Chapter 26: The Best Laid Plans...
He opened the door to her room at the same time she was leaving it, almost stumbling into him as she hurried out. From behind Nicola, her lady's maid stared at him with wide-eyed surprise and worry as she carried Nicola's already packed valise in her hand.
"You can leave us," Jason told her, and she obliged hastily, dropping the valise, and slipping out the chamber, disappearing. To Nicola, he asked, "Where are you going, Nicki?"
Her amber eyes were wide and wild, searching him with an uncertainty and shyness he didn't like. He knew the cause of it, he was here to dispel it, and he exhibited commendable restraint at not pulling her into his arms and crushing her against his body right then and there. He didn't want her to go, he didn't want her to leave Northwick ever again.
"I need to leave," she said softly, a tremble in her voice. She began to wring her hands in her skirts, a nervous twitch he had seen so often in the past week.
"Why?"
She blinked owlishly. It was so very tempting to reach out and push that curl of hair that had strayed from its pin and drooped along the curve of her cheek and neck, slip it behind her ear. "The letters." Simply stated, but her lips moved with anything but. So expressive, even when she was in obvious turmoil, they quirked adorably to the side- so animated and uniquely her. He wondered if she ever noticed those attributes about herself, things that made her so vastly different from any other girl he had known before...
"What about the letters?" Jason stepped into her chambers, compelling her to step back and admit him. She did so with a questioning look, turning to the side as he slipped past her.
"Jason, you surely know why."
Deliberately, he extended his arm out beside them and pushed the door closed slowly. "Enlighten me."
Her brow puckered with confusion. Jason leaned against her door and waited, crossing his arms over his chest and tilting his chin to look at her. "I wrote them," she said flatly, making a gesture with her hand, flattening her palm against the middle of her chest as if emphasising the truth of her convictions. "Those were my confessions, my letters that you found."
"I know." He arched one brow at her. "So why are you leaving?"
"You knew or you know?"
"There's a difference?"
She gave him a pert looked, wrinkling her nose in an adorable moue of annoyance. "Yes. If you only know, that infers your knowledge may only extend as far back as a few moments ago. But if you knew..."
"I knew."
A thousand emotions and feelings flashed across her face and Jason merely waited for her to settle on one. Unfortunately, she seemed to favour confused agitation and plunked her hands on her hips, glaring at him. "Since when?" she demanded.
He so did enjoy catching glimpses of her spirit, the riotous little things that she kept locked away so tightly in that shell of hers for nobody to see. He had made a plan for this, for her, but like most plans do- things had gone awry. For his plan to work, all his players had to be in accordance... and attempting to control the Blackwood members of his household was like trying corral angry tigers- impossible, and probably dangerous.
"Since I found you snooping outside my chambers."
She stiffened, her hands dropping, and her expression cringed as if embarrassed. "How?"
How, indeed? "Well, I couldn't be certain at first, darling," he explained, "but I had my suspicions and I needed to confirm them."
Jason had brought the box of letters over to his bed that day after finding the little mouse lurking in the passageway outside his chambers, and he had sifted through the contents in confusion. There must have been close to a hundred of the neatly folded little bits of parchments, all bound so neatly with twine, all coated with a lingering, familiar scent. It was the smell of them that triggered the memory of her, the same heady floral scent that stirred the air around them in her chambers presently, and it had driven him mad trying to figure it out. Jason had spent the entire night pouring over those letters, had spread each out on the floor of his chambers as he attempted to assign chronological order to the events depicted within them. His room had looked like a rumpled checkers board, and he had faired no better. By the time the sun had risen, he had scoured the contents of those letters enough to form an idea about who it could be and he found himself somewhat surprised and excited by the possible conclusion. He decided that morning, haggard and unkempt at the breakfast table, that he would court Nicola Eversley even if she wasn't the author of those letters, but they could certainly be construed as the catalyst that made him come to that life-altering realisation.
He wanted her. And as he read those letters it was like looking through windows of the past for the last four years, of how she had seen him- parts of him he hadn't even seen in himself- and he knew that even if he hadn't stumbled across her box, he would still have wanted her. Eventually.
