Chapter Twenty
Bea stood in the front hall with her gloves on and her chin lifted, pretending she could not hear her own heartbeat thumping too loudly in her chest.
Outside, Nicholas’s carriage waited… The closed one, again. Another deliberate choice, and they both knew it.
When the butler announced him, Nicholas entered as if he belonged there—coat immaculate, posture irritatingly relaxed, eyes bright with that particular brand of arrogance that should have made Bea want to throw something heavy.
Instead, her stomach tightened.
He bowed over her hand with maddening courtesy. “Lady Beatrix.”
She did not offer him a smile. She offered him a look. A deliberate one.
Nicholas’s mouth twitched as if he enjoyed trying to guess her mood.
Bea dropped her hand before he could linger. “To what do I owe this…call?”
Nicholas straightened, gaze lingering on her mouth for a beat too long to be accidental. “I’ve come to ask if you’d like to go riding in the park. Unless…there’s another political salon you’d like to attend.” He blinked at her innocently.
She narrowed her eyes on him, then stepped past him toward the door without waiting to be offered an arm. “Have you come to attempt to seduce me again?” she whispered scandalously as she walked past.
Nicholas fell into step beside her, voice smooth. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”
“I’m not certain I believe you.”
“Don’t sound so disappointed.” His tone turned conspiratorial. “I must say I’m surprised you don’t have another salon picked out. I thought you might miss the thrill of publicly humiliating grown men.”
Bea’s mouth betrayed her with the smallest twitch. “I do not humiliate men.”
Nicholas opened the door for her, the morning air rushing in cool and bright. “Of course not. They humiliate themselves. You simply…hold up a mirror.”
Bea paused on the threshold, struck by how accurate that was. She regained her composure in half a breath. “Where are we going, then?”
Nicholas’s eyes warmed. “Riding.”
“In Hyde Park.”
It wasn’t a question.
Nicholas’s grin was pure wickedness. “You read my mind.”
Bea held his gaze for one long, steady moment. Because she did read his.
Because they both knew no one went riding in a closed carriage with the windows drawn for the sake of fresh air.
They went because the world outside could not see what happened inside.
Bea’s pulse stumbled. She turned briskly toward the steps as if she hadn’t felt it. “Very well. If my father asks, I shall tell him you wished to admire the trees.”
Nicholas’s laughter was low. “The trees. Yes.”
Bea marched down the steps like a woman going to battle. Which, she told herself, was essentially what she was doing. She was simply—strategically—allowing Nicholas to take her—ahem—riding in the park.
That was all. Nothing to do with the fact that Nicholas had stood beside her at Hillary House. Nothing to do with the way he’d looked at her afterward, as if she were brilliant and dangerous and worth listening to. Nothing to do with the way his wink in the coach had made her toes curl.
You don’t have to marry the man to enjoy him.
Bea cleared her throat and proceeded him to the coach. She reached the conveyance first. The door was already open. Nicholas offered his hand.
Bea stared at it for a beat, as if she still hadn’t decided whether to accompany him. But one glance back at him and her decision was made. This could be quite a pleasant outing…if she allowed it to be.
Nicholas helped her up with slow, careful deliberation, his touch lingering just long enough at her waist to remind her that his touch was never accidental.
Bea took a seat.
Nicholas climbed in after her and sat across from her. All perfectly proper.
Then the door shut with a soft, decisive thud, and the carriage immediately felt smaller.
Bea fixed her gaze on the opposite window. She could feel him watching her—like sunlight, like pressure, like a hand hovering just above skin.
Nicholas leaned back with the ease of a man entirely too confident in his ability to be charming.
“You’re very quiet,” he observed after a few minutes of silence passed.
Bea did not turn her head. She stared harder out the window as the carriage began to move, the wheels catching the rhythm of the street. “I could say the same about you.”
