Nicholas: Lord of Secrets

Lingered over a pot of tea, hoping the clouds would lift?

Heeded Ethan’s suggestion that they grab luncheon before parting?

“God’s hairy toes.” Nick wrapped his arm more tightly around her. “I’m taking you home with me.” This merited him only a shaky nod of assent. “I’d like to carry you, but you’ll feel better if you can walk. We’ll take it as slowly as you need to.”

Nick stayed glued to her side, her left hand in his left, his right arm anchored snugly around her shoulders.

“Nick?” Crying had left her voice husky.

He bent his head to hear her, even as he kept them moving. “Lovey?”

“Th… thank you.” A shudder passed through her, and right in the middle of the walk, Nick stopped and wrapped both arms around her again, resting his chin on the top of her head. He held her tight. She clung to him too, until he felt her breathing calm and her tremors cease.

“I’m all right now,” Leah murmured against his sternum.

“I am not,” Nick said, but he resumed their promenade nonetheless and felt marginally better when they’d gained the busy streets and left the open spaces of the park behind them. As he escorted Leah the several blocks to his town house, his nerves did calm somewhat, coalescing into unshakable resolve.

She would marry him, and she would be safe in his care. There was no other acceptable outcome. None.

And threading through that resolve, in the aftermath of battle, was an incongruous arousal. Possessiveness played a part, as did animal excitement, but Nick’s reasoning mind could barely wrestle into submission the tightening in his groin, the heat under his skin, and the urge to lay Leah down and cover her body with his own.

When he’d closed the door of his home solidly behind them, Nick was in no condition for Leah to plaster herself against his chest, grab him by the back of the head, and drag his mouth down to hers.

“For the love of God, Nick,” she groaned against his mouth. “Please… just…”

He gathered her close, bent his body over hers, and fused his mouth to hers. She tightened the grip of her fingers in his hair, and Nick felt her breasts straining against his chest. Simmering lust exploded into the full-blown need to spend as Nick sent his tongue plunging into Leah’s mouth.

“Not here,” he muttered against her lips. “Not…” Then he realized what he’d just said. Not here, not anywhere, for the love of God. He groaned and gentled the kiss, though the shift in intensity took torturous seconds to register with Leah. When she drew back to rest her forehead on Nick’s chest, her breath was heaving in and out, and her hands were shaking again.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. His arms settled around her gently, and he angled his body slightly away from hers, so the evidence of his arousal wasn’t as apparent.

“I’m not,” Nick countered, rueful humor in those two words. “I believe we experienced the same impulse that sends soldiers pillaging through conquered cities after a battle.” He stroked his hand slowly over her hair, willing them both to calm, to find some peace and sanity. It was absolute hell to be so close to her, but it would be worse to let her go.

“If you will steady me,” Nick teased gently, “I think I could get as far as the family parlor.”

She nodded, keeping an arm around his waist even as his arm stayed across her shoulders. A startled footman met them outside the parlor, and Nick quietly ordered tea and a late lunch and asked that the running footman be sent to him, as well as a groom.

Nick dealt with the groom first, scribbling a note and directing him to make all haste to Willowbrook, the Marquis of Heathgate’s estate. As the groom decamped on his appointed task, another knock sounded on the door.

Nick sent the runner off to the fashionable address of investigator Benjamin Hazlit, and from there to the houses of Lady Della, Darius Lindsey, and Trenton Lindsey, specific messages memorized for each. The tea tray arrived shortly thereafter, followed by a cart laden with food, and all the while, Nick stayed seated at Leah’s hip.

“Drink, lamb,” Nick urged, putting a cup of tea in her hands and wrapping her cold fingers around it. “And blessed, benighted Jesus, we need ice for your jaw.” He rose and went to the door, bellowing for shaved ice, arnica, and a towel.

“You have ice?” Leah marveled, though to Nick it was a curiously mundane thing to focus on.

“It’s not yet May. Of course we have ice. I have Jennings’s warehouse deliver it. Drink your tea, to settle my nerves if nothing else.”

Leah sipped obediently, her expression disturbingly blank.

“Talk to me, lovey,” Nick said, putting all the reassurance he could into his voice. “Say anything. Tell me about your journey from Kent, what you had for breakfast, what you were doing in the park so much before the appointed hour.”

He reached over and stroked her back in slow, rhythmic circles. She might not have been aware of his touch for all she seemed to heed it, but touching her soothed Nick.

Leah cocked her head. “It wasn’t before the appointed hour. You sent a note telling me when to meet you there.”

“Did you see the note?” Nick asked, his hand going still between her shoulder blades.

“I did not. William told me a boy brought it to the kitchen door, though he thought it was from Darius. But you’re telling me you didn’t send it?”

“I did not,” Nick said, his hand moving over her back again. “Who knew you were going to the park, Leah?” His tone was curious and relaxed, but inside his skin, he felt the urge to bellow with rage. Leah’s disclosure eliminated any possibility the attack had been random mischief.

“Emily knew, Darius, and my lady’s maid, who reports directly to Wilton. Anybody those people talked to, you, whomever you told, and Lady Della. I’m always strolling there. It’s the only place where I can go and think in peace.”

“Drink your tea,” Nick said, downing his at one gulp. “I cannot like this, Leah. It implies somebody in your own household colluded to have you attacked. I don’t want to let you go back to Wilton’s household.”

Her father might be behind the attack, a notion that acquainted Nick with the sensation of his blood running cold.

“I don’t want to go back there.”

“Leah, tell me what you’re thinking.”

“Those men told me that where I was going I’d be taught respect, because the rough trade was always eager for haughty bitches like me, even if I was slightly used goods.”

Nick’s voice was much steadier than he felt. “I want to hold you, but I also want to treat the bruise on your jaw. I’m sure there’s ice and arnica waiting just outside the door, and you will bruise less and hurt less if we see to you now.”

“All right.”

“There’s my girl.” Nick gave her an approving nod—though she wasn’t his girl, wasn’t his anything, yet—and rose to fetch the ice. “If you’d sit on the table? You are lucky,” Nick said as he hunkered before her a moment later. He had the towel over his shoulder, the bowl of ice in his hand. “This could have easily laid you open.”

He blotted some cold water on a corner of the towel and dabbed carefully at her chin. “You’re going to be sore. The bruise is rising from here”—he grazed the point of her chin with his finger—“to here, and then back along your jaw to here.”

“Soft food,” Leah said. “Soups, fresh bread and butter, and willow-bark tea for the ache.”

“And ice,” Nick reminded her, gently applying the freezing towel to her jaw. He rose and stood beside her so she could lean against his hip while he held the ice against her face. “I am sorry,” Nick said. “So sorry, Leah.”

“You didn’t cause this.”

“We will find out who did. That’s a promise.”

A knock on the door interrupted his assurances but didn’t move Nick from his post. “Enter.”

Benjamin Hazlit walked in, taking in the scene with a frown. “I beg your pardon, Reston.” His dark gaze shifted to Leah. “Lady Leah, I presume?”