Chapter 2
CHAPTER TWO
The fear rocketing through his body was surely visible to the ladies before him. They surely knew. David was surprised the housekeeper herself did not recognise him.
A year changed a man.
Had he left it too long? Not just the months that had passed since his sudden rise to wealth, nobility, and power – he had had no choice in that. He had not even known he would find himself in such a position.
But had he been waiting on the doorstep too long? December in London was a chilling place, but he had loitered there almost an hour; unsure whether to go in, see them, and completely reveal his subterfuge.
David Nelson. Archduke Nelson. One and the same man, though they would never have expected it.
He swallowed as his gaze moved around the drawing room before him. It was just the sort of well-decorated, fashionable place he would have expected the Jarrolds to have. Much like the home he had known so well as a child.
But that was gone now. Lost, in essence, to another family. A family that would now be in residence, while the Jarrolds were relegated to this place. It wasn’t right. It wasn’t fair.
Not that it was the only unfair thing to have happened…
“My lady,” David said, the syllables tight against his teeth. Damnit man, concentrate! Do you wish them to think you mad?
David blinked as his gaze fell upon Lady Jarrold. The glare she was giving him was reminiscent of the last look she had given him, almost twelve months ago. He would never forget that moment; each second was seared onto his mind.
“And do not come back!” Lady Jarrold’s voice had echoed in the Great Hall of their country home.
David had clasped his hands together at the time. His stomach had lurched and he had wished to speak, to say that he loved Louisa, that he would not leave without her. His heart had pounded painfully and the right words were somewhere in his heart, he knew it. If only he could find them.
His mouth had remained shut. He had looked at the Marquis and his wife in fear, knowing he could never offer them, nor their daughter, what she deserved.
What Louisa deserved? What did she deserve?
Everything. She deserved a prince, not a squire’s son with no property nor wealth. Not a man who had no home to offer, no hearth, no income. She deserved happiness, and joy, and wonder every moment of her life. David had known that, felt it deep within his soul.
It had not prevented his ardour though perhaps, in hindsight, it should have.
“You are not welcome here,” the Marquis had said coldly. “After our conversation, I think there is little more that needs to be said.”
And David had swallowed. He had wished to speak, to say that he would not accept the Marquis’ refusal of his hand for Louisa.
They loved each other, did they not? Love, something so precious, something people spent a lifetime looking for, and sometimes never found.
And it had been here, right next door, that David had found his happiness.
Why, whenever he looked at Louisa, he felt as though he could fight the world, even if his instincts were rather failing him at the moment.
Why should two people so passionately in love not spend the rest of their lives being happy?
He had wanted to fight for her. It was on the tip of David’s tongue to shout back, to challenge the old man who surely knew nothing of love, nothing of the determination to be with someone who made them feel…
David’s stomach lurched. As though his whole life had been leading up to her. As though nothing he ever did would be good enough. As though just looking at Louisa would make everything right.
But he had left. The night had been cold and his tears had fallen unseen by anyone as he had stomped down the long gravel drive, back to his father’s house.
Leaving Louisa behind.
His father had died months later. He should have been here. He wasn’t, but that was the past, he could do nothing for that now.
Now he stood before them, as Archduke Nelson, David could hardly bring himself to turn his head to the other side of the room where there stood…
Louisa.
David’s heart skipped a beat and his stomach lurched as his gaze fell upon her. His hands were hot, far too hot, and he didn’t know what he was supposed to do with them. What did hands look like, when they hung by your arms? How had he forgotten how to stand, like an absolute fool?
He swallowed. He had to say something. Say something, man! “Lady Louisa.”
Louisa was staring at him, staring as though seeing something strange and odious. Her mouth was open; her perfect, rosebud lips fallen into a perfect o.
Well he remembered how he had wished to kiss those lips last Advent, when they had been walking in the Winter Garden in the Jarrold grounds.
“Do not you think, David?”
And David had laughed uncomfortably, for though Louisa had been speaking as their footsteps crunched along the gravel path, he had not been attending to her. Not to her words, at any rate.
No, his attention was far more concerned with her lips. Her perfect lips. Her kissable lips.
