the valley scent connected with memories of their previous meeting and made the pretty day a shade closer to glorious.
“Whom was it my pleasure to nearly knock insensate?” Nick kept his smile in place, though it was arguably rude of him to ask when they hadn’t been introduced. Still, he could not abide to tip his hat and saunter away.
“Ladies Leah and Emily Lindsey,” the taller woman replied. She bobbed a curtsy, and her companion did likewise. Lady Leah gave not a hint of familiarity in her tone, gesture, or expression.
Not a hint of rejection, either.
“Might I impose my escort on you as far as the duck pond?” Nick offered. For good measure, he smiled disarmingly at the footman who hovered a dozen feet away, looking uneasy. “It’s a lovely day, and I would rather spend it in the presence of pulchritudinous ladies such as Mother Nature and yourselves than hurry to my destination.”
“You flatter prettily,” Lady Leah said, clearly more amused than impressed. “We will take pity on you.” She glanced over her shoulder at the footman. “John, Lord Reston will escort us to the pond.”
John nodded, apparently relieved that Lord Reston—all seventeen damned stone of him—presented no threat to his charges.
“I am on my way to see my grandmother,” Nick volunteered, winging an arm at each lady. “This puts me in line for a scolding, which is what grandmothers enjoy most with grandsons like me. I’ve been in Town almost ten days, you see, and I’ve yet to call on her. What shall I say was my excuse?”
“You could tell her you’re getting over a spring ague,” the blond said. Lady—Nick floundered for a moment mentally—Lady Emily. “It was nasty damp until last week.”
“That would serve, except she knows I’m seldom ill.”
“You could tell her you dreaded the scolding and waited for a suitably cheering day to make your bow,” the older sister said.
“The truth?” Nick affected a puzzled frown at Lady Leah. “With my grandmother? I will consider it as a novel approach. Do you ladies often come to feed the ducks?”
He kept up a pleasant, easygoing patter of nonsense talk, something he could do without thinking. As they chatted and strolled slowly toward the water, Nick studied his companions.
In the bright light of day, Leah Lindsey was revealed to be no longer in the first blush of youth, consistent with her disclosures the previous night. There was knowledge in her eyes, of things unpleasant and unavoidable. She carried herself with a well-concealed hint of caution, her grip on his arm cosmetic, unlike her sister’s.
The younger sister was innocent, Nick concluded. Probably not yet out, and happy to lark around in the park on a pretty day. This was the one for whom Leah was being sacrificed, and yet there was no enmity between the sisters. If anything, Leah was protective of her younger sibling.
Nick approved of that, though it wasn’t his place to make such a judgment.
Lady Emily held out a gloved hand. “I’ll take those bread crumbs now, John.”
“Shall we sit?” Nick suggested to the sister still loosely on his arm. Lady Emily became engrossed in feeding the ducks over by the water, John withdrew to a discreet distance, and Nick found himself relatively alone with the lady who’d kept him up half the night.
“Let’s take the bench,” Lady Leah said. “This is a day so lovely one wants simply to be still and drink it in, to save it up.”
“Such wistfulness,” Nick said as he lowered himself beside her. “Do you fear we’ll have no more such days?”
“The future is at best unpredictable,” Lady Leah said quietly. “For example, who could have predicted we’d cross paths twice in twenty-four hours?”
Pleasure—and relief—welled. “I wasn’t sure I was supposed to acknowledge that other, equally delightful meeting.”
“I hadn’t thought to ever see you again.” She was smiling as she said it, a soft, inwardly pleased curving of full lips.
Nick let himself bask in that smile and in the memory of those soft, delectable lips, until his blood began to stir in unmentionable places. “Everybody sees me. I am too big to sneak anywhere. What you hadn’t thought was to kiss me again.”
“My lord.” The frown was back in force. “We are in public.”
“Private enough.” Nick knew exactly where the footman stood, and the younger sister, and that the breeze put both upwind of this surprising conversation. “If the weather allows it tomorrow, may I meet you here again?”
“Whyever would you want to do that?” Leah’s voice was