…”

And, suddenly, Lucas understood. Nicole had come to London to enjoy herself, a rare bird indeed, not interested in marriage. And he had stepped in her way.

He sympathized with her, as she had stepped in his way, as well.

If she was willing to be this honest, he wouldn’t bother to pretend he didn’t know what she was trying to say.

“Shall I go away, come back in two years?” he asked her as he turned onto a less-traveled lane that led through the parkland. “That would probably be more convenient for me, truthfully.”

“People don’t talk to each other like this, do they? So honestly.” Nicole twisted her fingers together in her lap. “Lydia would probably faint if she knew. And Charlotte would roll her eyes and wonder aloud how I always manage to get myself into untenable situations out of my own mouth or through my own actions, and why can’t I learn to behave. And Rafe would—No, nobody would tell Rafe. Men are much happier when they don’t know anything.”

Lucas rubbed at his mouth, massaging away his smile. “And would they all say that you’re incorrigible?”

“Among all the rest, yes. But I don’t think you should go away. It’s too late for that in any case, as you’ve already ruined all my fun.”

If Lucas were to repeat any of this conversation to Fletcher—which he most assuredly had no intention of doing—his friend would probably tell him that Lady Nicole was saying that she had tumbled top over tail in love with him…which would serve him right for teasing with her in the first place. In fact, Fletcher was still mulling the conversation about puddles, sure it had been improper, although at a loss as to how.

But Lucas was too intelligent to believe that Nicole was in love with him. Love didn’t happen that quickly, if ever. Their attraction to each other had been instant, yes, but attraction was a far cry from love.

Love wasn’t on Lucas’s agenda any more than it would appear it was on Nicole’s. It wasn’t her fault that she was young and inexperienced, and didn’t realize in her innocence that their mutual attraction was of a physical nature. And if he told her that, she’d have every right to slap him, and then avoid him.

“What sort of fun were you looking for when you came to London?” he asked her at last, after sorting through and discarding other openings, all of which, he felt sure, would leave him hanging over a yawning pit.

Again, she shrugged, but her silence didn’t last long. “All sorts of adventures, I suppose. Everything new and different and…and exciting. I’ve been stuck in the country for all of my life. For instance, I’ve never driven a curricle, let alone been driven in one.”

“Indeed. And you think I should teach you how to drive a curricle?”

She turned to him in obvious excitement. “I’ve driven Rafe’s coach, at Ashurst Hall.”

“Lady Nicole,” Lucas said in all seriousness, “if I’m to assist you in regaining the fun you believe I’ve somehow taken from you, you are to kindly leave off trying to confound me with obvious crammers like that one. Are we clear?”

Her smile nearly knocked him off his seat. “John Coachman let me sit up on the box, and taught me how to hold the ribbons. And I tied some old reins to a chair in my bedchamber, and practiced for months, until I was certain I’d got it right. It’s almost the same.”

“As chalk is to cheese, yes. Here, let me see what your coachman taught you.”

So saying, and with only a quick silent prayer that she had at least told a partial truth, he handed over the reins, and then watched as she expertly took them between her fingers.

His prized pair of matched bays sensed the difference at once, and Jupiter, the left lead, immediately tested the new driver by picking up his pace.

“Oh, no, you don’t,” Nicole said, drawing Jupiter back in effortlessly. “You don’t employ the whip, do you?” she asked, glancing over at the long whip that stood in a holder to Lucas’s right.

“Rarely.” He then asked her if she wished to try the whip, but she shook her head, concentrating on the roadway. “We’re coming to a sharp bend to the left. Are you still game?”

“If you are,” Nicole said, her delight obvious. “Behind us, Lydia is probably having a small comeapart, you know.”

“Which will leave her in real peril if Fletcher topples off the seat in a dead faint,” Lucas remarked, his good humor running full force. “Ah, very nicely done, Lady Nicole. Although I must say that your off wheel came dangerously close to the verge.”

“It did? I’ll have to work on that. Do many ladies of the ton drive their own curricles?”

“A few, yes. None of them, sadly, debutantes.”

“Good. Then I’ll be the first,” she said as he pointed to a wide grassy area and indicated that she should pull the horses off and stop.

Lucas applied the brake as Fletcher’s curricle pulled up beside them. “Let me guess. You want me to tell your brother that you should have your own curricle.”

