be flirting.” Nick patted her hand as he spoke. “I understand you met my grandmother.”
Leah frowned at the fingers he laid over her knuckles. “Your grandmother?”
“My late mother’s mother, Della, Lady Warne,” Nick said. “I am her only true grandson, though she dotes on the lot of us, including my younger half siblings.” She did not dote on Ethan—nobody did. “You can trust her in every regard.” And what a solid satisfaction it gave Nick to mean that.
“You cannot think to engage that dear, elderly lady in my father’s schemes, Lord Reston.”
“I cannot think to keep her out of them. How are you?”
He asked the question because Leah looked to him, if anything, pale and tired.
“Hellerington calls upon my father in several days,” she said, not exactly answering Nick’s question. “I cannot be sanguine about that.”
“I call upon Hellerington this afternoon,” Nick informed her, “and I will soon hold the bulk of his markers and will use them to your advantage.”
“You’re buying up his debts?” Leah paused to peer up at him. “Why?”
Nick resumed their progress rather than bear her scrutiny, tugging on her hand to encourage her to move with him. “It’s no great effort. He generally does pay his debts, if slowly, and I can afford it.” He decided not to tell her that with the aid of a discreet investigator, he was also buying up Wilton’s debts, not wanting to unnerve her further.
“I dislike that you would risk coin on me. I gather I cannot stop you.”
“You cannot.” Nothing could stop him—Nick had made up his mind on that. “When I assist you down to the water, I will slip another two sovereigns into your glove.”
“My father may be on to you,” Leah said as they left the path. Nick angled his body around hers, as if they were promenading, his right hand at her waist, his left gripping her left hand. On the damp grass, Leah’s foot slipped.
“Oh, well done,” Nick murmured near her ear. She was cast against him, momentarily leaning on his greater strength to get her footing. Nick slipped coins into her glove, even as he took a shameless whiff of her fragrance.
“Gads, you’re strong,” Leah said when he’d righted her.
“Very, and you need to explain yourself.” He stepped away, finding much to his surprise that he needed the distance. Her flowery scent had teased his nostrils, her lithe shape had felt too right against his chest, and her worry was stirring his protective urges.
Well, his urges, at any rate.
“The earl is aware we’ve met here twice,” Leah said, her voice carefully even. “I am to be pleasant to you at all times and keep him informed of further encounters.”
Nick glanced over at her, resenting the need to use his brain, resenting the way the muddy scent of the pond eclipsed the fragrance Leah wore. “Am I courting you or your sister?”
Leah tossed a handful of bread crumbs onto the surface of the water, provoking a honking, quacking stampede on the part of the waterfowl.
“If you court my sister,” Leah said when the ruckus died down, “the earl will reason you can offer for her now and save him the expense of her come out.”
Nick reached over and appropriated the bag of crumbs. “Leaving you at Hellerington’s mercy and enriching your father to the extent of your bride price. So I had best court you, hadn’t I?”
“I don’t want you to,” Leah said, her expression damnably serene. “You can’t keep up such a farce, and sooner or later, there will be another Hellerington, or worse.”
Nick tossed the bread much farther out over the water than Leah could have. “What would make you happy, Leah Lindsey?”
“Happy is not a useful concept,” she muttered in reply. “Happy would mean I did not dwell with the death of a decent young man on my conscience. Happy would mean my brothers were not saddened daily by my circumstances. Happy would mean I could be completely indifferent to those who still comment on the years I spent in Italy.”
Nick handed the remains of the bread crumbs back to her but let his hand cup hers briefly in the process. There was more misery and heartache here than he’d first surmised, and it bothered him.
“Your past is not happy,” he said, watching the ducks, “but your future can be more enjoyable. I like that little fellow on the end there, with the yellowish wings. He’s a scrapper.”
Leah smiled at the little duck, who was paddling furiously after his share