Leah grimaced. “That must keep you busy.”
“Endlessly, and I hate it, but Beck is entitled to ramble around until he wants to settle down, because he has already traveled for us extensively, and George and Dolph are still at university.”
“If I were your wife,” Leah said slowly, “could you use some help with it all?”
Now he was going to complain, plain and simple. “What kind of help is there? An avalanche of correspondence lands on my desk in English, French, Spanish, and Portuguese and it all must be dealt with posthaste if civilization is not to topple on account of my neglect.”
“How is your French?”
“Spoken?” Nick shot her a leer. “Adequate for my purposes, but written? Deplorable. Spanish and Portuguese, similar.”
“My French is excellent,” Leah said. “You should either hire a factor on the Peninsula who can communicate in English, or hire a secretary to come in one day a week who can manage the Iberian languages, if not those and the French.”
Nick paused in the assembly of a second sandwich and stared at her. Della had probably told him the same thing, though he could not recall exactly when. “Suppose I should at that.”
“It would be easy enough to hire such a person.” She regarded Nick’s second sandwich. “If you’re going to take your seat in the Lords, you’ll need a parliamentary wife.”
Which was something else he hadn’t wanted to think about. “My stepmother excelled at such. Bellefonte would have been useless without her.”
“You will never be useless,” Leah scoffed, reaching for an orange. “I think you would enjoy the intensity of the political process.”
He hadn’t considered he might enjoy any part of it. “Not the tedium. Not that at all.”
“How active was your father?” Leah asked, tearing a hunk of rind from the fruit. The explosion of scent and juice had her bringing the orange to her nose for a long whiff. She closed her eyes to sniff the zest, then opened them slowly and blinked at him.
What had she asked?
“My father was very active in politics,” Nick said, “until he fell ill a few years ago. Are you going to inhale that thing or finish peeling it?”
“Maybe both.” Leah smiled at him over the ripe fruit. “I can probably also be of use to you with regard to your siblings, Nicholas.”
He could hardly focus on her words, so aware had Nick become of Leah’s physical presence beside him. It was that damned orange, the way she looked when she closed her eyes like that, and the knowledge that under her night rail and nightgown, she was likely naked.
Her skin would bear the scent of the household’s guest soap, redolent of roses and lily of the valley.
“Here.” Leah passed Nick three sections of orange, stuck together. “Your disposition looks like it needs sweetening.”
“I am merely tired. I need an infusion of Valentine’s music to soothe me.”
“He plays so well,” Leah agreed, popping a section of orange into her mouth. “I’ve wondered what it feels like, to have such talent literally in your hands.”
“It’s more than his hands, it’s in his heart too,” Nick mused, watching as Leah licked orange juice from the heel of her hand, then reached for the second orange.
“I am already a sticky mess,” Leah said, “let me peel this one for you.” She took the second orange and made short work of it, while Nick watched and tried not to let the words “sticky mess” play havoc with his brain. When she was done, she split the entire orange in half and put each half on the empty plate, save one section.
The last one, she passed to Nick, but rather than put it in his hand, she brought it directly to his lips, as if she fed large, hungry men from her own hand every evening. Nick accepted the morsel, chewed, swallowed, and kept his eyes on her as she rose to wash her hands at the sink.
Marriage to this woman was going to flay his wits, incessantly.
“My thanks, Leah. How much longer will you need to consider the possibility of marrying me?”
Leah cocked her head and frowned at him. “Not long. Will you speak to my father?”
“Not until I have an answer from you. I’ve already spoken to Amherst, and he favors the match, guardedly.”
Leah’s brows shot up—she had the most graceful arch to her brows. “Guardedly?”
“Your older brother is a romantic. He wants you to have a knight in shining armor, one smitten with your charms and swooning at your feet.” Nick wanted her to have the very same things, which was a bad joke of divine proportions.
“Heavens. I’d settle for an occasional heartfelt sigh.”
“Amherst is going to settle for letting me keep you safe,” Nick said, noting for the first time how red her hair looked by subdued light. “I hope you do as well.”
“We’ll see. Can you give me a week? I’m sure you want an answer sooner rather than later, but I really do need some time.”
Her tone suggested she was considering whether to add another hat to a collection already grown too large, nothing more.
“Why?” Nick, having ingested half the orange sections, sat back, and crossed his arms over his chest. “My offer will not change.”
Leah dried her hands on a towel, briskly, as if concluding her interest in the topic of marrying him. “Mustn’t be petulant, my lord. I can, however, see your father’s situation makes you impatient, and understandably so. I expect if we do become engaged, you will want to marry by special license.”
“You’re willing to forgo St. George’s and the whole…?” Nick waved his hand in upward spirals.
“My past is scandalous,” Leah reminded him, “and my father unwilling or unable to foot much of the bill for a wedding and the attendant nonsense. You promised your father not a fiancee, but a wife. Then too, should something befall me while we’re engaged, you’d be obliged to start hunting all over again, and there’s no need for that.”
“Suppose not.” Watching Leah move around the kitchen in her nightclothes, Nick abruptly wanted to get the actual wedding over and done with. She was right: the expedient course was the only sensible one.
“Good night.” Leah bent and placed a lingering kiss on Nick’s cheek. “My thanks for your company, Nicholas. You’ll talk Lord Val into playing us some lullabies?”
Lily of the valley, roses, and female warmth wafted momentarily to Nick’s nose.
“I will,” Nick managed, utterly stunned by that innocent little kiss on the cheek. Good heavens, did she have to go and smell so delicious when they were all alone in the damned deserted kitchen?
He watched her disappear up the back steps, let out a gusty breath, and forcibly shifted his thoughts from the view of her retreating derriere.
Nick saw his brother off to Belle Maison, and though Ethan’s errand was sad, the idea that Nick would join him at the family seat in a few days was comforting. Those logistics, however, meant that Darius Lindsey would have to be pressed into service to escort the ladies back to Town. Nick proposed that he and Leah call on her brother in person to request his aid.
“If you were my countess, you would acquire a passel of family,” Nick said as he boosted Leah into the saddle. “I have four sisters and three more brothers besides Ethan. They are placing bets on what kind of woman I will marry.”
“Bets?” Leah asked, frowning as Nick swung up onto his mare.
“Mostly the betting is divided between will she be short, or will she be tall,” Nick said, “but the sisters are more concerned about will she be mature or a simpering little twit from the schoolroom. Della, the youngest, is voting for the twit. She claims any woman of sense would not have me.”
Their talk moved forward on the same lines, with Nick describing each sibling in detail, along with stories of that brother or sister’s childhood, or recent antics. He spoke lovingly of all of them, as well as about his late stepmother, hoping the picture painted with words would increase the attractiveness of his proposal to Leah.
But gradually the talk slowed, until they were ambling along in silence.
“Penny for them?” Nick asked as they approached the gate to Darius Lindsey’s drive.
