His Duty, Her Destiny

‘Nicola,’ said George, firmly, ‘Sir Fergus is hardly a stranger to either of us and I think he deserves your consideration, now he’s taken the trouble to appear. Surely we can discuss this like adults?’

Until then, she had avoided looking at Sir Fergus, though she could have described his fashionable attire from the peacock-feathered hat down to the soft kid boots decorated with bone toggles, the jewelled dagger and the tasselled pouch at his belt. He disturbed her now as much as he had ever done, and though she had been rehearsing what to say for the past hour, the tightness in her lungs robbed them of the power she had intended. Now, she was aware that she had provoked him, for he pulled back his shoulders, frowning.

‘I can reply to that,’ he said, ignoring Nicola’s expression of bored resignation. ‘You have every right to be vexed by my long absence, my lady, but the reasons are simple enough. My life has not been exactly to do with as I pleased these last few years. I was at sea with my father until recently, putting me out of touch with almost everyone, then attending to my family since my return. You’ve not been in London long either, so I understand, and before that you were some years in York. Hardly the best circumstances to pursue that duty to our fathers, was it? No one regrets more than I that I was not able to visit my friends in the last few years, believe me.’

‘I am not in the least vexed by your lengthy absence, Sir Fergus. I only wish it could have been longer still. And it makes little difference whether I believe you or not.’ Nicola raised her eyes no further than the pea-sized buttons on his doublet. ‘The plain truth is that after years of total silence, during which you could presumably have married several times over, your sudden appearance here suggests desperation rather than commitment. You can hardly expect me to be flattered that you have been struck by a sudden call to duty. Were there no other ancient families to whom you could attach yourself, or did your so-called duty to your father suddenly acquire a deeper meaning for you? Do tell me what I’ve done to deserve this unexpected burst of attention.’

‘Nicola!’ warned George.

But now she had the man’s full heed and, while it lasted, there was yet more she could say on the subject. ‘Let us not waste any more time on such a lovely day,’ she said, bunching her long skirts into a pregnant pile before her. ‘We all have more interesting things to do than talk about duty. When I choose a man to marry, he will be a nobleman with blood the same colour as my own, not a newly knighted provincial nobody with equally new coins in his pouch.’

She had a hand on the door-latch as she delivered this last appalling insult, and it was the horrified look on her brother’s face that made her hesitate. ‘Don’t worry, George dear. Our guest won’t be demanding rapiers at dawn on this occasion. Will you, Sir Fergus?’ Her huge dark eyes blazed with scorn into the hard grey steel of her adversary, and she knew that her hit had damaged him as much as his earlier one upon her, perhaps more so, and that he would do nothing to counter it. Not then, anyway.

The sharp clack of the latch hung heavily in the ensuing silence like the distant sound of lances shattering upon armour. No man would have escaped such a volley of insults with his life, and no woman would have walked from a room without leaving behind some kind of awareness that there was more to this than mere dislike of a man’s pedigree, however deeply embedded that had become.

‘I’m sorry, Ferg,’ said George. ‘I must have forgotten to tell her about your father. But still, she had no right to…tch! This is dreadful. I wish I’d asked Charlotte to be with us.’

Sir Fergus placed a hand over his friend’s arm. ‘I think we both expected that kind of reaction,’ he said. ‘If we didn’t, then we should have done. Don’t take it too personally.’

‘Even so, it looks as if her line-up of suitors has given her big ideas. She may well prefer a title, but, if so, that’s not the Nick I know. Give her another year, Ferg, and then see. Eh?’

Walking over to the window, Sir Fergus collected the two abandoned rapiers and leaned them against the wall. ‘No, I shall not wait,’ he said.

‘Oh…well…no, I can’t blame you, of course.’

‘I shall press on with it. I’m a fighting man and she’s a courageous woman to fight me back. We shall come to terms by and by, you’ll see.’

