He picked up the cards he’d dealt for himself and winced at the pain in his rib.
“Bad hand, eh?” chuckled the Duke of Stanhope, mistaking the reason for Nicki’s grimace.
In the erroneous belief the question had been directed to him, Stephen glanced at his swollen knuckles and flexed his hand. “Not too bad.” He turned as a servant approached the table with two glasses of excellent brandy, and he took them both, keeping one for himself and passing the other to DuVille. “With my compliments,” he said blandly, pausing for an inquiring glance at one of the youths, who’d overturned his wine as he reached for it.
“Can’t hold his drink,” Nicki explained, following the direction of Stephen’s gaze.
Stephen crossed his feet at the ankles and glanced in disapproval at the red-faced, glassy-eyed youth. “You would think,” he said, “that someone would have taught them how to conduct themselves before turning them loose on the rest of society.”
“My thoughts exactly,” Nicki agreed.
59
The Skeffingtons had given up their rented house in town and repaired to the village of Blintonfield. As a result, it took Nicki three more hours than he’d anticipated to reach Sheridan and put into effect the romantic plan that Langford felt was the best—and only—way to bring her to him as well as convince her his intentions were honorable.
The fact that Nicki was now Stephen Westmoreland’s emissary instead of his adversary did not strike Nicki as odd in the least. For one thing, he was merely doing his best to repair a relationship he had inadvertently helped to damage. For another, he was thoroughly enjoying his role, which was to persuade Sheridan to resign her position with the Skeffingtons and accompany him at once to an interview for a “new position” at an estate several hours away.
To that end, he had brought with him two impeccably qualified governesses to take her place.
Since Lady Skeffington had taken her daughter to Devon, where she had heard the future Duke of Norringham spent his bachelor days during July, Nicki had only to convince Sir John to accept two governesses in place of one—an easy feat since Stephen Westmoreland would be secretly paying more than half their wages for the first year.
Having accomplished all that, Nicki was now attempting to persuade Sheridan of the logic—and the need—to pack her clothes at once and accompany him to meet an unknown nobleman who had a “better position” to offer her. In keeping with that end, he was providing her with as much of the truth as he could tell her and improvising when the occasion—or his sense of humor—required it.
“Viscount Hargrove is a bit temperamental, even disagreeable, at times,” he told her, “but he dotes on his nephew, who is also his heir at the moment, and wants only the best for him.”
“I see,” Sheridan said, wondering just how temperamental and disagreeable the viscount was.
“The wages are excellent—to compensate for the viscount’s personal shortcomings.”
“How excellent?”
The figure he named made Sherry’s lips part in a silent O of stunned delight.
“There are also other benefits that go with the position.”
“What sort of benefits?”
“A large suite of your own, a maid to attend you, a horse of your own . . .”
Her eyes were widening with each word. “Is there more?” she asked when he let the sentence hang. “How could there be?”
“As a matter of fact, there is more. One of the most appealing benefits of this position is what I would call . . . tenure.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“I mean that if you accept the position, it will be yours—along with all its benefits—for as long as you live.”
“I wasn’t planning to stay in England above a few months.”
“A small complication, but perhaps you can persuade the viscount to give it to you anyway.”
Sheridan hesitated, trying to get a clearer picture of the man. “Is he an elderly gentleman?”
“Comparatively speaking,” Nicki confirmed, thinking with amusement that Langford was a year older than himself.
“Has he had other governesses in the past?”
Nicki choked back several highly amusing, but inappropriate, answers as to the likelihood of that and gave her the answer she’d expect, “Yes.”
“Why did they leave him?”
Another set of diverting speculations occurred to him, and he uttered one of them. “Perhaps because they expected tenure and he didn’t offer it?” he suggested smoothly, then to prevent more questions, he said, “As I said a moment ago, this is a matter of some urgency to the viscount. If you are interested in the position, then pack your things, and we will be on our way. I promised to bring you to him at two o’clock today, and we are already going to be three hours late.”
Unable to trust in the first good fortune that had befallen her since coming to England, Sheridan hesitated and then stood up. “I don’t understand why he’s interested in employing someone like me when he could surely have his choice of better-qualified English governesses.”
“He’s set on having an American,” Nicki said with amused certainty.
“Very well, I’ll meet with him, and if we are at all compatible, I’ll remain with him.”
“That is what he is hoping for,” Nicki said. As she turned to go upstairs and pack, he added, “I have brought you a better gown to wear, one that does not look so—” He looked for some fault with her perfectly neat but drab dark gown. “—so somber,” he finished. “Viscount Hargrove dislikes somber things around him.”
60
“Is something wrong, chérie?” he asked as the sun began its lazy descent.
Pulling her gaze from the verdant countryside passing by the coach’s window, Sherry shook her head. “I am only—anticipating the change—a new position, wonderful wages, a large room of my own, and horses to ride. It seems almost too good to be true.”
“Then why do you look so inexpressibly solemn?”
“I don’t feel right about leaving the Skeffingtons so suddenly,” Sherry admitted.
“They have two governesses now, instead of one. Skeffington was so excited, he’d have helped you pack your valise.”
