Nicholas

Seventeen


“I never anticipated how tiring separation from one’s husband would be,” Leah said as Buttercup was led off to the stables, “nor how many people call you friend, Nicholas.”

Leah sank down onto the front steps leading up to the Clover Down front door, and Nick realized his wife was delaying the moment when they were private. Well, to hell with that. He moved up a couple of steps and sat behind her so one of his legs was on either side of her. When Leah only watched him with veiled caution, he wrapped his arms around her and propped his chin on the top of her head.

“I love you,” Nick said, his voice a low, fervent rumble. “I need to get that out, before any of my well-meaning, infernal friends come trotting up that drive, your brother drops by, one of my brothers drops by, or some servant comes around to eavesdrop.”

“I beg your pardon?” Leah’s cheek was resting against his chest, her ear over his heart, where she’d once told him she liked to have it.

Nick pulled her away from him enough that their gazes could meet. “I said I love you, Leah Haddonfield. I hope it matters.”

He folded her back against him, unwilling to see her reaction in her eyes. What if he’d left it too late? What if he’d been too ridiculous, separating from a perfectly luscious wife because she was perfectly luscious? What if she laughed at him?

“I love you too,” Leah murmured against his chest.

Relief leavened his anxiety. At least she wasn’t laughing. All she’d said was… His hand in her hair went still, and he stopped nuzzling her temple.

“I’m not sure I heard you aright, Wife.”

Leah peeled back, met his gaze squarely, and pronounced sentence on him slowly.

“I love you, Nicholas Haddonfield,” she said, “but that is only a start. Why are you here today with me when you left a week ago, hell-bent on separation?”

“You love me?” Nick took visual inventory of the front court of his favorite little estate, then took a deep breath through his nose. Leah’s scent filled his awareness, assuring him he hadn’t fallen asleep on his horse, only to dream this moment.

“I love you.” Leah smiled, but there was sadness in that smile, and Nick’s initial bubble of joy began to drift away.

“I’ve hurt you,” Nick said, “and I am sorry. I’d like to show you how sorry.” He rose, drew her to her feet, and laced his fingers through hers, tugging her into the house and toward the staircase.

Leah tugged back, bringing him to a halt. “Nicholas?”

“Come upstairs with me, please?” His eyes pleaded, but he didn’t resort to overt groveling. Not yet.

“I cannot.” She dropped his hand, and it might as well have been Nick’s heart she cast aside. “I cannot bear for you to leave me again, Nicholas. If you take me up those stairs, you must promise you will not leave me, not for some wrongheaded notion, not for some other woman. I know you are a man with needs, but I am your wife, and I will try… No.” She stopped herself. “I will not beg. I will not.”

“I will not leave you.” Nick drew her into his arms. “Not ever, though you might send me away. I don’t just love you, Wife, I am in love with you, and I can promise you I’ve never said those words to a woman before, not a human woman anyway.”

Leah frowned up at him, in puzzlement.

“I might have said them to my horse,” Nick amended hastily, “but you mustn’t worry I’ll leave you or be tempted to mischief or ever want another in my bed. I know we have much to discuss, more than you know, in fact, but please for the love of God, Leah, let me love you now.”

She searched his face then nodded once. Nick swept her up in his arms and all but ran for the bedroom.

Thank you; thank you, Jesus; thank you, God; thank you, Leah. This wasn’t what he’d intended when he’d cantered his mare up the drive. He’d intended to sit Leah down in his study with a tumbler of spirits, and clear the air between them of all the mistakes and deceptions. He should stop and do just that, because she might not be amenable to this reconciliation once she knew what he’d withheld.

That thought, however, made him only more desperate to seize his first and possibly last opportunity to be truly intimate with her.

He stood her on her feet rather than toss her on the bed, ruck up her skirts, open his falls, and have at it. This had to be right for her, in every detail, for he might never have another chance to be his wife’s lover in fact.

So he turned her by the shoulders and forced his fingers to carefully undo the hooks running down the back of her dress. He untied the bows of her chemise then drew her to sit at the vanity, where he took the pins from her hair and finger-combed the mahogany silk of it over her shoulders.

“We usually undress at night,” Leah said, catching Nick’s eye in the mirror. “By candlelight.”