With the same precision and attention to detail he applied to remembering the subject matter for his artwork, Jason ingrained the words of those letters to his memory, savouring the parts that were most important to him to recall, reinforce and pick apart later.
I watched you help Miss Beatrice Greene alight from her horse today. Even though I wished it were my hand you touched, my waist you steadied, my heart is full with the knowledge of the kindness and lack of prejudice you showed a girl who outwardly shies from her disability, who is oft ridiculed by her so-called peers in the ballrooms of London.
The girl in question had a clubfoot, the event occurring two years ago. Jason had remembered it vividly but not in the way she had; Nicola had eternalised and interpreted the moment in a way that stuck with him, began to peel away at his self-doubts and insecurities.
Today, at the luncheon, Lady Blackwood seemed put out and you escorted her from the hall to console her. A guest had passed a comment offhandedly about your father that disturbed her greatly. You left for some time, and when I dared to enquire after you, I gazed upon you quietly consoling your dear mother as she wept. Even though a year had passed since his death, your outward compassion and dedication for your family only makes me love you more.
There was more, so much more, that Nicola had expressed. She saw so many virtuous qualities in him that it made him want to prove her right, to live up to the standards she had already set for him.
Then there were other things, sentiments she expressed that were personal, wild desires. Some were intimate, pining for his kiss, his touch- which he would of course obligingly provide- but others had been innocent, romantic, playful. Running through the forest, hand-in-hand with him, swimming with him, watching sunsets and sunrises with him, being courted and favoured at balls by him.
"Jason," there was a note of warning in her voice, unease. Why wouldn't there be? He had known all along about the notes, had known and kissed her repeatedly, took her to bed... it looked bad.
But plans went awry.
"I was sure it was you, Nicki, and I wanted it to be you. I had hoped that your handwriting would have confirmed it, after we had been in the village, but somehow it was different. Which still baffles me actually," he explained, calmly, deciding that was as good a place to start as any.
She was frowning still but held up both her hands to him. "I am able to write with each," she explained simply. "One is less refined than the other but..." she shrugged.
"You astound me with something new every day," he admitted sincerely.
"What made you believe with certainty that the letters were from me?" she asked then, ignoring his confession.
Jason gestured broadly to her room. "When I read your first note you left for me in the chamber of the grandfather clock, after that day in the village, your scent was... everywhere."
"What?"
"It's everywhere, Nicki. Plaguing me. It is here, all over the room, and then it fills the halls and passages, lingering long after you have left. It lingers on your notes when you wrote to me. If that didn't drive me to conclude that you were the author, there was evidence in the content you described, such very detailed snippets of the estate, of events that you were in attendance at... I had my suspicions. No, I had my hopes..."
She blushed, understanding dawning on her face. Still looking remarkably uncomfortable, she lowered her lashes and studied the floor. "Why didn't you tell me that you knew it was me?"
"What would you have done if I had?"
She raised her gaze to his and the answer was there, emblazoned and true, and they both knew what she would have done. "I would have returned to London," she confessed, quietly. "And you did not want me to."
"No."
"Why?"
"I was falling in love with you."
Something overwhelmed her then, possibly shock, but she fluttered and dropped to her knees, sinking into her skirts, and covered her face with her hands. Jason followed swiftly, bowing his head against hers, unable to resist touching her in her moment of torment. "I couldn't tell you," he murmured, dropping a kiss to her fingertips, "I couldn't let the letters stand between us. I wanted to court you without the knowledge of your confessions governing your actions, making you question every thing I did and said to you."
"You were courting me?" She peered at him through her fingers, her eyelashes sooty and damp. His heart twisted.
"Yes, and I was supposed to be for a while longer," he told her wryly. "I asked your father for permission to court you and then later your hand-"
"What?"
"-at my mother's picnic. Do you know, when I saw you in that dress that day, with those wings, I think I knew right then how terribly I was beginning to love you? My prim and proper little fairy." He smiled at the memory of her, so damn beautiful in that shimmering yellow gown, her wings and softly maned hair. "And here's the kicker, Nicki. How would I ever get a moment alone with you, get you to open up to me, without something only the two of us could work towards, something shared in confidence with a friend?"
