A Visit From Sir Nicholas (12 page)

"I'd say a brandy is called for at this point." Jonathon jumped to his feet and fairly sprinted toward the cabinet that held Father's supply of fine brandy, and other spirits.

She raised a brow. "It's rather early in the day for brandy isn't it?"

"It's later than you imagine," he muttered and pulled open the cabinet doors.

"Even so, I don't understand what you think we should be celebrating."

"Sibling affection." His back was to her, and his voice was muffled. "The binding ties of blood. Loyalty."

"All that and it's barely midday." A teasing note sounded in her voice, but she studied him curiously.

"Whatever are you up to now, dear brother?"

"Affection. Blood ties. Loyalty." He returned to his chair, two glasses in one hand and a decanter in the other. "The idea that one should never kill the messenger." He poured a glass and thrust it at her.

"Forgiveness."

"Very well, you have my forgiveness." She accepted the glass reluctantly. "But I really don't think—"

"Do go on, Lizzie, you like brandy. You always have." Jonathon poured a glass for himself and tossed back a long swallow.

"As do you, apparently." She took a cautious sip of the liquor. While it was far and away too early in the day for such libations, the brandy warmed her nicely. "This is rather lovely on a dreary day like today."

"Isn't it, though?" Jonathon smiled pleasantly, but there was a distinct glimmer of apprehension in his eyes.

"Perhaps you'd like more?"

"This is quite enough, thank you." She laughed. "Honestly, Jonathon, one would think you were trying to get your own sister soused."

He laughed, a sort of odd, squeaking, uncomfortable sound. "What an amusing thought."

"Brandy always produces such a pleasant feeling of warmth and well-being within me. It's really rather difficult to be angry about anything, no matter how distressing, if one has had enough brandy." She took a small sip. "You should have tried this before you sent me your note." He smiled weakly.

"I should probably apologize to you as well. None of this is really your fault." She settled back in her chair and cupped her hands around her glass. "Oh, certainly you should have told me the truth long before now, but I can see where you have believed everything you've done has been in my best interests."

"Keep that in mind," he said under his breath.

"I shouldn't have been as angry as I was. On reflection, I am most appreciative of your efforts on my behalf."

He downed the rest of his brandy and poured another glass. "More?"

"I've barely touched what I have." She studied him for a long moment. He was most definitely nervous.

"What on earth—" The question he had forestalled her asking earlier returned. "There is more, isn't there?"

"Nearly half a decanter."

"Not more brandy." It wasn't like Jonathon to be quite this evasive. It was extremely suspicious. "More that you haven't told me."

Jonathon shrugged. "
More
is such a vague term."

"
More
is quite specific."

"You won't like it." He shook his head in a mournful manner, and she might well have felt sorry for him if it had not been for the weight growing inevitably in the pit of her stomach.

"I don't expect to." At once she realized exactly what he was trying so hard not to say. "Jonathon, why did you decide to tell me about Charles's will today?"

"It was past time?"

"Jonathon?" She held her breath.

"Nicholas is back," he blurted.

Her heart caught. "Back?"

He nodded. "In London. He arrived only yesterday, I believe."

"I see." Her voice was remarkably calm, belying the thudding of her heart and the roar of her blood in her ears. "Well, that does complicate matters somewhat, doesn't it?" His eyes narrowed thoughtfully. "I don't know. Does it?"

She tossed back the rest of her brandy. "It does if he thinks he can step into my life and take over my affairs."

"Is that all?"

"Of course. What more could there be?" A distinct challenge sounded in her voice. Jonathon blew a long breath. "I have yet another confession to make."

"So many in one day?" she snapped. "Have you been saving them up as a special treat in preparation for Christmas?"

"I know that you and he once shared some affection for one another," he said quietly.

