The Matter of a Marquess - Jess Michaels Page 0,53
all the vital information before you do that.”
He patted Nicholas’s shoulder before he got up turned toward the house, calling back, “I know you ate, but the rest are gathering in the breakfast room if you want to make an appearance. Or take a little time to yourself. There is no pressure from me either way.”
Nicholas didn’t respond, but watched Robert disappear into the house. His words resonated in Nicholas’s brain. Get all the vital information.
It was good advice. Something he’d known he needed to do from the first moment he saw Aurora step from the carriage days before. Last night he’d known it too. They had to face the past together. And that was difficult and frightening because he knew that shared past could destroy whatever it was they were rebuilding at present.
But he had to do it. He had to face it. He had to face her and determine what the next step to take was in all this.
He got to his feet, taking his time and stretching out his leg since there was no longer an audience beyond the dog at his feet. Fortescue sat up at attention as he did it, watching him as intently as his siblings had.
“Don’t you start,” he muttered as he caught his cane and flicked his hand toward the house. “Go get your own breakfast.”
The dog’s ears perked up with that, and when they entered the house, Fortescue padded off toward the kitchen where he’d been given his meals each day. As for Nicholas, he pushed his shoulders back and walked down the hallway toward the breakfast room where he heard laughter and talk from the guests.
He turned into the room and stopped. Aurora was standing by the sideboard, a plate in hand, laughing with Morgan as she loaded eggs onto her plate. She looked so very lovely. So happy and so free. So much like the girl he had loved and lost. And so much like the woman who had bewitched him all over again.
It was true they needed to deal with the past. But in this moment, he only wanted to focus on the present. The rest would come, and he wanted to enjoy her while he had her.
Chapter 13
Aurora stood at the sideboard with Nicholas’s brother and sister-in-law, Morgan and Lizzie Banfield. They had been the first in the breakfast room that morning, though the others had begun to trickle in one by one, smiling and saying their good mornings.
Still, she stayed with the couple, enjoying their easy banter. Two more different people she could not have designed in her mind. Lizzie was soft and gentle, a little timid and quiet, while Morgan was boisterous and playful, the perfect depiction of a reformed rake who still knew how to turn a situation to his own advantage.
And yet, despite how different their personalities were, they matched like one piece of a puzzle to its mate. He drew Lizzie from her shell. She calmed Morgan with just a look or slight graze of her hand. They did it effortlessly, almost as if it took no thought to balance the other. Dark and light, always together, always in perfect harmony.
Aurora knew Lizzie was the sister of the Duke of Brighthollow and, of course, Morgan was one of the previous Duke of Roseford’s wayward bastards. So the pair were from different worlds entirely.
Rather like her and Nicholas, in truth. That had always caused friction between them when their love was just blossoming. She’d known her father too well not to fear his reaction and wanted to run away together. Nicholas had insisted on approaching her father like a gentleman.
Only he hadn’t. He’d just left.
So it seemed he had decided, without input from her, that their worlds couldn’t mesh like Lizzie and Morgan’s. Did he feel the same way now? Now that she was the one down on her luck and he about to take a title? Certainly tying his star to hers would not make it easier on him.
“Are you still with us, Lady Lovell?” Morgan asked, but his tone was playful.
She shook her head. “I am, Mr. Banfield, forgive me. I was just thinking of the past, I suppose.”
Lizzie sent a brief side glance to her husband and then smiled. “You and Nicholas knew each other as children, I have heard. I wonder what he was like as a boy.”
“Yes, was he so very serious and good?” Morgan asked. “Or do you have wicked tales I could hold over his head?”