Nicholas: Lord of Secrets

Sixteen

Leah took a dinner tray to the back gardens hours later, trying to make sense of her husband’s flight—but as the day had worn on, she’d concluded it made little sense to Nick himself.

As Leah’s thoughts continued to ramble, she noticed a groom on a lathered horse trotting up the drive. Others took the horse to walk it out, the groom slipped off, and Leah went back to her musings. Her mind was functioning on two levels, as she knew it would for some time. Part of her could rationally process information and plan the next day to write to her sister or to Nita, to map out a little ride around the neighborhood, to draft a note to send to the local vicar’s wife.

Another part of her mind wailed in silent, unceasing, passionate grief for the loss of her husband. That part of her was on its feet and heading for the library in search of an illicit tumbler of brandy when a footman approached in the waning evening light.

“Letter for you, your ladyship, from his lordship.” The footman offered a sealed epistle on a salver.

Leah’s heart leaped in concern first, but Nick would not be writing to her if he’d come to harm. She took the letter and, with a pounding heart, continued her progress toward the library.

Something had to be wrong for Nick to be communicating with her so soon after leaving her side. Something had to be terribly wrong.

Several minutes later, Leah stared at Nick’s missive, puzzled but a little cheered as well.

Dearest Lovey Wife,

Because you might need to contact me, please be informed I will breakfast with Hazlit tomorrow, then call on Lady Della. The solicitors have told me they will read Papa’s will at noon, and Beck and Ethan will be on hand for that as well. I expect we will dine at my club, after which I must closet myself with my man of business to make further inroads on the reams of correspondence that arrived while I was at Belle Maison. I am looking into a polyglot amanuensis, for your suggestion has increasing merit.

I hope this finds you well and apologize for the manner of my leave-taking earlier this day. There is no pleasant way to part from one’s dear spouse, regardless that the whole sorry business is my doing. Forgive me, though, as I am blundering close to another apology, which you’ve told me I must not do as long as I will not also explain.

I miss you, Wife, and require your assurances you need nothing from me but perhaps a little silence. Tell me how you go on, or I shall fret unbecomingly.

Nicholas,

Bellefonte

Nicholas had an odd way of going about an estrangement, but then, he was kind, and perhaps he was merely easing her into it, using the little courtesy of a note to reinforce his willingness to remain cordial.

The next evening, however, there was another late-night epistle, hurried out from Town on a lathered horse.

Lovey Mine,

You will be surprised to learn my papa left a contribution to your dower estate sizeable enough to make my untimely demise loom before you with some appeal. The details will be forwarded by the weasels swarming over the will, no doubt in language it will take an Oxford don to decipher. Della has threatened to disown me for our estrangement, and I cut my visit to her short lest she hurt herself boxing my ears.

Tomorrow I call upon the late lamented Frommer’s oldest brother, who had the great misfortune to have inherited the marquessate two years ago. Because I’ve recently inherited my own father’s title, he and I can perhaps commiserate. Hazlit claims the man acted as Aaron’s second, and from him, I am hoping to learn who seconded Wilton. Valentine has managed the domestics here in my absence, and while he sympathizes with my loss, he is playing rather a lot of finger exercises when I’m underfoot. He claims I try his patience, if you can imagine such a thing.

I slept badly last night, tired though I was. Perhaps you are faring better?

Yours,

Nicholas,

Bellefonte

When Leah also received an epistle on Wednesday night, she considered that maybe Nick was not going to be quite as successful at being estranged as he might have initially hoped.

Most Stubborn Lovey and Dear Wife,

You are demonstrating a hint of the anger at me to which you are entitled. Either that, or you have broken your hand, for I have no word from you to indicate you yet breathe. You will please provide same, post haste. Lady Della is no ally to me, as she is not speaking to the “henwitted, clodpated embarrassment of a grandson of whom she used to be so proud.” I am lucky I am still quick enough to keep my backside from her reach—mostly. I didn’t see the first hefty swat coming.

I was astonished to learn from Frommer the Eldest that Hellerington seconded your father. Somebody fired too early, but as our man was tossing his accounts into the bushes at the precise moment when bullets flew, only Hellerington can attest for a certainty to the identity of the bad sport—or murderer—who fired early. Bad business, my dear, and I am sorry, because either way, somebody close to you behaved poorly.

I am pining for want of you, of course, and doing an abysmal job of keeping my temper. Beck and Ethan are leaving tomorrow in disgust. I’ve drunk all the good liquor, and my staff is too piqued with me to set much of a table. My horse is not speaking to me either, and her conversation is a real loss.

