The Bad Luck Wedding Night, Bad Luck Wedding series #5 (Bad Luck Abroad trilogy) (29 page)

Ah hah. The Pillow Book. Nick flashed his wife a grin. "Up late reading?"

She scowled at him as Nick extended a hand toward his old friend. "Get up, Tom, and properly greet my wife. Then I'll tell you of yours."

"Tom!" Sarah exclaimed, then took her first good look at her victim. "Mr. Sheldon! What were you doing sneaking into my bedroom?"

"Your bedroom? He went to yours first?" Nick shot a glare toward Sheldon. "You spied on my wife?"

"You ran off with mine." Sheldon made a fist and drew back his arm.

Nick released another heavy sigh, blocked Sheldon's punch, then knocked him back to the floor. "This is ridiculous. Get hold of yourself, man. You should be buying me a whisky rather than trying to lay me low. Now, Sarah and I are going into the sitting room and when you are prepared to listen quietly and speak calmly, you may join us."

Glancing toward his wife, he caught her staring at his chest. He considered donning a shirt, but quickly dismissed the idea. He'd learned to take advantage of situations presented him long ago. "After you, lass," he said graciously.

On the way out, she observed, "You spoke to him as if he were a child."

"It works on my sisters."

It worked on Tom Sheldon, too. More or less. He shuffled into the sitting room, then sat sullenly in a chair opposite the sofa where Sarah had taken a seat. Nick handed him a drink, eyed him closely and said, "So tell me about the bombing plot."

"What bombing plot?" Tom asked, scowling. Then his eyes widened and his brows winged up. "Is it Susan? Was she hurt? Is she all right?"

"She's fine," Sarah said, then to Nick added, "He is innocent, isn't he?"

"Aye. Of this plot, anyway."

"What plot, and what does it have to do with Susan?"

"Nothing." Then, finally having mercy on the man who had threatened his life a few short minutes ago, Nick said, "Take a belt of whisky, Tom, and let me tell you about your twins."

All color drained from the man's face. "Twins?"

The exchange of stories took almost an hour and left Tom flabbergasted. Nick spoke first, relaying details of the scene in his honeymoon suite that long-ago morning, and how he'd escorted Susan to London and established her in a respectable home in a respectable neighborhood. He told Tom about the twins, about Susan's work as a contributor to women's presses, most recently the journal
Queen,
and how Susan never failed to ask if the investigator Nick had hired upon coming into his title and its wealth had discovered any news of her long-lost husband.

Tom had been ready to go to his wife then, but Nick had a few questions of his own before giving up the address of Susan's townhouse. At that point, Tom Sheldon admitted he'd spent most of the past ten years incarcerated in a Mexican prison. "Mexico?" Nick asked. "How did you set out for Kansas and end up in Mexico?"

It proved to be a long tale involving a fellow trail rider, the Mexican senorita he loved, the promise of financial reward for helping the star-crossed pair elope, and a powerful, vindictive father who solved the problem of his runaway daughter by concocting spurious charges and throwing Tom and his partner in jail.

"We rotted there for years until the old patron died and the senorita's brother saw to our release. He gave us each gold—a lot of it—in order to soothe a guilty conscience, so I returned to Fort Worth a wealthy man." He paused a moment, then added in a voice ripe with pain, "I didn't expect Susan to wait for me all those years, not knowing if I was dead or alive. I hoped, but I didn't expect. When I learned that she'd left town with you so soon after I'd disappeared, I knew I had to find you."

"I've had people looking for you for a long time."

"What I don't understand is, why the he? Why not tell her father we had secretly wed and that the child she carried was legitimate?"

Nick glanced at Sarah, then said, "Fear. She was young and afraid, and her father wanted a warm body to scream at. I was handy and I owed you both, so..." He shrugged. "Besides, your ceremony wasn't legal. I know Susan has always considered herself married to you, but she had no papers to prove it."

