Nicola and the Viscount (7 page)

He merely lifted a dark eyebrow and regarded his sister sardonically.

“Wouldn't you, Nat?” Eleanor said more loudly.

“Wouldn't I what?” Nathaniel wanted to know.

“Wouldn't you hate to see Nicky married to a man who was her intellectual and moral inferior?” Eleanor said in a hiss, still trying, Nicola could tell, to act ladylike in front of her suitor, but really longing, Nicola was sure, to kick her brother. Though what Nathaniel had done now to upset his younger sibling, Nicola could not imagine.

“I suppose so,” Nathaniel said finally, straightening up. For once his expression was serious—although the lock of hair that was forever falling into his eyes somewhat ruined the effect.

“See here, Nicky,” he began in as stern a voice as Nicola had ever heard him use. Nicola had time only to wonder what on earth Nathaniel Sheridan could have to say to her in such a tone, and why his sister had turned back round in her seat and was staring straight ahead with such assiduous concentration, when a familiar voice called, from quite close by, “I say! Miss Sparks! Is that you?”

Nicola looked around and saw, to her utter delight, the God pull up in his brand-new phaeton, an even lighter and fancier model than Harold's.

“I didn't know you were seeing the Sheridans today,” Lord Sebastian said to Nicola, after greetings had been exchanged all around—rather grudgingly on the part of Nathaniel Sheridan, Nicola thought. Why did he always have to be so purposely rude to Lord Sebastian? “Honoria said something about you going riding with Harold Blenkenship.”

“I started off with Harold,” Nicola explained, “but that didn't go well, and these fine people kindly rescued me.”

“Ah,” the God said, looking more godlike than ever in the bright sunshine that streamed through the leafy canopy the trees made overhead. “That's a good one. I never pictured you in the role of knight errant, Sheridan. Surprised to see you lift your head out of your books long enough to give it a go.”

Nathaniel replied easily, “Surprised to see you can make your way about town without an oar stuck up either sleeve, Bartholomew.”

The God, to Nicola's great astonishment, began to turn red. Nicola suddenly became aware of a tension in the air between Lord Sebastian's carriage and the one she was in. She had no idea where it had come from, but was relieved when Sir Hugh said, in his joking way, “Gentlemen, gentlemen. Hadn't we better move along? We're holding up traffic here…. ”

Lord Sebastian, noticing the carriages lined up impatiently behind his, said, “Damn my eyes if he isn't right. Come, Miss Sparks, I know you'll be eager to be getting home, and I'm going there now.”

Nicola, brightening, said, “Oh, thank you, my lord,” and rose to leave Sir Hugh's carriage and enter Lord Sebastian's.

Except that Nathaniel, sitting by the curricle door, didn't move.

“You needn't go,” he said. “We'll take you home, Nicky.”

“Oh, thank you,” Nicola said, still standing. “But it's out of your way.”

“Sir Hugh doesn't mind,” Nathaniel said. “Do you, Sir Hugh?”

“If you say so, Sheridan,” came Sir Hugh's ready reply.

“Really,” Nicola said, beginning to feel a bit conspicuous, as the people in the carriages behind theirs were beginning to shout things like “Get a move on!” and “Horse thrown a shoe up there?” “It's too kind of you. But Lord Sebastian is going right home. And I am expected soon, you know. Lady Honoria and I are…are going to Grafton House to look at buttons.”

It was a lie, of course. And not even a very original one. It was the same one she'd used with Harold. But for some reason, this time she felt guilty as she said it. Guilty? Why on earth should she feel guilty about lying to Nathaniel Sheridan? Why, he was never anything but unpleasant to her!

The lie, much as it bothered her, seemed to do the trick, however. There really wasn't any other way for Nathaniel to respond to it except by moving, albeit reluctantly, to help Nicola down from Sir Hugh's curricle, and then into Lord Sebastian's phaeton. Settled snugly onto the seat beside the God, Nicola forgot her guilt as she excitedly waved good-bye to her friends. All but Nathaniel, who was in one of his sulks, waved gaily back. And then Lord Sebastian turned the phaeton around, and they left the park for home.

With what changed feelings did Nicola jounce along Park Lane coming home from the park than when she'd been going toward it! Then she'd been in thoroughly dejected spirits, thanks to her unwelcome company. Now she was sitting beside…well, a god. She was the envy, she knew, of every girl they passed. All of them were looking up at her, Nicola Sparks, and wondering how she'd come to have the great luck of capturing the arm of the best-looking bachelor in all of England. Well, the answer was easy enough. She'd let herself be blown about by life, like a thistle in the wind, and look what had happened!

“And what,” the God wanted to know as they made their way toward his home, “did poor Mr. Blenkenship do to you that you felt compelled to abandon him so cruelly?”

