Page 75 of A Duke Changes Everything
Mina quite liked that thought. “Stop it,” she told Colin. “Your enthusiasm is infectious.”
“Good, better that than your nervousness.” He smiled over at her. “Enjoy yourself, cousin. You’re a clever girl in a pretty dress in a city filled with possibility. We should make the most of this visit.”
Colin grabbed two glasses of wine from a passing footman and offered her one for a toast. Glass in midair, Mina froze when a new group of guests entered the room. Behind Mr. Iverson and a tall golden-haired man stood the one person she’d wished to see from the moment she’d opened her eyes this morning.
Nick.
“The Marquess of Huntley and the Duke of Tremayne,” Iverson announced to the assembled guests.
Nick’s gaze zeroed in on her, and for a moment Mina forgot to breathe. Forgot Colin and the wineglass she held.
He started toward her and she gulped down a sip of wine before handing the glass to Colin.
“Breathe,” Colin reminded her. “You’re turning as red as your dress.”
“Fairchild,” Nick said when he reached them, though his gaze never left Mina’s.
“Your Grace,” Colin said jovially, “what a merry coincidence to come all this way and find you here.”
“Yes, especially since Mrs. Scribb assured me you’d both be returning to Sussex by nightfall.”
“Mr. Iverson invited us to stay,” Mina said, feeling a desperate need to explain that she hadn’t put herself here so that he might find her. “I would have told you we were departing, but you weren’t in your study this morning.”
“I returned to tell you of all I’d promised the villagers, but you weren’t in your office.”
Mina wondered if he’d felt as lost as she had when she’d found his study empty. “I didn’t think you’d mind if I took a day away.”
Nick said nothing, but he kept his gaze fixed on her. He stared at her hungrily, as if it had been weeks rather than hours since they’d last seen each other.
“Pardon me,” Colin said before starting away. “I must introduce myself to Professor Babbage.”
Mina’s mind spun with what she wished to say to Nick, but all of it remained bottled up inside.
“Red becomes you,” he said, his voice rough and low enough that others wouldn’t hear.
“It’s not too—”
“It’s perfect.” He swallowed hard as he swept his gaze down her body, but he also frowned. “Why are you here?”
“Colin’s thresher.”
The furrows of his frown deepened. “Pardon?”
“His thresher. The idea he wished to present to you. You mentioned that Mr. Iverson might be interested in investing, so we came to discover whether he would.”
“On a whim? Without a proper introduction or even the knowledge that he’d be at home?” His voice turned irritated, a gruff pitch she was coming to know well. “If Fairchild had brought a proper proposal to me, I might have been willing to invest.”
Unfortunately, his ire always sparked her rebellious spirit. “I thought you were only interested in earning a profit. Besides, you weren’t there to consult.”
He snatched a drink from the same footman who’d passed a moment before, swigging the liquor down in one swallow. “Somehow, I don’t think you would have asked my permission.”
“Why are you here?” Mina didn’t mind the coincidence of finding him at Iverson’s, but was it a coincidence? Or had he come to find her?
“I had business with Iverson and a member of the club.”
“Something troubling?” Perhaps she wasn’t the reason after all, and yet his expression brought back a memory. A moment in the moonlight, when she’d watched him burn his father’s portrait. “You have the same look in your eyes as the night you arrived at Enderley.”
“What look?”