"She's my wife," Tom snapped. "We made vows to one another beside the Trinity River on the twenty-second of March in 1877. She's my wife!"

At that point Sarah, who had been quiet during the recitations, quoted, "'Wed when March winds blow, joy and sorrow both you know.' Her house is in Tavistock Square. What number, Nick?"

Yes, she was right, Nick realized. Despite the early morning horn, the time had arrived for Tom to go to his family. In fact, this was an excellent time because the twins would sleep for a few hours yet, and Tom and Susan would have an opportunity for a private reunion.

They were the only married couple Nick knew who'd gone without sex longer than he and Sarah.

With that wry thought in mind, he stood. "Number twelve. Number twelve, Tavistock Square. Welcome home, Tom."

"Thank you." Distracted now, and obviously anxious, Tom shook Nick's hand and started for the door. Halfway there, he stopped and turned around.

"Thank you for taking care of them. You're a good man, Nick Ross."

Then Sarah looked at Nick with tears in her eyes. "You're a good man, Nick Ross. One of the best I've ever known."

Filled with the satisfaction of a job well done, Nick thought he'd see if he could extend his luck. "So do I get a reward?"

Cautiously she asked, "What do you want?"

As if you don't know.
Nick was good at reading people, and what Sarah told him through her stance and expression was that he was in her good graces... to a point. The long, lusty bout of lovemaking he craved wouldn't happen tonight But maybe...

"I want you beside me when I sleep. Just to sleep, nothing more. I promise. But I want to hold you, lass. Will you give me that gift?"

She eyed him suspiciously. "No monkey business?"

"I'll be a saint." When she sniffed and rolled her eyes, he quirked a grin. "All right, I'll promise to limit my sinning to thoughts alone. No actions. Trust me."

Though her mouth remained closed, her luminous eyes spoke volumes. She wanted to trust him, but she couldn't quite do it. Swallowing a sigh, he extended his hand. "Just tonight, Sarah. Trust me tonight."

Slowly she placed her hand in his.

A short time later, Nick drifted toward sleep with a smile on his face. Sarah lay spooned against him in his bed. Safely. Innocently. Chastely.

It led a man to wonder just what time tomorrow officially arrived.

* * *

He was gone when she awoke. The Pillow Book lay propped against his pillow in his place. Her heart began to beat faster even as the items lying beside it grabbed her attention.

Stones. He was giving her stones, just as he'd done before they were married. He'd remembered.

A slow smile stretched across Sarah's face. These were pretty rocks, too. Pink and crystalline, the five rocks ranged in size from large walnut down to acorn. Sarah lifted one up to the light and studied it. These were almost too pretty to be stored away with her others, she thought as she took the Pillow Book and flipped through it to the most recent entry.

My dearest Sarah,

I had the most wonderful dream last night. May I tell you about it?

In my dream, you were lying beside me in my bed, spooned against me. You were warm and so close that I could feel the rise and fall of your every breath and hear the little sigh of pleasure you made when you burrowed back against my heat. The scent of flowers clung to your skin—an exotic, spicy combination I could not place. I lay indulging in the fragrance, searching for the proper name for that particular, sultry scent.

I settled on Sarah.

Then, I dreamed you shifted in your sleep. You rolled over toward me. Your soft, unbound breasts pillowed against my naked chest and your legs entwined with mine. You sighed my name. The delight of it sucked the breath from my lungs.

My hands itched to touch you. They longed to stroke your satin skin, to play upon your body and bring it pleasure. My mouth yearned to taste you, to kiss and lick and suckle until you moaned from a need as great as my own. My loins ached to find you, to plunge into slick, tight heat, to stroke over and over and over until you cried out your satisfaction.

In my dream, I lay hurting with the need to make love to you until sunlight filtered through the draperies with the dawn of a new day.

Tonight was over. Tomorrow had arrived. Technically, time had run out on a promise made. I was tempted. Oh, so tempted.

But the spirit of my given word lingered. You lay next to me, lost in sleep, vulnerable. Trusting.