Valentine has condemned me to prancing little Haydn sonatas until I, in his words, “Come to my feeble senses.” So you really must write to me, love, truly you must.

Your Nicholas,

Bellefonte

What to write in response to that blather cum love letter, cum letter from school? Leah pared the tip of a pen and stared at the foolscap before her. She stared for a full fifteen minutes before deciding that “Dear Nicholas,” would do as a place to start. To reach that brilliant conclusion, she’d discarded a list of possibilities… Dearest Nicholas, Nicholas, Spouse, Errant Spouse, Henwitted Clodpate, Bellefonte, Dearest Clodpate…

“There you are.” Ethan’s voice sounded from the doorway, and Leah looked up to find him and Beckman smiling at her tentatively, two men who looked a good deal like Nick without quite matching him for handsomeness, charm, or—she was angry with the man—clodpatedness either.

“Gentlemen.” Leah rose, her own smile tentative as well. They looked so like Nick and they’d just been with him and they were so dear to call on her and her eyes were stinging.

“Oh, ye gods.” Beckman stepped around Ethan and enveloped Leah in a hug. He wasn’t as large as his oldest brother, but he was big enough and had the same muscular, masculine feel to his embrace, and he knew enough to carry a handkerchief into battle.

Though his scent was all wrong. Bergamot, like a cup of doctored tea.

“Now we’ve done it,” Ethan muttered, closing the door. “Nick won’t like this one bit, making his countess cry.”

“As if,” Beck said over the top of Leah’s head, “himself didn’t see to that first. She’s entitled to cry, after all, if not for lack of Nick, then for his lack of sense.”

Ethan nattered on in agreement, probably to give Leah time to compose herself. “Shall I ring for tea?” Leah suggested as she stepped out of Beck’s arms. “Or a late luncheon, perhaps?”

“Both,” Ethan said. “Beck wants to push south before nightfall, and I must hie back to London. Some sustenance and company would be appreciated. Now that Beckman has surrendered his white flag, how fare you?”

“Miserably,” Leah said, sensing honesty was the norm among Nick’s family. “I miss him, I don’t know why he does what he does, and though I am hurt and angry, I still worry that he is…”

“He’s what?”

“He’s doing what he must,” Leah said. “He can’t see another option. But tell me, did Nick put you up to this spying?”

“He’s too clever for that,” Ethan said. “Della put us up to spying, and Nick will interrogate me when I get back to Town. The sisters will no doubt question Beck by letter, but about you, Nick, Della, and myself.”

“Poor Beck,” Leah said. “Shall we sit?”

Her brothers-in-law charmed, entertained, and consumed great quantities of food, leaving Leah feeling a little breathless but pleased at the distraction they offered. When they rose to go, Ethan wandered around the room far enough to see the paper still on the escritoire by the window.

“Did we interrupt your effort to pen some remonstrance to Nick?” Ethan asked, eyeing the two words on the page.

“I was just getting started, but I doubt anything will come of it,” Leah said. “I seem to have too much to say, and nothing to say of merit.”

“Nonsense,” Beck corrected her gently. “Your dim-witted spouse wants merely to see your hand, Leah. Describe which rose looks like it will bloom first, and he’ll be pleased—assuming you want to please him?”

“I honestly don’t know.”

“Why don’t we see to our horses,” Ethan said, “and you can jot a few choice imprecations in the meanwhile. I’ll be happy to deliver your epistle, and this way, I can report to Della you and Nick are at least corresponding.”

Leah shifted her gaze from one brother to the other. They would be terribly disappointed if she did not write at least a few words.

Disappointed and worried. “I think kindness runs in the Haddonfield family.”

“Kindness.” Beck rolled his eyes. “I’m guessing you’d rather have us rife with some more practical emotion right about now.”

“Let her write her epistle while we saddle up.”

So they left, and Leah was faced again with the challenge of communicating in writing to her spouse.

Dear Nicholas,

You are a devoted correspondent for an estranged husband, but I will bow to your greater wisdom regarding the particulars of our situation, for I myself am quite at sea. I have kept busy, riding out on Casper when the weather permits, devising some changes to the cutting gardens—I’ve pulled up the bed of forget-me-nots, for example—and replying to the many letters coming at me from your sisters at Belle Maison. Then too, your solicitors forwarded a description of my bequest from your father, and that has, indeed, taken a lexicon and a quizzing glass to decipher. Rest assured, I am not at this point inspired by financial considerations to hasten your demise. Not yet.