“You are glorious in any light.” Nick bent to kiss the juncture of her shoulder and her neck, to inhale her, to feast on her. “And you smell of spring and sunshine.” He nuzzled and nibbled lazily before raising up to regard her in the mirror. “And you taste of warmth and willingness and every man’s fondest desire.”

“I want only to taste of your fondest desire,” Leah replied, almost sternly. She rose and inspected her fully dressed husband, a wealth of meaning conveying itself in her single arched eyebrow.

Nick was stark naked in seconds.

“Come here.” He held out his arm the very next instant and beckoned with one hand toward his wife. “Come here, please.”

That word, Nick was finding, had a magical effect on his countess. She liked to hear him ask politely for what wasn’t polite at all. When she was standing next to him in her chemise and stockings, Nick perused her with such intensity she blushed.

“I don’t deserve you,” he said at length. “I don’t deserve what we’re about to share, and I don’t deserve your forgiveness, but I’ll presume on it anyway.”

As puzzlement at his words clouded Leah’s eyes, Nick distracted her by pushing her chemise off her shoulders and down over her hips. He knelt to step her out of it and to untie her garters and roll down her stockings, leaving her utterly naked in the soft afternoon sunshine streaming over the bed.

When Leah would have turned to climb onto the bed, Nick gathered her into his arms, her skin warm and smooth against his. He was already aroused, his erection arrowing up between their bodies and pressing against Leah’s abdomen. He pushed himself against her firmly, insisting she feel his desire even as his lips covered hers softly.

“God, how I want you,” he murmured against her neck. “To think…”

“I missed you,” Leah whispered, turning her face to his chest. “I wanted to ride into London and clobber you soundly on your handsome, stubborn, addled blond head.”

“I know,” Nick said, pushing her back so she sat on the high bed. “I deserved to be coshed. I am addled.”

“And you should be spanked.” Leah hiked back on her elbows and then must have noted a gleam in Nick’s eyes. “Oh, no, Husband. It’s daylight, for the love of God…”

“All the better to see you.” Nick snatched a pillow from the bed, tossed it at his feet, and knelt between Leah’s legs. “And pleasure you, and make you scream and beg and promise never to leave me.” When she would have squirmed back in protest, he wrapped an arm around each of her thighs and tugged her bottom to the edge of the mattress.

“And taste you,” he added, swiping the flat of his tongue right up the crease of her sex.

He tormented, teased, and suckled until Leah was whimpering and undulating with frustration. When he deigned to slip two fingers into her damp sheath, she convulsed around them, long and hard, much to Nick’s satisfaction.

“Tell me again that you missed me.” Nick smiled down at her as he stood beside the bed and took a sip of water. She was on her back, forearm shielding her eyes, her legs splayed in the most lovely testament to satiety Nick had ever seen.

Leah opened her eyes. “I still miss you. Inside me, here.” She slid her hand over her pelvic cradle. “I miss you. I grieve for the lack of you inside me.”

Grief. He’d caused his beloved wife not just heartache and disappointment, but grief. Nick set the water glass down and slipped his arms under Leah’s shoulders and knees, to arrange her on the mattress so her head was on the pillows.

“I miss you, too,” he said, coming down beside her and pushing her hair back from her forehead. “In here.” He took her hand and laid it over his heart. “And here,” his belly. “And here.” He wrapped her fingers around his cock and rolled to his back so Leah was the one on her side, regarding him as she stroked her fingers over his erection.

“You are uncomfortable?” she asked, sleeving him in a long, easy stroke.

“I ache,” Nick said, opening his eyes to meet hers. “I ache for you, for the sensation of being inside you and over you and… Merciful… Eternal… Leah.”

She bent and tongued his glans, a soft, hot swipe of dampness followed by gentle suction applied just under the tip.

“Lovey.” It came out “looovveeey.” Nick closed his eyes and cupped the back of her head gently. “I’ll spend.”

She ignored him, much as he’d ignored her earlier. Her fingers found the soft weight of his testes then eased up to stroke his shaft while her mouth tended to the velvety head of his cock.

“Please, lovey,” Nick whispered, and she answered his prayer by lifting her face so her hair brushed across his abdomen. “This time, I want to be inside you.”