“Oh,” Nicola said distractedly, as she watched the sky passing above his golden head…a sky that came nowhere near the blue of his eyes. “Asked me to marry him, is all.”

The God seemed to find this highly amusing. He laughed and said, “A terrible crime indeed. And are you that harsh to all the supplicants for your hand, Miss Sparks? Or was Mr. Blenkenship special somehow?”

“Especially offensive, maybe,” Nicola replied, adoring the way the God's eyelashes seemed to sparkle in the sunlight.

“Well, that's a relief, anyway,” the God said.

“What is?” Nicola asked, dreamily imagining herself touching those eyelashes.

“Well, that you aren't opposed to marriage in general,” the God said. And suddenly, with the hand that was not holding the reins, he reached for Nicola's fingers and brought them up toward his mouth. “That means there's hope for me, doesn't it?”

For a moment, Nicola could only stare at him, hardly daring to believe what her own ears—and eyes, and fingertips, which were thrilling, inside her gloves, to the touch of his lips—were telling her.

And then, simply and directly, he dispelled any doubts she might have had.

“Marry me, Nicola?” he asked.

And even though Madame Vieuxvincent would have disapproved heartily, Nicola threw both her arms around the God's neck and kissed him, right there on Park Lane, in front of everyone.

And as simply as that, Miss Nicola Sparks became engaged to Lord Sebastian Bartholomew, the Viscount Farnsworth.

She was, to be sure, young to marry at sixteen. Yet, as Nicola was quick to point out, Juliet had been even younger when she'd married her Romeo. And Nathaniel Sheridan muttering, as he did upon hearing this, “Yes, and look how well
that
turned out,” did not dissuade her. Nor did Lady Sheridan's assertion that she preferred a long engagement, and that, had Nicola been her daughter, she'd have made her wait two years, since she did not believe in girls marrying before their eighteenth birthday.

This only served to make Nicola grateful that it was Lady Farelly, and not Lady Sheridan, who was to be her mother-in-law. Two years! It seemed eons to Nicola. She was miffed enough over the fact that she was going to have to wait a month before becoming Viscountess Farnsworth, as Lady Farelly needed that long to make all the arrangements and get out the invitations. Imagine having to wait two whole years!

And yet it was difficult for Nicola to be unhappy about much of anything…not now that she had, at long last, her heart's desire. For what girl wouldn't wait a month, or even two, for the privilege of marrying a young man like the God? Nicola could not think of one. She was the envy of her entire set. Even Honoria was jealous…though not, of course, for the same reason Stella Ashton, another graduate of Madame Vieuxvincent's, was. No, Honoria was envious because Nicola had had two—two!—proposals in one day, while Honoria still hadn't had even one.

“Just wait,” Nicola had told her. “Wait until Charlotte and Martine finish removing all the feathers. You'll have proposals galore.”

Though it was hard for Nicola to think about anyone, really, other than herself, in her current state of joy. Especially when everyone—everyone besides the Honorable Nathaniel Sheridan, that is—was so full of congratulation and joy over Nicola's engagement. Nana wrote from Beckwell Abbey, offering Nicola her best wishes, and promising to prepare for the bride and groom her famous ginger cake upon their first visit to Northumberland as a married couple. Madame Vieuxvincent sent a congratulatory note, along with a copy of Mary Wollstonecraft's
A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
, a must-have, she wrote, for every bride preparing to begin a family.

Even the Milksop, being the milksop that he was, sent Nicola a nosegay, along with his sincerest—or so he wrote, anyway—wishes for a happy marriage. That, coupled with his father's grudging agreement to loan Nicola enough money to outfit herself with a smart trousseau, made her happiness quite complete. The Grouser even went so far as to give Nicola his blessing…though grudgingly.

“I suppose,” he'd said, coming to call upon Nicola shortly after the news reached him, “you know your own mind. Though I must say I think my Harold's twice the man your viscount is.”

Nicola kept her own opinion on this matter to herself.

But her delight—over the man she'd loved proposing, her love for her future in-laws, the fact that she was soon to be a viscountess—was not as easy to keep inside.

And, more often than not, the place where it all came bursting out was in the company of Eleanor Sheridan. Nicola couldn't really extoll over her good fortune in front of her fiancé's sister—not when Honoria hadn't a beau, or even a hope of one, of her own. But Eleanor had had some exciting news as well: Sir Hugh had, like the God, proposed, and been accepted. The couple would have to wait two years before the nuptials could take place—how Nicola pitied her friend!—but were otherwise ecstatically happy. As Sir Hugh had five thousand a year and a manor house in Devonshire—not to mention a seemingly endless supply of clean white cravats—Nicola approved of this match for her friend, in spite of the mustache.

