Nicola and the Viscount (19 page)

Nicola did not, of course, believe him. She kept her back to the chimney, but scooted as far from him as she possibly could without loosing her handhold.

“Keep away,” Nicola warned him, as beneath his weight she heard the rooftop groaning. “The shingles are loose here. You'll fall.”

But the driver still made his way toward her, pieces of shingle splintering beneath his feet and sliding down the far side of the roof, to tumble off and then land, with a crack, in the washyard behind the house.

“Just a little farther,” Grant said, as he inched ever closer to her. He seemed insensible of the danger he was thrusting them both into. “Give me your hand, missy.”

“I won't,” Nicola declared, clinging fast and hard to the chimney.

“Gimme me your bleedin' hand,” the driver commanded. He was only a foot away now. Nicola could smell plainly that he'd spent the long hours she'd been locked up in the attic sampling the taproom's many kegs of ale. His eyes were red and bleary-looking, and there was a coarse growth of razor stubble sprouting from his neck and cheeks. “I'll help you down.”

“Help me down?” Nicola let out a bitter laugh. “Pull me down, and to my death, more likely.”

A split second later, she greatly regretted her flippant words. Because suddenly it was as if they'd become a prophecy. The driver, just as he came over the crest in the roof and stepped to Nicola's side, widened his eyes in alarm as, beneath his feet, a great section of shingles gave way. He began to slide—slowly, so slowly, at first—down the incline. He attempted to stop his descent by reaching out and seizing the first thing his fingers closed over.

Which happened to be the skirt of Nicola's dress.

She was not strong enough to hold for both of them. She could feel her fingers slowly losing their grip on the bricks to which she'd been clinging until the driver's added weight made it impossible for her to hold on any longer. Suddenly she too lost her footing….

And then they were both sliding down the roof, like competitors in some kind of race, until suddenly there was no more roof, and Nicola found herself careening through the air, convinced that this, at last, was the end.

At least until she landed, which she did with both eyes tightly closed, having no desire to witness her own death.

Except that, after collapsing with some force against something hard—but not quite as hard as cobblestones—and, in places, strangely furry, Nicola was surprised to find that, when once again she could catch her breath, she was still capable of breathing. Surely, if she were dead, this would not be possible.

Opening one eye—she was quite fearful of seeing, if not her own blood, then the hansom cab driver's—Nicola saw not her own mangled limbs, or anyone else's, for that matter. Instead she saw an ear.

A man's ear, half-hidden in a head of dark brown hair.

Opening her other eye, Nicola was relieved to see that the head to which the ear belonged was attached to a neck, and that the neck was attached to a pair of broad shoulders coated in blue wool. Furthermore, she was able to see that the man to whom both the shoulders and the ear belonged was sitting astride a horse.

And that she, Nicola, had apparently fallen off the roof, and into the broad-shouldered man's arms.

And that the broad shouldered man was saying something to her—her name—and that, even more oddly, she recognized him. Recognized him, and, she realized in that moment, loved him.

“Nat!” she cried, and threw both her arms—mercifully unscathed by her fall, thanks to him—around his neck. “Oh, Nat!”

“Nicky, are you all right?” Now that fear was no longer causing her blood to pound so fiercely inside her head, Nicola found that she could hear him just fine. And what she heard—the relief in his voice—was a very welcome sound indeed. “My God, did they hurt you?”

“No, I'm fine,” Nicola assured him, clinging tightly to his neck. “I'm just fine.”

“You're shaking.” She felt him move to wrap the edges of his cloak around her. “Are you cold?”

“No,” Nicola said joyfully into his shoulder. “I'm laughing.”

She was, too. Laughing with relief and wonder. That she could plunge through the air, convinced that she was about to meet her death, and fall, instead, into the arms of Nathaniel Sheridan, seemed more than simply miraculous. It seemed to Nicola to be the most fantastic thing that had ever happened in the history of the world.

“Is she all right, Nat?” Nicola heard a familiar voice ask, and she looked up to see Nathaniel's father, Lord Sheridan, peering at her from atop his own horse, his expression very worried and kind.

“I'm fine, my lord,” Nicola assured him through tears of mirth and joy.

Lord Sheridan, however, did not seem to share her good humor. He said to his son, “Get her home. We'll clean up here.”

It was only then that Nicola lifted her head far enough from Nathaniel's shoulder to see what was happening around her. Grant, the hansom cab driver, she soon saw, had met with the same kind of luck she had—only his landing had not, perhaps, been quite so fortuitous, as he had fallen, rear end first, into a water trough. Even as Nicola watched, two Bow Street Runners were struggling to subdue him as he floundered in the trough, spraying plumes of water everywhere, to the amusement of the crowd of rather rough-looking sailors and other individuals who'd gathered around to watch the fun.