Leah sat back and regarded him as he lay back against the pillows. “What has changed, Nicholas?”

He was glad she realized that something was different, that he was different, and that he wanted today to be a beginning for them.

“Everything,” he said, pushing up off the pillows and gently urging her down on her back. “Let me love you, please. I’ll be careful, I promise. I’ll go slowly, and I won’t hurt you.”

“You couldn’t hurt me.”

“I have hurt you,” Nick corrected her, easing his body over hers. “I hurt the heart you gave into my keeping, and… ah, God, Leah.” He slowly brushed his thumbs across her palms and hitched closer. The great length of his cock lay heavily on Leah’s stomach, hot, and still wet from her loving. She arched up against it and made a sound very like a growl near his ear.

“Shame on you,” Nick whispered, arching away from her. “I intend to make a proper job of this, Wife, and you will not rush me.”

“Hah.” Leah wrapped her legs around his flanks and pressed her wet sex to his shaft.

“You do not play fair, my lady. And I adored you before you started breaking the rules.”

“I’m merely making a proper job of it,” Leah whispered in his ear just as her thumbs brushed over his nipples.

Holy everlasting… He loved his wife, loved this mischievous, tantalizing, playful, inventive side to her. Her mouth brushed over one of his nipples, while her hand slid down, down the length of his back to grip his fundament. Nick fought a moment’s panic as his arousal threatened his control.

Proper job or not, he wasn’t going to last much longer, not with his she-devil wife intent on her own goals. With unerring instinct, he pressed the tip of his cock against Leah’s sex and succeeded in distracting her from her various plots against his sanity.

“Nicholas?”

“Let me,” he whispered, sensing the question in her body and in her heart. “I love you, and I would give you this. Give us both this, if you’re willing.”

He slipped his forearms under her neck and cradled the back of her head in one hand. She curled up against his chest, so he felt more than saw her single nod. She laid her cheek against his chest in a gesture of surrender, and Nick felt his cock leap in response.

They weren’t even joined yet, he’d merely seated himself snugly against the opening to her body, and already, his arousal strained at the leash of his control. So he distracted himself, kissing her forehead, her eyes, her cheeks. He softly scraped her earlobe with his teeth and slipped one hand down to cup and knead a full breast then tug at a ruched nipple.

All the while, he pressed forward slowly with his cock, until Leah’s sex eased around him and teasing became the start of penetration. She exhaled, and Nick glided forward the first full inch.

“Steady,” Nick rasped when he felt her gather herself to roll her hips. “We’re just getting started.”

Started, indeed. Leah’s sheath convulsed around him in firm, glad contractions of pleasure, though she held completely still otherwise, as did he.

“Oh, my… Nicholas…” Her orgasm went on so long Nick thought he was going to expire from the frustration of holding still. He contented himself with tucking her face against his throat and synchronizing his breathing with hers, then counting the tight, murderously pleasurable spasms as they passed through her to him.

She held still through it all, but then pulled herself up to him in a snug embrace when the aftershocks had faded.

“You’re all right?” Nick asked, resting his cheek against her temple.

“That was wonderful. You are wonderful, but I want more, now, Nicholas, not in five minutes.”

Her voice had a purring quality that resonated through Nick bodily.

“You’ll have more,” he assured her, tentatively retreating from even the shallow ground he’d gained, then advancing again.

“Please, Nicholas.” She clutched at him with her legs around his flanks. “I need…”

“I know,” Nick replied softly, reassuring her with the beginning of a rhythm. “I know, lovey. I need, too.”

He plied her with more patience than he’d laid claim to in his entire life, easing forward, easing back, listening for the telltale hitch in breathing that might suggest he was moving too deeply, too quickly.

It never came. Instead, in the waiting stillness he heard the gradual acceleration of Leah’s breathing, the little sighs of pleasure and satisfaction, the soft groan of encouragement as she felt him truly stroking himself in and out of her body. When he was moving easily to her depths and back out again, Nick tightened his hold around Leah’s shoulders.

“Move with me,” he urged at last. “Love me back, lamb. Let me bring you pleasure.”

She lasted four well-coordinated strokes before her body gave itself up again to ecstatic contractions around his swollen cock. He thought he was going to outlast this onslaught as well, but then Leah added a purposeful clenching of her muscles to the thrust and buck of her pleasure.

