Chapter 26

Chapter

Twenty-Six

A bbot brushed Nic's jacket with the clothing brush, frowning as he worked on a particularly difficult speck of lint. When he was done he stepped back, surveying his master from all sides, before he was satisfied Nic was looking his best.

Nic knew there was something bothering his manservant, but there was no use quizzing the fellow. Abbot would tell him in his own time.

"No need to wait up for me tonight," he said, picking up his gloves and hat. "I intend taking my wife to supper after the opera, and we may be very late."

Abbot said nothing, merely nodding his head as he selected a cane and presented it to Nic. Nic, who had been intending to leave it behind, sighed and snatched it impatiently from his hands.

"My lord," Abbot said, meeting his eyes in the looking glass, "there is something I want to broach with you, if you will permit."

Nic raised his eyebrows. "When have you ever needed my permission, Abbot? Broach away. "

"My lord, it has come to my attention that you took your wife to Madam Esmeralda's today."

"I did."

"You took your wife, Lady Lacey, to the same modiste you use for your mistresses."

Nic turned and faced him. "She is the best, that is all that concerned me."

Abbot's expression grew pained.

"You think it was the wrong thing to do?" Nic asked, irritably tugging at his waistcoat. "Abbot, as you are well aware, the nuances of polite society do not interest me . . ."

"They may not interest you, my lord, but your wife needs to be protected from your past. Surely you can see how inappropriate it is for you to ask such a woman to dress your wife?"

Nic sighed. "When you put it like that, I suppose I can. I didn't think she'd mind. And Esmeralda is brilliant."

"Brilliant or not, she is dressmaker to the demimonde and everyone knows it. Your wife risks being cut by the very people you want her to impress."

Nic knew Abbot was right; he was always right. Devil take it, he'd have to smooth things over with Olivia. He remembered how she'd tried to tell him in the coach but he'd been more interested in whether she was jealous. For some reason, he was spending a great deal of time mulling over whether she would remain with him once the initial gloss wore off. He'd attracted her in the first place because she thought him dangerous and wicked, but as time went on such attractions might begin to pale.

And what of his infirmity? What beautiful woman wanted a limping husband at her side?

In the carriage outside Esmeralda's she'd sounded jealous of the other women, but when he sought to clarify her feelings, she'd shrugged it off. She was like a beautiful fish in a pond, continually slipping out of his grasp. It was odd, because he'd been sure he knew her, and now . . .

Now he wasn't sure that he knew her at all.

It was interval, and they had been served with champagne. The opera was a grand affair, the private boxes full of the rich and privileged, while the gallery and stalls were crammed with rowdy men and women, and even children. Olivia settled back, aware that she was on show, but enjoying herself too much to care. Besides, there were so many people to look at—even the young queen was there.

"Have you been presented to Her Majesty, Queen Victoria?" Nic said, watching her in the light of the grand chandelier.

"No, Nic, I haven't," she replied, with a smile. "I am not the presentable type."

Nic smiled back. "You are now. Do you want to be presented, Lady Lacey?"

Was he teasing her? Olivia wasn't sure. He reached forward and took her hand, the one wearing the Lacey ring, and lifted it to his lips .

"As my wife, you have far more privileges than Miss Monteith ever did."

"I doubt the queen will care what I call myself."

Nic sighed and leaned back again, dropping her hand. "Any other woman would be thrilled by my offer, but not Olivia. She doesn't feel the slightest inclination to meet the queen. She prefers driving around the streets of London, handing out pennies to ragged children."

"I like children," she retorted, staring straight ahead.

"Good. Let's make one."

She turned to stare at him, finally shocked out of her calm reserve, and he laughed.

"Oh, Olivia, your face. I'm sorry, I couldn't resist."

She supposed she would let him see her righteous indignation or refuse to speak at all, but Nic didn't respond to either. So she let herself relax, reaching up to play with the lace on her bodice, and said, "Here, Nic? I don't think the queen would approve, do you?"

He smiled, and then he laughed, and then he shook his head.

But Olivia's eyes had turned serious, that clear blue look that seemed to pierce his soul. "Do you really want a child? An heir? Or is it your mother who wants one?"

Nic glanced down, his fingers twisting on his cane. "The Laceys have lived at Castle Lacey for generations. It'd be a shame to end it now. "

"Do you want to be a father, Nic?" she said softly.

He didn't answer her, and a moment later the next act began. Olivia turned back to the stage and pretended to watch the singers, but it took a long time for her heart to slow its beating and the butterflies in her stomach to stop fluttering.

As they made their way to supper in their private room, Nic wondered how Olivia had managed to turn the tables on him, and why he'd let her. He could almost think she knew about Jonah, but he was certain she didn't. If Olivia knew she wouldn't scruple to tell him.

"Oh," Olivia said, her face lighting up as they sat down, and she saw the strawberries and cream. "You remembered."

"Your favorite," Nic replied. "You told me when we feasted in my bedchamber, the day after I brought you back from the ball."

And we made love before and afterward, and it seemed like time stopped for those brief, exquisite moments.

But he didn't say that.

Olivia lifted one of the ripe, juicy fruits between her finger and thumb, and bit into it. The pink syrup ran down her chin and she dabbed at it with her napkin, smiling at Nic like one of the urchins she loved so much.

"Wonderful," she sighed.

