Chapter Nine

IT WAS VERY DIFFICULT indeed for Nicole to pretend that Trevor, the man she had wed with so much hope in her heart, the same man who had squashed that hope with so little effort, was here now at Lesser House.

He'd chosen to ignore their marriage—indeed her very existence—for almost a year, she mused, anger still burning her insides. Oh, she'd been perfectly shocked to discover his presence this morning, but that shock had immediately turned to pain, recalling his treatment of her, and the truth that he had, for certain, destroyed any chance they might have had at happiness. Never mind that he was as handsome as ever, if not more so—or perhaps only more so because she'd been so starved for just a glimpse of him. She recalled with great anxiety how she'd cried for weeks and weeks when he'd left her here and had prayed for just one more opportunity to explain her part to him.

Struggling now with the long bed linens, trying to force them over the line Ian had strung for her outside the wash house, Nicole cursed volubly, as the wind had other plans for these linens. And then suddenly the linens and the wind were compliant, and the sheets seemed to find their own way over the line. But no, she saw a pair of strong hands coming from the other side. The rope was lowered, and Ian's head and kind eyes appeared.

"Are you all right, miss?"

Nicole's hands still hung on the sheets. She nodded but felt instantly the welling of tears. Gloomily, she dropped her head into her forearm. But she was nodding. "I will be all right as soon as he leaves," she decided, drawing a deep breath to steady her still-shaken nerves.

Ian squinted down at her. "I know it's not my business, miss, but what's he doing here?"

Nicole shrugged, as she had no idea. "Being nosy, maybe. I haven't a clue. He won't stay, I vow. He'll bore quickly with Lesser House and its bland lifestyle and he'll return to London."

"I only know about him through Franklin and Abby," Ian admitted. "How long have you been married?"

"Almost a year, I guess," she answered vaguely, reaching into the basket at her feet for the next piece of laundry. "Almost a year too long, I imagine."

Her steward looked as if he might say or ask more, but he did not. He helped with the rest of the laundry, making easy work of it. They worked in silence, not quite uncomfortably, until it was done.

"Thank you, Ian," she said then and heard a carriage approach. "Must be our Mr. Adams."

"Like as not," Ian answered as they walked back to the house. "Unless you've other husbands due to arrive."

An unexpected giggle fell from Nicole's lips—Ian had a very dry wit about him which she'd come to enjoy very much. She glanced up at him and his handsome grin and shook her head, smiling at his impertinence. When she faced the house again, she saw Trevor watching them from a second story window, and even from this distance, she could make out his frank displeasure.

As they entered the house, Abby called out to them that she had put Mr. Adams in the study, knowing not what else to do with him.

"We should rather meet with him in the steward's office, Miss," Ian said thoughtfully. "I'll bring him there while you freshen up."

"Yes, of course. I'll return quickly." And she made to dash up the stairs, having left the empty basket near the back of the house and the kitchens, but slowed her climb when she sensed she was being watched. She lifted her eyes.

Trevor stood at the top of the stairs, glaring at her with unconcealed animosity.

"If you are cuckolding me in my own home, I'll have his life and your hide." His voice was dangerously low and menacing.

She'd had just about enough of Trevor's assumptions, enough to last her a lifetime. "Keep assuming things that aren't true, Trevor." She mounted the stairs, not even flinching as she passed him, their arms touching. "I suppose eventually you might hit upon something with some truth to it."

In her own chambers—not the master's suite, not even the lady's—Nicole threw off her wash apron and splashed water on her face from an ewer and basin sitting on a small table. She fussed for a moment with her hair, tying the long and thick braid up at her nape, and gave herself only a cursory glance in her mirror as she passed it.

Returned downstairs and to the steward's office, she was heartily disgruntled to find Trevor there, exchanging seething glares with Ian. Mr. Adams had his nose pressed into an old ledger and seemed to pay no heed to the two men squaring off. She bade him a pleasant hello and turned to Trevor. "If you will excuse us, we are to have a private meeting."

