The Bad Luck Wedding Night, Bad Luck Wedding series #5 (Bad Luck Abroad trilogy) (21 page)

He exhaled a sigh, then dragged his gaze upward once more. "Lass, I'll cede you this. While you do need lessons in taking a man's measure, if kissing were a discipline of study, Oxford would be happy to have you."

She wrinkled her nose and sniffed but couldn't hide the smugness in her expression. When she added pursed lips to the look, she drew his attention back to her ripe and kiss-swollen lips.
Damnation, every man at Oxford would be happy to have her, period.

Nick groaned again, stepped toward her again. "Teach me some more, Sarah."

Now she scowled. "No. You are just trying to distract me. I want to know why you invaded my privacy, Nick, and I want to know now."

Her prissy demand was almost enough to push him into pushing her further, but now that distance had allowed some of the blood to flow back to his brain, Nick recognized it wasn't the proper time for further lessons. However, he did take a moment to make himself a quiet, simple promise. One way or another before they were done, he was going to give Sarah, Lady Weston, a close and very personal demonstration of how the right candle can light up a bud vase.

"You want to know why I searched your things? All right, I'll tell you. I was looking for love letters."

She blinked. "Is that how you thought of them?"

It took him a moment to realize she referred to the letters the two of them had exchanged. So Sarah connected their letters with love letters, did she? Nick filed away that piece of information to consider later.

Warming up to the story he was creating on the spot, he clarified, "I meant love letters from other men."

"What?"

"Letters from your lover. I was going to read them."

She folded her arms, her expression mutinous. "You're not going to read my letters."

Wait a minute. She
did
have love letters from another man? Nick's temper reignited in a flash. "You claimed not to have a lover."

"Then why were you looking for his letters?"

"Are you telling me you lied?"

"Are you calling me a liar?"

"Damnation, woman. You are as prickly as a thistle." He dragged his fingers through his hair and started over. "I was simply reassuring myself that nothing unexpected would appear to interfere with the annulment."

"Unexpected as in a beau?"

"You were rather insistent about avoiding a physical examination. You can't blame me for wondering..."

She sighed, and shook her head. "You are such a man, Nick."

"Considering your choice in candles, I am pleased you noticed," he grumbled.

She smirked. "I meant this display of possessive jealousy. It's quite unattractive. You don't want me, but you don't want anyone else to have me, either."

"No, I never said I don't want you. I happen to want you rather desperately, which you must have noticed a few minutes ago. In any case, it's been my experience that women like being the object of a man's jealous feelings."

"Oh?" Her Texas drawl dripped sugar. "And I suppose you are a man of substantial experience on the subject?"

Nick bit the inside of his mouth to hold back a laugh. Still, he couldn't help but say, "What's the matter, lass? Jealous?"

But his wife gave as good as she got. With a nonchalant shrug of her shoulders, she said, "Hardly. Lady Brass is welcome to you. I have my share of unattractive characteristics, but jealousy is not among them."

Marginally annoyed with her reply, Nick nodded toward her shoulders. "I explained the significance of poking at a chest in Kualistan. Care to guess what a shrug means?"

"Nothing I want to hear, I'm certain.”

Now he did laugh. "I've missed you, lass."

To Nick's surprise, his comment appeared to sober her. She gave him a bittersweet smile. "You haven't missed me, Nick. You don't know me. You know a memory, not the woman I've become."

She was right and he knew it. That's what had brought him to her room this morning in the first place. He needed to know this woman standing before him today so he could woo
her,
not the girl he'd married. And so, like any good secret agent, Nick spiced his lie with the truth.

"I know the woman who writes me letters, Sarah. I like having that woman in my life, and I don't like the thought of losing her to an annulment or another man."

"What?"

"It's true. That's why I searched your things. After yesterday, I discovered I need a little reassurance. The next man in your life won't like you writing to your ex-husband. I find I am in no rush for this connection between us to end."

It was only after he'd said it that Nick realized every word was the truth. He hadn't needed to act the cad and rifle through her things to learn that she had a liking for lace on her drawers. All the time he thought he was lying to her, he'd actually been lying to himself.

His accidental honesty served him well, because Sarah's pique melted right before his eyes. "Oh, Nick. Your letters have been a joy in my life. I have no intention of stopping them, and if in the future any man in my life tries to make me, well, I'll just tell him to go suck a lemon."

He grinned at that and stuck his hands in his pockets. It was either that or reach for her.

"Your letters are... well..." She shrugged, then said, "I don't know how to describe it other than to say they steal into a place deep down inside of me. I treasure them. I'd be lost without them."

Her vehemence took him aback, and Nick knew nothing more to say than, "Thank you, Sarah."

"No, thank you. You know, Nick, your profession as a reporter might have been only a cover for clandestine activities, but the fact remains you have a true talent for the written word. Much better, I daresay, than with spoken communication. Your letters never make me angry or frighten me or upset me, even when you deal with unsettling events. So be assured that once I've returned to Texas, I'll be making regular trips to the post office to look for letters from Britain. I won't let anyone interfere with my exchanging letters with you, and I hope you will say the same."

"Um, certainly. Yes. Of course." Nick drew his hands from his pockets and glanced down at them, halfway expecting to see them holding a silver platter. Could it be this easy? Had she just handed him the secret to her seduction?

Aye, she had.

It was all he could do not to grab her up there and then and plant a kiss on her. That would be a strategic mistake. From now on, all important matters would be introduced on paper, not in person.

Well, except for this one detail he thought needed addressing right away. "I am pleased that's settled. I feel much better. There is one more issue here, however."

"Yes?"

