Lucas was having some difficulty maintaining his composure. “I don’t know if I would have put it precisely that way. But, yes. Please, feel free to open your budget of dissatisfaction and pay all your insults to me at once. It would be kinder.”
He wouldn’t be surprised if he were to see steam coming out of her nostrils at any moment, but she only breathed rather quickly for several breaths before holding up her hands and ticking off the complaints on her gloved fingertips.
“One, you look at me strangely, which I find unsettling to my customary peace of mind. Two, I am in London for the Season, not to catch myself a husband, so how you may or may not feel about me doesn’t matter. Three, I don’t like the way I—No, that’s it. I’m done now.”
“Are you quite sure?” Lucas asked her. “I’m not certain, but I believe I might wish to hear more about your third reason.”
“In which case you’re doomed to disappointment,” Nicole told him firmly. Then she sighed. “Did you ever plan something, my lord? For a long time, thinking about that plan for, oh, months and months. Perhaps even years. Just how you would go on, just how it all would be, and it would unfold exactly as you supposed you wanted it to, because you were so sure of your plan, sure of yourself and your reasons. And then…and then it all goes horribly wrong.”
He had stumbled onto something she felt strongly about, obviously. So he answered as lightly as he could, deliberately keeping his father and his own plans and expectations out of the equation, or else his answer would be too serious for the day.
“Not really, no. I seem to have lived a rather charmed life. I never think I will be disappointed in what I want, and as I already have most everything I want, I don’t invest a lot of time in planning for anything else. That might seem greedy.”
She looked at him sharply, pain obvious in her marvelous eyes. “Is that it? Am I greedy? Well, of course I am. I care only for myself and my own pleasures. I consider only my own happiness. I want fun, and gaiety, and adventures, and to feel…to feel free. And—and I’m annoyed with you because…”
And, suddenly, Lucas understood. Nicole had come to London to enjoy herself, a rare bird indeed, not interested in marriage. And he had stepped in her way.
He sympathized with her, as she had stepped in his way, as well.
If she was willing to be this honest, he wouldn’t bother to pretend he didn’t know what she was trying to say.
“Shall I go away, come back in two years?” he asked her as he turned onto a less-traveled lane that led through the parkland. “That would probably be more convenient for me, truthfully.”
“People don’t talk to each other like this, do they? So honestly.” Nicole twisted her fingers together in her lap. “Lydia would probably faint if she knew. And Charlotte would roll her eyes and wonder aloud how I always manage to get myself into untenable situations out of my own mouth or through my own actions, and why can’t I learn to behave. And Rafe would—No, nobody would tell Rafe. Men are much happier when they don’t know anything.”
Lucas rubbed at his mouth, massaging away his smile. “And would they all say that you’re incorrigible?”
“Among all the rest, yes. But I don’t think you should go away. It’s too late for that in any case, as you’ve already ruined all my fun.”
If Lucas were to repeat any of this conversation to Fletcher—which he most assuredly had no intention of doing—his friend would probably tell him that Lady Nicole was saying that she had tumbled top over tail in love with him…which would serve him right for teasing with her in the first place. In fact, Fletcher was still mulling the conversation about puddles, sure it had been improper, although at a loss as to how.
But Lucas was too intelligent to believe that Nicole was in love with him. Love didn’t happen that quickly, if ever. Their attraction to each other had been instant, yes, but attraction was a far cry from love.
Love wasn’t on Lucas’s agenda any more than it would appear it was on Nicole’s. It wasn’t her fault that she was young and inexperienced, and didn’t realize in her innocence that their mutual attraction was of a physical nature. And if he told her that, she’d have every right to slap him, and then avoid him.
“What sort of fun were you looking for when you came to London?” he asked her at last, after sorting through and discarding other openings, all of which, he felt sure, would leave him hanging over a yawning pit.
Again, she shrugged, but her silence didn’t last long. “All sorts of adventures, I suppose. Everything new and different and…and exciting. I’ve been stuck in the country for all of my life. For instance, I’ve never driven a curricle, let alone been driven in one.”
“Indeed. And you think I should teach you how to drive a curricle?”
She turned to him in obvious excitement. “I’ve driven Rafe’s coach, at Ashurst Hall.”
“Lady Nicole,” Lucas said in all seriousness, “if I’m to assist you in regaining the fun you believe I’ve somehow taken from you, you are to kindly leave off trying to confound me with obvious crammers like that one. Are we clear?”
Her smile nearly knocked him off his seat. “John Coachman let me sit up on the box, and taught me how to hold the ribbons. And I tied some old reins to a chair in my bedchamber, and practiced for months, until I was certain I’d got it right. It’s almost the same.”
“As chalk is to cheese, yes. Here, let me see what your coachman taught you.”
So saying, and with only a quick silent prayer that she had at least told a partial truth, he handed over the reins, and then watched as she expertly took them between her fingers.
His prized pair of matched bays sensed the difference at once, and Jupiter, the left lead, immediately tested the new driver by picking up his pace.
“Oh, no, you don’t,” Nicole said, drawing Jupiter back in effortlessly. “You don’t employ the whip, do you?” she asked, glancing over at the long whip that stood in a holder to Lucas’s right.
“Rarely.” He then asked her if she wished to try the whip, but she shook her head, concentrating on the roadway. “We’re coming to a sharp bend to the left. Are you still game?”
“If you are,” Nicole said, her delight obvious. “Behind us, Lydia is probably having a small comeapart, you know.”
“Which will leave her in real peril if Fletcher topples off the seat in a dead faint,” Lucas remarked, his good humor running full force. “Ah, very nicely done, Lady Nicole. Although I must say that your off wheel came dangerously close to the verge.”
“It did? I’ll have to work on that. Do many ladies of the ton drive their own curricles?”
“A few, yes. None of them, sadly, debutantes.”
“Good. Then I’ll be the first,” she said as he pointed to a wide grassy area and indicated that she should pull the horses off and stop.
Lucas applied the brake as Fletcher’s curricle pulled up beside them. “Let me guess. You want me to tell your brother that you should have your own curricle.”
She
