Free Led Astray by a Rake by Sara Bennett Page B

sulks these days, but Nic wasn’t going to let it spoil his day. He’d go to the ball and find some smiling beauty to take to Paris with him, and they would have a splendid romp.
    Until it was time to come home again.
    Nic’s mood turned even gloomier, and he sat contemplating his leg, and remembering the day he had broken his thigh bone. The pain had been excruciating. He remembered the doctor telling him to get specialist help in London, but at the time it’d been impossible to leave the castle. Even though he was damaged and in agony, there was no one else to take charge with his father dead and his mother half mad with grief. He shivered, as if a cloud had slid over the sun.
    Those days were some of the worst ones of his life, and being here at the castle was a constant reminder. Another reason to get away as soon as possible.
    The sound of voices drew his attention and he looked up. Abbot and two women were standing at the end of the long walk. As he watched, Abbot and one woman walked away, and after a moment’s hesitation, the second woman began to come toward him.
    Nic shaded his eyes.
    She wore a white dress that seemed to float about her slippered feet, and her parasol cast shadows but could not dim the glow of her golden hair. Or her beauty. She was a woman in a million, a rare jewel. She took his breath away, scattered his wits, and left him in a state of permanent arousal, and that was the problem.
    Olivia Monteith was the very last person he wanted to see right now, when he was at his lowest ebb. He felt as if he’d already said good-bye and relegated her to the past, and that was where he expected her to stay. That was what he’d done last time he felt threatened by her, when they used to meet by the stepping stones—the day he’d looked at the child and seen the budding woman.
    Now here she was, and the fact that the sight of her made his chest tighten and his pulse give a little jump angered him.
    “Lord Lacey.” She’d stopped before him, and he noted the cautious expression in her eyes as she looked down at him, as if she suddenly sensed danger.
    Good! Let her beware. Let her turn around and run home as fast as her legs could carry her. But Olivia being Olivia, she didn’t run away. She stood firm and said what she’d come to say.
    “I’m so sorry to see you hurt,” she said. “Is there any—any lasting damage to your—your—”
    “My leg?” he demanded, furious and not bothering to hide it. “Am I even more of a cripple thanI was before? Don’t try and wrap it up nicely, Olivia, ask away. There’s nothing I love more than to discuss my physical infirmities.”
    She glanced to one side—a gesture he’d noticed before when she was embarrassed or anxious. “Don’t be cross, Nic. I was worried. I couldn’t come before, but I’m here now.”
    “I’m surprised the faithful Theodore isn’t here with you, just to make certain I don’t contaminate you.”
    Her eyes widened, but before she could accuse him of being jealous, he gave her thoughts another direction.
    “Or ravish you.”
    “Estelle is with me.” She looked over her shoulder at the empty walk, gave a shrug. “Somewhere. I think she went off with Abbot.”
    “Somewhere?” With a groan he covered his face with his hands. “You need her here, by your side, Olivia. You’re not a fool. Do you want your reputation to be ruined?”
    “Nic…you’re in pain,” she said, “but I know you’d never hurt me. I trust you.”
    There was no way to reply to a statement as ludicrous as that.
    “How did you break your leg?” she went on, when it seemed he wasn’t going to try.
    He nodded beyond her, toward the end of the long walk where the ruins of the old bailey wall still stood. “I was climbing and I fell.”
    “You were climbing?” She stared wide-eyed.
    “My father was an enthusiast and he taughtme from a young age. He climbed in Wales and Derbyshire. I was never as good as he, but I could scale that wall well