Love Only Once (26 page)

But his amiability did not extend to his wife. Everyone else benefitted. Even Miriam received civil answers. But Reggie he ignored. It hurt. She wasn’t still angry over their argument, for she rarely stayed angry long. She was hurt because she could not forget that dream. It had seemed so real. She could not forget how it felt in his arms, how it was when he made love to her. Fool that she was, she had accepted him in her heart. Why was she such a pushover, to forgive so easily?

Miriam’s statement about guests made Nicholas frown. “The whole weekend? I take it this is not your usual dinner party?”

“No, actually,” Miriam replied. “I hope you don’t mind. I’m afraid the invitations went out right before you returned. I wasn’t expecting you to come home.”

“Nor were you expecting me to stay, I’m sure of that,” Nicholas said dryly.

Eleanor intervened before an argument began. “I think it’s a fine idea. A bit close to the London season, but that won’t start for another week or so. How many guests were you counting on, Miriam?”

“Only about twenty. Not all of them will be staying, however.”

“This isn’t your usual style, madame,” Nicholas commented. “May I ask what the occasion is?”

Miriam turned her head directly toward Nicholas so Walter couldn’t see her eyes. “Must there be an occasion?” Her eyes shot daggers at him.

“No. If you have started to enjoy large gatherings, however, I suggest you visit London this year and enjoy them to your heart’s content. You may even make use of my townhouse, now that my wife has so thoughtfully refurbished it.”

“I would not dream of leaving Silverley unattended,” Miriam said stiffly.

“I assure you, madame, I will force myself to stay here and look after the estate. I am capable of doing so, though you like to think otherwise.”

Miriam did not take the bait. He was beginning to see that she wouldn’t fight as long as Sir Walter was present. What a choice situation. What fun! But Aunt Ellie was frowning at him, and poor Tyrwhitt looked embarrassed. Regina,
sweet Regina, looked down at her plate, avoiding his gaze. He sighed.

“Forgive me, mother. I did not mean to imply that I wished to be rid of you, or that you lack confidence in your only son.” He grinned as she stiffened. Perhaps there
were
a few small pleasures left to him. “By all means have your party. I’m sure Aunt Ellie and my wife will enjoy helping with the arrangements.”

“I have everything in hand already,” Miriam said quickly.

“Then that completes the discussion, does it not?”

Nicholas resumed eating, and Reggie shook her head. She had considered her little battles with the Countess beneath her, yet she had always been provoked. Miriam had done nothing to provoke Nicholas tonight. Why did he dedicate himself to being disagreeable?

As soon as the ladies left the men to their brandies, Reggie retired to her rooms. But Thomas was sleeping, and Meg was in the servants’ wing with Harris, and it was too early to go to sleep. Still, she refused to go downstairs. Being ignored by her husband in front of others was embarrassing.

Nicholas noticed Regina’s absence the moment he entered the drawing room, and approached Eleanor.

“Where is she?” he asked abruptly.

“She mentioned retiring.”

“This early? Is she sick?”

“My dear Nicky, where was this interest in your wife when she was with you?”

“Don’t chastise, Aunt Ellie. I believe I have been run through the mill quite enough.”

“And still you go on in your own stubborn way,” Eleanor sighed. “Which is only making you miserable—admit it.”

“Nonsense,” he said irritably. “And you don’t know all of the story, Aunt Ellie.”

She sighed, seeing the rigid set of his chin. “Perhaps. But the way you have ignored that poor girl is still deplorable. Why, I don’t believe I’ve heard you say two words to her since we arrived here.”

“More than two, I assure you.”

“Oh, you can be so exasperating, Nicholas!” Eleanor kept her voice down. “You just won’t admit that you were wrong, that you have a wonderful wife and no good reason not to cherish her.”

“I do admit that. It is my wife who now regrets her choice of husband. I once told her she would. Bitter thing,” he added, “to find yourself proved right about the one thing you wanted to be wrong about.”

She watched him walk away, her eyes sad. How she wished she could help. This was something he was going to have to solve on his own.