But her surprise that her friend did not quite return the feeling where Nicola and the viscount were concerned was considerable.

“It's only,” Eleanor explained, when Nicola demanded to know just what she meant when Eleanor made the astonishing admission that she wasn't certain the God was quite as godlike as they'd once thought, “that Nat told me some things…. ”

“Oh, Nat,” Nicola scoffed as she stooped to examine a bonnet she admired in the window of a milliner's shop on fashionable Bond Street. “Don't tell me you're listening to anything your brother says. He has an unfair—and, I'm sure, entirely unfounded—prejudice against Lord Sebastian.”

“It isn't only prejudice, Nicky,” Eleanor said gravely. Since meeting Sir Hugh, Eleanor had become markedly less silly. She was, at times, even serious. It was as if Sir Hugh's lighthearted good humor was enough for both of them, and so Eleanor had been forced to take over the role of the staid adult in their relationship. “Nat heard some very bad things about your Lord Sebastian, back when he was at Oxford.”

“My Lord Sebastian!” Nicola cried, straightening up. “Oh, I like that! Not two months ago, he was the God to you, and now he's ‘my Lord Sebastian.'”

“Nicky,” Eleanor said. “Do be serious. Do you know Lord Sebastian gambles? And not just at cards and bagatelle, either, but on horses.”

“So does the Prince of Wales,” said Nicola, who had known this, and was a bit troubled by it, but supposed it was simply one of those things men did, and that there was no help for it.

“But that isn't all, Nicky. You know he never so much as opened a book the whole of the time he was at college? He only passed because Balliol hadn't had a winning rowing team in years, and the deans didn't want to send down their best oarsman.”

“Stuff and bother,” Nicola said, twirling her parasol in an agitated manner. “That's nothing but unsubstantiated rumor. Really, Eleanor, I would think you would know better than to go telling tales…. ”

“Nicky,” Eleanor said, quite as seriously as she'd ever spoken. “I know he's handsome. And I know he's rich. But how is he as a person? Do you even know?”

“For heaven's sake, Eleanor,” Nicola said. “Of course I do. He's the kind of person who wants to marry me. Isn't that enough?”

Before Eleanor had a chance to answer this question, however, the topic of their conversation himself suddenly turned up, looking dapper in a new top hat and morning coat, and jauntily swinging a silver-tipped cane.

“Good heavens,” he cried upon recognizing Nicola and Eleanor, to whom he'd tipped his hat out of force of habit while strolling past them. “What a stroke of luck! I only stepped from my club for a moment for a bit of air, and what do I find just outside the door? Two of the loveliest ladies in London. Which direction are you going? I'll walk with you.”

Eleanor, turning a delicate shade of crimson over having so very nearly been caught speaking ill of the viscount by the man himself, sputtered, “Oh, no need, no need, my lord. We are waiting here for my brother and Sir Hugh. They've gone into the tobacconist's, and should be back in a moment.”

“My good fortune, then,” Lord Sebastian said gallantly. “I shall wait with you until their arrival. Now, what are we discussing? The weather, which is lovely? Or yourselves, which is even lovelier?”

Nicola giggled at her betrothed's wittiness (though she could not help silently questioning his grammar). Eleanor, however, did not look at all impressed. In fact, she seemed flustered, and kept glancing over her shoulder, as if eager for her brother and Sir Hugh to reappear. It dismayed Nicola no end that the two people who were most important to her in the world could not be better friends. And so while they stood there, she attempted to calm Eleanor's fears for her future happiness by proving them completely unfounded.

“It's such a coincidence that you happened upon us just now, my lord,” she said, with all the kittenish charm she could muster, “as Eleanor was just quizzing me about you.”

“Me?” The God had taken his gold watch from his pocket and was examining it. “What about me?”

“Yes, exactly,” Nicola said with a laugh, slipping her hand through the crook of his arm. “Eleanor wants to know all about you.”

The God blinked his lovely blue eyes. “Oh, I see. Well, not much to know, is there? What you see is what you get.”

“That's what I was telling her,” Nicola said, giving his arm a happy squeeze. “You are like an open book.”

“Indeed,” the God agreed. “Though a bit of a dull one, I'm sorry to say. Some dusty old thing by Walter Scott, I should think.”

Nicola, wincing a bit at hearing her favorite author called dull, nevertheless pressed on in her campaign to win Eleanor's approval of her beau.

“Precisely,” she said, with what she hoped was a winning smile. “Now, why don't you tell Eleanor that diverting story you were telling me last night.” When Lord Sebastian looked blank, Nicola prompted him, “You remember, about the gelding you wished to purchase at Tattersall's the other day.”

