Chapter Two
Gods on high, Nell was utterly and completely and stiflingly bored. It was another idiotic party, another bid by her parents to be accepted by the Ton, which Nell was next to certain would never happen.
And she didn’t care a jot. Her parents—well, it was going to kill her mother once she realized it—but as for Nell and her father, they both shared looks over the roast at the supper table that said they had been far better off before all this faff.
Ordinarily, Nell would make her excuses at some late hour when the wine had been flowing, and it was a certain thing that she wouldn’t be missed. But tonight’s party was at their townhouse, so there was no true escape for her.
She couldn’t even go to the library, not that there was anything in it, but there had been people in there kissing, so she’d left it to them. And if she tried to sneak off to her room, her mother would notice and pull her back down to the party.
It meant she was stuck. And if there was one thing that Nell despised, it was feeling as though she didn’t have control over her life. Which was why she was outside, coming up on the teeth of winter in her thin party dress.
No one else was out here; no one was enough of a fool to be out here in the freezing cold, but Nell at least had control out here.
“I hate this,” she said to nothing and no one. “I hate it so much.”
“As do I,” a voice answered her from the air. It was gracefully accented, as though the speaker wasn’t entirely from the continent. “I would very much like to return home.”
“What’s stopping you?” Nell looked toward the voice, squinting into the darkness of the garden and found only the garden wall. “You’re a man; you can do as you please.”
The laugh that came back was sour and humorless. “I will be leaving as soon as I can extricate myself from this nonsense.”
“I wish I could,” Nell sighed, moving slightly closer to the wall and sitting on a bench so cold it had icicles hanging off the underside. “But mother has decided I am to come out this season. She has no idea that I really don’t care a bit. Or maybe she doesn’t care that I don’t care.”
“I’m Nick,” he said. “I know it’s considered crass to introduce oneself, but you don’t seem the type to mind.”
“I’m Nell,” she replied. “Please, let’s do away with as much of the formality as possible; I’m drowning in it.”
The man on the other side of the wall huffed out a laugh. “Done. I am too. Mother is nothing but coaxing, and His Grace will not cease with his demands that I take on the duchy.”
Nell nodded. “Mama wants to be a proper Lady. Papa and I just want to go back to what we were doing before His Majesty elevated Papa for what he did during the war.”
“Who is your father?” Nick asked. “Is there a possibility I might know him?”
“I doubt it,” Nell shook her head. “Papa’s name is Steven Warrick, now Earl Warrick, ugh.”
“The name doesn’t ring a bell, apologies.”
“It’s alright; you don’t sound like you’re from here, anyway.” Nell grinned at the wall. “Or maybe that you haven’t been here for a long time.”
“The second,” Nick said across the wall. “I left after I finished school and swore I would never return.”
“Must be nice to be able to run off like that.” Nell propped her chin in her hand and sighed. “I think Mama would just find me; she’s better than a bloodhound like that.”
Nick chuckled, “Mamas are like that. I didn’t tell anyone where I was going, and yet I still received letters from my mama.”
“Eleanor,” her mother’s voice was slightly frantic. “What are you doing out in the garden? It’s freezing and you—”
“Coming, Mama,” Nell rose, shaking her skirts down and sighing. “Back to the nonsense.” She looked at the wall. “We should talk again.”
“I’m certain we will.” She could hear the smile in Nick’s voice. “Good night, Nell.”
“Good night, Nick.” She grinned at the wall and headed back towards the light spilling out of the windows of the house.
She’d gotten chilled, but she wasn’t a fainting lady, and all it would take was a cup of warm cider, and she would be fine.
* * *
The nonsense eventually broke up, with the partygoers shrugging back into their coats and fetching their umbrellas and sticks before leaving into the rising light.
Nell was so tired it was stupid, wanting nothing more than to go to bed and rest. But her mama was going to want to rehash her success over breakfast and then try to dragoon Nell into lady lessons that she’d gotten out of a book she’d found in one of the public libraries.
The book was twenty years old, and there was absolutely no chance that any of the lessons were right anymore. If she took those lessons to heart, she was going to come off spectacularly old-fashioned and would probably embarrass herself and her parents.
So rather than go to breakfast, she found their housekeeper and let Greta know that she was going to go and sleep.
“Yes, Miss,” Greta nodded. “I will inform my Lord and my Lady.”
“Thank you, Greta.” Nell shut her eyes briefly. “Please let them know I will see them for supper.”
Greta nodded again and left Nell standing in the middle of the hallway. Left her to walk to her bedroom and wrestle with her party gown until she could kick the pile of it into the corner and crawl into her bed.
She lay there for a while, even though she was exhausted. Her conversation with Nick played through her head. It had been beyond improper, but Nell didn’t care a single drop.
He sounded lonely, and as much as she didn’t want to admit it, she was lonely too. She’d left all of her friends behind when her parents had been elevated. So maybe while he was here, and she was trapped, maybe they would become friends.
And when he left, maybe they could write.
Nell sighed before rolling over in her little bed. She would worry about him and everything else when she woke up.