"Don't be absurd." At once, she got to her feet and stalked across the room. Absolutely no one knew how she had once felt about Nicholas. Or rather how she'd thought she'd felt. Jonathon's comment was little more than speculation on his part based on nothing of substance. "Nicholas and I shared nothing whatsoever but a casual sort of friendship. I have not given him a second thought since the day he left." It wasn't the truth, of course, yet it wasn't entirely a lie. It had taken far longer than she'd expected, but she had managed to put Nicholas out of her mind for the most part. After all, she'd had Charles, a man who, in spite of his faults, had indeed loved her, and she'd loved him as well. They'd had an excellent life together. Pleasant and comfortable, and if it had not been as perfect as she had once thought it was, it had hardly been dreadful. And Nicholas had had no place in it. And if, perhaps, on a rare occasion, she had glimpsed a man who resembled Nicholas on a busy street and her heart had twisted slightly, or if she had heard a voice in the crush of guests at a party and her breath had caught for the barest fraction of a second, or if she'd awoken from a dream with a sense of loss so profound there was the briefest ache in her throat, they'd been mere aberrations. Memories of a disloyal heart that had had no more substance than gossamer and had been just as insignificant. He had no place in her heart or in her life. And he never would.

Nicholas Collingsworth had come very close to breaking her heart. Indeed, would have done so without a second thought if her feelings for him had been at all real. Which, of course, they had not been. He had, however, embarrassed and humiliated her. She would not allow him to do so again. She whirled back toward her brother. "It's ridiculous, of course, but why ever did you think there was something between us?"

Jonathon rose to his feet and drew a deep breath. "Because I heard you. You and Nicholas." Her eyes widened. "What do you mean, you heard us?"

"In this very room. The night before he left England."

She sucked in a hard breath. "You were eaves-dropping? On a private conversation? How could you?"

"I wasn't exactly eavesdropping, I was trapped. It was most inadvertent on my part." Indignation sounded in his voice. "You are not the only one who has arranged assignations in this room on occasion, you know. Indeed," an expression somewhere between sheepish and proud crossed his face, "one way or another I seem to have some sort of tryst in the library during every Christmas ball."

"It was not a tryst!"

"It would have been if you'd had your way," he said with a smirk. She gasped. "I should have strangled you a few minutes ago when I had the chance!"

"Idle threats did not work when we were children, and they will not work now. Besides, I am out of reach and I intend to remain out of reach."

In spite of his words, he grabbed his chair and whipped it around in front of him in the same manner in which he had done so as a child, when his teasing would drive her to retaliate. She wouldn't be at all surprised if he stuck his tongue out at her at any moment.

"Now then, as I was saying, I had arranged a meeting with a charming young woman. I can't recall her name now, but she was amusing." A smile curved the corner of his mouth. "Most amusing."

"And?"

"And when I heard Nicholas coming, I hid behind the sofa, because I thought it was her, you see. I had hoped to surprise her."

"That sofa?" Elizabeth nodded at the sofa at the far end of the wall. For as long as she could remember, the sofa in the library had sat in that very spot facing the fireplace, providing a delightful place for intimate conversations between friends or for a young girl to read and consider her future or even for children to hide from unrelentingly vigilant governesses. While her mother had refurbished any number of rooms in Effington House since she'd become the Duchess of Roxborough, the library was sacrosanct to the Effington men, who considered it their personal domain. Elizabeth wouldn't have been at all surprised to learn that the sofa, or its predecessor, had been in precisely the same position since the house was first built.

"That very one. You can certainly imagine how the surprise was on me when I realized that instead of a delectable young lady—"

"Whose name you cannot remember," she said pointedly.

"Perhaps she is more delectable in hindsight." He shook his head. "At any rate, Nicholas was in the library. I scarce had a moment to consider how to make my presence known when you arrived. As I had no idea how to extricate myself without a great deal of embarrassment on all sides," he shrugged, "I decided silence was the wisest course."

She grit her teeth. "So you were there the entire time?"

He nodded.

"Yet you've never said a word to me about it." She crossed her arms over her chest. "Why?"

"Because, at the time, I thought Nicholas was right." He squared his shoulders slightly, his gaze met hers, and for a moment he was every inch a future duke and not merely an annoying older brother. "I agreed then that whatever had occurred between the two of you was insignificant compared to what you shared with Charles. Looking back on it now, I think, perhaps," he blew a long, resigned breath, "I might have been wrong."

