Nicholas: Lord of Secrets

Sixteen

Leah took a dinner tray to the back gardens hours later, trying to make sense of her husband’s flight—but as the day had worn on, she’d concluded it made little sense to Nick himself.

As Leah’s thoughts continued to ramble, she noticed a groom on a lathered horse trotting up the drive. Others took the horse to walk it out, the groom slipped off, and Leah went back to her musings. Her mind was functioning on two levels, as she knew it would for some time. Part of her could rationally process information and plan the next day to write to her sister or to Nita, to map out a little ride around the neighborhood, to draft a note to send to the local vicar’s wife.

Another part of her mind wailed in silent, unceasing, passionate grief for the loss of her husband. That part of her was on its feet and heading for the library in search of an illicit tumbler of brandy when a footman approached in the waning evening light.

“Letter for you, your ladyship, from his lordship.” The footman offered a sealed epistle on a salver.

Leah’s heart leaped in concern first, but Nick would not be writing to her if he’d come to harm. She took the letter and, with a pounding heart, continued her progress toward the library.

Something had to be wrong for Nick to be communicating with her so soon after leaving her side. Something had to be terribly wrong.

Several minutes later, Leah stared at Nick’s missive, puzzled but a little cheered as well.

Dearest Lovey Wife,

Because you might need to contact me, please be informed I will breakfast with Hazlit tomorrow, then call on Lady Della. The solicitors have told me they will read Papa’s will at noon, and Beck and Ethan will be on hand for that as well. I expect we will dine at my club, after which I must closet myself with my man of business to make further inroads on the reams of correspondence that arrived while I was at Belle Maison. I am looking into a polyglot amanuensis, for your suggestion has increasing merit.

I hope this finds you well and apologize for the manner of my leave-taking earlier this day. There is no pleasant way to part from one’s dear spouse, regardless that the whole sorry business is my doing. Forgive me, though, as I am blundering close to another apology, which you’ve told me I must not do as long as I will not also explain.

I miss you, Wife, and require your assurances you need nothing from me but perhaps a little silence. Tell me how you go on, or I shall fret unbecomingly.

Nicholas,

Bellefonte

Nicholas had an odd way of going about an estrangement, but then, he was kind, and perhaps he was merely easing her into it, using the little courtesy of a note to reinforce his willingness to remain cordial.

The next evening, however, there was another late-night epistle, hurried out from Town on a lathered horse.

Lovey Mine,

You will be surprised to learn my papa left a contribution to your dower estate sizeable enough to make my untimely demise loom before you with some appeal. The details will be forwarded by the weasels swarming over the will, no doubt in language it will take an Oxford don to decipher. Della has threatened to disown me for our estrangement, and I cut my visit to her short lest she hurt herself boxing my ears.

Tomorrow I call upon the late lamented Frommer’s oldest brother, who had the great misfortune to have inherited the marquessate two years ago. Because I’ve recently inherited my own father’s title, he and I can perhaps commiserate. Hazlit claims the man acted as Aaron’s second, and from him, I am hoping to learn who seconded Wilton. Valentine has managed the domestics here in my absence, and while he sympathizes with my loss, he is playing rather a lot of finger exercises when I’m underfoot. He claims I try his patience, if you can imagine such a thing.

I slept badly last night, tired though I was. Perhaps you are faring better?

Yours,

Nicholas,

Bellefonte

When Leah also received an epistle on Wednesday night, she considered that maybe Nick was not going to be quite as successful at being estranged as he might have initially hoped.

Most Stubborn Lovey and Dear Wife,

You are demonstrating a hint of the anger at me to which you are entitled. Either that, or you have broken your hand, for I have no word from you to indicate you yet breathe. You will please provide same, post haste. Lady Della is no ally to me, as she is not speaking to the “henwitted, clodpated embarrassment of a grandson of whom she used to be so proud.” I am lucky I am still quick enough to keep my backside from her reach—mostly. I didn’t see the first hefty swat coming.

I was astonished to learn from Frommer the Eldest that Hellerington seconded your father. Somebody fired too early, but as our man was tossing his accounts into the bushes at the precise moment when bullets flew, only Hellerington can attest for a certainty to the identity of the bad sport—or murderer—who fired early. Bad business, my dear, and I am sorry, because either way, somebody close to you behaved poorly.

I am pining for want of you, of course, and doing an abysmal job of keeping my temper. Beck and Ethan are leaving tomorrow in disgust. I’ve drunk all the good liquor, and my staff is too piqued with me to set much of a table. My horse is not speaking to me either, and her conversation is a real loss.

Valentine has condemned me to prancing little Haydn sonatas until I, in his words, “Come to my feeble senses.” So you really must write to me, love, truly you must.

Your Nicholas,

Bellefonte

What to write in response to that blather cum love letter, cum letter from school? Leah pared the tip of a pen and stared at the foolscap before her. She stared for a full fifteen minutes before deciding that “Dear Nicholas,” would do as a place to start. To reach that brilliant conclusion, she’d discarded a list of possibilities… Dearest Nicholas, Nicholas, Spouse, Errant Spouse, Henwitted Clodpate, Bellefonte, Dearest Clodpate…

“There you are.” Ethan’s voice sounded from the doorway, and Leah looked up to find him and Beckman smiling at her tentatively, two men who looked a good deal like Nick without quite matching him for handsomeness, charm, or—she was angry with the man—clodpatedness either.

“Gentlemen.” Leah rose, her own smile tentative as well. They looked so like Nick and they’d just been with him and they were so dear to call on her and her eyes were stinging.

“Oh, ye gods.” Beckman stepped around Ethan and enveloped Leah in a hug. He wasn’t as large as his oldest brother, but he was big enough and had the same muscular, masculine feel to his embrace, and he knew enough to carry a handkerchief into battle.

Though his scent was all wrong. Bergamot, like a cup of doctored tea.

“Now we’ve done it,” Ethan muttered, closing the door. “Nick won’t like this one bit, making his countess cry.”

“As if,” Beck said over the top of Leah’s head, “himself didn’t see to that first. She’s entitled to cry, after all, if not for lack of Nick, then for his lack of sense.”

Ethan nattered on in agreement, probably to give Leah time to compose herself. “Shall I ring for tea?” Leah suggested as she stepped out of Beck’s arms. “Or a late luncheon, perhaps?”

“Both,” Ethan said. “Beck wants to push south before nightfall, and I must hie back to London. Some sustenance and company would be appreciated. Now that Beckman has surrendered his white flag, how fare you?”

“Miserably,” Leah said, sensing honesty was the norm among Nick’s family. “I miss him, I don’t know why he does what he does, and though I am hurt and angry, I still worry that he is…”

“He’s what?”

“He’s doing what he must,” Leah said. “He can’t see another option. But tell me, did Nick put you up to this spying?”