She was staring at him with a bit of wonder now, mingling with the confusion and doubt still. "I wouldn't have." Her head shook slowly as she lowered her hands, settling them into her lap. He took them in his own, twining their fingers together.
"You had spent years guarding your heart from me," he told her. "I didn't want to force you to acknowledge my feelings because of yours."
"You denied every name I gave you."
"I only wanted to hear yours." He paused, thinking of how he could phrase his words. "I wondered if you would ever admit to it, confess that you had written the letters, and I came to the conclusion that you wouldn't, not in our lifetime perhaps, so after the opera I thought it better if the business of the letters was put behind us. I had hoped you would forget, I thought that you might have after last night... but then... always full of surprises, you went ahead and confessed it all today."
"I didn't know you were courting me." She glowered at him for a moment. "I was so confused."
"I know, and that is partly my fault." He allowed himself to stroke her hair, dipping his fingers into her silken strands with a reverence that was new to him. "Things... haven't gone the way I expected them to. The first time was in the forest, at the picnic." He dipped his head, kissed her nose. "Believe me when I say, I never meant to kiss you, but if I hadn't-"
"I know," she whispered, blinking. "I understand why."
"And then kissing you was so damn wonderful, I had to do it again. I contrived to stay away from you, giving you the space you needed to at least come to the conclusion at some point that I may be an honourable and decent man, but then that headstrong and idiotic sister of mine got it into her head to form an attachment for Nate and naturally drag you into her impetuous and rash actions."
"That was one of the best evenings of my life," she said earnestly. "I wouldn't regret that day and night even if I drowned in that lake because of it." She quirked her lip to the side in thought. "Well, suppose I would if one of you drowned..."
"Yes, well, my mother was set on banning the both of you from attending any further events, which would have abruptly ended my plans to court you." Again, the memory of her wet and bedraggled flashed through his mind, her shivering form sitting on that settee in the parlour with a pool of water around her toes, trying not to giggle while Kathleen threatened to damn them all. Jason laughed softly. "Do you want to know how happy my mother was that morning when I confessed my intentions with you, after she had banished you to bed?"
"Truly?"
"She may have your wedding gown and trousseau awaiting your first fitting already, fair warning. However, it allowed me to continue courting you, and you and Blanche could continue to attend events with me. I thought you would enjoy my portraits of you, a poor attempt on my part to woo you perhaps. They were intended to arouse and engage your curiosity of me, a humbly romantic gesture on my part, of course."
She gave him a dry look, but said, "I love those pictures, Jason."
"You have no idea how much that pleases me," he grinned, brushing his nose against hers. "The next evening, my mother contrived to seat us next to each other at the opera, a fatal mistake. It was unbearable to sit so close to you without touching you, and there was something so visceral about your reactions to my touch. I knew I loved you that night, for certain. I think I realised it when you turned to look at me with those ridiculous little opera glasses pressed to your face... I couldn't sleep for it, had to paint you, and I needed to show you. Again, my plan went awry." He closed his eyes tight, the image of her in his shirt almost undoing him again. The garment had hung loosely over her limbs, falling to the tops of her knees, and the vee of his shirt fell open tantalisingly atop her breasts, just hinting at the cleavage below. "I had no idea you stole one of my shirts. That almost undid me, seeing you like that."
"I didn't steal it," she told him pertly.
"Well, you didn't give it back, either."
"I did." A blush scored her cheeks. "In a sense."
The laugh that escaped him was a low, pleased rumble. "You have given me so much more, Nicki. I wait each day with anticipation to see what else you are able to give me."
"I am not sure I understand," she admitted. "I have not given you anything, other than an orchid."
"A special flower indeed. And why did you bestow me with that particular gift?"
Her eyes were clear, expressive flecks of gold meeting his with quiet intensity. "It takes a great deal of effort and attention to bloom those plants, to keep them happy," she explained. "I wanted to give you something that matched what you were giving me, in your sketches."