Please give my very best to your grandmother, a woman whose sense and wisdom impressed me almost as much as her swift right hand no doubt impressed your fundament. Your brothers have promised to spread all manner of gossip regarding the goings on here at Clover Down, though their account of your life in Town is suspiciously dull and devoid of fraternal barbs. You must commend them for their loyalty when next you interrogate them.

I hope you fare well, dear Husband, though I hesitate to further burden you with excessive correspondence when I know how great your distaste for same can be.

Your wife,

Leah Haddonfield

She read and reread the note, not sure what she wanted it to say or not say. In the end, she added a four-word postscript in the spirit of gracious honesty Nick had set in his own epistles. She didn’t know if the addition was a kindness or not, didn’t know if Nick would appreciate or resent it. She just knew that what she wrote was the truth.

Ethan watched as Nick tore Leah’s note open and scanned its contents. His expression was fierce, then interrupted by a bark of laughter, then fierce again. Before he folded up the note, his brows rose in surprise, then his face took on a pained, thoughtful expression as he refolded the note.

“She says she misses me.” Nick wore a puzzled expression as he regarded the epistle. “In a postscript. She didn’t mean to be anything save honest, Ethan, but those four words—I do miss you—make me feel like an ass.”

“You are not an ass, exactly.” Ethan crossed Nick’s study to the decanter and lifted the stopper with a questioning gesture. “You are navigating uncharted waters and doing the best you can, with questionable results.”

“Help yourself,” Nick said. “None for me. I am off to grovel before Della.”

“Groveling won’t help,” Ethan said, pouring himself a single finger of liquor. “She doesn’t understand what you’re about Nick, separating from your wife not a month after the wedding, especially when it’s clear you and Leah adore each other.”

“But that’s the problem, Ethan.” Nick’s eyes were bleak. “I do adore her, with all the love and lust in me, which is considerable. Sooner or later…”

“Sooner or later you would have children,” Ethan finished for him softly. “And like any other pair of loving parents, you would cope, Nick. You would.”

“We would, for as long as the Lord granted us breath and sense to cope, but then what, Ethan?”

“You don’t think the family would help? Little Della is fifteen years your junior, and she’d be aunt to any offspring of yours. You need to rethink this, Nick, and before Leah gives up on you.”

Nick merely shook his head, a determined man whose commitment to a particular course would not falter because that course was difficult, lonely, and costly.

“Go see Nana,” Ethan said gently. “Maybe she can talk some sense into you.”

Lady Della was not home to Nick, which hurt more than it should. She was given to her fits and starts, but not cruel, so Nick decided to test her resolve by going around back to the kitchen and invading by stealth. He found his quarry enjoying a cup of tea with old Magda.

“You!” Della snorted at him from her perch at the worktable. “You are not welcome until you behave as a proper earl to your countess.”

“Della…” Magda’s voice bore the reproach of somebody who’d known Della in girlhood.

Della turned her glower on the older woman. “Don’t you take up for this scamp, Magda Spencer. I held my tongue while he swived the indecent half of London for years on end, and I held my tongue when his misguided papa let him hare off to Sussex, and I held my tongue when he married that poor girl as if he were some knight on a white charger, and I held my tongue—”

“So hold your tongue now,” Magda interrupted her, rising and gesturing for Nick to sit. “The boy needs understanding now, and you are the only one who can provide it. Who else will he talk to? Those brothers of his? His sisters? His married friends are all over the Home Counties, and their wives likely to skewer them for taking his part. Pour the boy some tea, and let him say his piece. And you”—Magda jerked her chin at Nick—“I told you to sit and let your grandmother pour you some tea.”

Nick sat. Della smirked—and poured him tea.

“So wiggle your handsome way out of this one, Nicholas.” Della pushed his tea at him. “You leave a wonderful woman to rusticate less than a month after the wedding, your father is barely cold in the ground, and you seek to resume your wenching already?”

“My wen—” Nick’s eyebrows rose then crashed down as he stared at the ridiculously delicate teacup in his hand. “I can say with all certainty Leah has ruined me for wenching, Nana. Of that you may be sure.”

“The bordellos should hang their windows with black crepe,” Della retorted. “So what are you about, Nicholas, to abandon your wife to gossip and scorn this way? Don’t you think she had enough of that with young Frommer? Or with her own father?”

“The gossip will eventually die down, for God’s sake, but what if we have children, Nana? What in God’s name will we do if we have children?”

He sat forward abruptly, his face in his hands, knowing Della and Magda exchanged a look of concern over his bent head.

“If you have children,” Della said carefully, “you will love them.”