Trusting me.

It was a gift more valuable than gold, than diamonds, than uncut rubies plucked from the slope of an Afghan mountain in memory of a most special woman. I would never do anything to damage such a precious offering.

Remember that, Sarah. Never forget.

I leave you now with a small token of my thanks and a request. Look at the stones, lass. They are pretty as they are, but I want you to imagine the beauty that lies beneath the surface. Beauty and sparkle and fire. It's there, waiting for you.

You simply must be brave enough to make the first cut.

Nick

Nick learned that his wife's suitor, Lord Trevor Chambers, had taken to spending his afternoons wagering on his billiards skill at the Pelican Club, one of London's newest and most fashionable gentlemen's clubs. Word circling through the
ton
indicated that Chambers had forfeited his remittance by returning to England and that his brother, Lord Blakely, had refused to welcome his younger sibling back into the family fold upon his return to Britain. Apparently, billiards was what kept Lord Lovesick flush in the pockets.

The aroma of roast beef and cigars greeted Nick as he strolled into the club during the afternoon rush. Immediately he was hailed by a foursome of card players and urged to join the game. He declined, but paused long enough to exchange opinions with the chairman of the boxing committee about a match scheduled for the following day. It took three more conversations and another ten minutes to make his way down the hallway past the trophy cases to the billiard room where the rhythmic crack of ivory ball against ball foretold the skill of the man holding the cue.

Lord Trevor Chambers. Nick despised him on principle. The man had courted Nick's wife.

Nick ordered a whisky and leaned casually against the linen-fold paneling as he observed the progress of the game. In the course of his study, Nick discovered his prey to be an affable fellow. Tall and wiry, Chambers exhibited a dry, ready wit, a keen intellect, and a true talent with a billiard stick. Over the course of the next hour, the fellow cheerily disposed of a series of challengers at the table and won a small fortune in the process.

The young man had been smiling when Nick engineered an introduction. The smile had died in an instant the moment a mutual acquaintance mentioned Nick's name. "You," he accused.

Nick gave him a rattlesnake's smile. "Yes, I am Sarah Ross's husband."

It wasn't at all what he'd intended to say. One didn't threaten suspects while attempting to establish a rapport with them.

"Oh, I know who you are. The phantom husband. You're the man who abandoned the sweetest, most wonderful woman on the face of this earth. You, sir, are a scourge upon mankind." He punctuated his charge with a hard stroke of his billiard stick against the cue ball, which in turn sent the three ball flying across the felt-covered slate into the side pocket.

Nick smiled grimly as he wrapped his hand around a billiard stick hanging in the rack on the wall—as opposed to the young pup's throat—and said, "Care to put your money behind your mouth Chambers?"

Lord Lovesick's victorious grin didn't bother Nick in the least. "Fifty pounds?"

"Make it a hundred."

"A hundred it is. I'll buy a gift for a lady friend with my windfall."

Even before the balls were racked for the new game, Nick was silently cursing himself. He'd done a better job striking up a dialogue with Nasrullah Quili Khan than he had with Lord Trevor Chambers.

But then the Khan hadn't tried to woo Nick's wife, had he?

"I understand Sarah has finally decided to end your farce of a marriage," Chambers observed. "Better late than never, as the saying goes. I don't know how you live with yourself, Weston, after deserting her as you did. Why, if not for her business talents, she might well have ended up destitute and on the streets."

It wasn't true. He'd provided funds for her every month of their marriage. Sarah had been too stubborn to use them. But Nick didn't intend to justify himself to Lord Lovesick, oh no. Instead, he'd whip his loud mouth in billiards.

Chambers broke to begin the game. As he sized up his shot, he continued. "The worst part of it was the children, of course. The ones she didn't have to mother." Addressing one of the flabbergasted observers, he said, "You should have seen the lady with the babies in town. The longing on her face made a man weep. She and I were both members of the Folio Society, and once she wrote a poem about children that had—"