Heart of the Diamond (22 page)

Nicki paused at that thought and attempted to rationalize how it
was
different. Of course, the engagement to Blake had been of her own doing, in a roundabout way. The Earl of Diamond was young and handsome, while the Duke was a lecherous old man of thirty-five. Nicki nibbled at her lower lip. But Teddy was at least thirty and he did not seem so old. The earl was almost Teddy's age. So why was he not a lecherous old man?

Perhaps she
should
take a few lessons from Hera. A well-placed bite here and there and she would be free of both men, and any other that might try to interrupt her comfortable existence.

But what about Teddy's easy laughter? And Blake's kiss that wound insidiously throughout her inner soul until she wanted nothing more than to be his completely. The mare's behavior rebuffed kindness. As a result she had to chase after Achilles and suffer his attempts to avoid her. That did not seem to be such a good plan after all.

Aphrodite made a groaning sound and Nicki leaned closer and murmured softly in an attempt to calm the mare. “Soon, my love. It will not be long now.”

“She's a fine un, m'lady. Jus’ look at ‘er.”

Tears blurred Nicki's vision. She wiped them impatiently away. The foal stood on impossibly long legs that twitched and trembled, and threatened to buckle at any moment. “She certainly is, Andrew. I shall call her Calypso because she is the color of the foam on the sea.”

Aphrodite craned her neck about to tenderly nuzzle the snow white filly.

“That she is, m'lady.”

Nicki backed slowly to the door and exited the stall. She closed the gate carefully not to startle the new arrival. Weariness settled over her, but could not dampen her joy at witnessing the miracle of another life coming into the world. Andrew glanced over the gate one last time before turning to her.

With a deep sigh, Nicki reached out to give his rough hand a quick squeeze. “I had best return to the house before I am missed. This birth was a long one.”

Andrew nodded solemnly. “’Tis well past midnight.”

“Good night, Andrew, and please send for me at once if anything untoward should happen.”

“I plan to ‘ave m’ boy Tamm set up wit’ ‘er. I'll get some rest, then return first thing in the morn.”

Nicki nodded, anxious to get to bed. A wooden stand near the door held a bucket filled with water. She removed the apron that partially protected her skirts during the birth and hung it on a nearby nail. Andrew would see it was cleaned and returned to its place for the next event.

The icy water chilled her to the bone and encouraged her to wash quickly. On a shelf above the washstand rough squares of linen were folded and stacked neatly. She took one and dried her hands.

As she slipped through the stable doors, the night surrounded her in a shroud of nebulous darkness. Though heavy clouds obliterated the stars that had shone earlier in the evening, Nicki could have found her way back to the house blindfolded. The lamp she had left burning on the table next to the window in her room worked to guide her up the trunk of the tree and into the upper branches.

Anxious to reach the warmth of her bed, Nicki inched deftly along the limb to the roof overhang.

“I see you shared my opinion that it is a glorious evening for a climb.”

Nicki gasped, simultaneously losing her footing and nearly falling before a strong hand snaked out to steady her. “Damnation!” erupted from her lips in a rush.

With a wide grin, Blake drew her against him, lifting her until her feet left the branch. “Such language!” He backed toward the window with an ease that put her efforts to shame. “I think I shall have to take serious measures to curb your tongue once we are wed.” Blake held her clasped firmly against the hard planes of his body.

“So there is still to be a wedding? I had thought perhaps you would return to America after the fiasco this afternoon.”

He quirked one dark brow questioningly. “And leave you behind? The thought is ludicrous. I was extremely touched by your concern.”

“How reassuring!” She caught her breath as Blake turned and perched her on the windowsill. She had to cling to the wood to keep from sliding off. He remained near, his body positioned intimately between her spread knees. “Perhaps you believe me to be ludicrous as well to entertain such a notion.”

“Did you miss me so much, darling Nicole?” He grinned. “Is that the reason for your irritation?”

Tingling heat crept up her neck, and she stifled the unladylike desire to give him a good sound smack. “I am not irritated. It is just that you did not come in the morning, and then you missed dinner tonight. I hardly expected you to appear outside my window in the early hours of the morning.”