“God in heaven, Nana.” Nick rose abruptly to his full height. “What if my heir turns out like Leonie? She can barely read, she must print her letters, she trusts everyone who smiles at her, she wants me to read fairy tales to her when I visit, and she will be playing with dolls until I’m an old man. Bad enough my children will be taunted for their height and size. Bad enough they’ll be assumed to be stupid oafs good only for hitching to the plow, bad enough they’ll never feel they fit in…”

He spun on his heel and went to the window, shoulders heaving with emotion before gathering his composure and continuing more softly.

“I cannot consign Leah to mothering a brood of oversized idiots,” Nick informed them. “Worse by far, I will not consign my children to the ridicule and whispering and cruelties that would have been Leonie’s lot had I not intervened. Bastards may enjoy a certain anonymity, but not the heirs of a belted earl. Though you may cease your tantrums and lectures, for I have at least resolved to explain to Leah why ours must be a chaste marriage. She deserves the truth, and I deserve her undying enmity for not having shared it with her sooner.”

He regarded two old women who’d loved him since he’d first drawn breath, both looking at him with such… such compassion. Who would regard his children like this when he was dead and buried? Leah, perhaps. His entire future hung on that possibility.

“I’m going to explain to Leah what we’d risk were we to have children, and if she leaves me once and for all, I will accept her decision.”

Silence. Dumbstruck, dismayed silence, and Nick realized he’d shouted at his grandmother and his old nurse.

“My apologies, ladies.” He bowed at the waist. “You can appreciate my concern.”

Magda’s lips were pursed in thought, but Della rose and pushed Nick back toward the table.

“Sit, you,” she said, her tone commanding. “You are under a misapprehension I would relieve you of. Magda?”

Magda nodded and slid down beside Della.

“You believe Leonie’s limitations are a function of her parentage,” Della began briskly. “They are not.”

“But Papa had a brother…”

“Who fell from his damned horse as a lad,” Della interrupted. “There are many traits that run in the Haddonfield and Harper lines, Nick, but madness and mental impairment are not among them.”

“But then, how did Leonie come to be as she is?” Nick asked, a world of miserable bewilderment in his voice. “She has been like she is since I’ve known her.”

“Fevers,” Magda supplied. “You didn’t meet the girl until she was well past two years of age, and until that winter, she’d been just another darling, happy child. She walked by one year, began speaking about the same time, and put her sentences together the same as any other child.”

“So what happened?”

“Leonie fell ill with the same influenza that took her mother,” Della said. “But Leonie eventually recovered. Magda first noticed the child wasn’t coming along as she had before, though physically, Leonie has always been vigorous enough.”

His mind could not absorb all that Della said, but he could comprehend that last. “She’s been healthy as a horse, except for that flu.”

“I thought we were going to lose her,” Magda said. “She shook with the fevers and shook with them, night after night, and grew so tiny it’s a wonder she lived.”

Another silence fell, as Nick began to consider the information the old women had just imparted. He ran his finger around the rim of his teacup. “You are saying Leonie was not born simple.”

“No more than any other child,” Della said. “No more than you were, Nicholas.”

“So I’ve put aside my wife for nothing?” Nick asked the room in general.

“You put her aside to try to protect her,” Della said, “and to protect your unborn children from what you thought would be a life of ridicule and judgment.”

“God help me. Ladies, you will excuse me. I have another call to make.”

Nick stumbled out of the kitchen, not even hearing what they might have said to him in parting.

Nick hadn’t lied; he did have another appointment. But it wasn’t for another hour, and he needed that hour to put his world back on its axis. He found himself in the park by the duck pond, his little scrappy friend nowhere to be seen.

The day was pleasant, the breeze soft, the sunshine warm on Nick’s face. Just another pretty afternoon in the park, though Nick felt as if his whole life was shifting.

He’d been so wrong for so long, and so sure of himself in his wrongheadedness. He didn’t know whether to cry with relief or cry with sorrow for the damage his misjudgments were still causing even as he sat in the afternoon breeze and listened to the laughter of children.

Normal children, like little John. Children who could learn cursive writing and Latin, do sums and see malice and contempt when it came at them.

A loud quacking disturbed his musings, and Nick looked up to see an indignant young drake flapping and hissing at him. His friend, well on the way to growing up, though a yellowish cast to his plumage betrayed his identity. Nick fished a tea biscuit left over from breakfast out of his pocket and tossed it at the young duck. The tea biscuit disappeared, and the duck waddled down to the water and paddled off to join his fellows.