"About the girls. I don't mind you telling them about sex. In fact, upon reflection I think it's probably best they have a decent understanding of the mechanics of it heading into marriage. However, I would appreciate it if in the future, you used more thought in your choice of visual aides. You see, lass, men tend to be sensitive about the size of their... candle, so to speak. Considering your knowledge in this area arrives from but a single source—me—I'd appreciate it if you would choose a visual aide a bit closer to actual size than that little bitty taper you used earlier."

"All right. I don't mind doing that. What would you like me to use?"

"Well, I don't know." Nick gazed around the room, a vague sense of embarrassment inhibiting his choice. "You choose."

Sarah gave him a long look, then pursed her lips, clasped her hands behind her back, and made a studious circle around the room. She flipped up the lid on the humidor and studied the short, stumpy cigars inside before rejecting them in favor of a pencil, which she lifted and ran her fingers across. Nick almost growled. She was killing him.

Finally, she paused in front of the mantel and considered the tall cylindrical candle Nick had previously noted. She glanced from the candle to him, then back to the candle again. Finally, she lifted it down and turned to him. "Will this do?"

His mouth broke out in a wide smile. "It's your decision, but I think that's a fair representation."

He took his leave of her then, and the sound of her soft laughter followed him down the hallway. He almost tripped on a rug when he heard her say, "In some ways men are so easy to please."

* * *

Willie Hart arrived at Glencoltran Castle at mid-morning. The only reason Nick didn't kill the young man upon learning the news was the fact that he hadn't come alone. "He showed up at Hunterbourne looking for you," the young rogue said. "Said it was important he speak with you. Old Tom at the stables said Lord Kimball was an important man, that he works for the government. When I heard him asking directions to Glencoltran Castle, I thought it my proper place to show him the way, seeing as how I've been here before and knew the way. I was doing my duty as a good citizen, I was."

Nick eyed the young man's broad shoulders and the light in his eyes and wondered if he'd be forced to kill him yet. "So where is Lord Kimball now?"

"That's the strange part of me story," Hart said, scratching his cheek. "Once we got close enough to see the castle, he started looking for a place to stop. I left him at the old ruins sittin' atop the great rock that stretches out into the loch. He told me to tell my story to nobody but you and to give you this." He handed over an envelope.

Nick broke the seal and quickly scanned the contents of the note. Looking up, he pinned Willie Hart with his most deadly glare. "Stop by the kitchen and tell the cook I said to feed you, then report to the stables. Go near Aurora and I'll cut off your balls and feed them to my gamekeeper's wolfhounds. Any questions?"

The stable hand went pale, but managed a protest "But my lord, I love her. I want her for my wife."

"Next I'll cut off your cock and feed that to my sister Robyn's pet snake."

The second threat drained all trace of color from young Hart's face, and he nodded. "I'll be straight for the stables, my lord. My appetite will hold till lunch."

"I'm assuming you are referring to your appetite for food, and that all other appetites will disappear for as long as you remain at Glencoltran. Am I correct?"

"Yes, my lord. Right as rain, my lord. Nothing but a growling stomach out of me, my lord."

Nick nodded, waited, and finally made a shooing motion with his hand. The trouble-making young pretty-boy scuttled away in retreat. Nick left the house almost immediately himself, pausing only long enough to grab a coat. The morning air had a bite to it yet, though judging by the sunshine the chill would burn away by afternoon.

Nick made his way quickly toward the promontory and the crumbling ruins of the first Glencoltran Castle, his mind torn between worry over that young bounder's proximity to his sister and concern as to what trouble had brought his former colleague all the way to Scotland.

Neither one boded well for his peace of mind.

Lord Kimball was the heir to the Duke of Halford and had been Nick's immediate superior for the first years of his sojourn overseas. More recently, Kimball had joined the Special Irish Branch of the Metropolitan Police where, Nick understood, he was in charge of coordinating anti-Fenian operations in the capital.

Nick both liked and respected Kimball, who served his country out of a deep and genuine sense of patriotism that Nick as a Scot-turned-Texan- turned-Englishman-pretending-to-be-American and so forth never managed to match. Kimball could also be one of the coldest, meanest, most dangerous men Nick had ever encountered, and that company included some of his old friends, the Khans.

"So what brings him to the Highlands on a sunny winter day?" Nick murmured aloud when he spied the Englishman standing on the shore, tossing gray rocks into the sapphire water. Had the so-called dynamite war waged by Irish terrorists against British cities moved northward?

More likely, Kimball wanted to lure Nick back into service in some fashion. If that was the case, his old friend was doomed to disappointment. Nick's focus was now centered on his family, and he intended to keep it that way.

"I should shoot you and throw your carcass in the loch," he called out as he approached. "Did you know you were bringing the horned serpent into our midst, or was that just lucky coincidence?"

The hesitation in Kimball's throw was so slight Nick almost missed it "Your grievance against young Hart is for the most part unfounded," the former spymaster said.

"The little bastard attempted to run off with my sister."

"Yes. And Miss Aurora paid him one hundred guineas for his trouble. The price of a new Worth ball gown, I believe. The canceled order called for a frilly confection in ice blue with gold trim."

Nick didn't waste their time questioning the accuracy of Kimball's information. Instead, his mind started clicking. "Why, that little witch. What was she up... oh. Helen. This had something to do with Helen, didn't it?"

"Mr. Hart is under the impression that your sisters thought you would benefit from having some distance from Lady Steele. They anticipated you would move to separate Miss Aurora from Hart following the elopement."

Nick nodded. "Melanie suggested Scotland."

A hint of a smile played about Kimball's mouth. "I should keep them in mind for future recruitment."