“Oh,” the God said, brightening. “That story. 'Course. Demmed amusing, that was. There was this gelding, see—”

But the God's amusing story about the gelding was interrupted when a grubby little hand reached up to tug upon his sleeve.

“Pardon, sir,” a childish voice lisped. “But ken you spare a penny for a poor orphan?”

Lord Sebastian jerked his arm away from the tiny, much begrimed fingers that had deigned to touch it and cried, instinctively raising the silver-tipped cane, “See here! What do you think you're doing?”

The child—for, though it was so thoroughly covered in dirt and ash that its gender was nearly impossible to distinguish (though Nicola suspected by the length of the creature's hair that it might be female) its lack of stature indicated someone not yet fully grown—cowered, throwing up an arm to protect herself from the blow she clearly expected to be forthcoming.

“Oh, please, sir,” the child cried. “I din't mean to dirty it! I'm sorry, sir! I'm sorry!”

Nicola—not because she actually thought the viscount might strike the little girl, but because it seemed the sensible thing to do—moved quickly to step between the God and the street urchin.

“Of course you didn't mean to soil the gentleman's coat,” she said, more calmly than she felt. “You only startled Lord Sebastian. Didn't she, my lord?”

The God lowered the cane, looking extremely vexed. His gaze was on his sleeve.

“This is a brand-new coat,” he declared in an indignant tone. “And look here, Nicola, there're fingermarks on it.”

“She didn't do it on purpose,” Nicola said. “Did you, dear?”

But the little beggar child was crying too hard to reply, having been frightened by the cane the gentleman had waved so threateningly above her head.

“Here, here,” Nicola said, opening her reticule and leaning down to apply a clean white handkerchief to the child's tears. “None of that. Lord Sebastian is sorry he startled you.”

“Sorry?”The God was industriously applying a handkerchief of his own to his cuff. “I should say not. Look at this dirt, Nicola. It isn't going to come out. The coat's ruined.”

“A little soda water when we get home,” Nicola said to the God, “will take care of it.”To the beggar child, Nicola said, “Here, take this.” Then, putting her handkerchief away, she slipped the little girl a shilling from her bag. A shilling was, of course, a small fortune…enough for a ride on the
Catch Me Who Can
, and more than enough for a meat pie. The little girl's weeping stopped the moment she laid eyes upon the coin.

“Good Lord, Nicola,” the God said with some disgust as the child, her tears evaporating as quickly as they'd appeared, seized the money and ran off with a glad cry of thanks. “You actually gave that creature a shilling after the way she pawed me? What can you be thinking?”

Nicola closed the drawstrings of her bag. “Well, of course I did,” she said with some asperity. “Didn't you see her? She was half-starved, poor little thing.”

“Well, you'd be half-starved, too,” Lord Sebastian declared, irritated, “if every penny you scraped went to buy drink for your mother.”

“She said she's an orphan,” Nicola reminded him with some feeling. “She doesn't have a mother.”

“Of course she does, Nicola.”The God sighed with a roll of his beautiful eyes. “They all say they're orphans. But believe me, that child's got a mother somewhere, and a father, too, I shouldn't wonder. And the whole family's making a healthy living off tenderhearted souls like you. Who, I might add, don't have a good deal of money to be wasting on worthless refuse like that.”

Nettled, Nicola said, “You don't know she wasn't telling the truth, my lord.” Nicola felt, for reasons she could not explain, extremely vexed with him, and so spoke more sharply than perhaps the situation warranted. “You don't know anything about it at all.”

It was excessively unfortunate that at this precise moment, Nathaniel Sheridan and Sir Hugh suddenly appeared.

“What doesn't Lord Sebastian know?” Sir Hugh demanded in his usual lighthearted manner.

“Anything at all, apparently,” the God replied, with equal jocularity.

Sir Hugh looked from Nicola's face—which she was certain was hot with embarrassment and not a little anger—to Lord Sebastian's, which was, as always, coolly handsome, and gave a low whistle.

“We arrived just in time, I see,” he said, nudging Nathaniel with his elbow, “to witness the happy couple's first lovers' quarrel.”

“It isn't a quarrel,” Eleanor spoke up, to Nicola's immense relief. “Nicola merely gave some money to an orphaned beggar child, and Lord Sebastian suggested she might do better to save her pennies for a worthier cause.”

“Ah,” Nathaniel said, with a knowing glance in Nicola's direction. How infuriating that he, of all people, should happen to show up now, of all times, just when she and Lord Sebastian were having an argument…not even an argument, either, but merely a…a…disagreement! And a very minor one, at that. It was too bad that Nicola could never seem to manage to maintain an air of cool detachment in front of Eleanor's brother, as Madame had always suggested a lady should.