Grace Burrowes - Nicholas: Lord of Secrets

“We’re not quite spotless,” he said, “but the linens are safe. Now come here, let me hold you, and tell me what bothers you.”

“You mean well,” Leah allowed as she eased down against him on a tired sigh. “But you can’t repair my feelings, Nick. I do not believe I will be availing myself of this aspect of your marital offer.”

His hands, which had started stroking her back, went momentarily still, then resumed their steady, gentle caresses.

“You are not all right,” he concluded. “Talk to me, Leah.” He drew the covers up over her back and wrapped his arms more securely around her. “Please, talk to me.”

“I bore Aaron Frommer a son.”

Again, Nick’s hands went still on Leah’s back.

“I’m listening,” he said, angling his head to kiss her temple. Those two words were offered in what had to be the gentlest, kindest tone Leah had ever heard, and her resolution faltered.

“Aaron was a good man,” Leah said, “but he had not one tenth your skill with the ladies, Nick. He cared for me, though, and so I was pleased to find I carried his child. He would have been pleased as well.”

Nick apparently divined the argument she was about to make. “While I can’t be pleased to think my child might cost your life.”

“I bore my son easily, Nick. I labored but a few hours, and he was born with a perfect complement of fingers and toes.”

“Where is your child now, Leah?” Nick asked, his hands moving again, more slowly than ever.

“In heaven.” Leah took a shuddery breath. “He caught a fever when he was little past a year. I went into town to fetch the doctor, the midwife, the healer, anybody who might have been able to help. My Italian was far better than my brother’s, and by the time I returned a few hours later, my baby was gone. Darius gave me some time to grieve, but brought me back to England shortly thereafter. My mother was asking for me, and I did very much miss her.”

“I am so sorry.” Nick gathered her close, rolled, and blanketed her with his naked body. “I am so very, very sorry.”

He stayed there, over her, sheltering her and holding her until Leah was holding him in return and letting tears long repressed pour from her. She clung, and cried, and clung some more, until her grief was spent and her body too wrung out to cling anymore.

“I’ll be right back.” Nick kissed her nose and eased from her embrace. He brought her a glass of water, watching while she drained about a quarter of it, then helped himself as well. He set the glass aside and turned serious blue eyes on her.

“You will marry me?” he asked, expression pensive.

“I will. But there won’t be any of this pleasuring, Nicholas.”

“Move over.” He shifted and climbed under the covers with her. When she kept to her own space, Nick flopped to his side, curled his body around hers, and wrapped her in his arms.

“You did not enjoy what we did?” he asked, his cheek resting over her temple.

“My body was very favorably impressed,” Leah said, glad he could not see her face. “I’ve never known such sensations, Nicholas, and for that, I must thank you.”

“You’re thanking me, and now you’re willing to marry me, but you do not want to repeat the experience?”

“I do not.”

“Was it… me?”

“Nicholas?”

He shifted, his nose against her nape. “I’ve been told stallions are less vulgarly crafted than I am in my aroused state.”

“God above, Nicholas.” Leah glared at him over her shoulder. “You are the envy of every man, of this I can be sure, and you are the most magnificent dream of any honest woman. But in a sense, it is you that troubles me.”

He huffed out a sigh against her neck. “You want more from me than pleasuring.”

“I have more from you,” Leah reminded him. “You’ve told me I have your respect, your affection, I will have your title, and I do have your protection.”

“So what does that leave? And for the love of God, don’t reply that if I have to ask, you aren’t going to let me know the right answer.”

“I’m not sure,” Leah said, and she wasn’t being coy. “But whatever it is, it is important, and it was missing from this demonstration of your very impressive bedroom skills, Nicholas.”

“And it wasn’t missing with Frommer?” Nick asked, his voice betraying his frustration.

“It very likely was, but I had not the sense or the experience to know it.”

She drifted off to sleep while Nick pondered her words in silence. As sleep tugged at his brain, Nick tried to reason out why he should take a miniscule comfort from her words.

Leah had been willing to settle for Lord Aaron, just to escape her father.

No. Nick backed up and reconsidered.

Leah had been willing to settle for Lord Aaron on Lord Aaron’s terms, he clarified. Eloping, anticipating vows, risking scandal, and more scandal with the duel with Wilton.

She was willing to marry Nick and accept his protection, but not on Nick’s terms. Nick eased into his slumbers with the sure conviction that this somehow put him not just in a different class from the sainted Lord Aaron, but in a better class.

* * *

Nick waited in the Earl of Wilton’s library, his thoughts turned to his upcoming interview with his prospective father-in-law, and the marriage contract drafted and copied for Nick by his solicitors. He tried to mentally rehearse what needed to be said, and how, and his contingency plans, but thoughts of Leah kept interrupting.

Dear God, she’d borne and lost a child, and lived with the secret of her grief for long, silent years.

It explained a lot, Nick reflected as he inspected weighty tomes likely chosen for display rather than the earl’s personal tastes. A mother’s grief illuminated Leah’s reserve, gave ballast to her sadness, and helped explain why putting up with Wilton since her return from Italy had probably been a mere afterthought for her. After losing a child, alone and in a foreign country, Leah Lindsey could survive a great deal. More puzzling was why she’d bothered to survive, and where she’d found the courage to endure what she had.

He paused on that thought, and it occurred to him that refusing to give Leah children was probably the one thing he could have done to most effectively add to her pain.

Jesus on a donkey.

