David cocked an eyebrow. “For years I’ve lamented your brooding inscrutability, and just now I could tell that you were chasing after her. I do not understand it.”
Neither do I. But Nicolas did not give a voice to those sentiments.
David offered him a cheroot, which he took. “Did you not just meet her? Or is there more to the story you are not telling me? Is she a past acquaintance?”
“She really is nothing to me. You are giving more thought to it than what is warranted. I feel regret for embarrassing a lady tonight, nothing more.”
David sighed. “I understand why you did it. Anyone at that table could see the hurt in her eyes. If you cared about her, you would not have put it there. The enemy, if they were watching, will think she is nothing to you. And she should be nothing to you.”
He regarded his friend with interest. “I give her no importance. I am curious to why you are doing so.”
“Then why are you searching the ballroom for her?”
“Do not presume to know my thoughts.” It shocked Nicolas to even think he could be obvious in his reactions. He had spent so many years mastering his emotions to be the finest actor the ton had ever seen.
“I am heading to White’s; do you accompany me? There are several wagers I want to take part in. Farringdon and Beswick will meet us there.”
He clapped David on the shoulder. “Another time. I have business to attend.”
And that business included the very “friends” David mentioned. Instead of calling for the carriage he traveled in, Nicolas made his way on foot until he spied a hackney, which he hailed. Hopping into the coach, he ordered the coachman to take him to the edge of Covent Gardens, where he would meet Rhys Tremayne, Viscount Montrose, the man the underworld knew as the Broker.
Montrose was a decent sort, even if he kept away from the underworld more often of late, since he married his young and very ravishing duchess. The man had been lucky in love, and Nicolas astonished himself a few times by feeling envy at the man’s state of contentment.
Hazel eyes, a really poor description for Lady Maryann’s lovely eyes of brown flecked with vibrant green swam in his thoughts. They didn’t glow with mischief and daring but with hurt. It confounded him that it mattered that he had wounded her. He should not care, since he made no allowance for anything outside of his current purpose. Nicolas had been extraordinarily selfish in his desire for vengeance. Even his father he had distanced himself from for a number of years until he had fallen ill. Only then had he returned to his side, hoping to mend the hurt of the past.
“She is nothing but a lightskirt, a thing for your amusement. What does it matter that a few gentlemen took their pleasure with her?”
He loathed that those words from his father, which had been a mild rebuke in a tone of amusement, had been interred in his memory. His father’s blithe dismal of the rage he felt for the atrocity visited upon Arianna always lingered under the hardened surface of his heart. When he’d discovered her death and what led to it, the person Nicolas went to had been his father. And the man he admired most in the world for his honor had dismissed the facts that she had been cruelly used.
His father’s honor only extended to those of similar ilk—aristocratic families. Miss Arianna Burges had been the daughter of servants. Insignificant. Even the magistrate had lost his interest in the case after he discovered her origins. The man had put on a show, but Nicolas had named those he suspected, and the man hadn’t the balls to question the sons of earls and dukes.
Nicolas had then met with those in Bow Street himself, demanding justice for her. There had been none to be had. No one was willing to ruffle the feathers of such powerful men and their families. Not even the law.
He’d had a terrible row with his father when Nicolas’s persistence had been discovered.
“Do you wish to humiliate and antagonize powerful men for that bit of a lightskirt?” his father had roared, angered enough to draw a rapier and point the tip against his son’s chest. “Do you wish to embroil some of the most prominent families in a scandal, compromise the reputation and personal liberties of their sons?