They grow up—John and Leonie and children everywhere. They grow up, and their families shouldn’t miss the short window of childhood. God above, Leah was going to be reeling to find herself possessed of a half brother who’d been kept from her.

And then, when she’d recovered from that blow, or maybe before she sustained it, Nick was going to have to tell her about Leonie.

Leah had never had such a social week. Ethan and Beck came on Thursday. On Friday, David Worthington, Viscount Fairly, appeared and took her to visit with his wife and children. On Saturday, more of Nicholas’s friends, Lord and Lady Greymoor, showed up, with his lordship ponying a pretty mare behind his great black gelding, a wedding present to Leah. They stayed for luncheon before removing to Fairly’s, and while Lady Greymoor admired Leah’s gardens, she also admonished her hostess to bring that lackwitted Nicholas to heel.

Sunday saw a lull in the traffic, with Darius offering to escort Leah to services at the local church. It was a pretty day, and an innocuous way to meet her neighbors, so she went.

“I’m off to Town tomorrow,” Darius said as he handed Leah down from his coach when he saw her home. “I should be back by nightfall.”

“You’ll give my regards to Trent and the children?” Leah asked, searching her brother’s face.

“Of course, if I have time to stop by. I’ve a few appointments to see to first, and I thought checking in on Emily might be the higher priority.”

Leah regarded him sternly. “You are not to make her into your next damsel in distress. Wilton dotes on her, and her letters suggest she is enjoying the patronage of Lady Della. She’ll be all right, as I am all right.”

“Give Nick some time,” Darius said. “I like him, and I’m not easily impressed. What seems so insurmountable one day can often be managed the next.”

Leah glanced at him, wondering where such an encouraging sentiment came from, particularly as she needed to hear it—badly.

“Travel safely.” She kissed his cheek again, touched and a little surprised when he hugged her tightly, kissed her back, and then hugged her again before hopping up onto the box with his coachman.

“I’ll see you later in the week, Leah,” he called down. “Save some time for me.”

“Of course.” She waved him on his way, wondering what that was all about. She’d no sooner given the order for tea to be served in the garden when she saw the now-familiar groom trotting up the drive. Leah waved him over so they might dispense with formalities, and took the letter directly from his hand.

As she caught a whiff of Nick’s scent on the envelope, she felt a pang of longing for her husband—for his smile, his embrace, the sound of his voice, the feel of him shifting the mattress beside her at night.

She cut those thoughts off ruthlessly and made her way to the back gardens, Nick’s latest letter in hand.

Beloved Wife,

If you will receive me, I will call upon you Monday afternoon. We have matters to discuss. I continue to miss you, and though it flatters me not, I am cheered to learn you miss me as well.

Your Nicholas,

Bellefonte

Leah eyes scanned those three sentences several times before it sank in that Nick was coming back to Clover Down, the very next day. She set the letter aside and reached for the teapot, thinking to pour herself a cup to steady her nerves.

Except her hands shook too badly to manage even that, so she simply went inside, jotted off a reply, and settled down to await her fate.

“Well?” Nick’s eyes bored into the hapless groom who’d pulled the duty of delivering Nick’s Sunday epistle to Leah.

“She seemed quite well, your lordship,” the man said, handing over the reply. “But I met her brother, Mr. Lindsey, at the foot of the drive, and he bade me pass along another message.”

“Go on.” Nick did not tear open Leah’s reply, not while the groom was still in the same room.

“He said he was making calls in Town tomorrow but would be expecting you and your lady on Tuesday for luncheon.”

“Thank you.” Nick nodded in curt dismissal. “But Druckman?”

“Your lordship?”

“Tell the lads I’ll be sending another note out to Kent tomorrow, this one to Blossom Court,” Nick said, his fingers itching to open the letter.

Druckman nodded resignedly. “Aye, your lordship.”

When he’d taken his leave, Nick crossed to the brandy decanter, eyeing Leah’s reply like a squirming sack. It could hold the key to his future, but was it snakes or kittens? Condemnation or happiness? Nick tossed back a brandy, marshaled his courage, and opened the letter.

Husband,

It will be my pleasure to receive you tomorrow afternoon.

Leah Haddonfield

Nick stared at the letter, trying to will insight from a mere handful of words. She would receive him—that was good—but that was all. No hint of concern for him, no admission that she missed him, no humor. Nick frowned and looked closer, thinking her handwriting was maybe not so tidy as usual.

Ah, well, tomorrow would come, and it would go, perhaps taking Nick’s last chance at happiness with it. Where were his friends when there was a brandy decanter and a long night to get through?