Lady Gone Wicked (Wicked Secrets)(21)

The poor child.

“A mother’s love is supposed to be unconditional,” Adelaide murmured. “It is no wonder that you doubt love’s longevity. How could you not?”

He looked down at her hand, still held tightly in his own. “I do not mean to be harsh—I would not hold myself to that standard, either. I assure you, it would not matter if my wife were Aphrodite herself—if she abandoned her child as my mother abandoned me, I would toss her in the gutter where she belonged. All love would turn to ashes.”

The sun beamed brightly upon them, but it did nothing to warm the sudden icy chill Adelaide felt in her bones. She shivered.

“Yes,” she said softly. “How could it not?”

“You and I, we would not ask for too much, I think,” he continued, still holding her hand. “We would not ask for love. Only companionship, sometimes, and perhaps friendship. It would be a very convenient arrangement.”

She felt each word like a thousand tiny cuts, deep beneath her skin where no salve could reach.

Companionship. Sometimes.

A very convenient arrangement.

“You are not offering marriage so soon, are you?” she chided teasingly, desperately hoping to ease the tension. “We have only been courting for three days. That is not at all proper.”

His lips lifted in a smile that did not reach his eyes. “Quite right. We must concede to convention in all things, yes?”

She peered into his crystalline blue eyes. Eyes were the window to the soul, were they not? Alas, all she saw was her own reflection staring back at her. Nick’s soul was nowhere to be found.

“I care for you a great deal, and I am happy to hear that you likewise care for me.” She reclaimed her hand and kept it firmly on her lap. “But when you do offer for me, Nick, I have every hope that I shall say no.”





Chapter Seventeen


Two hours later, Nick deposited Adelaide safely at her home in Mayfair and immediately set off for Brook’s, where he had agreed to meet his brother. Her ambivalence to his proposal should not irk him. After all, she had announced her intention to find a more suitable offer from the very first.

Yet irked he was. He was most decidedly irked.

Behind the annoyance was something even more unpleasant. If not Nick, then whom? For whom had she blushed when she spoke of the roses? Then he remembered her words as they had left for their drive—she was expecting company for dinner. Who? The same man who’d made her blush?

The question continued to plague him even as he arrived at his club.

He stalked through the door, ignoring the butler’s greeting, and threw himself down in a leather chair opposite the fireplace. He glared at his brother.

Nathaniel returned the glare with a raised brow. “Something vexes you, Nick?”

“You vex me, Nate. You vex me very much, indeed.” He deepened his scowl. “Someone is dining with the Bursnells tonight, and it is not you, for you are here with me. Who is it, then? Don’t deny you know. Alice would have told you.”

His brother blinked in surprise. “I do not deny it. Alice told me yesterday that I must entertain myself this evening. Her mother insisted the whole family be present for Lord Hayworth.”

“Hayworth?” One of the dandies from the ball. “Why?”

Nathaniel shrugged. “Doubtless, Westsea has some business reason of one sort or another to explain it. But the real reason, of course, is that they have an unmarried daughter and he is an earl.”

Damnation.

Hayworth was not at all what Nick had in mind for Adelaide. He was handsome enough, but Nick suspected his financial matters were in disarray. Furthermore, he was an idiot. Nick had only spent ten minutes in conversation with him, but that was nine minutes too long.

“Is he courting her, then?” he asked. “Did he send her flowers, as well?”

His brother simply looked at him. “What difference is it to you?”

Nick had a great many answers, none of which Nathaniel would like.

“Fascinating,” a voice drawled.

Startled, Nick turned his head sharply. And there was Duke Wessex, his long form reclining in the chair next to his own, an expression of interest on his smug face.

“Your Grace,” Nick said, because one could not give the cut direct to a duke, no matter how much the duke deserved it. “I had not noticed your presence.”

That only served to amuse the duke even more. “Indeed.”

Nick turned back to his brother, only to find Nathaniel watching him with a puzzled frown.

“You did not notice him there?” He repeated the words slowly, as though unsure of their meaning. “Are you drunk, Nick?”

“Of course not.” Perhaps that should be remedied. “Yet. Whiskey,” he said to the hovering servant, who nodded and spun on his foot.

“You are not yourself,” Nathaniel said. “You always notice, I’ve noticed. Nothing surprises you.” He leaned forward, studying him like a specimen pinned to a board. “I have never before seen you this…emotional.”

In the entire month they’d actually been speaking. Nick refrained from rolling his eyes. “I am always emotional in your presence, brother. The annoyance and irritation I feel are quite overwhelming.”

He took a long swallow from the whiskey that appeared by his elbow. However, Nate was correct. Damnably so. Wessex had surprised him—an error that would have meant certain death mere weeks ago.