Nicola and the Viscount (8 page)

“But there's the rub,” Nathaniel said, managing an air of cool detachment, Nicola couldn't help noticing, himself. “Nicola, being an orphan, can hardly be expected to resist appeals for help from other orphans, especially those less fortunate than herself.”

This was so close to how Nicola felt about the situation that she very nearly cried out. How on earth could Nathaniel have known? It was almost as if he had read her mind.

“Oh, come now,” Lord Sebastian said dismissively. “Nicola can't possibly think she has anything in common with those little pieces of trash that litter the streets, grubbing for coins. Do you, Nicola?”

Feeling the God's cool gaze on her, Nicola colored, as she nearly always did whenever he looked in her direction. How could she help but color, given that the God was quite the handsomest man in the world? And he was, miracle of miracles, hers. All hers.

But even gods sometimes made mistakes.

“Of course,” she replied, attempting to keep her tone as dismissive as his. “An orphan is an orphan, after all. And it really is only by the grace of God that I never had to live the way that poor child lives. My father, at least, left me more or less well taken care of. So many orphans haven't the sort of luck I've had.”

This was, Nicola felt, quite an impressive speech. She saw admiration in Eleanor's warm glance. Even Sir Hugh looked impressed.

And Nathaniel? Well, Nathaniel Sheridan was never in the least admiring of anything Nicola ever did. But even he, just this once, looked less inclined to laugh at her than usual.

Unfortunately, however, the God did not seem to share Nathaniel's inclination, since he laughed quite heartily and, taking Nicola's hand, cried, “Oh, but you are an enchanting creature, I swear! As if
you
could ever find yourself in a situation at all like that pitiful child's. Why, orphan though you may be, Nicola, you could never find yourself friendless and alone, begging for scraps to eat. You're entirely too pretty.”

And though this was, of course, a flattering thing to say, Nicola could not help thinking that the God had rather missed the point of her speech.

Still, she forgave him, because he seemed really to mean what he'd said. And what kind of girl could hold a grudge for long against a fellow as handsome as Lord Sebastian? Not Nicola, that was for certain.

Though she was careful after that to steer him well out of the path of any beggar children she happened to spy.

“He's the kind of person who wants to marry me,” Nicola had said to Eleanor about the viscount. “Isn't that enough?”

But later, alone in her room at the Bartholomews', Nicola couldn't help wondering if it really was. After all, the Milksop had wanted to marry her, as well, and look what kind of person he was: the kind who fainted at the sight of the merest biological oddity, and who implied that a girl like Nicola could not possibly know how to swim, let alone be loved by a young man like the God. A nasty, horrid person. That was what Harold Blenkenship was.

Lord Sebastian wasn't nasty or horrid. Yes, he did seem a bit lacking in tolerance for beggar children. But then, who
liked
seeing beggar children? It was sad always to see them on the street, holding out their dirty little hands for coins that—the God was probably quite right—only went to buy drink for their slatternly parents. Nicola could not blame him for having an aversion to such creatures. And though Nicola had managed, with soda water, to get out the stain from Lord Sebastian's coat, it was true that it had taken quite a while, and the sleeve never did look quite as nice as it had before.

And yes, it was true the God had a temper. Nicola's first glimpse of it, the day he'd raised his cane as if to strike that poor child, had been a startling one. But most men had tempers. It wasn't necessarily a bad thing. And indeed, Lord Sebastian hadn't, in the end, struck the child. Clearly he had control of his temper. And that was more than could be said of many men.

And Nicola had never once seen the God strike any of his horses. Quite the opposite, in fact. His affection for the creatures was touching to behold.

And yes, certainly Lord Sebastian did seem to enjoy a game of whist. But that didn't make him an inveterate gambler. He merely loved the thrill, the exhilaration of the game!

And while he might be unfamiliar with the works of most of the poets Nicola admired, that certainly didn't make him a dunce. Lord Sebastian was just an athletic sort of person who hadn't time to read, between all of his shooting outings and games of bagatelle.

Nathaniel, who wasn't much of an athlete—oh, he rode, Nicola knew, but he wasn't fond of shooting, and he was even less fond of bagatelle—and who seemed to think that a good day was one spent adding up long columns of numbers on behalf of his father's estate manager, would naturally dislike a fellow like Lord Sebastian, if only because their natures were so very disparate. It was, as Nicola had said to Eleanor, entirely a matter of prejudice. Nathaniel was prejudiced against the God for the simple reason that the God was so unlike him. It would, she assured Eleanor, pass, as Nathaniel and the God got to know one another better.

But until it did, things were not going to be pleasant between Nicola and her best friend's brother. This became clear the very next night, when Nicola happened to run into Nathaniel Sheridan at—where else?—Almack's.