Be gentle with her, for the love of God, be gentle…

“Nicholas!” Leah heaved up against him in a mighty shove of her hips, and gentleness was obliterated by mutual passion. Leah’s ankles locked at the small of Nick’s back, and she rode him in a hard resurgence of her orgasm. He met her thrusts with firm, measured strokes of his own, feeling pleasure bloom out from his cock to every particle of his physical and emotional being.

As his body surrendered to the ecstasy of an intimate joining, Nick felt at once the profound pleasure of genuine sexual gratification, and the profound bond forged with his wife. The moment was erotic, spiritual, passionate, and tender, all the wonderful things he’d thought to deny himself joined in a single, perfect procession of instants.

And the perfection did not end, though his sexual pleasure eventually spent itself in Leah’s body. Afterward, he took some of his weight on his forearms but kept his torso laid along hers, his arms snug around her.

Peace settled around him—peace and gratitude and a comprehension of the great depths to which love might grow with the woman sharing his bed.

Sharing his life, his heart.

“I could not love you more,” Nick whispered against Leah’s neck. He shifted to kiss her cheek, finding the dampness of her tears with his lips. “Lovey? Did I hurt you?”

Leah shook her head and found his hands on the pillow with her own. Lacing her fingers through his, she strained up to be closer to him.

“Love you, too, Husband,” she whispered. “So very much.”

She was as shaken as he, Nick concluded, reassured and moved beyond measure. He gathered her close and rolled to his back, so she could rest on him and he could keep his arms around her. His hands traced lazy patterns on her back, and a sweet, wondering silence came down on the sunbeams around them.

“Tell me again,” Leah said on a soft sigh.

“I love you. I love you. I love you,” Nick obliged, finding the saying of it more satisfying than he’d realized it would be.

“The other, too,” Leah instructed, her tongue grazing the pulse at his throat.

The other… Nick cast around, distracted by that hot, pink little tongue, then his mind seized on its quarry.

“I will never, ever leave you again,” he said, “unless you cast me from your side, and then I will importune you the livelong day to forgive me and take me back and let me sit penitently at your feet, gazing worshipfully at the hem of your gown.”

Leah’s nose wrinkled. “What if I’m not wearing a gown? My husband likes us to sleep as God made us.”

“I’ll gaze at your toenails.” He wanted to put off what came next, and he needed to get it behind them, regardless of the consequences. “Seriously, Leah, there are things we need to discuss that will put you out of charity with me.”

Leah sighed mightily and rubbed her cheek over Nick’s sternum. “Must we discuss them now?”

“To be honest, I would rather order us a bath, work my wiles on you, and keep you naked for the next week, at least. But, lovey, I am in earnest when I say there are things we have yet to deal with.”

Leah peered up at him. “Such as why you took it into your head that we should not consummate our marriage?”

“Such as that very thing.” His countess was both bright and brave. “Much as I’d like to dodge that issue, I will not. I owe you the truth.”

“You do. I’m not up to a recitation of your paramours, Nicholas. Not now, not ever. I promise in return not to bore you with tales of my blessedly forgettable experiences with poor Aaron.”

“We have a bargain on that score, but there’s more to be resolved than our respective amorous pasts, Leah.”

“You are sounding oppressively serious, Nicholas. Why must you go hunting serpents in paradise now that we’ve finally found our way here?”

“Because we cannot stay in paradise, my love.” Nick’s hands shifted up to cradle her jaw. “Not with anything less than complete trust between us.”

“I trust you, Nicholas.” Leah spoke with her lips against his palm, and they were sweet, sweet words. He wanted to close them in his fist and hold them tightly.

“And I am humbled to agree, though it is I who must demonstrate my trust in you.”

“Isn’t that what you just did?”

In her words, Nick heard a whole separate universe of reasons to love her—not just for the passion and ferocity of her sexual loving, but also for the feminine wisdom and generosity that sustained her regard for him when he was too unworthy. Too pigheaded, too stubborn, too…

“Nicholas.” Leah shifted up on his chest and regarded him steadily. “Whatever it is, you must not fret. We’ll deal with it together. I’ll not abandon you just when you’ve found me.”

He closed his eyes and held her fiercely as she put her dainty finger on his most dreaded fear and his most carefully treasured hope.

