Lady Vixen (2 page)

"How
pretty you look today, my dear," Mrs. Eggleston said quickly, having
noticed the scowl that had momentarily darkened Nicole's lively face.

And
because Mrs. Eggleston, with her white sugar-spun hair and gentle blue eyes,
was the nearest thing to a grandmother that the twins knew, and because she
really was on her best behavior, Nicole promptly forgot the Colonel's comments.
She didn't remain with them long though, for seeing her father standing alone
at the corner of the house, she wandered over to him. Almost absently he placed
an arm around her slender shoulders and pulled her against him. "Happy,
poppet?"

"Oh,
yes . . . but I am getting a little tired of smiling at everyone and being so
very good. Won't they all go home soon?"

Adrian
laughed out loud. "So tactful! But that echoes my sentiments
exactly!" Glancing around, he asked casually, "Where is your mother? I
haven't seen her for some minutes now."

"She's
walking in the rose garden with Mr. Saxon, I think. At least that's where I saw
her last."

With
surprise, Nicole felt her father's body stiffen and she looked up at his face
curiously. It suddenly seemed tighter, the laughter lines grim. But then he
laughed, a peculiar laugh, and said, "Well, why don't we go find
them?"

And
as she liked nothing better than to have both her charming father and her very
beautiful mother with her, she tagged happily along as her father took off with
long strides in the direction of the formal rose gardens that lay to the left
of the lawn area.

They
found Annabelle and Robert Saxon a few moments later at the far end of the
garden. Annabelle, in a high-waisted gown of leaf-green jaconet that bared more
of her full bosom than was precisely proper, was leaning languidly back against
the bright yellow cushions of a lawn lounge placed under a shading willow tree.
Robert Saxon was seated beside her, his black head bent attentively in
Annabelle's direction. With a burst of innocent pride, Nicole couldn't help
admiring her mother's startling beauty, the flaming red hair, the flawless
features and the cat-shaped emerald eyes. Annabelle Ashford was undoubtedly one
of the loveliest women in England.

"Ah,
here you are, my dear," Adrian said coolly. "Don't you think it a bit
rude to desert your guests?"

Annabelle
shrugged indifferently, then holding out her arms to Nicole, she smiled her
dazzling smile and eagerly Nicole went to her. It wasn't often that Mama was
affectionate and Nicole hoarded these moments. Her head against Annabelle's
lovely breasts, Nicole smiled shyly at Robert Saxon, who rather mockingly
returned the smile.

Casting
her husband a calculating glance, Annabelle murmured, "It is so warm,
Adrian, and you know these country parties are really not to my liking. I shall
return in a moment, but I simply had to have a few minutes of peace and quiet,
and Robert so very nicely offered to escort me away from all those babbling
country yokels."

Her
eyes round with astonishment, Nicole looked up at her mother. "Don't you
like the party, Mama? I think it is lovely!"

"Of
course I do, darling! It is just that this kind of affair is not as exciting as
the ones your father and I attend in London. That is all I meant. Don't bother
your head about it."

Satisfied,
Nicole rested comfortably against her mother, unaware of the charming picture
they presented. It was Robert Saxon who commented on it: "You are to be
congratulated, Ashford, on possessing such a lovely wife and, it appears, an
extremely lovely child. With that hair and mouth and those great topaz eyes in
a few years' time you'll have the suitors clamoring on your doorstep."

Nicole
blushed and turned her head away, although she was very pleased. Adrian sent
Saxon a long unsmiling look and made some noncommittal remark. Sensing that the
three adults were only making conversation in front of her, after one last hug
Nicole stood and said, "If you will excuse me, I shall go and find
Giles."

"Run
along, sweetheart," Adrian replied, and without another thought Nicole
wandered down the neatly manicured flagstone path on her way to the house.

There
was a faint smell of lavender in the air that mingled with the heavy perfume of
the rosebushes that lined the path. Taking a deep breath, Nicole savored the
heady, rich fragrance that surrounded her. Today had been so special. So
perfect she would remember it forever. Her first grown-up party, and Mama so
lovely and Father so handsome and kind. It was wonderful. Wonderful to live
here at Ashland, wonderful to have Giles for a brother and to be the daughter
of her parents. With a sense of growing pride she approached the stately house
that she called home, thinking of the generations of Ash-fords that had lived
in this very house; of the Ashfords that had sailed with Drake, of the Ashfords
that had fought against Cromwell and had gone into exile with their prince, of
the Ashfords that had been advisors and friends of the various monarchs, and
she felt her heart swell with pride. Someday she would do great things tool She
really would
!
And Giles and Mama and Father would be so very proud of her.

Then
laughing at her own sudden intensity, she began to run in search of Giles,
finding him, as she expected, in the hayloft of the stables. The hayloft
provided a perfect place to overlook Shadow and Midnight, and together the
twins spent several moments watching the still-clumsy movements of the young
foal. Rising to her feet and brushing away the bits of clinging straw, Nicole
said, "We had better go back, Giles. Father thinks it is rude to leave our
guests."

Reluctantly
Giles agreed and slowly he began to climb down the ladder that led to the floor
of the stable. Nicole was following him when her foot slipped and she started
to fall. She tried to save herself only she couldn't regain her balance and her
body came hurtling down, down, down...

With
a smothered gasp, Nicole sat up in the bed, her eyes feverishly searching the
room. It was her bedroom, just as it should be, only it was different. The
furnishings, were the same, but toys no longer filled the chest under the
window and no dress lay on the arm of the chair. It was different within
herself, different because she realized with a sickening lurch in the region of
her heart that she had been dreaming again. Dreaming of that wonderful day,
just over a
year ago. Dreaming of the way it had been then, dreaming that Giles and Mama
and Father were still alive.