He was getting punch. Nicola, who'd already had her three dances with the God that evening, had not felt right accepting invitations from anyone else for the next set—after all, she was virtually a married woman—and had instead gone to find something to drink, as the room was hotter even than usual. She spied Nathaniel at the refreshment table. Otherwise, she would not have ventured near it. Her engagement was still so new, she felt protective of it. She did not want to hear it—or her future husband—maligned by anyone, even in a teasing manner.

She needn't have worried. Nathaniel saw her—she was quite sure he saw her. Their gazes met above the crystal punch bowl. And yet he did not say a word. He merely lifted the two glasses he held—apparently he'd been getting punch for someone else in addition to himself—and walked away, his well-tailored black evening coat melting into a sea of similar coats, until Nicola could not make him out anymore.

Stunned, Nicola stood where she was for a full minute before the enormity of what had just happened sank in fully: Nathaniel Sheridan had cut her!

Nicola had heard about cutting before, of course. Madame had warned them most seriously about the dangers of cutting—or socially ignoring another person with whom one was very much acquainted. Cutting was ill-mannered, immature, and just about the cruelest thing one person could do to another.

Even so, sometimes cutting was necessary. Overzealous suitors sometimes had to be cut in order for a lady to preserve her reputation. And of course if one girl was spreading slanderous rumors about the other, the girl about whom the rumors were focused had every right to cut her slanderess.

But for Nathaniel Sheridan to cut her, Nicola Sparks, his sister's most particular friend? There was no excuse for such behavior!

Well, if he thought he was going to get away with it, he had another think coming entirely. Nicola was not the type of girl to meekly accept such a slight.

Accordingly, setting down her punch glass, Nicola flung herself into the sea of black coats into which Nathaniel had just disappeared, determined to find him, and then make him apologize for his unspeakably rude behavior. This was not the course of action Madame Vieuxvincent recommended to her pupils who found themselves in the ignominious position of being cut. Confronting the cutter was not the prescribed method for solving the problem. But Nicola was too angry to think what Madame would have wanted her to do. All she could think was that Nathaniel Sheridan was going to rue the day he'd ever cut Nicola Sparks.

Which might have been why, when the God came up to her a second later, she brushed him off with a curt, “Not now, my lord.” She had no time for gods just then. She had a mortal she needed to set straight about a few things.

She found him standing by a window, chatting amiably with Miss Stella Ashton, who wore a dress in a hideous shade of yellow that made her skin look far more sallow than it actually was. It was for Miss Ashton that he'd brought the punch glass. They were both looking down at something on the street below, and laughing.

Laughing! Nicola felt as if she might burst into flames on the spot, she was so angry.

“I beg your pardon,” she said, intruding upon a private conversation (Madame would most certainly not have approved).

Stella Ashton looked up from her punch glass and said sweetly, “Oh, Miss Sparks. Good evening.”

“Good evening, Miss Ashton,” Nicola said with a nod. To Nathaniel, who was looking at her as if she were a madwoman, she said, “May I have a word with you, Mr. Sheridan?
Alone
?”

Nathaniel lifted one of his dark eyebrows in obvious amusement. But all he said was, “Certainly.” He set his punch glass down upon the windowsill, and bowed to the sallow-faced Stella. “Would you excuse me for a moment please, Miss Ashton?”

Stella blinked her big—and, in Nicola's opinion, vapid—eyes and said, “Why, of course,” in a confused manner, as if Nicola, instead of asking permission to steal away her escort for a moment, had announced that the room were on fire.

A moment later, standing some feet away in a darkened corner of the room, out of the range of the dancers and at some distance from the musicians, so the noise was not quite as oppressive, Nicola whirled to face Nathaniel. She was a bit alarmed to find, when she did so, that Nathaniel's face was only a few inches from hers. She had not been aware he'd been standing quite so close to her. Still, backing down would look as if she were intimidated by him, which she most certainly was not.

“Just who,” she demanded in a voice just loud enough to be heard above the music, but not loud enough for Stella Ashton, who was looking at them very intently indeed, to overhear, “do you think you are, Nathaniel Sheridan, to cut me?”

He had the decency to blush, at least. Looking abashed, that familiar lock of hair falling over his eyes so that she could not read them, he said, “I didn't cut you, Nicky. I mean, Miss Sparks.”

“You most certainly did,” Nicola declared. “You looked right at me at the punch bowl just now, and then turned around and walked away without saying a word!”

“Because I couldn't,” Nathaniel said, “think of anything to say.”

“Oh, and I suppose ‘Good evening, Miss Sparks' would have been too banal for someone of your great mental prowess?” She felt quite proud of herself over that one. Nathaniel Sheridan
was
too impressed with himself by half. Imagine thinking poetry a waste of time!

“I ought to have said good evening,” came Nathaniel's unexpected reply. “You're quite right.”

