She hopped down from the bed and ran over to take her sister in her arms, hug her tightly. “You worry so for me, because I reach for everything with both hands. And I worry for you because you refuse to reach even a single hand forward, to take back your life. I love you so much. I don’t mean that you should attempt to drive a curricle, or take on a five-barred fence, or flirt outrageously with a dangerous man because it delights something inside you to do so. We’re twins, yes, but we’re each our own person. You have your own way, you always did. Sweet, and gentle, and loving. Please, Lydia, love yourself enough to step out of the shadow you’ve been hiding in. I want you to dare something, sweetheart. Be alive. It’s what I want for you, it’s what the captain would want for you.”
Lydia held on to her for long moments, her breathing somewhat shallow and irregular. And then she kissed Nicole on the cheek and stepped back from her. “If I promise to be less careful, will you promise to be more careful?”
Nicole hesitated, knowing her own limits. “In general, do you mean, or with the marquess most particularly? Because I don’t know if I could—”
“Oh, no, I’d never ask you to cry off of whatever it is you and the marquess have found in each other. I also am not such a gudgeon. But will you be careful, Nicole? I know you believe it impossible, but even a strong, independent heart can be broken.”
“Yes,” Nicole said, pinning a bright smile on her face. “We wouldn’t want that to happen to the poor unsuspecting marquess, now would we?”
“You’re incorrigible,” Lydia said, giving her sister another quick, fierce hug.
“Everyone keeps saying that. Mostly, I’m starving,” Nicole added, truly believing her sister had at last taken a strong step back into the world. She believed Captain Fitzgerald would have approved. “Now, as we go downstairs, tell me—what do you think of the Viscount Yalding? Does he interest you? He seems to like you well enough.”
“Nicole!” her sister exclaimed. “Certainly not!”
“Very well,” Nicole said, taking the lead on the stairs. “Mayfair is fairly well littered with possibilities, I’m sure. I’ll keep looking.”
Lydia swatted at her sister’s head from behind, causing Nicole to laugh in pure pleasure as she continued down the stairs…to see Lucas standing in the narrow hallway waiting for her.
His thick blond hair was slightly mussed from his curly brimmed beaver, a thin red line marking where it had sat on his forehead above those most marvelous blue eyes. He looked completely at his ease, handsome and fit and extraordinarily alive. The way he made her feel.
Did he think her smile, her laughter, was for him?
He reached up his hand and she took it, surprised by the frisson of delight that swept up the length of her arm.
And if he did think her smile was for him, what did it matter? After all, Lydia was smiling, wasn’t she? And it most certainly was a beautiful day…
CHAPTER FOUR
LUCAS WATCHED, NEARLY mesmerized, as Nicole waved a chicken wing about as she regaled them all with a story about the day Rafe and Charlotte had discovered a nest of baby mice in their bedchamber at Ashurst Hall. Rafe was all for dispatching them forthwith, while Charlotte had demanded they be gathered up and taken outside, to be set free.
Once, of course, Rafe had located their mother, who was probably still necessary to their well-being.
Fletcher was nearly doubled over in laughter as Nicole described Rafe’s hunt for the mother, which included a hunk of cheese, a butterfly net and a large pillowcase…only to have Charlotte demand after the capture that he ascertain whether this was the mother or the father, for the father would be no good to those poor babies at all.
“And Rafe declared, ‘Madam, against my better judgment I have performed as you asked. Lift its tail and take a look if you must, but I am done.’”
And then, as Fletcher roared with fresh laughter, she took another bite out of the chicken wing—her third of the meal—and winked at Lucas.
He only shook his head, silently telling her she was, yes, incorrigible.
She affected no airs, was so obviously comfortable in her own skin, sure of herself and her place in the world, certain that others would like her just as she enjoyed the world at large. Someday she would make a delightful hostess, as well as a real force in Society, setting trends, dictating fashion. If she didn’t manage to disgrace herself before she decided just who and what she wanted to be, that is.
Nicole was such a mix of temptress and unaffected delight. He’d noticed when she came downstairs that her cheeks were glowing, and a few of her curls were slightly damp, as if she’d had herself a wash and brush up and her interest had lain more in refreshing herself than in preserving some sense of sophisticated beauty.
She certainly did not apply to the paint pots, or else her freckles would not be in evidence. No, the glow of her skin was pure good health, her lips made pink by nature. Her eyes sparkled with the life inside her, the pure joy of living that shone from her.
Some might find her exhausting. He found her exhilarating, and wonderfully challenging. And if he had any sense of self-preservation, he’d take her back to her brother and then avoid her in future.
“Are you still starving, Lady Nicole,” he asked her quietly a few minutes later, “or would you care to take a stroll outside on this so rare a sunny day before we return to Grosvenor Square?”
She looked at him for a moment, her head tipped to one side, and then put out her hand so that he might help her rise. “Dare we leave these two unchaperoned?” she inquired in a whisper, those violet eyes dancing.
“You don’t wish to invite them to accompany us?”
“Do you?”
Perhaps she could read his mind? Still, politeness decreed that he had to ask the others to come along. “Fletcher? Lady Lydia? Would you care to join us on a small stroll?” he asked as Nicole, her back to her sister, pulled a face at him.
Lydia and Fletcher exchanged looks before both begged off, much more interested in discussing whatever had been keeping them intent on each other these past minutes whenever Nicole wasn’t joking about mice and butterfly nets.
“I imagine we can just leave the door open when we leave,” she said, taking the bonnet he handed her and placing it on the tabletop. “You know, I’ve got a solid dozen of these things, a promise I made to myself, yet I have found them more a nuisance than anything else. The brims are lovely, but for the most part I feel like a draft horse with blinders on.”
Lucas looked at his curly-brimmed beaver for a moment, and then left it where it was as he offered his arm to Nicole and together they headed for the front door of the inn. “I suppose, since we’re only taking a short walk, we can be informal without shocking Society at large.”
“If I thought that Society at large had anything to say about whether I wore a bonnet or you your hat, I should think Society might consider finding something more serious to occupy itself with.”
“Do you plan to tell Society that, or shall I? Just before we’re both banished, that is.”
“And you’d worry about that?” Nicole asked as they stepped out of the inn, turning to the left and a path that seemed to lead into a fairly light woods. “That Society might look askance at you? I would have thought you had more consequence than that. You could even set a new fashion. A hatless fashion.”
“I could do that, I suppose. According to Fletcher, I’m fairly dripping