Nic helped himself to the next strawberry, popping it into his mouth whole. The juice oozed from the corners of his mouth, and Olivia laughed as he tried to catch the trickles with his tongue. She reached across the table to him and used her finger.

"What will Abbot say if you stain that neck cloth?" she teased, and sucked the strawberry juice from her fingertip.

Nic's eyes went hot.

Olivia felt her body begin to heat up in response. Slowly, she slipped her finger from her mouth and licked it with her tongue. He followed her movement. She reached for another strawberry, biting into it, and he leaned over the table, taking the remaining part of the fruit in his own mouth, so that for a moment they were facetoface. And then he severed the strawberry in half and his mouth closed on hers.

The sweetness of the fruit, the warmth of his lips, were somehow all the more delicious. Olivia found herself arching across the table, following his mouth. As he moved back, she moved forward, and suddenly he'd grasped her about the waist, and she was sprawled across the table and the strawberries and cream, her arms about his neck.

"Nic," she gasped.

He ran his hand across her décolletage, and then chose a strawberry. The next moment he'd slipped the ripe fruit down into her cleavage. Olivia's eyes widened as she watched him settle it comfortably between her breasts, then he smiled and began to try to tease it out with his tongue.

The sensation made her toes curl .

The strawberry slid farther down between her breasts, lodging there, and Nic pushed down her bodice, finding first one nipple and then the other. Olivia arched against him, lying half across the table, her fingers in his hair. He ran his tongue over the swell of her breasts, lapping at the strawberry juice.

But Olivia wanted to be more than Nic's dessert.

She reached up, clinging to his neck, and he lifted her into his arms and sank back into his chair with her cradled in his lap. She tried to catch her breath, but her stays were tight beneath her evening dress. He seemed to understand her difficulty, and ran his hand down over her waist, splaying his fingers.

"Will I take it off?" he said.

"What if someone comes in?" She glanced anxiously at the door.

"No one will come in, my sweet. They know better than to come into one of these rooms without making a great deal of noise."

Olivia's desire began to fade, leaching out of her like water from a wrungout rag. "You've been here before?" she asked carefully.

"Yes."

"With other women."

"Of course."

She went still, and then she pushed herself to her feet, turning her back as she dealt with her bodice and the sticky juice smeared across her chest. The napkin, dipped in a glass of drinking water that had somehow survived her tumble on the table, helped to remove most traces of her debauchery, and when she was finished, she turned to face him. He was still reclining lazily in his chair, but there was something watchful in his face that belied his easy manner.

"You're jealous," he said, but it was a question rather than a statement.

"No. I don't think so. Not in the way you mean."

He waved an impatient hand. "Then what?"

Olivia sighed. "I don't want to be another one of your women, Nic."

He looked into her eyes. "You're not."

"Perhaps. At least, not yet. But I'm afraid that before long I will be. Just another in a long line of companions you hire for a year and then set free. Like—like caged birds."

"Don't be ridiculous!" Nic stood up and he looked angry, his hair untidy from her fingers, a swath of it hanging over his eyes, his lean cheeks flushed. "You're my wife. I don't hire you, and I'm hardly likely to set you free, as you call it. That won't happen."

"How do I know? You bring me here and I feel as if—as if—"

As if I am no more special than the others.

And Olivia knew with heavy certainty that she wanted to feel special when she was with Nic.

Nic knew he'd done something wrong again.

A moment ago Olivia had been writhing in his arms, a woman in the throes of undeniable passion, and the next moment she was looking at him as if he were a stranger.

He wanted to please her, and he'd thought this was the way to do it. Now he didn't know what to do. Apologize? Or give up on understanding her altogether?

"I want to go home," she said, in a voice that trembled on the verge of tears.

Nic groaned. Not tears. Women's tears were the invention of the devil, designed to force men to grovel in an effort to make them stop. He'd have to apologize then . . .

"Olivia, please, if I've done something wrong, forgive me. I only wanted to make you happy. I didn't intend to upset you."

She stopped at the door and turned to look at him.

"Yes, I have brought other women here, but I can't even remember their faces let alone their names. I wanted to bring you because I knew you loved strawberries and I knew we would have some privacy. When I'm with you I have trouble behaving myself, you know that. I don't want to cause another scandal, so I thought—"

She was smiling. Devil take it, she was smiling! Nic wondered what part of the rambling sentences he'd just spoken had made her smile. And then he decided he didn't care, as long as she was happy again.

"Come home, Nic," she said huskily, holding out her hand. "We can be private there, and I can even ask for strawberries to be served in our bedchamber, if you like."

"Aren't you worried the housekeeper will tell you that isn't the way things are done?" he teased, moving toward her, and clasping her fingers firmly, possessively, in his.

"Do you know, I think I am getting braver where the housekeeper is concerned, because I don't care. Whose house is it, anyway?"

He bent to kiss her lips, keeping her a moment longer, before he opened the door onto the world outside.

"I do, you know," he said in a low, quiet voice.

Olivia gave him a puzzled look. "You do what?"

"I do want a child."

Tears filled her eyes but she said nothing, wiping them away with her fingers. Nic wondered at himself, that he could make this woman cry and smile, that his actions were capable of controlling her emotions. It should have felt like a burden, something to avoid, but it wasn't.

He'd avoided engaging himself emotionally with women because he didn't want to make any connections with them other than the physical, but it was different with Olivia. With her, he couldn't live without the emotional ties.

Nic was surprised at how much he'd changed, and it was she who had changed him.