"Assuming this meeting has something to do with the abbey, I think I'll exercise my right as owner to sit in." He met and held her gaze, his own no less annoyed than hers. Nonchalantly, he flopped into a chair slightly removed from the desk behind which Mr. Adams sat with the books.

Truly, she had no idea why he had come. She didn't even know if she had the stamina to delve into the possible reasons with him. She resented mightily that his simple presence had so quickly twisted her heart in knots. It wasn't often that she lied to her inner self, so she had to acknowledge that there might still exist a tiny spark of hope. She couldn't seem to think of him without recalling his once-upon-a-time smiles for her, or without remembering the day he'd taken her to the picture gallery, how he'd walked alongside her with his hands folded behind his back while she'd chirped away. She needn't call up a memory—it was a current condition—of his weakening effect upon her. If she dared to bring to mind the feel of him, touching her, kissing her, that undisputed joy that had spiraled through her, she would no doubt run directly to his arms, begging for more. Funny, how a person could neglect to recall all the horrid things about a person when faced with carnal attraction. Love truly is blind, she guessed. However, she was not about to make the same mistake twice. She'd given her heart once to Trevor and he had ill-used it to such a degree, she'd wallowed here at Lesser House for nigh on a year. Never again would she allow any man so much control over her very being, over the governance of her soul.

So, Nicole simply pretended that he was not at all in the steward's office, and then preceded to carry on with her meeting with Ian and Mr. Adams as she would any other business engagement that dealt with Lesser House and its tenants. And bless Mr. Adams, their nearest neighbor with holdings, for his invaluable input, and his perceived indifference to Trevor's presence. She'd not bothered to introduce him—that should stick in Trevor's craw—so the man paid him no mind. And dear Ian followed her lead, giving no indication, when the meeting had seriously begun, that Trevor even sat in the room, stewing at the both of them.

STEWING DID NOT BEGIN to convey the exact extent of his boiling rage. Trevor sat sloppily in the chair, his body completely attuned to every move she made, every word she spoke. Admittedly, while she confessed to knowing little about their discussion topic—hence Mr. Adams' input, it appeared—she asked intelligent questions and several of her supposed summaries of what the long-winded Mr. Adams was trying to get at seemed rather accurate to Trevor's mind. Even that Ian fellow, bastard though he was, seemed firstly, to have a great desire for this incoming knowledge, and secondly, to pick it up as quickly as Nicki did.

She moved, right now, in a specifically male world, one in which even Trevor was still fairly ignorant, but she moved well. She was not cowed by Mr. Adams greatness of knowledge, nor was she unable to grasp what, at times, appeared to Trevor to be a foreign language spewed from the man's mouth. She weighed his wisdom and experience with her own instinct, and made firm decisions, always—annoyingly—in perfect agreement with Ian.

They worked well as a team, Trevor concluded, with a bitter taste in his mouth. She was right. He hadn't anyone to blame but himself. His choices were what had brought her to this very moment right now. She was debating several different types of thatch to use, where best to purchase it, and when best to replace the old all because of him. Under normal circumstances, this would not be her life. Trevor was horrified to realize that she was good at this, that she seemed happy doing this. She didn't need him as he'd supposed she might.

She was no longer the girl he'd left crying in the drive.

It terrified him all of a sudden that he might have created a circumstance that he was unable to reverse. He'd spent the first few months after depositing her here, still angry that she'd betrayed him as she had. His meetings and discussions with the baron, prior to and after the wedding, aside from being extremely unfriendly—he'd expected nothing less, indeed had not balked when the baron insisted that he marry Nicole—had gained him only her modest dowry. True, it had put him in a better position than he'd hoped, but it had not solved all his problems. That was still a work in progress, having sold off two smaller holdings, both in Scotland, which had bought him more funds and then time to right the remainder of his finances. There was certainly some irony in the fact that with Nicole's dowry and the sale of those properties and many other changes to the way the estates and remaining holdings of Leven were run, it appeared he might recover from what had seemed like, when he'd betrothed himself to Sabrina, imminent financial ruin. It would be a long time coming, getting his head above water, but he felt confident that he had a good grasp on the estate as a whole, and that time, and continued prudent management, would see him right, eventually.