“I did not
arrive
in the early hours of the morning.” His warm breath turned to mist in the space between their bodies and drew Nicki's gaze to his mouth. “I have been sitting here since well before midnight awaiting your return from wherever it is you disappeared to.”

She scooted back slightly for better balance and found she could release her hold on the sill, but the earl still remained too close for her own comfort. “If I had known you planned to make an appearance, I should have made myself available to you. But I hardly took you for the sort fond of tree climbing.”

Blake enfolded her hands in his, somehow slipping closer though Nicki had not noticed him take a step. “Your hands are frozen. Where have you been?”

Their hands, intertwined against the dark green of her threadbare wool skirts, held Nicki's attention while she mentally mulled over several possible stories. With a sigh of defeat, she raised her gaze to his face. “You will think worse of me than you already do, but I cannot lie to you.”

“Oh?” The grip of his fingers stiffened slightly.

“Aphrodite just gave birth to a beautiful daughter and I have called her Calypso.”

His skeptical expression told Nicki he thought her claim to honesty most certainly a lie. “Might I be so bold as to ask who Aphrodite is and why she is willing to allow you to name her child such an odd name?”

“Aphrodite is one of our prize mares, and Calypso is a breathtaking filly of the purest white—just like a fresh snowfall. She will be a champion like her mother.”

Blake's gaze narrowed. “Do you mean to tell me that you have just witnessed the birth of a horse?”

She might have known he would react badly, but she forged on, anxious to get the entire truth said and behind her. “I make certain I am with all the mares when they give birth, to calm them.”

“I see.” His brows drew together in apparent exasperation. “Your parents must be overjoyed with that habit.”

“No one knows but the trainer, and his sons—and now you. I warned you that you might not like the idea. If Angelica knew she would chain me to the bed post.”

Blake's grin returned, broader this time. “An intriguing idea. Perhaps I shall employ that tactic as well—once we are wed, of course.”

“You, sir, are much too fresh.”

He released her hands to place one palm over his heart. “Forgive me, Lady Nicole, I am severely backward when it comes to conversing appropriately whilst standing on a tree branch.”

“Why
did
you come here? You could have come to tea tomorrow.”

Blake chuckled softly. “I was in the midst of reviewing Chester's voluminous list of new staff members when I was overcome with the need to speak with you.”

Nicki's heart skipped a beat, then hammered in her chest. “Do you mean to say your heart told you to come here in the middle of the night?”

His amusement abruptly disappeared. “My heart has nothing to do with my decision. I merely felt some remorse for having been forced to abandon you to suffer Bartholomew's company this evening.”

“I believe remorse is an emotion one feels in one's heart, my lord.”

“Blast it, Nicole, I told you my heart was not involved in the decision!”

She folded her arms and clutched her waist with her cold hands. “You need not snap, sir. I cannot help it if I felt flattered you would act on such an impulse. Now that you have convinced me it had nothing to do with your feelings, perhaps this meeting should end. I am tired.”

Blake brushed a stray lock of hair away from her face with the back of his fingers. “I have hurt your feelings.”

“It is a failing of mine to be swept away by my emotions. I do not expect someone of your supreme self-control to understand.”

His expression turned wistful. “Such honesty. Whatever am I to do with you, Nicole? I could resist you if you were deceitful, pretending to be something you are not, but there is no pretense about you. You forge straight ahead, giving me no time to launch my defenses.”

Nicki looked away, confused by his words. “Whyever should you wish to defend yourself against me, my lord? I am no threat to you.”

A harsh bark of laughter startled her and she slipped backward. Once again, Blake quickly captured her elbow, holding fast until she steadied her perch. “You are perhaps the greatest danger I have faced in my life—more so because you do not realize the extent of your power.”

“It is very late and I am in no frame of mind to untangle riddles that make no sense. I assume you had a reason for this visit.”

The earl lifted her hand and turned it over, staring intently at her palm. Nicki squirmed uncomfortably. Her fingers were cold and the tips puckered from the icy water she had used in the stables. She had the oddest desire to jerk her hand away before he could notice.

