Nicholas - By Grace Burrowes Page 0,114

put her dainty finger on his most dreaded fear and his most carefully treasured hope.

***

“So where are we off to?” Leah asked her oddly silent husband while they waited for their horses. He’d held her and cuddled her and rubbed her back and murmured all manner of sweet nothings, but the restlessness had been upon him again, and Leah had suggested they rise as the afternoon began to shift toward evening.

“We’re going to have a late tea with the neighbors,” Nick said, though his tone was evasive to Leah’s ears.

“Any particular neighbors?” Leah pressed as Nick gave her a leg up onto Casper.

“They dwell at Blossom Court,” Nick said, swinging onto Buttercup. They turned their horses down the drive, and for many minutes, Leah was silent as they cantered along.

“I’ve seen them,” Leah said as they approached the Blossom Court drive. “Two ladies, one quite a bit younger than the other.”

Nick kept his gaze on the lane before them. “Where have you seen them?”

“In their own garden, as I walked up among the trees on the hilltop. You were visiting with the blond.”

“It isn’t what you think, Leah, though that will hardly reassure you, I know.”

“You love her,” Leah said, unable to keep bewilderment from her tone, “or you at least care a great deal for her.”

“I love her. I love my horse, my sisters, and Della. It isn’t a love you need to fear, Leah—or I hope it won’t be.”

Now Leah was the one staring at the lane. “Can’t you just explain this situation in the King’s English?”

“If words were easy, I would have found the right ones weeks ago, Leah, maybe even years ago.”

Leah stopped interrogating him after that, not sure she’d be able to bear the answers he gave her.

A groom trotted out from the stables when they arrived to Blossom Court, and waited while Nick assisted Leah from her horse.

“Loosen the girths,” Nick said. “Put them up with some hay and water, but don’t take off the saddles. I don’t know how long we’ll be.”

“Aye, guv.” The man disappeared with the horses.

“We’ll probably find our hostess in the garden at this time of day,” Nick said. “The older woman is Mrs. Waverly and the younger I usually address simply as Leonie.”

And he wasn’t going to say more, so Leah didn’t press him. She did, however, note that for once, Nick had not taken her arm or her hand or in any way made an effort to touch her. It rattled her, as the closer they came to this introduction to the neighbors, the more quiet and distant Nick became.

On instinct, Leah slid her hand through his. Nick looked up, startled, but closed his fingers around hers.

“Mrs. Waverly,” Nick called as they passed through a rose arbor. “I believe you might be expecting us?”

“Indeed, my lord.” The woman rose from her bench, but the tall blond lady beside her rocketed across the garden with a shriek of glee.

“Nickie!” Oblivious to Leah’s presence, she flung her arms around Nick’s neck. “Oh, Nick! You came, you came. I am ever so glad to see you, and you brought your wife to see me too. Hullo.” She paused in her chatter and flung a curtsy at Leah. “I am Leonie, and you are Nick’s wife. Will you have tea with us?”

Leah stopped short as she surveyed the little table set up before the bench where Leonie had been sitting. There was a doll seated at the table, and a stuffed horse. Both were well worn, veterans of long years of service.

“Tea would be delightful,” Leah replied, studying Leonie carefully. Her age was hard to determine. She was quite tall and possessed of womanly curves, though her movements were coltish and her hair up in a simple knot, as if she were a young girl. Her complexion was lovely, also like a young girl, and her movements were somehow… unrestrained as she gamboled along on Nick’s other side.

“Nick has to sit on the bench,” Leonie explained to Leah. “He is quite, quite tall, like me, but taller. You may have the rocking chair because you are his wife, and I will sit on the little chair. Mrs. W. says I am getting too grown-up for the little chair, but I still fit, don’t I?” She turned huge blue eyes on Nick, and Leah was pained to see a wealth of tenderness in Nick’s gaze.

“You are getting quite grown-up, Leonie mine,” Nick said. “I think you might consider inviting another friend to

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