From inside the taproom—the Gilded Rose, Nicola saw it was called, at least according to a weather-beaten sign hanging above the door—came the sounds of a struggle. Other Runners were busy rousting Lord Farelly and the Grouser. “Unhand me!” Nicola heard Lord Renshaw bleat. “How dare you? Don't you know I'm a baron?”

Wincing, Lord Sheridan waved at his son. “Go on,” he called. “Take Nicola to safety. I believe we'll manage this lot. I'll see you both at home.”

And so Nathaniel, with a nod to his father, turned his horse around and began the long ride back to Mayfair, Nicola in his arms.

Rather, Nicola could not help thinking, the way the brave Lochinvar had carried his fair Ellen upon his rescue of her from her captors.

Much might have been said during the course of such a journey. Tender words and even tenderer caresses might have been exchanged. It would hardly be surprising to learn that Nicola, her arms still clasped firmly around Nathaniel's neck—she would not have loosed them for the world—and her body curled against his in the saddle, completely expected that words of tenderest meaning were shortly to be uttered. Her heart was that full of love and appreciation for all that he'd done for her. For hadn't he, at the risk of his own life, saved hers? Was that not a sign of a genuine and long-lasting affection?

An affection that was more than returned. Nicola was now prepared to admit what for months—perhaps even years—she'd suspected she'd known, but never quite been willing to accept until now: that she loved Nathaniel Sheridan. That she had been in love with him for ages. And that no other man would ever make her happy.

Why else, she asked herself, should he have driven her so mad with his teasing? Why else had his refusal to read the books she loved always enraged her so? And why else was it that now that she had a rather close-up look of that single lock of hair that was forever falling over his eyes, she was completely convinced that she loved that lock more dearly than she had ever loved anything before in her life?

No, there was no help for it. She loved Nathaniel Sheridan—the real Nathaniel Sheridan, not some godlike dream of him she'd made up inside her head—more than she had ever loved anyone she had ever known.

And so it was no little shock when Nathaniel's first words to her as they made their way home were not protestations of his own undying affection for her, but, rather, a rebuke.

“What were you thinking,” he demanded, sounding genuinely annoyed, “leaving the house like that without telling anyone where you were going?”

Nicola, lifting her head from his shoulder, looked up at him astonishedly. Where was the marriage proposal she'd been expecting? Where were the sweet words of devotion, protestations of undying love and affection?

And what did he mean, blaming
her
for what had happened?

“That wasn't my fault,” she cried. “They tricked me!”

“Harold Blenkenship told us all about how they tricked you,” Nathaniel informed her—quite angrily, she thought. “Only an utter fool would have fallen for such a trick. Sir Hugh, asking you to meet him at Grafton House. The idea! He never would have done such a thing in a thousand years.”

Nicola, beginning to feel a good deal less loving toward him, and a good deal nettled instead, loosened her hold on his neck somewhat.

“The note said it was to be a surprise,” she said defensively. “A surprise for Eleanor. How was I to know it was all a lie?”

“Because if you had the sense God gave a cat,” Nathaniel retorted, “you'd know Sir Hugh is too much of a gentleman ever to ask an unmarried lady to meet him alone, even in the middle of the day, and in a public place. Nicola, it's a wonder you weren't killed. You very easily could have been, you know.”

Nicola felt all the giddy laughter that had been welling up inside her ebb away. Now all she felt was sadness. Nathaniel did not return her ardor. How could he, and still speak to her so cruelly? Didn't he know he was ruining what could have been a very beautiful moment?

“I know that now,” she said, trying very hard not to sniffle. She was so disappointed! “But you needn't be so awful about it. It was a simple mistake.”

“A mistake that could have cost you your life!” Nathaniel cried as he steered his horse through the narrow streets…which were starting to become wider, the houses on either side of them less dilapidated as they moved farther into the heart of the city. “I swear, Nicola, sometimes I think you need a keeper.”

She had to blink back tears. He had never called her by her full name so many times in a row. Usually it was Nicky, or sometimes Nick. But never Nicola. Her full name sounded very ominous coming from Nathaniel Sheridan's lips.

It was clear now that he didn't love her after all. Perhaps he never had. Perhaps all of that teasing had simply been banter between friends. Perhaps it had not, after all, been to mask any deeper, stronger emotion, as she'd sometimes suspected.

Oh, all right. Hoped.