With calculated slowness, Blake lifted her palm to his lips. Nicki gasped at the sensations that spiraled upward from the place his lips touched. She had the insane urge to slip her fingers into his thick dark hair, to draw him near. Chills that moved like a cool breeze across her skin returned some semblance of sanity to her crazed emotions and gave her the will to attempt to pull her hand away.

Blake held her fast, raising his head slightly to look at her. “My reason for this visit? Something so simple, you see. Just to touch you, to see you, nothing more.”

Mesmerized by his mouth still poised over her hand, Nicki managed to force her voice from her throat, low and breathless. “I suppose there is no harm in that.”

He folded her fingers into her palm gently, his touch more tender than she could have imagined possible from such a powerful man. As though by magic, he slipped close and cupped the base of Nicki's jaw in his hand. Her gaze clung to his, and without meaning to, she moved her thighs together thus framing his hips intimately. A liquid heat flowed in her veins where she could have sworn she once had blood. Magic.

Tenderly, he turned her face up to his and brushed her lips lightly with his mouth. “I shall come by around nine o'clock on the morrow.”

She nodded without hesitation even as she closed her eyes and tipped her face up for his kiss.

But the earl's mouth slipped like velvet stone along her cheekbone until his breath teased her ear. “Perhaps you would be so generous as to share the company of your Calypso with me?”

At first the sound of the words were mere sensations. A delicious, sensual reaction fluttered through her until her toes curled inside her leather shoes. Then the meaning sent a thrill of pleasure singing into her heart before Nicki could attempt to stifle the foolishness.

Embarrassed at her wanton behavior, she drew back and banged the back of her head on the glass. “I would love to show you to her—or her to you, I mean—of course.”

The enigmatic smile returned and Blake backed a slight distance. “I leave you then, hopefully with pleasant dreams.”

With her hand still clenched, Nicki nodded. She hastily swung her legs around so she could slip inside. When she turned back to the window, Blake was gone.

She reached up to snap the window closed. “Why must he be so deucedly charming? How can I resist him when he behaves so—so irresistibly?”

“You did not exaggerate, my dear. She's extraordinary.”

Nicki, her heart swelling with pride at the earl's obvious admiration, attempted to maintain some semblance of clarity. “I've spent years studying various breeds. We had an average stable, with a few truly fine Thoroughbreds. Then my father met an elderly man in the neighboring county and introduced me to him. He had a mare he claimed was a descendant of one of the three champion Arabs Queen Anne had imported into the country.”

“Which of the three? Byerly Turk, Godolphin Barb, or Darley Arabian?”

Blake's knowledge surprised Nicki, though she supposed nothing about him should have. “I was able to trace Winter Eclipse back to one of the descendants of those stallions, Eclipse. I was extremely excited about that discovery. Though her bloodlines were not pure, she was a spectacular animal in her own right. Papa tried to buy her, but Lord Charles would not sell. Several months later the old lord died and left Winter to us in his will.” She flushed, realizing she had been rambling.

“Aphrodite is her second filly. I wanted a woman's horse, spirited, yet not as large as a standard Thoroughbred. Calypso is the first attempt at breeding one of our Thoroughbreds to an Arab stallion we purchased last year. I hope we will have as much success with her as the others. The demand over the past year exceeds the number of horses we can provide. If we can open a market directed at female riders, our sales should double.”

Though separated by the split stall door, Aphrodite pressed her silken nose forcefully against Blake's chest, drawing his attention from the long-legged filly across the stall. He rewarded her with sugar retrieved conveniently from a handkerchief pulled out of his jacket pocket. “I see the reason for your fame. These are some of the finest horses I have ever seen.”

“You have made a friend for life. She has a taste for sweets.”

“After the night she spent, she deserves a treat.”

Nicki stroked the mare's long white neck. “She certainly does.”

Blake stepped away from Aphrodite's stall to saunter along the row of other cubicles, now mostly empty with the horses allowed to run loose in the fields. He paused next to Hera's stall to offer sugar. Hera leaned over her stall door expectantly.