"What?"

"I am confident there was affection between you and your husband, but I am not as sure it was," he paused, "a grand passion."

"A grand passion?" Her voice rose. "Are you mad?
A grand passion
? I cannot believe you are spouting something so ridiculous. Obviously you have read too many of Mother's novels and too much of Father's poetry."

"And you have not read enough."

"Grand passions are the stuff of books and poems and have no place in the reality of life." The words came out of her mouth without thought, and a voice in the back of her mind wondered when she had become so staid and stuffy. "Although I'll have you know the passion between us was exceedingly grand."

"I stand corrected." His tone was cool, but there was a skeptical gleam in his eye. "Still, I'm not sure if you have been as happy, perhaps, as you could have been."

"What utter nonsense." She jerked her chin up. "I loved Charles and he loved me, and it was indeed the grandest of passions. We were quite, quite happy together. Why,
blissful
does not begin to describe our lives. If he hadn't died, I daresay we would have been ecstatic to the very end of our days!"

"Probably why you feel compelled to tell me this at the top of your lungs," he said mildly. Once again, she wanted to hit him. "You are infuriating, Jonathon, and I have had quite enough." She grabbed her hat and cloak and started toward the door. If she stayed one moment longer she would no doubt throttle her brother, and she hadn't the time or the patience to waste on him now. No, Elizabeth had spent far too long putting Nicholas out of her life to allow him back in without a fight. If she was going to do battle with a man who had achieved all that Nicholas—
Sir Nicholas
—had, she would have to use every weapon at her disposal, and she hadn't a moment to lose.

Lady Langley, Elizabeth Langley, was a woman of accomplishment and a far cry from the frivolous Lizzie Effington. And more than a fit opponent for Nicholas Collingsworth.

"Where are you going?"

"First, I'm going to inform my solicitor, that traitorous, vile rat of a creature, that his services are no longer required. Then I am going to pay a visit to father's solicitor, who has served my family and my family's interests—not Charles's, not Collingsworth's—well for countless number of years to see if there is anything that can be done about this."

She whirled toward her bother. "Regardless of what Charles and I shared, I shall not allow him to reach out from the grave and put me in the nice, pleasant, mindless niche he thinks I belong in, like I was a porcelain doll. And I will not allow an arrogant, high-handed stranger interested in nothing more than the increase of his own fortune to control my life and the future of my sons."

"Good for you, Lizzie." Admiration sounded in Jonathon's voice. "You may count on my assistance should you require it."

She cast him a scathing glare. "It's the very least you can do."

"And I stand ready to do the least whenever possible." He grinned. "You could always throw yourself on Nicholas's mercy, you know."

"Never!"

"
Mercy
is probably the wrong word. But he's a highly intelligent man and a man of business as well. If you—or rather we—simply show him how well you have done thus far with Charles's— or rather your

—finances, perhaps he will agree to leave things as they are. Even better, send over your account books and I shall present them to him myself."

"I shall have them sent over at once." She met her brother's gaze. "Do you really think there is so much as a remote possibility he'll leave things as they are?"

"I have no idea. But, don't forget, he was my friend as well as Charles's. He was a good man and honorable then, and I can't imagine he has changed substantially."

"Do you think anyone who has acquired the kind of fortune he is reputed to have can remain a good and honorable man?"

He paused for a mere fraction of a second, then nodded firmly. "I do." She snorted in disdain. "Well, I do not. And I do not intend to risk all on the possibility that Nicholas Collingsworth is a good and honorable man. Besides, in my experience, even good and honorable men rarely look beyond a pretty face."

Again she started for the door, then stopped and turned back to her brother. "That is everything, isn't it?" Jonathon drew his brows together in confusion. "Everything?"

"There is nothing else you have kept from me, is there? Nothing I should know?" He shook his head firmly. "Absolutely not."

"I'm not entirely sure I believe you."