Around Christmas time, he'd thought of her often. It had come to him, that betrayal or no, his circumstance was all of his own doing. He'd been the pursuer, and the seducer. Until that last occasion, she had resisted stalwartly all his attempts, and rightly so. It was only his unmanageable desire for her that had caused him this harm. Her part in it, whatever that truly might have been, was inconsequential, when the matter was taken as a whole. And so, he'd begun to think of her more and more, had thought of sending for her, thinking she might come running. He laughed bitterly within right now—that apparently would not have happened. The truth was, however, he'd been afraid. Afraid of what he might find, or how he might be received, and so he'd dallied and dawdled until her grandmother had come to him, her objective clear and her arsenal loaded. That had been several weeks ago. He'd known that everything the dowager countess had said then was true, but it had still taken him almost another month to find the courage to come for her.

And his fears had proven true. The thing he'd feared the most, the loss of her, the death of her affection, was reality after all.

But had he lost her completely? The very idea sent a sudden ache through his chest. He could not let it be. He would exhaust every available means to have her back, to have her smile at him as she had done once.

When the meeting seemed to be drawing to a close, long after the threesome seemed to have forgotten his very presence, Trevor sat a little straighter, and watched Nicki bid a polite farewell and thank you to Mr. Adams. Just as that man left, the odd and crooked butler, Franklin appeared, requesting Ian's assistance in some matter, leaving Nicki looking about, as if she'd like to bolt as well.

Trevor stood, drawing her gaze to him. "Walk with me."

"I beg your pardon," she said, as if surprised that he spoke at all.

"I said walk with me, take a stroll outside." It was easy then to keep his tone level, when he considered all that he could lose if he screwed up again.

"I haven't time," she resisted. "There is much to do yet. I've the pantry to inventory, and luncheon will be—"

"Just walk with me," he coaxed, still his voice was even.

Damn her, but she shook her head, staring longingly at the door, and within the minute, she was through it, having escaped him. Trevor sighed audibly but considered her defiance his due. Patience, he thought, I only need to be patient.

THE DAY CARRIED ON, this household moved along without pause for his presence then. He thought to join her for luncheon but found her not at all in either of the two dining rooms, and not in the breakfast room. Thinking she might be taking her meal out of doors, he walked out upon the courtyard terrace, where he recalled his father had often liked to sit. She was not there. Wondering then how he might come about a meal for himself, he decided he hadn't any choice but to find the kitchens and request one.

And there was Nicole, sitting at an old painted wooden table, the servant's table, happily engaged in conversation with both Franklin and Abby, and that bothersome Ian, along with one other young maid, a slim, dark haired girl, and two young men. They turned as one as he pushed open the swinging door, staring at him as if no one had ever intruded upon their cozy little gathering before. Upon the table were empty dishes—apparently their own lunches—so that they only remained now, evidently, to keep company.

After a long quiet moment in which everyone just stared at him, Abby finally pulled herself up from the table and begrudgingly offered him something to eat.

Trevor accepted graciously and might have taken a seat at the table, but Abby said while she gathered items, "I'll put your meal in the gold dining room." To which, he might have replied that he would be happy to eat right here, but one by one, as they continued to regard him with wary eyes, people left the table, suddenly recalling chores to be done. The small unknown maid skittered by him without so much as a glance. Franklin clucked his tongue as if Trevor's disagreeable presence had ruined a satisfying meal. Ian gave him another silent snarl, stating his unchanged opinion, as it were. And Nicki cast him only one short and tight-lipped glance, before she too left the room. The two very young footmen followed closely on her heels, though it was apparent they only followed suit and hadn't offered any opinion of him upon their hasty departure.

Bereft now of any company, Trevor sank onto the bench at the table, uncaring that Abby might have preferred him gone from her kitchen.