spare. “I could not be what Wilton wanted, and he has grown to hate me.”
“You think I’ll hate you?”
“No, Nicholas,” Leah said as grooms approached to take their horses. “I’m afraid I will learn to hate you.”
Nick said nothing to that, as resentment was something he’d anticipated from her. Resentment not for withholding sexual intimacy, but rather because he was rescuing her from her father. Damsels with backbone, wit, heart, and dreams did not like needing rescue from their distress.
Hatred was a significant remove from resentment though, and the thought gave Nicholas pause. Leah assumed he would not be faithful, and Nick wasn’t going to argue her conclusion, but with her—with this whole business of acquiring a wife—he was at sea, and in too great a hurry to have the uncertainty end and the marriage get under way.
They collected Lindsey’s agreement to escort the ladies back to Town two days hence, and Nick was soon riding around the curve in Lindsey’s lane with Leah perched on the sedate mare at his side.
Nick paused as a noise came to them from the direction of Lindsey’s stables.
“What is that?” Leah asked, patting her mare. “The horses heard it too.”
“Just a child,” Nick decided. “A happy child, based on the glee in that shriek.”
“You know a happy child when you hear one?”
“I do. Or I know if you can’t tell if it’s a happy shriek, then it is, because an unhappy shriek is utterly apparent, painfully so.”
“Hmm.”
Nick slanted her a curious smile. “What does that mean?”
“For a man averse to siring children,” Leah remarked pleasantly, “you are certainly discerning about them.” She nudged her mare into a relaxed canter, sparing Nick the effort of a reply.
Which was a good thing, because he hadn’t one.
Eight
“You could stop pacing a hole in Lady Nita’s carpets,” Ethan suggested amiably.
“I can’t help but feel I should have escorted the ladies back to London,” Nick grumbled. “If Wilton means Leah harm, there is a limit to the protection her brothers can offer her.”
“Wilton will not touch a hair on her head,” Ethan replied, “if he thinks she’s about to bring a baby earl up to scratch.”
“And a particularly brawny baby earl at that,” Val added from the piano bench. “Besides, we’re going back to Town tomorrow, so sit you down and stop distracting me.”
“Ethan?” Nick aimed a look at his brother. “You coming with us?”
“I am. Nita is ready to roll us up in a carpet and toss us to the tinkers.”
“Your business with the earl is satisfactorily concluded?” Neither Ethan nor the earl had said a word to Nick, suggesting Ethan had been afflicted with a case of the dithers too.
“It is not. If I make plans to leave, then I’ll see to it.”
“You’ve just made plans to leave.”
Ethan scowled at him. “Nicholas, you are being irksome. Do we conclude you’ve been on your good behavior too long?”
“Not funny, Ethan,” Nick growled, but then he offered a conciliatory smile. “Though perhaps accurate.”
“I’ve made friends with one of the upstairs maids,” Val put in helpfully.
“Tonia.” Nick smiled briefly. “But you are a guest, while I am nominally in charge here. I do not trifle with the help.”
“She is trifling with my helpless young self,” Val said, smiling beatifically. “It’s a novel experience, and I could grow to like it.”
“Time to get young Windham back to Town,” Ethan murmured. “And your randy self too, Nicholas. I’m off to see the earl, and if I don’t emerge whole within the hour, fetch the surgeon and the vicar, for one of us will need same.”
He sauntered off, his casual tone belying the serious nature of his errand.
Val watched as Nick resumed his perambulations about a parlor that was larger than most but felt no bigger than one of the loose boxes in the stable. “I didn’t set out to tumble your maid, Nick. Apologies, if that’s what troubles you, but she was rather… persistent.”
“Tonia was persisting her way into beds when I was just a sprout. Tumble all you like, and give her my regards.”
“I don’t suppose the occasion will arise, as it were.” Val shifted the mood of the piece he was concocting, from playful and light to sweet and soothing. “What troubles you, Nicholas?”
“I wish I knew.” Nick lowered himself beside Val on the piano bench. “What are you playing?”
Val shrugged. “Just notes. You may chime in, I’ll stay below high G.”
“Shameless.” Nick sipped at his drink. “Now you are attempting to trifle with me.”
“Dodging,” Val murmured, “prevaricating, weaseling…”