How had he never noticed them before? How was it possible to know someone for so long, to see them day in day out, at church and in her beautiful home, and not see her for what she was?
Beautiful. No, more than that. The word could not encapsulate the faultlessness that was Louisa; her glorious hair, the way she laughed, the way she –
“David, can you hear me?” Louisa said, reaching for his arm.
The contact, even through gloves and his coat, made David jump. “Yes – apologies, I was…thinking.”
Thinking about her. As he had done since he had returned from Oxford.
The university term had finished a week ago and now he was back in Surrey, where Louisa was.
He had only intended to pay his respects to the Jarrolds and then return home, but somehow he had found himself out here, in the Winter Garden, walking with a woman who turned his insides into fiery coals.
A Louisa he did not recognise. Perhaps it was the time away. The girl – the woman he had grown up with, never more than a few days without seeing her his whole childhood…
She was gone. In her place was this splendid sight of a woman. Yet she was the same old Louisa that she had always been.
Perhaps it was him. David wondered just how he had changed during his term away at Oxford. Perhaps he had simply been blind, all these years, and now…
Louisa tugged her crimson pelisse closer around her. “I think it will snow soon. Snow, to start Advent! An auspicious sign.”
David nodded. This was foolishness. He could not be in love with Louisa. Louisa was…Louisa! Lady Louisa, as he was infrequently reminded by her stubborn parents.
Far above him in society. If not for his father’s grange, they would never have met.
But they did. They had. No one knew him better than she, and she was…
Perfection. Wit and kindness, all wrapt in a Christmas parcel of ribbons. Ribbons in her hair. Hair that never did anything Louisa demanded of it, a source of great hilarity for him before he had left for Oxford.
And now…
David blinked. “What?”
Louisa sighed but giggled at the sight of his face. “Oh, David, you never attend to me! Sometimes I do not know why you bothered to come and see me, if you have no wish to listen!”
Because, David had wished to say, you are beautiful. You are clever. You make my heart do a horrible pitter patter that makes it hard to swallow and though I hate the sensation, Louisa, I wish to feel it every day.
Every day for the rest of my life.
He did not say that. How could he? He was hopelessly in love with his friend, Lady Louisa, and she saw him as naught but…
“David?”
He blinked. Louisa had paused in her walk and he did so too. She examined him with those dark brown eyes he had never been able to resist. At least, he probably had done, once. He could not remember that time now.
Now he looked back, it had always been Louisa. No other woman had attracted him as she had. He had never wished to spend time with other ladies, had never been so interested in their conversation as hers.
Even when he had not realised it, it had always been Louisa.
“David, are you…are you quite well? You haven’t asked anything about our Advent plans for this season.”
He did his best to concentrate. Louisa wanted to talk to him, and by God, he wanted all her attention. Even if she should not be giving it to him. “I apologise. Tell me all your plans.”
Louisa attempted to keep her face stern, but she could not manage it for long. “The same plans as every year, of course. We should keep an eye out for holly, Mrs. Lane will surely request some of us the moment we step inside.”
David hoped fervently that it would be many minutes, nay hours, before they would have to step inside again. He wanted her to himself, in a way he had never known before. Parts of him burned in desire of her. Burned in a way he certainly could never express. Not to her.
“Holly,” he repeated. “Well, you should know where that is. We should keep an eye out for mistletoe, too.”
“Mistletoe?”
Curse you, and your one track mind! David shouted at himself in the privacy of his own mind. Why could he not concentrate for more than one minute together? He would surely make an utter fool out of himself.
Kissing Lady Louisa Jarrold was not an option. Not for a man with no title, no wealth, no possibilities.
He needed to put all thoughts of kissing, and mistletoe, from his mind. If only it was that simple.
“Mistletoe,” he said. Well, the word had been spoken now. He could hardly pretend it had not. If only his heart was not rocketing so loudly in his chest. Surely Louisa would hear it.
“Oh, I suppose so,” said Louisa nonchalantly, as though gentlemen suggested to her that they go looking for mistletoe every day of the week. “Are you in dire need of mistletoe, David?”
If he had been a wiser man, he would surely have stepped away. He would have refuse the temptation. For she was a temptation, Louisa. Even though she did not realise it.