After a moment the girl gave a faint nod.
"And you miss then?"
Her nod was a bit more vigorous this time, but still she didn't volunteer any answers.
"Why don't you tell me about it?" Nicholas prodded. "I would like to hear what happened. Was it an accident?"
It took some time, but by gentle persuasion, he learned the cause of her grief: her parents had died from cholera in India, and she had just been sent back home to England to attend boarding school. That was why she was dressed in mourning. That was why she was sobbing so bitterly.
Nicholas remained silent, understanding now. He had once felt the same anguish, a grief so deep it seemed fathomless. Grief and a fierce hatred. He knew what it was like to be orphaned without warning. To have childhood abruptly ended in one brutal, mind-branding moment.
"I should have died, too!" she cried in a voice muffled by her arms. "Why was I spared? It should have been me. God should have taken me."
Her desolate plea brought the memories crowding in on him. Her death wish was something Nicholas also understood. Guilt for having lived, for having cheated death when loved ones had not escaped. He had seen his father struck down by a French bayonet, his mother brutalized and murdered by soldiers who were no better than ravening jackals.
''I hate England!'' the girl exclaimed suddenly, fervently. "I despise everything about it! It's so cold here . . ."
Cold and wet and alien, he thought. The constant chill had bothered him, too, when, against his wishes, he had been sent to live among his mother's people ten years ago. England was so very different from his native country—the vast deserts and rugged mountains of North Africa. Watching the girl shiver, he wanted to console her. He fished in his pocket and found a monogrammed handkerchief, which he pressed into her hand.
"You will grow accustomed to the cold," he said with quiet assurance. "You've only been here . . . what did you say? Two days?"
Ignoring his handkerchief, she sniffed. "I like hot better." Lifting her head then, she turned those huge, gray, glistening eyes on him. "I shall run away. They shan't keep me here."
Seeing her mutinous expression, he was struck again by the passionate nature of her defiancé. She was a strong- willed, rebellious child . . . Not so much a child, really. Rather a young girl on the brink of womanhood, a bud beginning to unfold. And just as intriguing as he had first thought. Hers was a plain little face, true. Plain and piquant and rather incongruous. Nothing matched, and yet it was arresting on the whole. Given a few years she might be fascinating. Her heavy, straight brows gave an exotic, almost sultry look to those haunted eyes, while her sharp litt
le chin indicated a stubbornness that boded ill for anyone who tried to control her.
He felt a strange kinship with her, this young English girl who wanted to return to India where she had been raised. He understood her compelling need to defy authority, to lash out at even those who had her best interests at heart.
He knew; he had been there. Leaning back on his hands, Nicholas recalled the half-wild boy that he'd been. He had run away twice before he'd agreed to his grandfather's bargain: he would remain in England to be educated, until he reached his majority. Then if he was still of a mind to return to Barbary, the duke would fund his passage.
Had the bargain been worth it? For ten years he had chafed to return to his homeland, while his grandfather had nearly despaired of turning "a savage little Arab" into a civilized English gentleman.
The transformation, though ultimately successful, had been painful. He was only half English, born to a woman enslaved by a Berber warlord after her ship had been captured by Barbary pirates. He couldn't deny his warlike Berber blood—though his noble English grandfather would have preferred to ignore it altogether. He was considered by some to be a dangerous rebel, by others an infidel. Even though his parents had eventually married, his father had been of a different faith.
But he had mastered to perfection the fine art of acting the aristocrat: boredom, cynicism, hypocrisy, seduction. Not only was he accepted by the fashionable world, he was sought after by the opposite sex with fascination. Despite his mixed blood and questionable legitimacy. Or perhaps because of it. The ladies of his grandfather's class who were first to profess themselves shocked at his background were willing, even eager to invite him to their beds, curious to find out if he was the dangerous savage they conjured up in their ignorant imaginations.
Nicholas's gaze shifted to the young girl beside him. His term in England was ending, while hers was just beginning. She would have to endure the lonely existence, just as he had endured.
His probing gaze surveyed her damp face. Though the flood of warm tears had abated, she was still grieving; her trembling lower lip lent her a vulnerability that was heartrending. Nicholas longed to comfort her.
"Have you any family here?" he asked gently. "Did your parents have relatives?"
Her young face clouded with pain before she looked away, her fingers clutching the handkerchief he had given her. "I have two uncles . . . three if you count the one in France. But they don't want me. I would just be a burden to them."
At the mention of France, Nicholas felt his stomach muscles tighten, yet he forced himself to reply lightly. "Then I suggest you convince them differently. Perhaps you should contrive to become indispensable to your uncles—give them good reason to want you."
When she turned to stare at him, the thoughtful expression that crept into her eyes almost made him smile. "Wipe your face," he said gently. "You have tearstains on your cheeks."
She obeyed him almost absently. When she was done applying his handkerchief to her damp face, she held it out to him. "I should give this back . . . thank you."
The handkerchief bore the initials of his English name. "You may keep it," Nicholas replied. "I won't be needing it any longer where I am going."
She eyed him quizzically. "Where are you going?"
"Away. To another country."
Sudden hope lit her face as she scrambled to her knees. "Will you take me with you? Please? Please? I won't be any trouble to you. I can be a model of decorum if I truly put my mind to it. Truly I can."