How to Tame a Lady

“I think we should be friends, don’t you? I think it would be…it would be safer if we were to think of each other as a friend.”

“For how long?” Lucas asked before he could stop to think, because he certainly wouldn’t have said the words if he could think of anything save how much he wanted to kiss Nicole’s full, enticing mouth.

“Why, um, I suppose until we don’t wish to be friends anymore? Really, this has been the strangest conversation. I may be raw from the country, my lord, but I think you really should know better. And I’m starved. Do you think there will be ham? I adore ham.”

Somehow, Lucas restrained himself from saying, “And I fear I am beginning to adore you.”

THE INN BOASTED ONLY the single private dining room the marquess promptly engaged while Nicole and Lydia were shown to a small bedchamber beneath the eaves, where they could wash and refresh themselves.

Lydia was still stripping off her gloves as Nicole, her bonnet tossed onto the bed, was standing bent over the washbasin, splashing cold water onto her burning cheeks.

“How did you manage to convince his lordship to allow you to take the reins?” Lydia asked her as she untied the ribbons on her own bonnet. “And, more to the point, do I want to know?”

Nicole rubbed at her face with the rough towel and then smiled at her sister. “Probably not. It was wonderful, Lydia, except that I knew he’d take them away again if I gave the horses their heads, which I truly longed to do. They’re a fine pair, not all highbacked and showy like the viscount’s team.”

“I hadn’t noticed any deficiencies in the viscount’s horseflesh. We had another lovely talk, by the way. He has a gaggle of younger sisters and a widowed mother, which is why he could not risk himself in the late war, although he feels terrible that he stayed home when so many others risked life and limb for the Crown. So I told him a little about our late uncle and cousins, and how none of them went to war, but ended by perishing anyway. We agreed that safety is a matter of opinion, and that rash actions can lead to unfortunate consequences as easily as facing an acknowledged enemy.”

Nicole rolled her eyes. “I’m so sorry I missed that,” she said, turning away as she refolded the towel, to hide her amusement. “On the way back to Grosvenor Square you might wish to pass the time conjugating French verbs, which I’m sure would be equally delighting. But, please, while we’re at luncheon, do try to find a lighter topic.”

“But…but the viscount seemed entertained. What did you and the marquess discuss, then, if you’re so much the expert?”

While Lydia washed her hands and then carefully blotted her cheeks with a washcloth dipped in the basin, Nicole perched herself on the edge of the bed, watching her. Lydia, the perfect lady. And such grace and circumspection came so naturally to her, unlike Nicole’s less well-thought-out actions.

Lydia, always prudent, carefully dipped into life. Nicole unconcernedly splashed her way through it. That was as succinct an explanation of the difference between them as Nicole felt necessary.

“The marquess and I,” she said, for once watching her words, “have decided to cry friends. We’re very…comfortable with each other.”

“Really?”

Lord no, Nicole thought, her stomach doing an all-too-familiar small flip. “Oh, yes. He understands that I am in London to enjoy myself, and he is content with that arrangement. You see, I thought it only fair to tell him that, as he may be on the lookout for a wife and to set up his nursery, as are many who come to Town for the Season.”

“Nicole! Tell me you didn’t say any such thing. To…to simply assume that the marquess—any man—should look at you, pay you the least attention, and then have it most naturally follow that he should wish to marry you? I know you mean well, sweetheart, and, knowing you, you can’t see the enormous impropriety of so much as intimating that his lordship should be…should be…”

“Hot to wed me? Or, at the very least, bed me?” Nicole suppressed a shiver, praying it was one of horror and not anticipation. “Don’t tell me you didn’t sense that from the moment we first met. I’m not such a gudgeon that I don’t know what men think when they look at me. Consider Mr. Hugh Hobart. He—”

“No! We do not discuss Mr. Hugh Hobart. Not ever. You could have been killed. Or worse.”

“Lydia, nothing is worse than being killed. Any other condition is only temporary. And, if uncomfortable, even frightening, at least possible to overcome. Or would you rather that I’d withdrawn from life because of what almost happened to me that day, as you did when the captain—Oh! I’m sorry, sweetheart.”

She hopped down from the bed and ran over to take her sister in her arms, hug her tightly. “You worry so for me, because I reach for everything with both hands. And I worry for you because you refuse to reach even a single hand forward, to take back your life. I love you so much. I don’t mean that you should attempt to drive a curricle, or take on a five-barred fence, or flirt outrageously with a dangerous man because it delights something inside you to do so. We’re twins, yes, but we’re each our own person. You have your own way, you always did. Sweet, and gentle, and loving. Please, Lydia, love yourself enough to step out of the shadow you’ve been hiding in. I want you to dare something, sweetheart. Be alive. It’s what I want for you, it’s what the captain would want for you.”