She frowned for a moment—delightful!—and then the dimple appeared in her cheek. “I hadn’t considered that. Would you do that for me?”

“Not if you held a cocked pistol to my head and had already counted to two,” he answered cheerfully. “But, if you consent to drive out with me again, I will allow you to drive my curricle. In the parks, that is. London streets are an entirely different matter.”

“Lucas?” Fletcher called out to him. “Did I mistake my eyes, or was Lady Nicole holding the reins a moment ago? Her brother would have your neck if, well, if she broke hers.”

“Yes, thank you, Fletcher,” Lucas told him, and then asked if anyone would like to stop for some refreshment at a small inn they’d passed, one just off the crossroads a mile closer to London.

Everyone agreed this would be a fine thing, and Lucas turned the team on the soft grass, aware that Nicole was watching his every move, probably committing each maneuver to memory. Clearly she was very serious about her fun.

“Thank you,” she said as they rode back the way they’d come. “Now if you could see your way clear to locate a place where I might put my Juliet to a good gallop I would most appreciate it. I imagine she is sulking most prodigiously, as I haven’t been able to exercise her thanks to this dreadful weather. And I have the most extraordinary riding habit meant to turn heads wherever I go.”

“Really? Is that to warn me or to be sure I am suitably complimentary when I see it?”

“My lord?” she asked, instead of answering him. “Do you mind that I’m being so honest with you? Honesty is rare for me, so I may not be doing it right.”

“Lady Nicole, I would be willing to wager that there is very little that you don’t do right. You’re most especially proficient in throwing a man who considers himself rather unshakable entirely out of balance.”

“Oh.” She bit her bottom lip between her teeth for an instant, and then nodded her head. “Good. That seems only fair.”

Lucas laughed out loud as they pulled into the small inn yard. “Then we’re even?” he asked her. “Leaving us only to ask ourselves what happens next between us.”

Nicole shot a quick look past him, to where her sister was being helped down from the curricle by the viscount.

“I think we should be friends, don’t you? I think it would be…it would be safer if we were to think of each other as a friend.”

“For how long?” Lucas asked before he could stop to think, because he certainly wouldn’t have said the words if he could think of anything save how much he wanted to kiss Nicole’s full, enticing mouth.

“Why, um, I suppose until we don’t wish to be friends anymore? Really, this has been the strangest conversation. I may be raw from the country, my lord, but I think you really should know better. And I’m starved. Do you think there will be ham? I adore ham.”

Somehow, Lucas restrained himself from saying, “And I fear I am beginning to adore you.”

THE INN BOASTED ONLY the single private dining room the marquess promptly engaged while Nicole and Lydia were shown to a small bedchamber beneath the eaves, where they could wash and refresh themselves.

Lydia was still stripping off her gloves as Nicole, her bonnet tossed onto the bed, was standing bent over the washbasin, splashing cold water onto her burning cheeks.

“How did you manage to convince his lordship to allow you to take the reins?” Lydia asked her as she untied the ribbons on her own bonnet. “And, more to the point, do I want to know?”

Nicole rubbed at her face with the rough towel and then smiled at her sister. “Probably not. It was wonderful, Lydia, except that I knew he’d take them away again if I gave the horses their heads, which I truly longed to do. They’re a fine pair, not all highbacked and showy like the viscount’s team.”

“I hadn’t noticed any deficiencies in the viscount’s horseflesh. We had another lovely talk, by the way. He has a gaggle of younger sisters and a widowed mother, which is why he could not risk himself in the late war, although he feels terrible that he stayed home when so many others risked life and limb for the Crown. So I told him a little about our late uncle and cousins, and how none of them went to war, but ended by perishing anyway. We agreed that safety is a matter of opinion, and that rash actions can lead to unfortunate consequences as easily as facing an acknowledged enemy.”

Nicole rolled her eyes. “I’m so sorry I missed that,” she said, turning away as she refolded the towel, to hide her amusement. “On the way back to Grosvenor Square you might wish to pass the time conjugating French verbs, which I’m sure would be equally delighting. But, please, while we’re at luncheon, do try to find a lighter topic.”

“But…but the viscount seemed entertained. What did you and the marquess discuss, then, if you’re so much the expert?”