“Well,” she said, unable to keep from sniffling now, but trying to disguise it as a cough. “At least I did the right thing in the end. I convinced Harold to go for help—”

“If that's not an example of the blind leading the blind, I don't know what is.” Nathaniel sounded thoroughly disgusted now. “If that boy escapes a thrashing from me, it's only because I was too busy getting you out of the mess he's partly responsible for getting you into in the first place. If he had just said something from the beginning—”

“He did,” Nicola said, a little astounded to find she was coming to the Milksop's defense. “He tried. You don't understand. It isn't easy for Harold. He wants to be a clothing designer, only his father won't let him.”

“And that makes it all right for him to stand by while innocent girls are being terrorized?” Nathaniel shook his head, his profile looking very grim and stern in the light from the gas lamp burning on the street corner. He did not look at all inclined to kiss her, as Nicola had rather been hoping he might. “I tell you, Nicky. There's going to be hell to pay for all this. Your uncle's going to jail, and I wouldn't be too surprised to see Lord Farelly and the viscount clapped in irons, as well.”

“He isn't my uncle,” Nicola said without thinking.

Then, suddenly, it struck her that he had called her Nicky. No, really, he had! She was sure of it.

Which meant perhaps there was hope, after all.

Only Nicola would have to, she knew, go very carefully indeed. Accordingly, she tightened her grip on his neck just the tiniest bit.

“In any case,” she said hesitantly, anxious not to set him off again, “you came just in time, Nat. Just like…just like Lochinvar!”

She had momentarily forgotten, of course, idiot girl that she was, the depths of his disgust for that noble knight. But she was instantly reminded of it when he turned his head and looked down at her with a frown.

“Oh, Nat!” Nicola cried, instantly crushed. “Really. You simply must get over this absurd prejudice you have against poetry. Whatever is wrong with it, anyway?”

As his horse made its slow but steady way down the city streets, Nathaniel, oblivious to the many curious looks they were getting—it was odd indeed to see a handsome young man with a pretty girl, quite without a bonnet and gloves, and missing a shoe, slung across his saddle like a prize won in battle—admitted, with a shrug, “It's just all so stupid. No one talks that way, Nicky. Not in real life. Why can't they say it plainer, the way people talk? That's why I don't like it. I don't—I can't, really—understand it.” Then, with renewed anger, he said, “Why can't Romeo, instead of saying all those bits about wishing he were a glove, just come out and say he loves her?”

Nicola, unable to help herself, loosed one of her hands from around his neck and reached up to stroke the loose lock of hair that had fallen across his forehead. She didn't want to do it. She simply couldn't stop.

“Because then the play would be too short,” she said. “And no one would think they'd gotten their money's worth.”

Nathaniel, if he noticed what she was doing to his hair, did not appear to care. Instead he said fiercely, “I suppose that's how Bartholomew got you to agree to marry him. He flung a lot of poetry at you.”

“Actually,” Nicola said, “he didn't. He didn't have to. You see, I didn't even know Lord Sebastian. I said yes when he asked me to marry him because I loved—or thought I loved—an idea I had of him. But my idea of him was totally wrong from the reality of him. You tried to warn me so, but I wouldn't listen.”

“I'll say.”

Suddenly Nathaniel hauled on the reins of his horse, until they were stopped in the middle of the street. Now even more people than ever were looking at them, but Nathaniel did not appear to notice. The arm he'd curled about her—the one keeping her upright in the saddle—tightened, and he said, looking very intently down into her face, “Wait a minute, Nick. Do you mean to say…Do you mean to say you don't love Bartholomew anymore?”

“No,” Nicola said, dropping her hand from his hair and circling his neck with both arms instead. “I mean to say I never loved him in the first place. I only thought I did, because it was easier than admitting to myself the truth about who I
really
loved.”

“And who,” Nathaniel asked very pointedly, as if her answer mattered to him a great deal, “is that?”

Nicola looked away from him, but couldn't keep a flirtatious little smile from creeping across her face.

“My goodness,” she said. “For someone who got a first in mathematics from Oxford, your powers of deduction aren't very strong at all, are they?”

For a moment Nathaniel only looked down at her in confusion. Then an expression of heartfelt delight spread across his face. A second later he was crushing Nicola to him in an embrace that was every bit as possessive as it was affectionate.

“Nicky!” he said joyfully into her mussed hair. “Do you mean it? Or are you only teasing?”

Nicola pulled away from him a little—a difficult feat, given the strength of the arms that held her—so that she could look up into his face.

“Of course I'm not teasing,” she said, as seriously as she had ever said anything in her life. “I tried to put it plainly, so you could understand. I know how you feel about poetry—”

But she wasn't allowed to say anything more. That was because Nathaniel's lips, coming down over hers, silenced her for the moment.

And Nicola, who'd been kissed before only by a god, realized that being kissed by a mortal was a great deal more satisfying, because he seemed really to mean it. Or maybe it was only because this time she was being kissed by a man she truly loved, and whose friendship she valued above all others….