Lydia held on to her for long moments, her breathing somewhat shallow and irregular. And then she kissed Nicole on the cheek and stepped back from her. “If I promise to be less careful, will you promise to be more careful?”

Nicole hesitated, knowing her own limits. “In general, do you mean, or with the marquess most particularly? Because I don’t know if I could—”

“Oh, no, I’d never ask you to cry off of whatever it is you and the marquess have found in each other. I also am not such a gudgeon. But will you be careful, Nicole? I know you believe it impossible, but even a strong, independent heart can be broken.”

“Yes,” Nicole said, pinning a bright smile on her face. “We wouldn’t want that to happen to the poor unsuspecting marquess, now would we?”

“You’re incorrigible,” Lydia said, giving her sister another quick, fierce hug.

“Everyone keeps saying that. Mostly, I’m starving,” Nicole added, truly believing her sister had at last taken a strong step back into the world. She believed Captain Fitzgerald would have approved. “Now, as we go downstairs, tell me—what do you think of the Viscount Yalding? Does he interest you? He seems to like you well enough.”

“Nicole!” her sister exclaimed. “Certainly not!”

“Very well,” Nicole said, taking the lead on the stairs. “Mayfair is fairly well littered with possibilities, I’m sure. I’ll keep looking.”

Lydia swatted at her sister’s head from behind, causing Nicole to laugh in pure pleasure as she continued down the stairs…to see Lucas standing in the narrow hallway waiting for her.

His thick blond hair was slightly mussed from his curly brimmed beaver, a thin red line marking where it had sat on his forehead above those most marvelous blue eyes. He looked completely at his ease, handsome and fit and extraordinarily alive. The way he made her feel.

Did he think her smile, her laughter, was for him?

He reached up his hand and she took it, surprised by the frisson of delight that swept up the length of her arm.

And if he did think her smile was for him, what did it matter? After all, Lydia was smiling, wasn’t she? And it most certainly was a beautiful day…

CHAPTER FOUR

LUCAS WATCHED, NEARLY mesmerized, as Nicole waved a chicken wing about as she regaled them all with a story about the day Rafe and Charlotte had discovered a nest of baby mice in their bedchamber at Ashurst Hall. Rafe was all for dispatching them forthwith, while Charlotte had demanded they be gathered up and taken outside, to be set free.

Once, of course, Rafe had located their mother, who was probably still necessary to their well-being.

Fletcher was nearly doubled over in laughter as Nicole described Rafe’s hunt for the mother, which included a hunk of cheese, a butterfly net and a large pillowcase…only to have Charlotte demand after the capture that he ascertain whether this was the mother or the father, for the father would be no good to those poor babies at all.

“And Rafe declared, ‘Madam, against my better judgment I have performed as you asked. Lift its tail and take a look if you must, but I am done.’”

And then, as Fletcher roared with fresh laughter, she took another bite out of the chicken wing—her third of the meal—and winked at Lucas.

He only shook his head, silently telling her she was, yes, incorrigible.

She affected no airs, was so obviously comfortable in her own skin, sure of herself and her place in the world, certain that others would like her just as she enjoyed the world at large. Someday she would make a delightful hostess, as well as a real force in Society, setting trends, dictating fashion. If she didn’t manage to disgrace herself before she decided just who and what she wanted to be, that is.

Nicole was such a mix of temptress and unaffected delight. He’d noticed when she came downstairs that her cheeks were glowing, and a few of her curls were slightly damp, as if she’d had herself a wash and brush up and her interest had lain more in refreshing herself than in preserving some sense of sophisticated beauty.

She certainly did not apply to the paint pots, or else her freckles would not be in evidence. No, the glow of her skin was pure good health, her lips made pink by nature. Her eyes sparkled with the life inside her, the pure joy of living that shone from her.

Some might find her exhausting. He found her exhilarating, and wonderfully challenging. And if he had any sense of self-preservation, he’d take her back to her brother and then avoid her in future.

“Are you still starving, Lady Nicole,” he asked her quietly a few minutes later, “or would you care to take a stroll outside on this so rare a sunny day before we return to Grosvenor Square?”

She looked at him for a moment, her head tipped to one side, and then put out her hand so that he might help her rise. “Dare we leave these two unchaperoned?” she inquired in a whisper, those violet eyes dancing.

“You don’t wish to invite them to accompany us?”

“Do you?”

Perhaps she could read his mind? Still, politeness decreed that he had to ask the others to come along. “Fletcher? Lady Lydia? Would you care to join us on a small stroll?” he asked as Nicole, her back to her sister, pulled a face at him.