Much later, Nicholas entered the sitting room which divided the master bedrooms and was startled to find Regina curled up on the sofa, reading. She wore a bright aqua satin dressing gown belted at the waist, clinging enticingly to
her small frame. Her midnight hair lay about her slim shoulders in sensual disarray. She lowered the book and looked at him.

Her gaze was direct. It had its usual power to jolt him. Bloody hell. Another night he’d have to spend tossing and turning.

“I thought you’d gone to bed.” Frustration made his voice sharp.

Reggie slowly lowered the book to her lap. “I wasn’t tired.”

“Couldn’t you read in your own room?”

She managed to appear unperturbed. “I hadn’t realized this room was for your exclusive use.”

“It isn’t, but if you are going to lie about half-dressed, do it in bed,” he snapped. He scowled at her for a moment, then went into his room.

Reggie sat up. So much for being available to him. What ever made her think she might be able to entice him? All she managed to arouse in him was anger. She had better remember that, she told herself.

Chapter 35

“I
JUST love your house, Nicky,” Pamela Ritchie gushed when she found him in the library. “It’s—so grand! Your mother was such a dear to show me around.”

Nicholas smiled tightly, saying nothing. With anyone else, he’d have been proud to hear his home praised. But he’d learned something about this luscious brunette during their torrid two-week affair of several years past, and that was that she rarely meant anything she said. Oh, she was impressed with Silverley, but she was surely peeved not to be the lady of the manor.

When their affair ended, he heard through the servants’ grapevine that she destroyed her bedroom in a fit of temper. He’d seen her occasionally after that. She always had a warm smile for him, but to catch her unawares was to see Pamela fuming.

Women like Pamela and Selena always clashed with his own quick temper eventually. In his wilder days he had known every kind of female temperament, but there was only one
he’d been in real danger with, and that was the lovely Caroline Symonds. But fortunately, she was married to the old Duke of Windfield. He had not seen Lady Caroline for three years, and the pain of their separation was long gone.

“We were wondering where you had gone off to, Nicky,” Pamela was saying. She perched, uninvited, on the edge of a chair near his desk. “Tea is being served in the drawing room. More people have arrived. Don’t know them, some squire or—oh! And your lovely wife finally made an appearance. A charming, sweet girl. Of course, I’d met her before, don’t you know, season before last. She was all the rage then. The young bloods were falling all over themselves just for one of her smiles. I was even a little bit envious until it became apparent that something was, well…wrong with her, poor thing.”

He had known the silly chattering thing was leading up to something, but even so he found himself stiffening. “Am I supposed to guess what you mean by that?”

She laughed, a tittering sound. “I was hoping
you
would tell
me
. Everyone is simply on tenders to know.”

“Know?” Nicholas said curtly.

“Why, to know what you found wrong with her.”

“I find nothing wrong with my wife, Pamela,” he said coldly.

“So you won’t fess up? Gallant of you, Nicky, but not very enlightening,” she sighed. “You
can imagine the stir you’ve created. It isn’t every day one of our most eligible bachelors marries and then leaves his wife practically at the altar. It is rumored that one of Lady Reggie’s uncles handed you over to her in chains.”

It was not easy for Pamela to be assured that she had scored. Only the tension in his hands showed his anger. She had wanted him to fly into a rage. Pamela harbored more spite for this man than she did for all her other lovers come and gone combined. She had formed serious plans for Nicholas Eden, and he had laid them to ruins. Bloody philandering cur. She was delighted he had ended up with a wife who didn’t suit him.

“That particular rumor is an absurdity, Pamela,” Nicholas said tightly. “I returned to England in James Malory’s company simply because he was kind enough to offer me berth on his ship when he found me stranded in the West Indies. And,” he went on quickly before she could say anything, “I hate to disappoint you, but it was business that took me away from my bride. An emergency on an island property that couldn’t wait.”

“Another man might have taken his bride along, extended honeymoon and all that,” she interjected. “Odd you didn’t think of it.”

“There wasn’t time to…” he began, but she smiled and rose to leave.

“It will be interesting to watch the two of you,
though. Strange that you should be entertaining so soon after your wedding.”

“This little gathering was not my idea.”