While Lydia washed her hands and then carefully blotted her cheeks with a washcloth dipped in the basin, Nicole perched herself on the edge of the bed, watching her. Lydia, the perfect lady. And such grace and circumspection came so naturally to her, unlike Nicole’s less well-thought-out actions.

Lydia, always prudent, carefully dipped into life. Nicole unconcernedly splashed her way through it. That was as succinct an explanation of the difference between them as Nicole felt necessary.

“The marquess and I,” she said, for once watching her words, “have decided to cry friends. We’re very…comfortable with each other.”

“Really?”

Lord no, Nicole thought, her stomach doing an all-too-familiar small flip. “Oh, yes. He understands that I am in London to enjoy myself, and he is content with that arrangement. You see, I thought it only fair to tell him that, as he may be on the lookout for a wife and to set up his nursery, as are many who come to Town for the Season.”

“Nicole! Tell me you didn’t say any such thing. To…to simply assume that the marquess—any man—should look at you, pay you the least attention, and then have it most naturally follow that he should wish to marry you? I know you mean well, sweetheart, and, knowing you, you can’t see the enormous impropriety of so much as intimating that his lordship should be…should be…”

“Hot to wed me? Or, at the very least, bed me?” Nicole suppressed a shiver, praying it was one of horror and not anticipation. “Don’t tell me you didn’t sense that from the moment we first met. I’m not such a gudgeon that I don’t know what men think when they look at me. Consider Mr. Hugh Hobart. He—”

“No! We do not discuss Mr. Hugh Hobart. Not ever. You could have been killed. Or worse.”

“Lydia, nothing is worse than being killed. Any other condition is only temporary. And, if uncomfortable, even frightening, at least possible to overcome. Or would you rather that I’d withdrawn from life because of what almost happened to me that day, as you did when the captain—Oh! I’m sorry, sweetheart.”

She hopped down from the bed and ran over to take her sister in her arms, hug her tightly. “You worry so for me, because I reach for everything with both hands. And I worry for you because you refuse to reach even a single hand forward, to take back your life. I love you so much. I don’t mean that you should attempt to drive a curricle, or take on a five-barred fence, or flirt outrageously with a dangerous man because it delights something inside you to do so. We’re twins, yes, but we’re each our own person. You have your own way, you always did. Sweet, and gentle, and loving. Please, Lydia, love yourself enough to step out of the shadow you’ve been hiding in. I want you to dare something, sweetheart. Be alive. It’s what I want for you, it’s what the captain would want for you.”

Lydia held on to her for long moments, her breathing somewhat shallow and irregular. And then she kissed Nicole on the cheek and stepped back from her. “If I promise to be less careful, will you promise to be more careful?”

Nicole hesitated, knowing her own limits. “In general, do you mean, or with the marquess most particularly? Because I don’t know if I could—”

“Oh, no, I’d never ask you to cry off of whatever it is you and the marquess have found in each other. I also am not such a gudgeon. But will you be careful, Nicole? I know you believe it impossible, but even a strong, independent heart can be broken.”

“Yes,” Nicole said, pinning a bright smile on her face. “We wouldn’t want that to happen to the poor unsuspecting marquess, now would we?”

“You’re incorrigible,” Lydia said, giving her sister another quick, fierce hug.

“Everyone keeps saying that. Mostly, I’m starving,” Nicole added, truly believing her sister had at last taken a strong step back into the world. She believed Captain Fitzgerald would have approved. “Now, as we go downstairs, tell me—what do you think of the Viscount Yalding? Does he interest you? He seems to like you well enough.”

“Nicole!” her sister exclaimed. “Certainly not!”

“Very well,” Nicole said, taking the lead on the stairs. “Mayfair is fairly well littered with possibilities, I’m sure. I’ll keep looking.”

Lydia swatted at her sister’s head from behind, causing Nicole to laugh in pure pleasure as she continued down the stairs…to see Lucas standing in the narrow hallway waiting for her.

His thick blond hair was slightly mussed from his curly brimmed beaver, a thin red line marking where it had sat on his forehead above those most marvelous blue eyes. He looked completely at his ease, handsome and fit and extraordinarily alive. The way he made her feel.

Did he think her smile, her laughter, was for him?

He reached up his hand and she took it, surprised by the frisson of delight that swept up the length of her arm.

And if he did think her smile was for him, what did it matter? After all, Lydia was smiling, wasn’t she? And it most certainly was a beautiful day…