“If you’d met their daughter, you’d understand why. I left her a note, but I hated not to say good-bye to her. In fact, I hated to leave her to them at all. In any case,” Sherry added, shaking off her unease and smiling, “I am exceedingly grateful to you for everything you’ve done.”
“I hope you will still feel as you do in a little while,” Nicki replied with a touch of irony. He took out his watch and frowned at the time. “We are very late. He may have decided we aren’t coming, after all.”
“Why would he think that?”
He took a moment longer to answer than should have been necessary, but Sherry dismissed that as soon as he said, “I could not guarantee the viscount that I could lure you away from your present position.”
She burst out laughing. “Who in their right mind would pass up such an offer as his?” Another possibility occurred to her, and she sobered abruptly. “You aren’t trying to tell me that he might have given the position to someone else by the time we arrive?”
For some reason, that question seemed to amuse him as he shifted position, turning so that his back was propped against the side window and one long leg was draped over the seat beside him. He caught her worried look and said with complete assurance, “I feel certain the position will still be yours. If you want it.”
“It’s such a beautiful day—” Sherry began half an hour later. She broke off and grabbed for leverage as the horses slowed suddenly and the coach began to sway hard on its frame. Then, with a loud bump, it turned sharply to the left, off the main road. “We must be getting near his home,” she said, straightening the wide, tight cuffs and full sleeves of the lovely pale blue embroidered gown Nicki had brought her, then she reached up to make certain her hair was securely anchored in its neat coil.
/> Nicki leaned forward and looked out at the ancient stone buildings at the side of the overgrown, narrow lane, then he smiled with satisfaction. “The viscount’s country seat is still some distance from here; however; he was going to be here at this hour, and he felt this was the most suitable place for you both to discuss the position he wishes to offer.”
Curious, Sheridan leaned sideways and looked out the window, her delicate brows drawing together in confused surprise. “Is this a church?”
“As I understand, this is a chapel that was once part of a Scottish priory during the sixteenth century. It was later dismantled with permission and brought here. It has great significance in the viscount’s ancestral history.”
“What sort of significance could a chapel have in a family’s history?” Sherry inquired, baffled.
“I believe the viscount’s earliest known ancestor forced a friar to marry him to his unwilling bride within the chapel’s walls.” When she shivered, Nicki added dryly, “Now that I think about it, it seems to be something of a family custom.”
“It sounds Gothic and—and not amusing or appealing in the least! I see two other coaches around the other side, but no one is in them. What sort of service could he be attending at this hour and in such an out-of-the-way place as this?”
“A private one. Very private,” Nicki said, then he changed the subject. “Let me see how you look.”
She faced him, and he frowned. “Your hair seems to be sliding free of your tidy coil.” Puzzled because her hair had felt secure, Sherry reached up, but he was too quick.
“Here, let me. You have no looking glass.”
Before she could protest or warn him, he’d pulled on the long pins instead of pushing them in and twisting, and the whole mass came tumbling down around her shoulders in hopeless disarray. “Oh, no!” she cried.
“Do you have a brush?”
“Yes, of course, but, oh, I wish you hadn’t—”
“Do not fret. You will feel better able to voice your objections if you know you look more—festive,” he lied lamely.
“What possible objections could I have to his offer?”
Nicki waited for the coachman to let down the steps, then he climbed out and offered her his hand, before he replied vaguely, “Oh, I think you may have an objection or two. At first.”
“Is there something you haven’t told me?” Sherry said, pulling back a little, then stepping aside in surprise as the coachman abruptly moved the horses forward. The breeze caught her skirt, blowing it gently and teasing her hair as they walked side by side. From the corner of her eye, Sherry searched the side yard of the picturesque little chapel for some sign of the sort of man who would have to pay a fortune to keep a governess.
She thought she saw something move off to the left, and her hand went to her heart at the same time Nicki looked sharply at her. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. I thought I saw someone.”
“It was probably him. He said he would be waiting for you over there.”
“Over there? What is he doing out here?”
“Meditating, I imagine,” Nicky said succinctly, “on his sins. Now, run along and listen to what he has to say. And, chérie?”
She turned to step across the rutted lane and stopped. “Yes?” she said over her shoulder.
“If you truly do not wish to accept the position he offers, you will leave here with me. Do not feel obliged to remain if you wish to leave. You will receive other offers, though not perhaps as—diverting in some ways—as this one would turn out to be. Remember that,” he said firmly. “If you truly wish to decline, you may leave here with me under my protection.”
Sherry nodded and turned back, picking her way across the road, avoiding getting her slippers dusty, then she walked up to the little white fence and pushed it open, blinking to adjust to the dimmer light of the grove. Ahead of her, a man was in the shadow of a tree, his arms crossed over his chest, feet braced slightly apart, gloves clutched in one hand, idly tapping his hip. Only dimly aware there was something familiar about that stance, she continued forward, her heart beginning to hammer in nervous anticipation and a little dread of the coming interview.
She took three steps forward. So did he. Sherry stopped cold at the sound of his solemn voice. “I was afraid you weren’t coming.”
