Free Heart of the Diamond by Carrie Brock

room.
    “Nearly one o'clock, I should think. I thought I heard a noise and came to investigate. Did you hear a horse outside, by chance?”
    “A horse?” Nicki's heart gave an uncomfortable jolt. “Heavens, no. Do you suppose one of the Thoroughbreds got out of the stables?”
    Angelica held on to her long auburn braid and bent to pick up a leaf from the carpet. “I should think that highly unlikely, unless someone took one out.”
    Staring at the leaf as though it was an adder, Nicki licked her lips and drew the coverlet closer about her chin. “At this time of night. I should think not. Have you heard anything, Mina?”
    Silence stretched long and Nicki looked at her sister, who said nothing.
    “Have you, Mina?” she prompted.
    “No!”
    Nodding, Angelica advanced further into the room. “Are you chilled, Nicole?”
    Still wearing her heavy habit and buried under the bedclothes, Nicki was quite the opposite. “I was, but now I am quite cozy, thank you.”
    “Your cheeks are flushed. Are you coming down with a fever?”
    Nicki longed to duck beneath the bedclothes as Angelica reached out to brush her soft, cool hands against Nicki's forehead. “I am fine, Angelica, really. You need not bedevil me.”
    A shaky laugh broke the silence and Mina gained her voice. “Really, Nicki, you needn't be so short.”
    Angelica straightened and smoothed her hands along the hips of her dressing gown. “Actually, your skin is quite cool. Almost as if you had been out of doors.”
    After the meeting with Blake Dylan, Nicki had no patience with this cat and mouse nonsense. She opened her mouth to say as much when Mina interrupted.
    “The window was open and I shut it because Nicki was cold.”
    Meeting Angelica's steady, green-eyed gaze, Nicki thought she saw a flicker of despair. But that could not be. “It is time you were abed, Mina. The earl may come calling tomorrow; we wouldn't want Nicole yawning and falling asleep in her tea.”
    Mina laughed, or rather gave a nervous twitter, as she climbed over Nicki to slip off the bed. “Good night, sister.”
    “Good night,” Nicki responded, but Mina had already dashed from the room.
    Angelica sighed and bent down to retrieve the pillows from the floor. Her gaze met Nicki's as she leaned over her and placed the pillows on the other side of the bed. “You do realize it would be completely foolhardy to embark on any more late night escapades, Nicole.”
    Clenching the covers, Nicki nodded.
    “Sleep well.” With one last long look, Angelica glided across the room, then slipped quietly into the hall. As the door closed behind her stepmother, Nicki curled on to her side, staring at the moonlight shining through her window in tremulous prisms of light and shadow.
    Foolhardy, perhaps, but necessary. Somehow she had to make the best of an impossible situation. That is, until she arrived at a solution for extricating herself.
    If only Teddy would come back. She needed him more now than ever before, but the pale-eyed Earl of Diamond had claimed Rosewood. It seemed a bleak prospect that Teddy would return to England now that all ties were severed.
    All ties save one.
    Nicki slipped from beneath the covers, then hurriedly unbuttoned her habit. Catching the heel of one boot with the toe of the other, she tugged off first one, then the other. She could no more extinguish her dreams than she could stop breathing. From the moment she had pressed her hand into Theodore Bartholomew's at the age of four, her fate had been sealed. Staring into his boyish face, meeting his twinkling amber eyes, Nicki wanted never to be separated from him.
    In her stocking feet, she padded across the carpet to her wardrobe and opened the door. She grabbed out a nightrail, then returned to toss it upon the bed while she removed her habit.
    Teddy had always felt the same connection and he would sense her need and return, just as the knights of old appeared at the opportune moment to rescue their lady loves. Teddy