Nicholas shifted slightly, the leather creaking. “Tell me,” he murmured. “Did you see the paper today? There was a political cartoon with Langford as the subject.”
Bea’s breath caught. She lifted her chin, still refusing to look at him. “Was there?” she asked in the most nonchalant tone she could muster.
“Yes. It mentioned what Langford said to you at Lord Hillary’s house.” His tone was mild, but she could hear the curiosity underneath it.
“Did it?” Now her gaze was fixed out the window like a condemned woman awaiting her sentence. “How…enterprising of the artist.”
Nicholas’s voice stayed pleasant. Too pleasant. “Enterprising,” he repeated, as if tasting the word. “Is that what we call it when someone repeats a remark that was spoken in a private room?”
Bea’s pulse skittered. She forced her shoulders to remain loose. “Lord Hillary’s salon wasn’t private. It was packed.”
“True,” Nicholas said, unhurried. “And yet the cartoonist captured Langford’s phrasing rather precisely.”
Bea lifted one shoulder in what she hoped was an indifferent shrug. “Sir Edwin is predictable. Men like him always are.”
Nicholas made a low sound that might have been agreement. Or amusement. Or suspicion. “Or perhaps someone in that room took a particular interest in the exchange.”
Bea’s fingers tightened around her reticule. “Are you accusing me of something?”
“I’m asking a question.” Nicholas’s tone remained mild, but his gaze—she could feel it on her profile like heat—was not. “Did you see the paper?”
Bea allowed herself a small, airy laugh. “I don’t make a habit of reading political cartoons, Lord Vanover.”
“No?” he murmured.
Bea finally turned her head, meeting his eyes with practiced boredom. “Do you?”
Nicholas’s mouth twitched. “Oh, yes. Particularly because the artist in question frequently uses me as his subject.”
Bea pressed her lips together. “How terrible for your vanity.”
Nicholas shrugged. “I’ve come to expect it. But I do wonder…where this particular cartoonist gets his information.”
Bea let out a loud, long sigh. “I’m sure I’ve no idea. But as I said, Lord Hillary’s salon was packed. It could have been any number of people.”
“You’re right,” Nicholas allowed. “I do hope Langford isn’t too greatly affected.”
Bea tilted her head and offered a small, indifferent hum. “If the cartoon embarrassed him, he may learn to keep his opinions to himself.”
Nicholas leaned back slightly, studying her with the patience of a man who enjoyed puzzles. “You seemed remarkably passionate about his opinions last night.”
Bea blinked slowly. “I dislike fools.”
“So do I.” His voice dropped a fraction. “But this fool was skewered in print before the city finished its breakfast. Seems…fast, doesn’t it?”
Bea’s heart hammered once—hard enough to hurt. She kept her expression serenely blank. “Not particularly. London moves quickly.”
Nicholas’s gaze slid to her mouth, then back to her eyes. “It does,” he agreed. “Especially when someone helps it along.”
Bea held his gaze, refusing to blink first. “Are you accusing me of something, my lord?”
Nicholas’s smile returned—lazy, wicked, and entirely unhelpful. “Oh, I don’t know yet. But you have a terrible habit, my lady.” He leaned in just enough that she could smell him—clean, warm, dangerous—his voice turning velvet-smooth. “…of looking guilty when you’re delighted.”
Bea’s breath caught.
She recovered quickly, narrowing her eyes. “You are imagining things.”
“Am I?”
“Yes.”
She turned back to the window with a snap, heart racing, conveying as much loftiness as she could manage, but Bea’s stomach did an unhelpful little flip.
She kept her eyes on the window, on the passing blur of London, as if she could stare her way out of trouble. But she could feel him beside her—watching, waiting—like a man who had all the time in the world.
And Bea, for the first time, realized something with a jolt of cold clarity.
If Nicholas truly began to suspect she was connected to B. Adroit… He would not let it go. He would come closer. He would keep coming. Until either she slipped—
Or she decided to stop running.