‘Well, I’m relieved to hear it. You were never one to give up easily, were you? Nevertheless, I shall go and speak to her. I’m determined you shall have a full apology before you leave.’

‘Not necessary, George.’

‘Of course it is, man. Help yourself to Nicola’s malmsey. I’ll be with you in a few moments.’

‘Nicola! Wait!’ George, Lord Coldyngham, called to the white butterfly disappearing round the bend of the passageway, striding over the stone-flagged floor towards her, though his request was ignored.

‘Oh, George,’ she called over her shoulder, ‘not again, please. I’ve heard enough on the subject to last me a year.’

Catching up with her before she reached the door to the garden, he ushered her sideways along the gravel path and into the bright greenness of new growth and vine-clad arbours. A circular fountain held centre stage, its jet of water cutting across the sun and scattering its light into sparkling droplets that pattered down upon the darting silver shapes beneath. Yellow king-cups clustered around the edge. ‘Nicola, you’ve gone too far,’ he said, severely.

She stopped and sat upon the wide stone edge of the fountain, trailing one hand in the water and looking up at him with feigned innocence. ‘And in future, George, would you mind allowing me to issue my own invitations? Would you and Lotti expect me to invite my friends to your home without telling you?’

‘I’m sorry. I sent him a message to meet me here. He came early, that’s all. Was he so discourteous to you that you had to insult him, a guest in your own home? That was not well done, Nick. Did you not know that his father was killed at sea scarce eight months ago?’

Nicola’s eyes clouded as she took her bottom lip between her teeth, halting the prepared riposte. ‘No,’ she whispered. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

‘When was I supposed to tell you?’ he said, crossly. ‘I thought you’d have heard it from your noble friends. They seem to have plenty of gossip about births, marriages, deaths and—’ He stopped, abruptly.

‘Yes? And affairs, you were about to say? Don’t try to wrong-foot me, George. You forgot. Admit it. At least he now knows, as you do too, that I’ve just given him no more or less than he damn well deserves. It would hardly have penetrated his thick skull, anyway.’ She turned her face away angrily, recalling that morning’s shameful episode. ‘He’s done far more than that to me and nobody ever demanded an apology from him. Monster!’

There was a quick unseen movement of her brother’s handsome eyebrows and a tightening of the lips to prevent a smile. He reached out a hand to clasp hers, well aware that there was much more to her hostility than she was saying.

‘George,’ she said, suspecting some imminent persuasion, ‘there’s really no more to be said.’ Sideways, she observed the long mulberry brocade cote-hardie with its precise pleats beneath the red leather belt. Everything about him proclaimed wealth and good breeding with never a trace of ostentation.

‘Yes, there is.’ He kept hold of her hand, and she knew that there was indeed more to be said and that she was not nearly so dismissive as she pretended to be. ‘In spite of the insults just now, Nick, Fergus is still willing to offer for you. He made a promise to his father when he was dying. Ferg was wounded in the same skirmish. They were fighting off pirates.’

‘Promise, fiddlesticks!’ she scoffed. ‘George, what nonsense.’ Her laughter did not last long, for she felt again the hard intimate pressure of Fergus’s body upon hers and knew instinctively that it could not have been the first time he had held a woman like that. Or exposed her breast, for that matter. ‘You’ve got it wrong. Whatever he’s told you, you’ve misunderstood. He no more wants to marry me than I do him, and if he’s told you different then he’s lying. There was never a moment when he could find a civil word to say to me, and most of the time I might not have been there at all. Why would he suddenly come and offer for my hand if not for links with the Coldynghams?’

It took little effort for her to remember the time she had placed her eleven-year-old hand in Fergus’s while he was looking the other way. Without a word or a smile, he had pulled his hand away as if it had been scalded, leaving her close to tears at an insensitivity she could not begin to understand. She had never forgotten the snub, nor had she ever repeated the attempt. Even now, when she might have been expected to know how an age difference of five years will eventually close and disappear, the recurring humiliation of being a female child trying to hold her own against older lads in their own peer group had stayed in her tender young psyche and refused to fade with time. She had not nurtured it, just not forgotten the pain of rejection that accompanied each of his visits when only blind hero-worship forbade her to stop trying for his approval.

