The Princess and the Peer(85)

“Drive home,” he ordered the servant. “I’ll walk.”

“But, my lord, are you sure? It looks like it’s coming on rain.”

“I spent over a decade at sea,” he said tersely, “so a little wet’s not likely to bother me.”

The younger man flushed. “Of course, my lord. I’ll take the team home.”

With a curt nod, Nick turned and stalked away, thrusting his hands into the pockets of his coat as he went.

He wandered, walking with no particular direction in mind. Without meaning to, he found himself in Hyde Park some while later, staring at the dull gray chop blown up across the usually placid surface of the Serpentine. Instinctively he’d been drawn to the water, even if it wasn’t the rugged swells of the sea that he truly desired.

By God, he wished he had access to a ship—or a sailboat at least. He always did his best thinking on the water, the salt spray moistening his face and the wind whipping his hair while his mind and muscles stayed occupied trimming sails and correcting tack. As for the Hyde Park’s famous lake, the man-made body of water might be adequate for rowboats and lightweight skiffs, but it wasn’t suitable for proper sailing. It certainly wasn’t deep enough or wide enough to distract his thoughts.

Damn her.

And damn me for caring.

Though why he still gave a toss about her, he couldn’t say. Everything she’d told him had been a lie. Really, when he considered the matter properly, he’d had a lucky escape. So why didn’t he feel that way? Why couldn’t he just forget her and move on? As she’d said that night at the prince regent’s party, there could be nothing more between them, particularly considering she was promised in marriage to some foreign prince.

His fists tightened and he spat out a livid curse, the foul words catching on the wind. A nursemaid with a pair of her young charges in tow covered their ears and led them quickly past, throwing reproving glances his way until the three of them disappeared from view. But he was too far from caring if he offended anyone with his sailor’s language. Lately, he didn’t seem to care about much of anything, even if he continued to go through the motions with his estate business and his life.

Does she ever think of me? he wondered, then mentally kicked himself for the thought.

Of course she doesn’t, came the harsh inward reply. She probably laughed now to think of her folly and her brief, forbidden dalliance with an English aristocrat.

Yet he couldn’t get her face out of his mind, or the look of shattered misery in her eyes just before she’d run from the room that night. He’d almost gone after her then, but pride had held him back. Pride and anger and the knowledge that she could not be his.

She told him he should treat her as a stranger and forget they had ever met. But how could he when he dreamed of her at night? When he woke with her name a whisper on his lips, his arms empty of all but her memory?

She never had told him why she’d lain with him, why she had decided to risk giving him her innocence. It was the one thing that made no sense out of all of it, the one part that had no logical explanation. Had she simply been overcome by passion that night, by a longing for some last daring adventure? Or had it been more? Had she perhaps felt some deeper emotion for him after all?

But as she’d said, what did it matter now? She was gone, completely out of his reach. Worse, as a royal princess, her station was now so far above his that even a friendship between them would be impossible.

And it was that, above all else, that drove him to the brink, that left him furious and frustrated and bleak as the cold autumn wind that beat at the trees and tore the sere leaves from their branches.

Suddenly sick of his own introspection, he turned for home. As he did, the first fat, icy drops of rain began to fall from the sky. But he offered no defense against them and walked no faster as he made his way to the town house.





Chapter 19





“Are you certain you don’t care to go shopping with me?” Sigrid asked four days later. “I would be happy to wait while you run upstairs to change your gown.”

Emma looked up from her book, which she was somehow managing to read this time, despite a tendency for her thoughts to wander every now and again. “Thank you, but no,” she said, deliberately adding a smile. “I have no need of another new hat or an extra pair of gloves. As for books”—she held up the one in her hands—“I have a more than adequate supply.”

“Well, if you are sure…” Sigrid paused, a small pout on her pretty lips. “Besides shopping, I was planning to stop by Gunter’s for one of their delectable treats, or so I have heard them described. I thought perhaps you would enjoy the diversion?”