The stinging lash of Nick’s conscience was stilled by the approach of footsteps in the corridor. Nick schooled his features to those of an anxious suitor, one who could be written off as big, slow, and harmless.

“Reston.” Wilton stopped halfway across the room, forcing Nick to come to him.

“My lord.” Nick returned the greeting with what he hoped was a suitably hesitant and hopeful smile.

“Shall we be seated?” Wilton gestured to a pair of padded gilt chairs Nick might easily have snapped into kindling. “The tea tray will be along presently.”

Wilton was a handsome specimen. Tall, lean, and sporting a full head of white hair, about which he was probably vain. His eyes were pale blue, but something about them put Nick in mind of a hungry reptile.

“I must say, Reston, you don’t waste time.”

“I appreciate your directness,” Nick replied, thinking a modicum of civilities would have been appreciated more. “Bellefonte is not enjoying good health, and I’ve made my papa a promise I intend to keep.”

“Never knew your father well,” Wilton mused, smiling at nothing Nick could discern, “but you have my wishes for his speedy recovery.” The smile belied the words, leaving Nick with simmering anger that had to be ruthlessly shoved aside.

“Thank you, my lord.” Nick let his gaze travel around the room, unwilling to launch his campaign until the tea had been brought. “You have a lovely house.”

“It’s comfortable,” Wilton allowed dismissively. “Wilton Acres is far more grand.”

“But your children and grandchildren are ensconced in Town, so you maintain a residence here.”

Wilton shrugged. “Needs must. One has parliamentary obligations.”

Nick had seen the barest hint of a flinch at the reference to the grandchildren, reinforcing Nick’s sense the earl was prone to vanity. The tea tray arrived in decorous silence, and Wilton suggested Nick pour, which was ungracious, and a tacit way to put Nick in the female role.

So Nick took his time and made an elegant business out of it, like the docile son-in-law he would never be.

“Your note suggested you had something personal to discuss,” Wilton prodded, sipping his tea and frowning. Nick had jotted off several notes last night while waiting for Leah to complete her bath, and tried to recall the exact wording of the one to Wilton.

“Urgent and personal. To be very direct, my lord, I wish to court your older daughter.”

“Why?” Wilton’s question was offered in such puzzled tones, Nick feared it was sincere.

“I am in immediate need of a countess,” Nick said. “I promised my father not merely a fiancée, but a countess before his demise, and I have run out of time.”

“Why Leah? You could have your pick of heiresses, debutantes, titled widows, and the rest.”

The question might have been from a concerned father watching out for his daughter, but the glint of condescension in Wilton’s eyes suggested he was simply looking for leverage.

“I am at a disadvantage when courting a wife,” Nick said, and there was some truth to the idea. “My size alone means the more diminutive women are of no interest to me, nor I to them. Then too, I have a certain reputation for trafficking with the demimonde, and the most protective of parents would not turn a sweet young thing over to my keeping. I need a woman who is practical, and experienced enough in the ways of the world that my peccadilloes will not dismay her. She must be of suitable rank and willing to marry immediately. I believe Lady Leah meets those criteria, and we appear compatible in the ways that matter.”

Wilton laughed shortly. “If you think so, I’ll not dissuade you.”

“You’d accept a match between us?”

“You are in a hurry, aren’t you?” Wilton took a leisurely sip of his tea, pinky extended just so.

Go ahead, fool, enjoy your moment of power.

“I made a promise to my father,” Nick said. “He has been patient with me for years, but his health is precarious, and if I delay now, there will be mourning to observe.”

“Are you asking, then, not just for permission to court, but also permission to marry?”

Nick studied his hands. He wasn’t quite up to making them tremble, except possibly with the need to choke the life from Wilton in the next two minutes. “I am asking for both, if the lady will have me.”

“Her wishes are of little concern to me,” Wilton said, “but trouble yourself over them if you must. What terms do you have in mind?”

“Given the haste with which I make this request,” Nick said, “I suggest we get down to specifics now. I might be called to Belle Maison at any moment.” Forgive me, Papa. “What specifics do you offer?”

The earl arched an eyebrow, and Nick conceded the man had balls.

An apologetic smile was Nick’s next feat of histrionics. “I believe a dowry is customary?”

“Oh, really, dear boy.” Wilton let go the most irritating laugh. “You cannot expect me to pay to have you take her off my hands, not when I’ve been keeping a roof over her head these many years long past her come out?”

As if Leah’s brothers hadn’t supported her in Italy out of their own pockets, as if she hadn’t served as Wilton’s unpaid housekeeper, as if Wilton hadn’t begrudged her every groat…

“There are many ladies who do not find a match in their first few years in Town,” Nick pointed out. “I was under the impression Mr. Lindsey had taken some interest in his sister’s welfare.”

“A jaunt overseas.” Wilton waved a hand. “What makes you think I wasn’t footing the bill for both of them?”

Offensive in every sense of the word, but a question and therefore not quite a lie.

“I cannot claim to have any knowledge of your family’s personal arrangements,” Nick said evenly. “Are you suggesting Lady Leah is to have no dowry?”

“She most assuredly is not,” Wilton snapped. “I am guessing, Reston, that your father’s circumstances have robbed you of the natural prudence a man in your position should show. Let me speak to you as a father, though, when I tell you she forfeited her dowry years ago, when she brought scandal and shame to this family. She made her bed, so to speak, knowing full well I could not countenance the option she chose. If you want her, you’re welcome to her, but you will pay for the privilege.”