"That is certainly more lovely than what I was thinking."
"I don't doubt it."
He tipped her chin with his fingers, allowing himself to brush his lips against hers, unable wait a moment longer to feel her even though there was still so much more to explain, to tell her. A soft sigh gushed from her, and she swayed towards him. "You're distracting me," he grumbled.
"From?" Her thighs inched forward, sliding between his, as her hands stroked up his arms, settling on his biceps. His flesh jumped at her touch.
"From providing you the explanation you deserve."
Nicola bit her lip. "There's more?"
"So much."
Her fingers stroked his neck as they moved upwards to cup the sides of his face, her eyes absorbed with wonder as they focused on the movement. "You were saying?" Her voice was barely audible, dipping her head against his.
"I can't remember."
"We were discussing my orchid."
His lips twitched. "We were talking about courting, which was my intention all along. After the opera, it seemed well enough that outwardly I was favouring you, and I was sure you were becoming more aware of my intentions to do so. Wilhelmina, however, is another Blackwood family member who derailed whatever intention I had desired for you at the masquerade."
She frowned at that. "What had you intended?"
"To allow you to feel like you were being courted, adored. Last night, I wanted everybody to know where my intentions with you lay." Almost possessively, his hands flexed into her waist, urging her closer to the bow of his body. "The premise was there, but it changed when Wilhelmina... became a pain in the ass. That evening, I knew I wouldn't be allowed to simply enjoy you and I knew you wouldn't enjoy it with her threat lingering over your head. I knew if you were given a choice, you would probably lean towards the one that made you leave Northwick and bow to Wilhelmina's wishes just to see our silly little family at peace, but none of us wanted that, and you needed to be sure of that." His grin was filled with the memory of that moment, and she blushed. "I think it worked."
She rolled her eyes. "Every woman in England would have melted at your feet last night."
"Perhaps, but the last person I expected to make a suggestion of a tryst was you, darling." He pulled her in closer, inching her over his lap and settling her, banding his arms around her waist. "I believe you were subconsciously determined to thwart every noble gesture I had left in my body."
"Did you even have any to begin with?" she teased.
"Two, and they are depleted thanks to you."
"You were involved too, as I recall."
Jason looked at her, raising his brows. Her golden eyes were dancing. "Let me count the ways in which you plagued me and scandalised my sensibilities, Miss Eversley, leading this honourable but veritably amorous marquess astray. One," he held a finger up before her nose and she glared at it playfully, "you stole my shirt and wore it. Twice. The second time knowing full well that it drove me to maddening heights of wanting you, yet you did it anyway. Two," he held up another finger, her lips trembling with a smile, "you propositioned me at the masquerade. Now I may have been trying to be a good man, but I was already madly in love with you, and you are such a little minx, toeing the line between wild and proper as if you can't decide where you want to be, but we both wanted to side with the wild that night." She was looking at him in that special way of hers when she was thinking of something she shouldn't be- it was there dilating her eyes, flushing her cheeks, tilting her lips. He held up a third finger before that expression destroyed him. "And three, evidently I didn't do a very good job of it at the ball, because you came looking for more in my chambers-"
"You did a very good job," she interrupted fiercely, tenderly, hugging his shoulders tightly.
"Well, that is reassuring."
"Do you expect me to make an honourable man of you now, since I have clearly led you astray? You might find me adverse to the notion, to be frank."
"Is that so?" He kissed her completely then, entirely consumed and fascinated with everything that she was- her wry humour, her constant surprises and changes, her loveliness as a proper lady- it was all so wonderfully her. "You'll be pleased to hear that you've already succeeded on the first part, making an honourable man of me at least." He shifted her slightly, sliding his hand under her bottom and into his pockets, his fingers finding the ring he had been holding onto since she had left him that morning. "The next part," he told her, "is up to you. This was not supposed to transpire so soon, but with Wilhelmina's interventions, I wanted you to know exactly how much support you have from me, and the rest of my family, Nicki. The decision is yours, of course, and whatever you choose I will support you, whether you wear this now or later, or never at all, whether you let me exile Wilhelmina to the other side of the country or insist on enduring her for the next hundred years, it is entirely up to you." He took her hand, watching her confused little frown pucker her brows as he slid the ring onto her finger. It was a simple, unadorned opal set beside two small diamonds. Her father had sent him the ring the day after he had told Ewan of his intentions to court and wed Nicola at the picnic. The ring had belonged to her mother, but the stones had come loose with age.