***

“So where are we off to?” Leah asked her oddly silent husband while they waited for their horses. He’d held her and cuddled her and rubbed her back and murmured all manner of sweet nothings, but the restlessness had been upon him again, and Leah had suggested they rise as the afternoon began to shift toward evening.

“We’re going to have a late tea with the neighbors,” Nick said, though his tone was evasive to Leah’s ears.

“Any particular neighbors?” Leah pressed as Nick gave her a leg up onto Casper.

“They dwell at Blossom Court,” Nick said, swinging onto Buttercup. They turned their horses down the drive, and for many minutes, Leah was silent as they cantered along.

“I’ve seen them,” Leah said as they approached the Blossom Court drive. “Two ladies, one quite a bit younger than the other.”

Nick kept his gaze on the lane before them. “Where have you seen them?”

“In their own garden, as I walked up among the trees on the hilltop. You were visiting with the blond.”

“It isn’t what you think, Leah, though that will hardly reassure you, I know.”

“You love her,” Leah said, unable to keep bewilderment from her tone, “or you at least care a great deal for her.”

“I love her. I love my horse, my sisters, and Della. It isn’t a love you need to fear, Leah—or I hope it won’t be.”

Now Leah was the one staring at the lane. “Can’t you just explain this situation in the King’s English?”

“If words were easy, I would have found the right ones weeks ago, Leah, maybe even years ago.”

Leah stopped interrogating him after that, not sure she’d be able to bear the answers he gave her.

A groom trotted out from the stables when they arrived to Blossom Court, and waited while Nick assisted Leah from her horse.

“Loosen the girths,” Nick said. “Put them up with some hay and water, but don’t take off the saddles. I don’t know how long we’ll be.”

“Aye, guv.” The man disappeared with the horses.

“We’ll probably find our hostess in the garden at this time of day,” Nick said. “The older woman is Mrs. Waverly and the younger I usually address simply as Leonie.”

And he wasn’t going to say more, so Leah didn’t press him. She did, however, note that for once, Nick had not taken her arm or her hand or in any way made an effort to touch her. It rattled her, as the closer they came to this introduction to the neighbors, the more quiet and distant Nick became.

On instinct, Leah slid her hand through his. Nick looked up, startled, but closed his fingers around hers.

“Mrs. Waverly,” Nick called as they passed through a rose arbor. “I believe you might be expecting us?”

“Indeed, my lord.” The woman rose from her bench, but the tall blond lady beside her rocketed across the garden with a shriek of glee.

“Nickie!” Oblivious to Leah’s presence, she flung her arms around Nick’s neck. “Oh, Nick! You came, you came. I am ever so glad to see you, and you brought your wife to see me too. Hullo.” She paused in her chatter and flung a curtsy at Leah. “I am Leonie, and you are Nick’s wife. Will you have tea with us?”

Leah stopped short as she surveyed the little table set up before the bench where Leonie had been sitting. There was a doll seated at the table, and a stuffed horse. Both were well worn, veterans of long years of service.

“Tea would be delightful,” Leah replied, studying Leonie carefully. Her age was hard to determine. She was quite tall and possessed of womanly curves, though her movements were coltish and her hair up in a simple knot, as if she were a young girl. Her complexion was lovely, also like a young girl, and her movements were somehow… unrestrained as she gamboled along on Nick’s other side.

“Nick has to sit on the bench,” Leonie explained to Leah. “He is quite, quite tall, like me, but taller. You may have the rocking chair because you are his wife, and I will sit on the little chair. Mrs. W. says I am getting too grown-up for the little chair, but I still fit, don’t I?” She turned huge blue eyes on Nick, and Leah was pained to see a wealth of tenderness in Nick’s gaze.

“You are getting quite grown-up, Leonie mine,” Nick said. “I think you might consider inviting another friend to your tea parties, say that furry little cat who sleeps on your pillow.”

“Mr. Cat will not sit at table with Mrs. Crumpet,” Leonie reminded Nick. “Though he will share a brandy with Lord Steed when it’s nippy out.”

Leonie chattered on, her prattle confirming Leah’s growing suspicion that though Leonie had the appearance of a young lady, she was a child still in her mind, and likely in her heart as well.

