His Duty, Her Destiny. Juliet Landon

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СКАЧАТЬ up to hitch the vee of her bodice by a notch and to hold it there as the moon smiled knowingly back at her.

      As far as it went, the explanation would probably convince Lotti, though Nicola knew only too well how much more personal it was than that. It was to do with the prickly defence she had placed around that tender place deep inside, a place that Fergus Melrose had trampled over and must not be allowed to reach again. It was to do with their old immature relationship where he had been the one to call the tune and she had followed, blinded by the force of adoration.

      Yet now there was a new and more disturbing element that made it hard for her to dismiss him as she would like to do, as she would have done to any man guilty of such advantage-taking. Fergus Melrose would not be pushed aside as other young hopefuls had been, and she would have to fight him tooth and nail to maintain her ground and to show him that he could never be a part of her life. Whatever reason he’d had for changing places with his brother and making love to her, Nicola understood that he did not mean to play by the rules.

      Her night at her brother’s River House was anything but peaceful, despite the ministrations of her maids, the coolness of white linen sheets, the regular call of bells and the nightwatchman’s reassuring cry. From the first fierce invasion of his lips, she had been badly shaken, but the question that remained longer than all others was to do with his deceit. Would she have pushed herself away so soon if she had known it was Fergus instead of his fawning brother? ‘Damn you!’ she whispered to her pillow. ‘I’ll make you pay dearly for that.’

      ‘George, dearest?’ said Lady Charlotte to Lord Coldyngham that same night, slipping a bare arm through his.

      He clamped it to his side, possessively. ‘The answer’s no. I’m too exhausted.’ His grin was poorly concealed.

      ‘Stop teasing,’ she chided. ‘It’s not that.’ Even now, he was still able to send shivers down her legs. ‘It’s something else.’

      ‘So if it’s not that, it must be money. How much?’

      ‘George, stop it!’ Charlotte pulled at her arm, laughing when George held on to it. ‘Listen to me seriously. You’ve got to get Nicola and Fergus together somehow. Are you hearing me?’

      She had few clothes on; in the light of one candelabra, she glowed like a young girl, alluring and lissome. It was not likely that George was listening as he turned her in his arms and let his hands wander. ‘Well, that’s the general idea, my sweet, isn’t it?’ he murmured in her ear. ‘Come to bed. We’ll talk about it tomorrow.’

      ‘George, she’s getting too friendly with Jonathan Carey. She believes he’ll marry her if she encourages him to.’

      His hands stopped caressing. ‘Is that what she said? Carey doesn’t need any encouragement, from what I’ve heard.’

      ‘Yes, they’re close. It’s dangerous, love. She must marry Fergus. It’s the best way for her to be safe. You know how persistent men like Lord John can be. He’ll not be the only one, either.’ She would not have said as much to Nicola, but the problem was serious, for while it had been acceptable for her father to live alone at the Bishops-gate house whenever he needed to, it was not at all the same thing for Nicola to do so. Widowed, she could have got away with it, but Nicola had neither husband nor father nor family with her, and was therefore living outside a man’s rule. For her to entertain a stream of young men on the basis that she was merely exercising her independence was asking for trouble. An ungoverned and unprotected woman could very quickly be saddled with a reputation that would take some living down. Charlotte could not quite understand why Nicola didn’t seem to care.

      ‘Well, the trouble is, love,’ said George, ‘that my sister’s dislike goes so far back that Fergus is going to have a real battle on his hands now. They didn’t even look at each other this evening.’

      ‘She looked plenty at his brother, though. Was that to annoy Fergus, d’ye think?’

      ‘I’m sure of it. That’s been the least of her rude-nesses so far.’

      ‘Did you know she has a wound on her breast?’

      ‘A what?’ George frowned, turning her to face him.

      ‘I saw the top of it just below her chemise. She’s been fencing with the guards off again, I suppose. I do wish she wouldn’t. Can you not speak to her about it?’

      ‘Are you sure?’

      ‘Yes, positive. Why?’ George was used to keeping his thoughts to himself, but his wife knew him too well to be deceived. ‘You know something, don’t you? Tell me,’ she said.

      ‘There were two rapiers in the hall. I wondered what they were doing there at that time of the morning. Fergus picked them up and placed them against the wall. I thought that was a bit odd, too.’

      ‘God in heaven, George, what are you saying? That Fergus…and Nicola…?’

      ‘Fought. Before I got there. She’d not beat him at that. None of us could.’

      ‘Argh!’ Charlotte pulled herself out of George’s arms with a cry of despair and went to hold the carved post of the bed, leaning her fair head against the knotted curtains. ‘That puts him out of the running, then.’

      ‘Not at all,’ said George. ‘I know his ways.’

      ‘What?’ She turned angrily. ‘To wound a woman first before he…?’

      ‘Well, I don’t think he’s ever gone quite as far as that before, but he has his methods, and he’ll certainly make her pay attention to him, one way or another.’

      ‘George Coldyngham, you can be so crass when you try, can’t you?’ Charlotte snapped, trying to push past him to her side of the bed. ‘I’ve never heard anything so ridiculous, and if I were Nicola I’d—’

      She was caught up by George’s arms and thrown sideways on to the bed like a skittle with him on top of her, and the tussle that ensued was too short to be anything like equal. ‘But you’re not her, are you?’ George whispered, taking a handful of her moonbeam hair. ‘You’re the woman I’ve had my eye on all evening, and now I’ve got you here, all to myself, and I’m not sharing you a moment longer with anyone. Now, do you give yourself, or do I have to take you?’

      ‘Mm…m, a bit of both?’ she said, showing him her lovely white teeth.

      While Lotti and George saw Fergus as a solution to the problem of Nicola’s safety, Nicola herself saw things rather differently. Her brother and sister-in-law had not, after all, experienced what she had experienced of the man’s youthful callousness and now his grave discourtesy when he had taken advantage of her right under their noses. The memory of the kiss had kept her awake half the night as she alternately ascribed it to a kind of revenge, then to curiosity, then to a manly thing, then to some misguided idea that it might help to persuade her. None of them rang true.

      Convinced that she must be the one to hold the reins in this matter, she set to work as never before to put as much distance between them as it was possible to do in a place the size of London, a device not so very difficult with the help of friends and fair weather. The first day she spent at the Tower of London, where the Yorkist king Edward IV kept his menagerie of lions and an elephant, a camel and a black-and-white striped horse. She went hawking outside the city walls and returned home to discover that Sir Fergus Melrose had called and left her СКАЧАТЬ