"What-" she shook her head, her gaze transfixed on her hand that he clasped lightly in his own. "Jason, when? How?"
"Do you have any more questions you would like to add? But it belonged to your mother, and now it is yours. I had to have the stones set in London, yesterday in fact, which is why I couldn't call on you sooner at your father's."
There was a small flux in her expression and before he could brace himself accordingly, she had thrown her body against him and they toppled backwards. Nicola sprawled over him, her lips blindly seeking his and kissing him with an urgency that made him yield with a groan. Her thighs straddled his hips and he couldn't help the way his hands slid up her legs, cupping her deliciously round little bottom and hitching her against him in a way that made both of them groan.
The door of the room suddenly swung open with a violence that met the crown of his skull with blistering force. Jason swore profusely, tearing his lips from Nicola as he ripped his head to the side to glare at the aching intrusion-
"Get out, Blanche!"
His sister flounced into the room, unperturbed, and deposited herself on Nicola's bed, swinging her legs and grinning at them. "Mother sent me," she explained innocently.
"Leave!" Jason gritted his teeth, pain shooting through his skull.
Blanche merely looked at the ceiling, as if he were trying to recall something important, as she tapped the side of her cheek with her forefinger. "She said," she intoned slowly, "that you had enough time by yourselves and just because you are in the same house for now doesn't mean you should be rutting around each other like wild animals." This was finished with a sinister grin.
Jason would have happily thrown Blanche out by the scruff of her neck if Nicola wasn't still astride him, laughing into his shoulder. Jason, however, wasn't quite as amused as he rubbed the lump beginning to form on his head.
Bracing her palms on his chest, Nicola pushed herself up slightly, then frowned in concern at his expression. "You're hurt," she said sharply, raking her fingers tenderly through his hair to ascertain the seriousness of his injury.
Jason grinned at that. "Mortally wounded," he admitted. "Blanche, leave. I don't want you to witness my demise."
But Nicola's fingers were still in his hair and she was leaning close to him again. "Do you want me to kiss it better?" she asked sweetly.
"God, yes."
"I think I am going to be ill," Blanche muttered. "Could you possibly not?"
"You did barge into the room," Jason pointed out.
Nicola retracted and shifted her weight, tumbling from him. He wanted her back and almost pouted at her absence.
"You did not need to continue whatever you were doing," Blanche protested. "Especially with my best friend." Her eyes turned to Nicola, wide and accusing. "We have a lot to talk about."
Jason sighed, propping himself up on his elbows while Nicola knelt beside him. "Is there nothing I can bribe you with to get you out of this chamber?" he broached, knowing what Blanche's answer would be before she even said it.
"Mother threatened to send Nicola back to London if I didn't chaperone properly," she said, straightening her skirts over her legs. "So I know what I would prefer to happen, but if you want-"
"You're not a chaperone, you're an inconvenience," Jason grumbled, but he climbed to his feet and assisted Nicola to hers.
"Mother said the same thing," Blanche mused, cocking her head to the side. "But she said as long as I am here, you couldn't do anything, and I was better as a nuisance anyway so I may as well act true to it."
Nicola's smile was sly and she cast him a sidelong glance, speaking volumes. "We can talk later," she promised, sidling close to him. "Perhaps I should explain things to Blanche."
"Is that how it's going to be?" Jason teased, tossing a baleful look at his irrepressible sibling. Blanche merely stuck her tongue out him. "My sister over me?"
"Quite possibly, I'm afraid."
Jason heaved a beleaguered sigh, stuffed his hands deep into his pockets, cast them both a dry look, then took his leave. But not before kissing Nicola so soundly in front of Blanche that it provoked her to make a loud retching sound.