If only Diane would be as agreeable as her French predecessor. Diane’s butler had admitted Nick to the Marylebone townhouse he had set her up in, and as he climbed the stairs to her bedchamber, a heavy sense of dread surged through him.
After he tapped on her door, he drew in a deep breath and entered. Standing before her dressing table, she smiled up at him. His gaze lazily traveled over the luscious curves of her body. She wore absolutely nothing beneath the sheer, snow white gown. Before today—before he had become betrothed to Lady Fiona Hollingsworth—the sight of Diane’s rosy nipples beneath the gauzy fabric or the thatch of flaming hair between her thighs would have set his pulse racing. But not this evening.
He strolled to her dressing table and plopped two sacks of coins on its gilded surface.
“What’s that, love?” she asked.
“Ten thousand pounds.”
She whirled around to face him, her ruby lips lifting into a smile. “Pray, for whom?”
“For you.”
Her hands flew to her breasts. “ ’Tis a fortune! Why do I merit so much?”
“Because I’ve been well satisfied with you.” Would she notice his use of the past tense?
She moved to him, her eyes seductive as she began to snake her arms around him, the smell of her too-heavy perfume sickening. “I shall satisfy you tonight as you’ve never been satisfied before, Nicholas darling.”
He removed her arms, quickly brushed his mouth across the back of one hand, then dropped it. “Actually, the money’s a parting gift, Diane.”
She gasped. Her eyes watered. “Whatever do you mean?” she asked in a quivering voice.
“I’m getting married tomorrow.”
“No!” she shrieked. Tears began to gush. “Why not me? Did I not please you?”
“You pleased me very much.”
“But it’s not as if you’re some lord,” she sobbed, “who must marry his own kind. I thought we s-s-s-uited.”
“We suited very well, but I cannot continue with you, to hold my wife up to ridicule.”
Diane launched herself at him, though Nick refused to put his arms around her. “I don’t care about the money, my darling,” she whimpered. “All I want is you.” She draped her arms around him, planting soft kisses along his neck and moving up to his chin as he stiffened. “Can we not continue after you marry?” she begged. “I’ll be discreet.”
He clasped her shoulders and held her out at arm’s length. “Tomorrow I take wedding vows—vows I’ll not be breaking.”
He had seen Diane cry on stage, but it was nothing like seeing her really cry. Her lovely face stained red, ravaged with tears. He had not realized the actress cared so deeply for him. To his amazement, she seemed more interested in him than in the ten thousand pounds.
“Who are you marrying?” she asked between sobs.
“Lady Fiona Hollingsworth.” Acknowledging that Fiona really was going to become his wife brought back that odd feeling of well being.
Diane’s sobs—a mixture of weeping and moaning—grew louder. “So that’s it! I ca-a-a-an’t compete with a fine lady.” She swiped away her tears with the back of her hand and eyed him. “You’ve fallen in love with her, haven’t you?”
“I’m not going to discuss my future wife with you.”
Why, he asked himself as he took his leave, did everyone think he had fallen in love with Fiona?
That night—the eve of her wedding—Fiona’s melancholy kept her from sleeping. Christmas without her family, the prospect of a loveless marriage, and worry over Randy all heaped upon her shoulders like a leaden mantle.
She had known spending Christmas at Windmere Abbey without her loved ones would not have been tolerable. Trevor had understood that, too, and had succeeded in persuading her that coming to London for Christmas would be far less depressing. Her little brother must also have realized how bleak Windmere Abbey would have been this year with Papa now dead and Randy gone, for he had opted to spend the holiday with the family of his dearest friend from Cambridge.
Now that Christmas was less than two days away, memories of the many joyous Christmases spent at Windmere flooded her. She and her brothers had always gathered up holly and mistletoe and helped Mama decorate the house with them. Randy helped Papa hang the kissing bough, and Randy and Stephen had taken great pride in finding and carrying in the huge yule log.
She fought back a sob when she realized this was her first Christmas ever that she had no loved one to whom she could give a Christmas present. At least she had contrived—through the greatest economies—to gather up enough funds to give her servants their Christmas “package.”
Spending Christmas in foggy, gray London held no allure.
As she lay in the darkness listening to her sputtering fire and the howl of wind outside her window, her thoughts turned to her marriage. She had told Trevor and Nick the truth when she said she no longer loved Edward, Lord Warwick. So why did she lay there in her bed thinking about Edward? She remembered how thoroughly she had loved him. How could she have so completely extinguished those profound feelings—feelings that had once stripped her of every shred of pride?
She recalled that blustery afternoon last year when she and Edward had walked the moors and she had ducked into an abandoned crofter’s hut, begging him to make love to her. Only too vividly she remembered the humiliation she felt when he had rejected her.
She had so keenly wanted to lie with him that day. And now she had no feelings whatsoever for him, only a huge void in her heart, in the place Edward had occupied for half her life.
Only one other day in her life had Fiona been a captive to passions like those roused in her that day on the moors with Edward: Today. When Nicholas Birmingham had kissed her.
Mama would roll over in her grave if she knew what a strumpet her daughter had become! Was there some kind of prurient bent in her that made her behave so wantonly? So unladylike? What must Mr. . . . Nick think of the hungry way she kissed him?
When she recalled his satisfaction, her breath grew ragged. He had not seemed at all displeased over her passionate nature. Could it be that the man she would wed tomorrow was not averse to marrying a woman who so eagerly looked forward to learning about carnal pleasures?
Carnal pleasures Diane Foley would know all about.
For the first time in her life Fiona regretted she had been born an aristocrat. She envied the slack morals of a woman of Diane Foley’s class, morals that smoothed the way for her to take Nick into her bed without the sanctity of marriage. Just thinking about Nick making love with the actress made Fiona’s breath come hot and heavy, made her sting inside.
Then the sudden realization that Nick would continue sharing a bed with Diane Foley after their marriage sent Fiona into a deep funk. Not because she would be embarrassed for the ton to know of her husband’s lady bird. And certainly not because she possessed any romantic feelings for Nicholas Birmingham herself. But because she was jealous.
She wasn’t jealous for the usual reasons. Fiona was well satisfied with her own appearance (which she knew to be far above average), so she wasn’t jealous of Miss Foley’s beauty. She did not resent that Nick was likely in love with his paramour. How could Fiona possibly care when she had no intentions of claiming his affection for herself?
Her jealousy was for the affectionate intimacy Nick and