But what was she to Leah’s husband? Surely he would not have used Leonie in any carnal sense? That notion was too absurd to entertain. Nick loved this Leonie, and Leonie obviously loved her Nick.

“How do you take your tea?” Leonie asked very properly. Leah glanced over at Nick, but his expression was watchful, giving nothing away.

“I am rather spoiled in this regard,” Leah said. “I like plenty of cream and at least two lumps of sugar.”

“Papa has a sweet tooth as well,” Leonie confided, beaming at Nick. “Don’t you?”

“I have a sweet tooth in proportion to the rest of me,” Nick admitted, his guarded eyes belying his easy tone. “What about Lord Steed? I’ve known others of his ilk to be fond of sugar.”

Leonie turned to the stuffed horse. “He says we can’t very well put carrots in his tea.”

As the sun set slowly, tea passed in a pleasant childish amalgam of make-believe, let’s pretend, and social banter. Leonie was peculiarly intuitive, sensing currents around her more accurately than would others her age.

And yet… As Leah watched Nick taking tea with his daughter and her stuffed animals, saw the fathomless love and concern for her in his eyes, Leah realized that here was the reason Nick Haddonfield still had a capacity for whimsy.

Leonie was the reason Nick was so affectionate, so devoted to his family, so tenderhearted, protective, and responsible—Leonie and her need for him. When another in Nick’s position might have become just one more strutting young lordling, Leonie had instead given Nick the impetus to turn himself into a man anyone would be proud to call friend.

As Leah took in blond hair, blue eyes, significant height, and a host of mannerisms shared between parent and child, she tried to absorb the fact that this lovely, fey, childlike young woman was Nick’s very own daughter. Nick had loved her for her entire life and would love her until his dying breath and beyond.

And yet, it was a love that only enhanced the regard Leah felt for her husband.

“As it is nigh dark,” Mrs. Waverly said, “we’d best be retiring, Miss Leonie. I’m sure your papa needs to seek his own bed.”

Leonie shook her head vigorously, which had a few more tendrils of blond hair tumbling loose. “Not Papa. He’s allowed to stay up late.”

“That I am, Leonie mine.” Nick rose and drew Leonie to her feet with a flourishy bow. “But young ladies need their beauty sleep.”

“Good night, Papa.” Leonie flung her arms around Nick’s waist and hugged him tightly. He bent over her, wrapping his arms around her gently and kissing her brow. “Will you come see me again soon?”

Nick smiled down at her. “As soon as I can, princess.”

“Will you bring Mrs. Nick? Can we have another tea party?”

Nick’s smile became subtly pained. “Perhaps. If one plans a tea party, it has a tendency to provoke the heavens into raining, but we’ll see.”

“Of course we’ll come for another tea party,” Leah interjected, smiling at Leonie. “I am new to the neighborhood, so I will be out making calls, and it will be nice to share a cup with some friendly faces. Perhaps next time I can meet Mr. Cat?”

“He should love to meet you,” Leonie assured her earnestly, disentangling herself from Nick’s embrace. “Good night, Mrs. Nick.” She startled Leah no end by flinging her arms around Leah’s neck as well, a dicey proposition, when Leonie had several inches of height over Leah and was an enthusiastic hugger.

“Off to bed with you, favorite brat,” Nick chided playfully. “Set a good example for Lord Steed and Mrs. Crumpet.”

“Yes, Papa.” Leonie beamed at them in the waning light, blew Nick a noisy kiss good night, then turned and scampered into the house.

Or scampered as well as someone could who was quite tall for an adult woman.

Nick offered Leah his arm and escorted her to the stables in complete silence. The horses were brought out, and when Nick would have boosted Leah into the saddle, she leaned in close to read his expression.

Nothing. Nick’s face gave away not one thing. Not relief, not fatigue, not resignation, nothing.

“Do you mind if we walk back to Clover Down?” Leah suggested on impulse. She wanted to be touching Nick when they finally got around to discussing his daughter, not stealing glances at him from atop her horse.

“It’s a pleasant night.” Nick handed the reins to the groom, who led the horses off without a word. Leah accompanied her husband to the foot of the lane before Nick’s voice pierced the gathering gloom.

“For God’s sake, Leah, say something.”