Choking
back a sob, she threw back the covers, staring hard at the door to her room,
knowing that never again would Giles come bursting through, never again would
Father call her his little girl, never again would Mama clasp her near. A low
moan of pain escaped from her and with awkward movements, as if she were in
agony, she stumbled to the window that overlooked the back lawn, that lawn
where only last year the wonderful party had been held. Staring blindly out the
window, she wondered bleakly at how swiftly it had all changed. Six weeks after
the garden party they had traveled to Brighton, Adrian having decided that the
sea air would be a delightful change for them all. And it was... at first.

Giles
and she loved the sea and frequently the entire family had sailed on the bay at
Brighton, reveling in the crisp air, the swell of the ocean beneath their feet.
Adrian had even purchased their very own small yacht, christening it
The Nicole,
much to Nicole's
nearly bursting pride. Oh, yes, it had been a wonderful time . . . until
that
day.

The
day had been slightly overcast, a stiff wind had been blowing across the bay,
making the waters choppy, the weather uncertain. It had been somewhat hastily
planned for Adrian and Annabelle to take out
The Nicole
by themselves,
Annabelle claiming she wished to have her husband to herself for once. But
Giles, full of high spirits and mischief, had decided to surprise his parents
by sneaking aboard and hiding in the cabin, determined not to reveal himself
until the yacht was far enough away to make it impractical to return him to the
dock.

Perhaps
if Nicole hadn't sprained her ankle and been forbidden to walk on it, Giles
would have remained with her. Except for that sprained ankle there had been the
very distinct possibility that Nicole might have joined Giles, the pair of them
giggling over this latest prank. But fate decreed otherwise, and so it was that
Nicole had been confined at their summer residence, watching from the balcony
that overlooked the bay when the accident occurred. Her foot propped up on a
pile of fluffy pillows, she saw
The Nicole
slip away from
the dock and skim lightly across the choppy bay. A smile on her face, she
imagined Giles's appearance on the deck. And then, her smile vanished, for
The Nicole,
running before
the wind, suddenly veered crazily and floundered onto her side. Before Nicole's
shocked and
horrified gaze, the gleaming white yacht had sunk, disappearing almost
instantly beneath the white-capped blue waters.

The
hours following the mishap had been filled with suffocating fear as she watched
and waited with increasing panic for word of her family. They couldn't drown,
they
couldn't,
she
kept repeating over and over like a prayer. Friends of the Ashfords had arrived
instantly, including Mrs. Eggleston. It was to Mrs. Eggleston, her arms wrapped
tightly around the white-faced child, that the task had fallen to tell her that
her parents had drowned; their bodies had been washed ashore by the tide just
before dawn. Of Giles nothing was ever found, and it was believed that he had
been trapped in the cabin of the yacht, unable to fight his way to the surface.

Thinking
of that, of Giles forever in the ocean depths, brought it all back so vividly
that Nicole couldn't bear it, and with an anguished cry she closed her eyes,
willing it to have been a nightmare. But it wasn't.

In
a way Nicole missed Giles more than she did either Annabelle or Adrian, for in
the manner of many of the wellborn, her parents had oftentimes been too busy
for their offspring, and Nicole and Giles were more familiar with nursemaids
and nannies than the company of their parents.

For
Nicole the death of her family had been a tragedy in more ways than the
obvious. Not only had she lost a beloved brother, a twin, her father and
mother, but their deaths left her without any family at all. And that might not
have been so very desperate if Colonel and Mrs. Eggleston had been appointed
her guardians. At least with them she would have been loved and cherished. But
Annabelle did have a stepsister and Agatha, along with her husband William
Markham, had claimed to be a very definite connection of the family.

The
Markhams were only remotely related, but since their claim was greater than
that of a concerned neighbor, as in the Egglestons' case, Agatha and her
husband had been appointed guardians. Guardians to Nicole Ashford's young
person
and
her
very, very large fortune.

It
had been, and still was, a grim adjustment for Nicole. Strangers now occupied
the rooms where her mother and father had slept. Even Giles's rooms had not
been left untouched—Edward, her seventeen-year-old cousin, had arrogantly
commanded them for his use.

The
Ashfords had never been particularly intimate with the Markhams, for the two
stepsisters had regarded each
other with acute aversion. More importantly,
Annabelle had come from a wealthy noble family, while Agatha, despite her
widowed mother's opportune marriage to a widower of wealth and position, had
been barely genteel. And now Nicole was completely under the control of an aunt
she had little in common with, a person she barely knew, and an uncle whose
vulgarity was disdained by the local gentry.

Leaning
her head forlornly against the window jamb, Nicole viewed the day through eyes
filled with tears. If only Giles had lived, then things might not seem quite so
bad. If Giles had been with her then the Markhams might not seem as beastly. At
least then she and Giles could comfort one another. But now...

Her
heart like a stone in her breast, with lethargic movements she wandered over to
the marble washstand and almost numbly began pouring water into a bowl from the
pitcher that stood nearby.

It
was only as she pulled on her gown for the day, that she remembered Mrs.
Eggleston was coming to see her this morning and she felt a flicker of interest
stir. Thinking of Mrs. Eggleston's own very recent tragedy, she forgot some of
her own troubles. The Colonel had died not two weeks ago, and now, Nicole told
herself, it is time for you to comfort Mrs. Eggleston. We can comfort each
other, she thought unhappily, and together we can face anything.

"You
can't leave me!" Nicole blurted out. "You can't possibly! Oh, Mrs.
Eggleston, say it isn't true. Why must you leave?" Nicole cried, her face
going white with shock at what Mrs. Eggleston had just divulged. The two of
them were in the blue room at the front of the house, and Mrs. Eggleston had
just very gently told Nicole the extremely unpleasant and unwelcome news that
she was leaving for Canada tomorrow morning.