Leah looked at him curiously. “And for yourself? What do you want for yourself, Nicholas?”
“Honor would be nice,” Nick said, staring at their joined hands, “but not likely possible. Peace, perhaps. Mostly, I want the happiness of those I love.”
His tacit admission hung in the air between them a moment longer, then he rose to take her in his arms when Leah said nothing in reply.
“I am intent on my course, though I regret deeply its consequences to you,” Nick said by way of one thousand and eighteenth apology.
“Perhaps time will create greater understanding for us,” Leah offered, and in her words, she intended that he hear both acceptance and hope.
“Walk me to my horse?”
“Of course.” Leah slipped her hand into his and tugged him in the direction of the stables when he seemed content to remain rooted in the fragrant, flowery garden where the summer blooms were making a good effort. As they walked past a bed of forget-me-nots, Nick fished for a handkerchief and silently passed it to her.
Dratted man. Dear, dear, dratted man.
His mare was waiting, saddled and patient at the mounting block, a groom at her head. Nick turned again to Leah and drew her against him.
“If you need anything,” he said against her hair, “if you sense any danger or anything amiss…”
“I promise,” Leah said around the painful ache in her throat. I need you, I need you, I need you. “And you—you must let me know how you go on from time to time.”
“Always,” Nick murmured then stepped away. He seized her in his arms again though, thoroughly kissing her despite the waiting groom and the myriad eyes no doubt peering out from the manor and stables. “Always,” Nick repeated as he let her go. He swung up, and without turning to face Leah again, touched his crop to his forehead and sent his horse cantering down the drive.
While Leah subsided unceremoniously onto the mounting block, her eyes trained on his retreating figure, his sandalwood-scented handkerchief pressed to her nose. When he reached the foot of the drive, Nick turned the horse not left, toward London, but right, toward the estate where the blond young lady no doubt awaited his visit. In the mare’s retreating hoofbeats, Leah heard the sound of her marriage and her heart shattering into a thousand miserable pieces.
***
Nick had left Clover Down intent only on ending the misery of parting for Leah. On the short journey to Darius’s estate, he assured himself he’d done the only thing he could under the circumstances, and Leah would be much, much happier without her sorry excuse for a husband lurking about, lusting for her, and resenting—for the first time in his life—the burden of desiring a lovely woman.
When he reached the Lindsey holding, he was in a foul, unconvinced mood, ready to frighten small animals and intimidate the hell out of anybody who crossed him. Darius himself met him at the door, the creaky butler nowhere in evidence.
Nick nodded curtly, scowling down at Leah’s brother. “Lindsey.”
“Reston.” Darius stepped back. “Or it’s Bellefonte now. My profound condolences. Can I offer you a drink?”
“You may.” Nick stepped over the threshold and saw there was no footman at attention in the front foyer. “Was that Lady Cowell’s carriage I passed on your driveway?”
“Yes.” Darius ran a hand through his hair. “I was not nor will I ever be again home to her here, but if you’re going to lecture me about the company I keep, why aren’t you keeping company with my sister?”
Well, damn. Lindsey had obviously eyed the saddlebags on Nick’s mare as she’d been led away, and realized this was not strictly a social call.
“That drink?” Nick arched an eyebrow, unwilling to confess his sins in the foyer. And come to that, Lindsey looked like he could use a drink too. “Though I don’t promise you won’t get a lecture as well,” Nick went on as Darius led the way through the house. “What can you possibly see in that woman?”
“My bloody miserable fate,” Darius said. “Brandy or whiskey?”
“Whiskey.” Nick decided on the libation that suited his harsh, volatile mood. “I’ve left your sister.”
Darius went still in the act of removing a glass stopper from a decanter, but then carefully set the stopper down on the sideboard. “Did she send you away?”
“She did not, and she has not in any way displeased me, nor does she deserve the talk that will undoubtedly ensue in time.”