Page 75 of Fortune Favors the Viscount
They ate a large picnic dinner on a blanket spread on the overgrown lawn, under a cloudless twilight sky. When the girls began to yawn, Emilia ushered them inside for bed while Nick, James, and his other men walked circuits around the house. Mr. Stone had kept the stables in good order, so there was a place to put the horses and quarters for the coachmen, groom, and Jock and Rudy, who were part of Nick’s security team at the Vega Club. James would sleep in the house with the rest of them. Nick had seen with his own eyes how isolated Beaufort Hall was, and he didn’t begrudge his men a decent bed for the night.
They returned to the drawing room to find Charlotte and Lucinda tucked into their camp beds with a pair of lanterns between them. Charlotte was reading aloud, and Lucinda was listening, snuggled into her blankets with her eyes closed but a faint smile on her face. James gave Nick a nod, settled by the door with his own lantern, and took out his penknife and a piece of wood half-carved into a woman’s bangle. Nick smiled to think what Fanny from the Vega kitchen would say when James put it on her arm.
That, more than anything, told him he was growing a heart.
He was standing outside on the cracked and weedy terrace, surveying what had once been a formal garden before it went wild, when Emilia stepped up beside him. Her hair was damp; she must have been washing up after the girls. He closed his eyes and inhaled. She smelled fresh and honeysuckle sweet.
“You were right,” she murmured. “Lucy’s not frightened. I believe having Charlotte here has helped enormously.”
He made a low noise of agreement in his throat.
“When Lucy had a nightmare, Charlotte was very understanding and comforting to her,” Emilia went on. “She said she knew what it was like, to have nightmares.”
Nick said nothing. Even his heartbeat seemed to have quieted.
“I’ve long wondered...” Her voice trailed off and she fell silent.
“What?” he asked after a long pause. “What have you wondered?”
Despite his efforts not to, it came out cool and clipped. The question rattled a door that he had long ago closed, locked, and boarded up in his memory. He knew what she wondered, and he felt the instinctive response rising in his throat:No. It’s not your place. Mind your business and stay out of mine.
But she didn’t say it. Instead she rested her cheek against his shoulder for a moment. “Nothing.” She moved away, trailing her fingers along the balustrade. “What a beautiful night.”
Nick followed as she went down the steps, hopping over the one that had cracked in half under the eruption of some prickly plant. He followed her lazy stroll across the grass to the picnic blanket, still spread on the west-facing lawn. She bent down to pick it up, and he stepped forward and caught her hand.
“Sit with me,” he said. The sky was a deepening dark blue, beginning to glint with emerging stars. It was still warm from the day, and so outrageously quiet and peaceful—nothing at all like London would be at this time. Even the air was softer, sweeter.
Emilia glanced at him, then nodded. Nick sat down and stretched out his legs, propping himself up on his arms. She tucked her skirt beneath her and sank down, near but not near enough. She gave a startled exclamation when Nick swept an arm around her waist and hauled her right to his side.
“That’s better,” he murmured, nuzzling her temple.
“Yes,” she answered breathlessly, “but Charlotte or Lucy—”
“They’re on the other side of the house, half asleep,” he returned, inhaling the scent of honeysuckle soap as he pulled the pins from her hair. “James will raise a racket if one of them tries to come out.”
Even in the dark he could see her blush. “Oh—Does he—?”
Nick pulled back to look at her. “Did I tell James to keep them away so I could make love to you without being disturbed? Absolutely not.”
She gave a gasping laugh. “I never thought that!”
He caught her hand and kissed her palm. “James knows I don’t like to be crept up on. And he knows both girls are supposed to go to sleep, so if either of them wants to come out, it will be for an urgent reason, and he will call out to find me as quickly as possible. Even if he stood outside the door, he wouldn’t spot us from there.” He ran his fingertips down her throat, over the bodice of her green dress, growling in satisfaction when she shivered as his thumb went over her nipple. “We’re almost invisible,” he added softly. “On this dark blanket, in this dark field. We might as well be marooned on a tiny island far at sea, just the two of us.”
She made a breathy sound of longing, and he kissed her. Never before had he adored simply kissing a woman. A kiss had been a prelude, a signal of intent of other activities, like hoisting a flag as a signal before commencing the main action. He had put his mouth to other uses, with other lovers, but he found that kissing Emilia was more pleasurable than he’d ever guessed. She tasted like the treacle tart they’d had for dessert, and he felt dizzy, as if their blanket had begun to spin about as she turned into his arms and wound her fingers into his hair.
The soft crack of a stick breaking made him raise his head, swiftly scanning the horizon. A shape stepped forward from the brush, creeping from the stable block. A deer, he thought in relief; a doe with fawns, judging by the two smaller shapes who followed.
Nick nudged Emilia, who turned her head and sighed with pleasure at the sight. “They can be terrible pests,” she whispered, barely audibly, “eating the shrubbery and the garden. Grandpapa would rage about them. But they’re so lovely.”
He folded his arm around her. The interruption was both calming and frustrating; he watched the deer pick their way through the growing darkness until they melted into the shadows of a hedge.
He was still reluctant to do what needed doing, but Emilia had trusted him with her secrets. He wanted to be worthy of that trust. He wanted to show her it didn’t flow in only one direction. He did trust her, and he wanted... He wanted...
There was the rub. He wanted, but he hadn’t earned.
Everyone pays for his sins sooner or later,whispered Heloise’s wispy voice in his memory.
If she really was the heiress Nick suspected her to be... If he wanted this new relationship to continue... If he wanted even more, for it grow into something he hardly dared think of... It would take extraordinary measures on his part. He’d had two days to think about it, and that had become clear to him.
