Chapter 7 #2
Nigel fumbled with his shirt buttons, getting most fastened before he reached them.
Bella wanted to laugh at his stricken expression.
She’d heard a story about him having to flee a second-story window escaping an angry husband—or perhaps that had been her father or another of the Leighton Cluster, she couldn’t quite recall—but he’d never had to face down the man who’d helped raise him.
His mentor in the gaming business, among other enterprises.
“I can make tea,” Nigel murmured, stalling, refusing to take the seat beside them. “There might be a lemon scone or two in the kitchen. Jam and an apple. Some cheese, perhaps.”
“Your father is in my carriage, sitting at the curb, as a matter of fact.” Xander buffed his nails on his trousers. “How about we invite him in, and we’ll all partake of apples and tea?”
With a serrated sigh, Nigel dropped his head, pinching the bridge of his nose.
Bella marveled that his hunger for her had kept him from recognizing that her father was going to track them down eventually.
He’d given them more time than she’d expected—which was possibly the workings of her mother or Tobias Streeter.
Which meant they approved of the match.
“No servants, yet, is that it?” Xander asked, glancing around the deserted terrace. “Convenient, innit?”
Nigel’s head snapped up, his gaze flaring. “There’s nothing convenient about this.”
“Ah, there’s the temper I’m used to with Streeter, Jr.” Xander braced his hands on his knees and rose to his full, intimidating height. Unfortunately, Nigel was as tall as he was. “Let’s convene to the parlor and have a talk amongst men, shall we? What back in the day I called a chinwag.”
“Papa.” Bella grabbed his arm. “I want to be a part of this discussion.”
Xander shook off her hand. “Not this time, Bell.”
“Imp,” Nigel said, his gaze fixed on her father, “leave us. Go wait in the carriage, I beg of you.”
She rose with the most poise she could muster when her knees were trembling hard enough to send her tumbling. “I won’t.”
Xander exhaled through his teeth. “You asked her to marry you before the fact, that right, lad?”
Nigel palmed his stomach, his cheeks paling. “Sir, I?—”
“ Sir ! When in the hell have you ever called me sir?”
Bella moved in front of her father. “Did you ask Mother to marry you before the fact?”
“Oh, no, you don’t, swindling girl. No more underhanded tactics thrown at the man who invented them. I’m not that stumbling bloke.”
“Of course, we’re getting married, Papa. A proposal which hasn’t occurred that you’re now ruining .” She turned to Nigel, her fingers curling around his slick-smooth banister. “Isn’t that right?”
A typical male, Nigel hesitated, a slipup Bella would later recognize was caused by lack of sleep, sexual bliss, and the inexpertly blustery events of the last twenty-four hours, her father’s steely gaze not the least of them.
Her mother had told her a little about the dark period that had occurred before her father made it right and asked Pippa to marry him.
A choice of signage for a charitable endeavor she believed in that no one else did.
And the even more troubling events between Tobias Streeter and his wife, Hildy.
Why, they’d almost never made it to the altar.
The men of the Leighton Cluster, she’d been told, were determined rakes up to the second they fell in complete and utter love.
Consequently, she recorded Nigel’s instant of indecision and took it to heart. Furious, she descended the staircase before he had time to determine he’d blundered.
Her father held him back, letting her storm through the door and slam it behind her.
“Ah, hell ,” Nigel muttered and slumped against the banister.
Outside, a carriage bumped against the curb as it pulled away.
Bell was going to freeze. Half her undergarments were strewn about his bedchamber, her chemise torn and fit for the rubbish bin.
A truth he would rather face a firing squad than admit to the seething man standing next to him.
“Maybe give her a moment.” Xander shrugged, scrubbing his fist over his chin with a hum of remorse. “Works for her mother. You’ll have to design the grandest grand deed in the history of deeds to fix this. I’m sorry to say, but the Macauleys hold a grudge.”
“Thanks for the assistance, by the by.” Nigel stomped down the stairs and took a sharp turn at the landing, heading for the nearest stash of liquor he could find. “Of course, I was going to ask her. I told her last night, ‘If you stay, you’re mine.’ Clear that’s what I meant, isn’t it?”
“If you stay, you’re mine?” Xander repeated, amusement and disgust lacing his words. “Blazes, lad, is that the best you could do with my darling daughter?”
“She surprised the hell out of me, like a brigand racing out of the fog with her blade glinting. I surrendered before I half knew what I was about. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?
I thought I was too old for her, too everything.
Too low .” Swinging into the parlor, Nigel crossed to the sideboard and ripped the cork from a bottle with his teeth.
“I bloody woke up to find you stalking me, a fox to your hound, my head a bit muddled. Apologies, sincerely.” He gulped, choking as whisky flowed down his dry throat.
“Forgive me for needing a minute to gather my thoughts. I love her. I want her, but not only do I want her, I need her. And that’s the kicker, the piece I didn’t expect to feel about another living soul.
You’ll never find anyone who’ll cherish her more.
Who’ll put her happiness before his own, always.
Every day, every second.” He tossed the cork to the floor.
“Are you happy to hear me spilling my heart out before you?”
“You’re not too low, lad. Nor too old. Bell’s mother and I have a bit between us as well.
I tried to use that as an excuse, although Pip was having none of it.
” Xander stepped in, knocking him aside with a tender shoulder-to-shoulder shove.
“You’re as high as they come. I’ve watched you grow into a man I respect more than any in England.
More than respect, love . But she’s my daughter, a circumstance you’ll someday understand makes you act like a madman.
Protecting your children isn’t merely your job, it’s your life . ”
Nigel blinked back the sting in his eyes. “I’ll protect her with mine, you know that.”
Xander wiggled the bottle from his grasp and lifted it to his lips.
“This scares the shite out of me, thinking about Bell growing up, getting married, moving away in life a bit, as you’re supposed to.
I remember, you see”—he tapped his temple, then his chest—“how I felt about Pip, the mistakes, the longing, the unholy fear . A love I wasn’t able to conquer.
The only thing that’s defeated me in this mad world, what I felt for her reducing me to butterfly strength.
” He chuckled and swiped his hand across his lips. “Still does, even now.”
“I don’t believe in half measures,” Nigel whispered.
A vision of Arabella in his arms, her glorious eyes dazed with passion, made his heartbeat scatter.
“I wouldn’t ask for her hand if I didn’t recognize with every fiber of my being that she’s the only one for me.
The only . That lonely existence I was living is over if she’ll have me. ”
Xander rocked back on his heels. “It might be a bit of a challenge. She looked fairly ferocious tramping out of here.”
“Brilliant,” Nigel said with a dejected grumble.
His future father-in-law slapped him on the back. “If anyone is up to the task with this stubborn chit, it’s you, Nigel. When have you ever given up? Rookery boys never quit.”
Nigel grabbed the bottle and threw back a swallow. “Since you helped get me into this mess, do you have any ideas about this grand deed?”
Xander shared a shrewd smile and the cunning he was known for. “Now that you mention it, lad, I do.”