The Matter of a Marquess - Jess Michaels Page 0,29

Others in their company had been braggarts about lovers, but Nicholas had never been one to share his exploits or bring bawdy talk to the table.

“You mean bed her to forget her,” Derrick said softly. “Purge the want with action.”

Nicholas shrugged. “Crude, I know. But it’s all that goes through my head when I see her.”

Derrick paced the room a moment before he faced him. “That is…it’s a dangerous path, my friend. How many men have claimed this was how they’d forget a woman only to fall deeper in love?”

“Perhaps she wouldn’t even have me,” Nicholas said. “I have no idea if she feels the same way.”

But was that true? After all, he’d thought he’d seen the flicker of desire in her stare that morning when they’d nearly kissed. But then again, he’d never been very good at seeing the truth of her. He’d believed the surface and never been able to scratch it.

Derrick shook his head. “You could have her, I’m certain. I saw the way she looked at you last night. She obviously wants the same thing you’re talking about.”

Nicholas’s stomach clenched. That others could see Aurora’s desire for him should have made him feel better. More certain. And yet it didn’t. Because the fact that she wanted him made everything that boiled inside of him all the more powerful. After a lifetime spent reining in control over himself so he would never feel like he had when she walked out…he was instantly and powerfully back to the same spot.

Aching for her. Fearing for the future. Uncertain with what to do with all this.

“Fuck,” Nicholas muttered. “What am I doing? What the hell am I thinking?”

Derrick crossed the room to him and rested a hand on his upper arm. “Think of this as an opportunity.”

“An opportunity to be ripped to shreds all over again?” Nicholas said with a snort of derisive laughter. “Oh good.”

“No.” Derrick rolled his eyes. “You have unfinished business with this woman, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

“And this is an opportunity to conclude it.” Derrick squeezed his arm before he released him. “If you don’t manage it here and now, you’ll have regrets. So do whatever is right for you. Whether it is face the past or…or the other option.”

Nicholas bent his head and sighed, because he knew his friend was right. He also had no idea which option he would pick when it came to how he dealt with Aurora. “I’ll think about it.”

“Good.” Derrick sank back into the settee. “Did your dog really submit to her?”

Nicholas laughed, this time something real as he swept up his abandoned drink and took a place on a chair across from his friend. “Like a spring pup. The woman is practicing witchcraft.”

They laughed together and the subject changed, but even as Nicholas relaxed into casual conversation with Derrick, his mind whirled on what to do. Because the next time he found himself alone with Aurora, he had to have an answer to that question.

Chapter 8

Aurora sat in the window seat of the blue parlor, a cup of tea in her hand, overlooking the garden below. She was pretending to take in the green lushness of the summer garden. Pretending to enjoy the loveliness. Except that wasn’t what had her attention.

Standing amidst all that beauty was Nicholas. He was with his brothers and Selina’s husband, Mr. Huntington, as well as the Duke of Northfield. Fortescue sat at full attention at his side, the dog’s amber eyes flitting from one man to another with caution. From time to time, Nicholas would drop his hand and stroke the dog’s head gently.

The group was standing close, talking and occasionally laughing. She could almost hear Nicholas’s laugh. That rich, deep resonance that tugged at her heart and regions far lower.

It was nice to see him so at ease with the men. She’d been observing him for two days, since their encounter on her walk. He’d avoided her ever since. She hadn’t bumped into him alone, nor had more than a polite greeting with him since.

But when she watched, she saw how complicated his relationship with his family was. She saw how much he wanted Northfield to like him. She saw him straddling the world he’d grown up in and the world he was so intent on inhabiting in the future, and the tension between the two was palpable.

Down below, he tensed a fraction and looked up toward the window where she sat. She started and leaned away, hoping he wouldn’t see her spying on him.