“Yes, your mother sent the invitations, but you were already here, so I assume you wanted a party. Well, they do say the best way to relieve boredom is to have a party. I just hope you weren’t thinking of a
personal
party between the two of
us
when you had me included on the guest list. Married men don’t attract me, if you know what I mean.”

She whirled out of the room before he could reply. Nicholas remained seated, staring at the door. He had been turned down flat, without his even making an offer. The cheek!

A fierce protectiveness rose in him. Something wrong with Reggie, indeed! He left the library with every intention of finding his wife and devoting himself to her fully for as long as a single guest remained in the house. But when he stepped out of the library, glancing toward the entry hall, he saw Selena Eddington alighting from her carriage. Fuming, he went to find Miriam. “What I find amusing is that you kept such close tabs on me all these years,” he told her. “Such devotion. Of course it enabled you to know exactly which people I would
not
wish to see.”

“Not at all,” she replied with a tight little smile. “There are, in fact, many kind souls who feel a mother should be informed of what her son is doing in wicked London…and with whom. You can’t imagine how many good inten
tions I had to sit through, appearing grateful, when I didn’t care if my so-called son drowned in the Thames.” She gave him a look of pure hatred. “Yet, bits of information do sometimes have uses.”

Fury flashed in his eyes. He turned and headed for the stairs, Miriam’s delighted laughter following him.

“You can’t hide all weekend, Lord Montieth,” she called scornfully.

Nicholas didn’t look back. What the bloody hell did the conniving, spiteful old bitch hope to accomplish by inviting two of his ex-mistresses to his home? And, good God, how many more surprises awaited him?

Chapter 36

T
HE drawing room was quite crowded, Miriam’s twenty people having turned into thirty. The music room was open and sounds of someone tinkering with the harp drifted from it. The dining room was open, the long table set up for a buffet. Guests drifted from room to room.

Selena Eddington had changed little in the year since Reggie had seen her. Dressed in a frilly pink lace creation that made Reggie feel matronly in her dark blue gown, Selena had all the men hanging on her every word. From time to time, she turned toward Reggie with a satisfied smirk.

“Cheer up, my dear. It was bound to happen one day.”

Reggie turned to Lady Whately, an acquaintance from years past. She was sitting beside Reggie on the sofa. “What was bound to happen?” Reggie inquired.

“You meeting up with the women from your husband’s past, there being so many of them.”

“If you mean Lady Selena—”

“Not just her, my dear. There’s the Duchess
there, and that Ritchie tart, and Mrs. Henslowe, though Anne Henslowe was just a fling, or so I’m told.”

Reggie’s eyes flew to each woman the old tabby named, widening when they fell on Caroline Symonds, Duchess of Windfield, a stunningly beautiful blond only a few years older than Reggie. The Duchess sat demurely next to a man in his late seventies. He had to be the Duke of Windfield. How utterly miserable the young woman must be with that old husband, thought Reggie.

Pamela Ritchie, Anne Henslowe, Caroline Symonds, and Selena Eddington. Four of Nicholas’ past mistresses in the same room with his wife! This was asking too much. Was she supposed to converse with them? Act the gracious hostess?

Nicholas made an appearance just then, and she wished she could glower at him, but that was out of the question. While she watched, Lady Selena took Nicholas’ arm and held on tightly.

“That doesn’t upset you, does it, my dear?”

Reggie turned to find Lady Whately gone and Anne Henslowe in her place. Was she now to be comforted by one of his mistresses? “Why should it upset me?” Reggie answered stiffly.

Mrs. Henslowe smiled. “It shouldn’t. After all, she lost him and you have him. She was upset about it.”

“And you?”

“Oh, dear. Someone has been whispering in your ear. I was afraid of that.”

Reggie simply could not remain vexed. The woman was genuinely sympathetic, her brown eyes compassionate. She wasn’t a bad sort. And her affair with Nicholas had happened long before Reggie met him.

“Don’t give it another thought.” Reggie smiled.

“
I
won’t. I just hope
you
don’t. Be assured, my dear, that Nicholas never goes back for second helpings.”

Reggie giggled, shocked. “Nicely put.”

“And true, to the lamentation of the women in his past. Many have tried to get him back, and all without luck.”

“Did you?” Reggie asked bluntly.