With Love (Blackwood & Friends #1)

Chapter 15: The Wild, Young and Free Things

Chapter 15: The Wild, Young, and Free Things

"Blanche," Nicola grumbled, turning away against her pillows and pulling the covers over her head, "go away."

Blanche shook her more vigorously and Nicola blearily recalled now what woke her the first time. Her friend was relentless, and shook her with even more roughness, now for the third time. Nicola groaned and cracked open her eyes, consumed by darkness.

"Nicki, you have to come see this," Blanche was whispering, but why Nicola wasn't sure. They were still in her room and there was nobody else around, or probably awake at this hour.

"The sun... where is it?" Nicola grouched, yanking the cover down and giving the incorrigibly tiny woman a vehement glare through a tangle of tawny hair.

"Not to rise for a few more hours yet," Blanche explained, pushing off the mattress and taking the covers from Nicola's hands, ripping them over the other end of the bed and effectively exposing her friend. "Get up, I desperately need you to see this."

"What is so important that it can't wait until the morning?" Nicola sat up and rubbed her face, realising that she had only probably been asleep for a couple of hours at least, and weariness lingered heavily against her.

"It probably won't be there if we wait until then." Blanche skipped around the room and procured a shawl from Nicola's armoire, tossed it over her head. "Quickly, now. We don't have all night."

"We do." Nicola groaned as she swung her legs over the bed and stood up, wrapping the shawl that Blanche had tossed her around her shoulders. Through the darkness of the room, she pinned her friend with a grumpy look. "Whatever it is surely can't be worth this."

"Oh, it is." Blanche leapt forward and grabbed Nicola's hand, beginning to tug her out the room. "Trust me."

"The last time you said those words to me, our carriage got stuck in a ditch and we had to wait hours for your mother to come rescue us." She glanced around furtively, attempting to search for a pair of slippers to cover her bare feet, but there was none close by and she noticed Blanche's feet were bare, too, so she chose to forego opening the armoire and searching for a pair.

Blanche gave her a peeved look over her shoulder, dark hair bouncing in a loose braid down her back as she trotted down the passage. "You always remember the worst things."

"They do tend to linger with no small amount of dread, Bee."

Blanche chose not to respond to that remark and practically dragged Nicola down the steps, lingering on the last one to turn back and whisper, "We need to quiet now." She ignored the question on Nicola's face and pressed forward.

Nicola heard low voices as they tiptoed across the entrance hall of the manor house and past the drawing room, towards the library adjacent where soft light spilled across the floor from the heavy wooden door that stood slightly ajar. It was here that Blanche dropped to her knees and pushed in close against the tiny space that separated the door from its frame. She gestured with her hand for Nicola to join her, which she did, the voices louder now and decidedly male, and one of them she recognised with an aching familiarity.

The scene before her was largely obscured by the rest of the door, but what she could discern was the profile of one gentleman, Mr Nathaniel Southill, who was seated close to them on a plush leather sofa, a crystal glass of amber liquid in his hand as he smiled at something. There were two other voices, but their owners were not within her range of sight, though she knew that Jason was one and assuredly Lord Oliver Hollingsworth the other.

"Blanche, what the devil are you playing at?" Nicola hissed to her companion, sure that she was quite mad.

"Ssh!" Blanche hissed. "Just look at him."