Free Undoing of a Lady by Nicola Cornick Page B

She did not remember why Nat had changed nor how. He was just Nat and he had been there for her from the moment she had arrived at Fortune Hall, a lonely child who had lost both her parents and had been forced to start a new life in a new place with people she did not know.
    But now Nat was no longer simply a youth she had once known or a man who had become her friend. She felt a pang of loss although she was not exactly sure what it was she had misplaced. Perhaps she mourned losing the easy friendship they had once had, for despite the disparity in their ages they had been close and their friendship had been warm and valuable and precious to her. Or perhaps what she regretted was that she had not seen until it was too late that her respect for Nat, her need to hold his good opinion, had been so important to her. She wished she had realized sooner how deeply she had fallen in love with him. Instead she had been blinded by her pride; she had been in denial about her feelings, pretending that her jealousy was disinterested friendship and that she was acting from the purest of motives when really she wanted Nat for herself with the fierceness of a tigress.
    “Lizzie?” Nat’s voice had softened now. Perhaps he had seen the bewilderment in her eyes and heard that unhappy tone in her voice. He wanted to protect her. She knew it. Damn it, protecting her was what he had always done. But now it was only a part of what she wanted from him. If she did not have his love then to offer her his protection out of a sense of duty, was simply not enough. She wanted his passion and his wildness and his primitive anger and possession and all the things she had seen in him that night in the folly. But she wanted his tenderness and his love as well, to meet and match with hers, and that was not what he was offering.
    “No,” she said, meeting his eyes, “there is nothing to talk about.”
    She freed herself from his touch and walked quickly toward the door. She was tired now and the reckless edge the wine had given her was ebbing from her blood. She wanted to go home. She would send the carriage back for Tom and Monty, send, too, a gracious note of thanks to Lady Wheeler in the morning to prove that she was not entirely bereft of good manners.
    Nat was still standing where she had left him. Even as she thought that he would not make a scenein a public place by demanding to accompany her or to speak further with her she realized that she had made a serious mistake. There was a single-minded resolve in Nat now that would not baulk at causing a scene. She saw him start to move toward her with absolute determination—and then Priscilla Willoughby drifted across to him and claimed his attention with a hand on his arm, and Lizzie whipped though the door as quickly as a cat and slipped away, her heart beating fast.
    It was warm in the carriage and she was alone and she felt unhappy so she reached for the hip flask that she knew Monty kept concealed there. Actually it was not very well concealed, merely shoved under a cushion. She took it out and drank from it and the brandy was villainously strong and almost made her choke, but she could feel her body relaxing, too, and her mind turning numb again. It made her happier. For a little while.

CHAPTER SIX
    H E WAS SO ANGRY he thought that he would explode. He was angry with a special sort of fury that only Lizzie could arouse in him, a mixture of protectiveness and complete exasperation.
    Nat had made his excuses to Lady Wheeler, and given his apologies to Priscilla Willoughby, whom he had shed with a ruthlessness she deserved. When had Priscilla become so shockingly persistent? He did not remember her being so pushy as a debutante, but then he had been fathoms deep in love with her in his salad days and so had probably not minded her draping herself all over him and claiming his attention at every possible opportunity. Now her clinging only served to irritate him when all he wanted was to talk to