remembered her earlier jibe about a protector. What if she had not been joking after all? The idea was distinctly uncomfortable. ‘Au contraire, mademoiselle,’ Nicholas said maliciously, ‘I am well enough heeled to be able to insist that any lady under my protection wears only the very best. And well enough versed in the latest modes to see that your hard times are behind you, if your wardrobe is aught to go by.’
She gave him a direct look, alerted by the harsh note in his voice. ‘You think a man paid for them?’
‘Am I right?’
He spoke nonchalantly, but Serena was not fooled. ‘Yes.’ She waited, but he said nothing, only looked at her in that way of his that made her feel he was privy to her innermost thoughts. ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, Nicholas, stop looking so serious. I meant my father.’
He was unaccountably relieved, but managed not to show it. ‘Well, he must have made you a generous allowance.’ Serena did not deign to reply. ‘Do you still miss him?’ Nicholas asked her after a few moments, his voice gentler now.
‘Of course. We were very close. Don’t you miss your parents?’
‘The cases are rather different,’ he replied wryly. ‘I saw more of the servants than my parents when I was growing up. Outside school, there were various tutors, but being without siblings I was largely left to go my own way—exactly as my father did in his youth. I had money enough to indulge in all my whims, and when I grew older to support my gaming and fund my amours. My father introduced me to his club and a few of his influential friends when I came of age, and that’s about the sum of it.’
‘So you are an only child too. Did you wish for a brother or sister? I know I longed for siblings.’
‘I was an only child,’ Nicholas corrected. ‘I’ve got a half-sister now.’
‘Yes, but so much younger than you—it’s not the same.’
‘She’s about the age Melissa was when my father married her. There’s no fool like an old fool—he was completely infatuated.’
‘But Melissa made him happy?’
‘He died before he could be disillusioned,’ Nicholas said sardonically, ‘but not, unfortunately for me, before he became obsessed with a desire to reform me.’
‘Poor Nicholas.’
There was just a tinge of mockery in Serena’s voice, but Nicholas could forgive her anything when she smiled at him that way, making him feel she understood him very well. He was becoming accustomed to it.
‘I would have thought reforming you a well-nigh impossible undertaking,’ Serena continued teasingly. ‘How on earth did he intend to achieve it?’
‘Oh, he had his ways, believe me. He took every opportunity to lecture me about the benefits of marrying a good woman and the wonders of love. All the usual nonsense that a reformed rake is prone to as he grows old and finds mortality staring him in the face.’
‘That seems a rather jaundiced way of looking at it. Perhaps he really was in love?’
‘Spare me the romantic twaddle, Serena. He was in lust, not in love. And he was a hypocrite, which is something I cannot be accused of. I indulge my passions for gaming, horses and women, but I never play when I can’t pay. I never put a horse at a fence it can’t take. I never trifle with women who don’t know the score. Which is more,’ Nicholas concluded bitterly, ‘from what I’ve heard about my father in his younger days, than can be said for him.’
‘Perhaps that’s part of it—his wanting to prevent you making his mistakes. My father wrapped me in cotton wool for the same sort of reasons, and in some ways—I am only beginning to realise it now—it was suffocating. You, on the other hand, were positively neglected, but that did not prevent your father from wishing to dictate your life.’
‘The difference between us is that I will not allow him to. You, on the other hand, are still dancing to Papa’s tune.’
Serena bit her lip, for he had hit a nerve. ‘For the moment. So,’ she continued brightly, ‘despite your father’s attempts, you have not been converted to the conquering power of love as espoused by Lord Byron.’
‘That deluded romantic! The man has almost single-handedly brought love and languishing back into fashion.’
‘It seems to me that Lord Byron is more interested in indulging his own rather eclectic tastes and encouraging everyone, poor Lady Lamb included, to worship at the altar of his ego,’ Serena said scornfully. ‘In any case, real love doesn’t come in or go out of fashion, as I have no doubt Lord Byron will. You can’t stop it or avoid it. You can’t be cured of it and you can’t dictate how it happens either. Some people never fall in love because they never meet the right person. My parents were fortunate. It may be that your father was too, with his Melissa. It is possible that his wanting you to change your ways was not hypocritical, but a desire for you to be as happy as he was.’ She stopped abruptly, taken aback by the passion of her own response.
‘I’m afraid we’ll just have to differ on that,’ Nicholas said dismissively. ‘It’s a pretty point of view, and you are a charming advocate, but I remain unconvinced. You know less of the world and its travails than you think if you really mean what you say.’
With difficulty Serena managed to repress the hot retort that rose to her lips. ‘I won’t quarrel with you, there’s no point. I won’t persuade you, only experience will do that.’
‘Indulge me, though, by explaining one thing to me before we drop the subject.’
She raised her brows enquiringly.
‘Yesterday by the trout stream you seemed more than happy to encourage me to—for us to—for things between us to take their course. Today you rhapsodise about true love. I’m concerned that we are at cross-purposes.’
‘In what way?’
‘I can never offer you love, Serena, I won’t be such a hypocrite as my father. I can promise you fun, perhaps, pleasure definitely, but it would be a brief idyll, nothing more. I won’t pretend to any finer feelings to ease your conscience. If you choose to pick up where we left off from our kiss, you must do so with your eyes wide open.’
Serena paused for a moment before replying. She was not in love, but tossing and turning in her bed last night, she had been forced to acknowledge the depth of her attraction to him. The pang of physical awareness she had felt when first she encountered him, stripped to the waist in the boxing ring, had grown during the hours they spent together. Hidden away from the rest of the world as they were, time slipped by more and more quickly. Whenever she saw him, the urge to give in to temptation became harder to resist, fuelled by the knowledge that once she had her papers their paths were unlikely to cross again. The sensible voice in her head warned her that to give in to her desires was to risk being burned, but this feeling of rightness when she was with him continued to grow regardless.
Nicholas would take whatever she offered, provided she stuck to his terms. His feelings for her were of a fleeting nature. It had been unintentional, but his reaction to her eulogy on true love was a timely warning. ‘My eyes are very wide open,’ she told him with certainty. ‘We are not at cross-purposes, I assure you.’
Did that mean she would grant him more than a kiss? It