Nicola, having anticipated a battle of much longer and more heated duration, was taken aback by this sudden capitulation. She had never known Nathaniel to agree so readily to an accusation she'd put to him.

“Are you quite well?” she asked a bit worriedly.

Nathaniel regarded her steadily, his eyes still shadowed so that she could not read them. “Of course I am,” he replied. “Why do you ask?”

“Well, because it isn't like you to actually let me win an argument.” Nicola studied him through narrowed eyes. “Are you sure you aren't suffering from an ague?”

“Yes,” Nathaniel said, and he suddenly tossed his head so that the lock of dark hair was flung back, and Nicola saw, all too well, what was in his eyes. And what was in them, she saw, was anger. “But I wonder if I oughtn't be asking the same of you. What can you be thinking, agreeing to marry that bounder?”

Nicola sucked in her breath. She ought to have known it was coming. Still, she hadn't expected him to be quite that up-front about it.

“If it is Lord Sebastian to whom you are referring in that rude manner, Mr. Sheridan,” she said haughtily, “then the answer to your question—not, of course, that it is any of your business—is that I happen to love him. And he loves me.”

“Does he?” Nathaniel asked in a cold voice, a single eyebrow raised. “Does he indeed?”

Nicola, as shocked as if he'd slapped her, cried, “Of course he does! Nat, really! Why on earth should he have asked me to marry him if he didn't?”

“I don't know,” Nathaniel said in the same chilly voice. “Did he tell you so?”

“Did he tell me what?” Nicola was aware that Stella Ashton wasn't the only one in the room who was looking at them curiously. Several people nearby had broken off their own conversations and were staring at Nicola, who'd been unable to keep her voice from rising to tremulous levels, she was so outraged. Madame Vieuxvincent, she knew, would object, as ladies never made scenes. But under the circumstances, Nicola felt she was justified.

“That he loved you,” Nathaniel said, with obviously forced patience.

Nicola longed with every fiber of her being to snap that he had—that he'd told her so a hundred times a day since their engagement. But of course the truth was that Lord Sebastian was quite casual, as far as lovers went. He had never once mentioned the word
love
…at least in connection with Nicola. He loved his new hunter, eighteen hands high with a neck as curved as a swan's. And he loved his new taupe waistcoat, which Nicola had made for him out of some leftover material from an opera cape she'd been disassembling to turn into a charming little bed jacket.

But he had never once said he loved her.

But what did mere words matter between two people who felt for one another the strong and undying attachment she and Lord Sebastian shared? He
showed
her he loved her in myriad ways. Wasn't the diamond engagement ring on her left hand proof enough of that?

But before she could utter any of this, Nathaniel said, very nastily indeed, “So he hasn't said it. I thought as much. Ask him, Nicola—or, God forbid, ask yourself—why a man in Bartholomew's position would agree to marry a girl—an
orphaned
girl—with only a hundred pounds a year.”

She drew in an indignant breath. Why, Nathaniel sounded exactly like the Milksop!

“Go ahead,” Nathaniel said. “I dare you. Ask him.”

“What do you suppose he's going to say? Obviously you know, or you wouldn't be so confident about it,” she sputtered furiously. “Well, if you know something you aren't telling me, just say it. I can't imagine why you haven't done so already. You've never felt very squeamish about sparing my feelings before now.”

This last remark caused, for some reason, a muscle Nicola had never before noticed to leap in Nathaniel's jaw.

“Fine,” he said. “You don't want your feelings spared? Then ask your light o' love about Pease.”

“Peas?” Nicola echoed. “What on earth do garden vegetables have to do with Lord Sebastian?”

“Not peas the vegetable,” Nathaniel scoffed. “Pease the name. Ask your precious Lord Sebastian about Edward Pease, and see what he has to say.”

“And who,” Nicola demanded, “is Edward Pease?”

“Lord Sebastian will tell you,” Nathaniel said knowingly. “That is, if he's even half the man you seem to think he is.”

“He'll tell me,” Nicola said with a confidence she didn't feel. “Lord Sebastian tells me everything. There isn't a single secret between us. We are both of us open as blank pages.”

“Then you haven't anything to worry about,” Nathaniel said. “Have you?”

“No,” Nicola responded haughtily. “I haven't. I'm happy as a lark.”

“I couldn't,” Nathaniel said, “be more pleased to hear it. Don't forget to ask him.”

“About Edward Pease,” Nicola said. “I won't. I'll ask him tonight. Or at the very least, first thing in the morning.”

“Fine,” Nathaniel said. “You do that.”

“Fine,” she said. “I will.”

“Fine,” he said.

“Fine,” she said.

Then, realizing that they could conceivably go on in that manner for hours, Nicola spun around and began to stalk from the room. She hadn't gotten very far, however, before her gaze fell upon Stella Ashton, who was still staring at her with a dumbfounded look upon her pretty face.