For a split second, her feet felt rooted in the ground—then she whirled and ran, rage and shock propelling her with unusual speed, but she still couldn’t outdistance him. Stephen caught her just as she neared the gate and pulled her back around, his hands clamped on her arms. “Let go of me!” Sherry warned, her chest heaving with each tortured breath.
Quietly, he asked, “Will you stand here and listen to what I have to say?”
She nodded, he released her, and she swung at him, but this time he had expected it and recaptured both her arms. With a pained look in his eyes, he said, “Don’t make me restrain you.”
“I’m not making you do anything, you loathsome—despicable—lech!” she raged, trying ineffectually to twist free. “And to think Nicki DuVille was a part of this! He brought me here—he convinced me to resign my position, he made me believe you had a position to offer me—”
“I do have a position to offer you.”
“I’m not interested in any more of your offers!” she raged, giving up her futile physical struggle and facing him in a fury of helplessness. “I’m still hurting from the last one!”
He winced at the mention of his last offer, but he went on talking almost as if he hadn’t heard her. “The new position comes with a house—several of them.”
“I’ve heard all this before!”
“No you haven’t!” he said. “It comes with servants to do your every bidding, all the money you can spend, jewels, furs. And it comes with me.”
‘I don’t want you!” she cried. “You’ve already used me like a—a common doxy, now stay away from me! God,” she said, her voice breaking, “I’m so ashamed—it was so trite—the governess who falls in love with the lord of the manor, only in the novels he doesn’t do the things to her you did to me in bed. It was so ugly—”
“Don’t say that!” he cut in, his voice raw. “Please don’t say that. It wasn’t ugly. It was—”
“Sordid!” she cried.
“The new position comes with me,” he continued, his face white with strain. “It comes with my name and my hand and all I possess.”
“I don’t want—”
“Yes you do,” he said, giving her a shake, just as his full meaning sunk in. Sheridan felt a brief spurt of joy before she realized he was merely having another attack of conscience and duty, this time over seducing her, evidently.
“Damn you!” she choked. “I am not some foundling you’re obliged to propose to every time you have an attack of guilt. The first time you did it, I wasn’t even the right woman to feel guilty about.”
“Guilty,” he repeated with a harsh, embittered laugh. “The only guilt I ever felt where you were concerned was for wanting you for myself from the moment you regained consciousness. For God’s sake, look at me and you’ll see I’m telling the truth.” He put his hand under her chin, and she neither resisted nor cooperated, but focused her gaze over his shoulder instead. “I stole the life of a young man, and then I saw his fiancée and I wanted to steal her too. Can you understand just a little of how that made me feel about myself? I killed him and then I lusted after the fiancée he couldn’t have because he was dead. I wanted to marry you, Sheridan, right from the beginning.”
“No you didn’t! Not until after you were informed Mr. Lancaster had died, leaving his poor, helpless daughter alone in the world except for you!”
“If I hadn’t wanted an excuse to marry his ‘poor, helpless daughter’ I’d have done anything I could for her, but marriage was not one of them. God forgive me, but an hour after I got that letter, I was drinking champagne with my brother to toast our wedding. If I hadn’t wanted to marry you, I’d have been drinking hemloc
k.”
Sheridan bit back a teary smile at his quip, afraid to believe him, afraid to trust him, and unable to stop herself because she loved him. “Look at me,” Stephen said, tipping her chin up again, and this time her glorious eyes looked into his. “I have several reasons for asking you to walk into that chapel, where there is a vicar waiting for us, but guilt is not among them. I also have several things to ask of you before you agree to go in there with me.”
“What sort of things?”
“I would like you to give me daughters with your hair and your spirit,” he said, beginning to enumerate his reasons and requests. “I would like my sons to have your eyes and your courage. Now, if that’s not what you want, then give me any combination you like, and I will humbly thank you for giving me any child we make.”
Happiness began to spread through Sheridan until it was so intense she ached from it. “I want to change your name,” he said with a tender smile, “so there’s no doubt who you are ever again, or who you belong to.” He slid his hands up and down her arms, looking directly into her eyes. “I want the right to share your bed tonight and every night from this day onward. I want to make you moan in my arms again, and I want to wake up wrapped in yours.” He shifted his hands and cradled her cheeks, his thumbs brushing away two tears at the edges of her shimmering eyes. “Last of all, I want to hear you say ‘I love you’ every day of my life. If you aren’t ready to agree to that last request right now, I would be willing to wait until tonight, when I believe you will. In return for all those concessions, I will grant you every wish that is within my power to grant you.
“As to what happened between us in bed at Claymore, there was nothing sordid about it—”
“We were lovers!” she countered, flushing with guilt.
“Sheridan,” he said quietly, “we have been lovers since the first moment your mouth touched mine.”
He wanted her to find pride, not shame, in that, and to accept it as a special gift from fate, and then he realized he was expecting the impossible of a young, inexperienced girl. He was about to absolve her completely by assuming all of the blame for the desire they’d shared, but after a moment the woman he loved turned her face into his hand to brush a soft kiss against his palm. “I know,” she whispered simply.