Consequently, she had made a fool of herself time and again to the embarrassed amusement of all her brothers except Ramond. He had been the one to go back for her, the one who would pick dock leaves to salve her nettle-stings, the one to help her down a tree when the others had deserted her to follow Fergus. Dear Ramond. He was the offspring of the second Lady Coldyngham; George and Daniel shared the first. Nicola and Patrick shared the third, though she had died at Patrick’s birth. When an unexpected girl had arrived to interrupt the flow of lads, the chosen name had only needed to be docked by one letter to make it suitable. Similarly with the middle names: Leonie for Leo, Phillipa for Phillip.

‘It’s not nonsense,’ said George, ‘nor do I believe for one moment that Fergus is merely seeking a connection. I’m telling you, he wants to marry you. He’s changed, Nick.’

Nicola jumped to her feet, snatching her hand away in annoyance. ‘He has not, George. He’s not changed one whit. And I’ll be damned if I’ll give myself to that…that churl just because of his father’s promises. He can go and look elsewhere for his breeding stock. I can have my pick of lords and earls any time I choose. Tell him he’s too late. Tell him I’d rather stay unmarried for the rest of my life than accept his patronising offer. Condescending…overbearing…superior…highhanded…’ Slowly, very slowly, her salvo fizzled out as she shook her head, her eyes filling with sudden tears. ‘Isn’t it ironic?’ she whispered.

Surprised, George watched the transformation from indignant woman to rueful child. ‘Come here, love,’ he said, holding out a hand. ‘Tell me what’s ironic. That Fergus should want you, after all?’

She allowed him to pull her back to sit by his side again, reluctant to complete an admission she had never voiced, even to herself. ‘That when we were children, I would have done anything for him. Anything. I thought he was… Oh, this is ridiculous, George.’

‘You admired him so much?’

‘Worshipped him, more like. I would have been happy for him just to smile at me, speak kindly to me, but he rarely looked my way. All he came to Coldyngham Park for was to be with you and the others. I suppose I should have had a sister, then I wouldn’t have pretended to be one of you, would I?’ She sniffed and wiped her eyes with her knuckles, trying to laugh it off. ‘But then, I was a silly child. I knew no better. Now, I don’t care for anyone’s approval. I don’t need anything he has to offer.’

‘Still hurting after all these years, love?’

Unconsciously, one hand moved upwards to press a palm upon her breast where a nagging sting lay just beneath her chemise. ‘No,’ she said, so softly that George had to look to see the word. ‘No, I don’t care a fig who he marries as long as it’s not me. I know what he’s like, George. I can do better than that.’

‘You know that you insulted him.’

‘Yes. And he’ll not expect me to apologise.’

‘Oh? Why do you say that?’

‘Just take my word for it.’

George’s silence did not mean that he had nothing to say. This time, he was thinking that for both Fergus and Nicola to deny the need for an apology, Fergus must have done some insulting of his own. And the only thing George could add to the picture was a stolen kiss. That might explain their very obvious silence regarding that earlier meeting. ‘You’ll be with us for supper later on?’ he said. ‘Charlotte’s birthday. A few friends, that’s all.’

‘Yes, I’d not forgotten. You’ll allow the children to be there?’

He smiled. ‘I shall get into the gravest trouble if they miss you.’

Whether Nicola suspected that one of the ‘few friends’ might include Sir Fergus, she made no further mention of him until George asked if she would come and say farewell. ‘Excuse me this once,’ she said, placing her hand over his. ‘You invited him here, you show him the way home.’

He picked up her hand and kissed the knuckles, levering himself up from the fountain wall. ‘Until this evening then, love.’

‘George…’ she said, holding him back by a finger.

He stopped and waited.