By the time the footmen removed their dishes, talk had turned to the shipping company. Nicole had learned on the return voyage that Lassiter and Maria had secured financing to fund the line. Their first step, they'd decided, was to commission the construction of a replacement flagship or to purchase one outright. But they and Chancey were reluctant to leave Nicole.
"I'm fine," Nicole asserted to the table. "I know you have to take care of business. Please stop hovering over me. I'll try not to marry while you're away," she teased.
Her father smiled, though clearly unconvinced.
Nicole reassured him. "You know I want what's best for the line. After I marry, I plan to help you as much as possible." She turned to Maria. "You will make him go?"
Maria's eyes were questioning.
"Please, Maria. I'm twenty years old. We have three footmen, and I'm living in Mayfair. I'm safer than I've ever been in my whole life."
Grandmother pointed out, "Jason, it might be for the best if you two aren't seen together for a bit. I've stuck to the same story for fifteen years. If we call her by her middle name, no one in the ton should be able to connect her to Nicole Lassiter, the sailor. At least not until after she marries."
"Are ye sure about this, Nic?" Chancey asked gruffly.
"Yes. I want to be married. I want children, and I'll be twenty-one next month." She smiled at the marchioness. "Grandmother's giving me no pressure, but I'm ready. Plus, we don't have much time--the season's already begun."
The others began talking of something else, and Lassiter leaned closer and said in a low voice, "You don't have to do this. I take back all the things I've said before. Soon I'll be better able to provide for you."
She smiled fondly at him. "With Maria's help..."
His eyes lit up. "I think we're making it official--"
"You're going to marry her?" she whispered excitedly.
He looked startled and confused. "No. Officially make her a partner. She plans to sell her Brazilian, uh, enterprise. Why would you ever think we'd marry?"
"I think you could be very happy together."
The look on his face made it clear he'd never thought of Maria in those terms. "Nicole--I am married."
"I understand." And she meant it. But that wouldn't preclude her from trying to change his mind.
He abruptly asked, "What about Sutherland?"
Nicole deliberately chose to misunderstand him and waved off his concern. "Pssh, I'll be sure to stay out of the Mermaid and any other waterfront holes, so I probably won't run into him."
Father smiled at her bravado. "That's my girl. Always were a strong little thing."
Her grandmother heard this last comment and interjected. "Perish the thought. She's not strong--she's delicate. Not another word from you, Lassiter."
Five days later, Nicole waved the trio and many of the Bella Nicola's crew off on the Griffin, another of her father's ships, bound for Liverpool. She had no time for sadness, because Grandmother had whisked in an army of seamstresses to slave over Nicole. At the end of the week, she was prepared for her first ball. She'd complained about the extravagance of having so many women working on her gowns, but her grandmother had decreed it an emergency, so she'd gone along.
The marchioness would introduce her to society, secure invitations, and settle Nicole in. Then she would rest, by God.
The first ball they attended dazzled Nicole with the lights, the silks, and the beautiful, bejeweled people fluttering on the ballroom floor.
She quickly got over it.
In fact, she had been right all along. This world, this social sphere, was not her place. If she had to be on land, then she wanted to see the land. Not imposing mansions with a tease of a garden, or even a park to really whet the appetite, but miles and miles of land laid out in flats and swells like the ocean.
To be honest, she didn't necessarily want to return to the sea, because without the Bella Nicola, everything had been altered. But the ton life wasn't meant for her, either. After a few weeks of this existence, she felt as if she'd found a shining coin on the street that disappointed when found to be worthless.
The ball she and her grandmother attended this night was much the same as the others. Nicole was slowly dying, smothered by the weight of convention and the cut of her dress. The perfumes that initially had delighted her swirled in her head and assaulted her senses, as did the odor of a thousand lit candles cloying in the crowded ballroom. She couldn't get quite enough air.
Dizzy and breathless, Nicole didn't believe it when she saw him.
As she gazed at his broad back, his thick, black hair, his powerful form standing taller than any other in the room, the churning in her stomach intensified. Hadn't she been assured repeatedly that he was never seen at these functions? Unable to move, she stared spellbound as he turned.
She couldn't stop the knitting of her brows. It wasn't Derek.
Yet she couldn't look away. He was so similar, he had to be a brother. Though Derek had never mentioned he had one. In fact, he'd never talked about his family at all.
The man raised his eyebrows, no doubt curious about her staring. He gave her a good-natured smile that faded to a look of concern when she stood unmoving. He walked over to the earl of Allenton, her grandmother's friend who'd squired them to half a dozen functions. The man gave a nod indicating her, and he and Allenton approached her.
She hissed in a breath. Had Derek told him about her? Did this man know who she was? Know she'd made love to his brother? The panic clamoring through her body made her light-headed.
"Lady Christina," Allenton began, "it appears you have made yet another conquest. May I present Grant Sutherland, Viscount Anderleigh."
He offered another friendly smile as he bowed. She struggled to make a charming reply, to smile even, but she was frozen. This man's hard-planed face brought her ruthlessly suppressed feelings for Derek to the fore, ripping open all the barriers she'd constructed to hold her pain in check.
She was saved from an unexpected quarter. "Grant, who is your new acquaintance?" a woman asked, as she planted herself between the men.
Incredibly, Grant Sutherland, who seemed every inch the gentleman, ignored her.
"Darling brother," the woman began in a syrupy voice, "you must introduce me to the talk of the ton."
Nicole experienced a tug of sympathy for this man Grant.
"Lydia, don't you have some packing to do?" he asked in an obviously restrained tone. "I heard you were taking a long trip." When she didn't move, he asked, "Where's the count? I thought he was looking for you just minutes ago. We wouldn't want him to leave you."
"He's not going anywhere without me," she said in a boastful manner, strangely undeterred by the cold anger in his eyes. "Won't you introduce me?"
His face held a look of distaste as he related in what was more an admission than a presentation, "This is my sister-in-law, Lydia Sutherland."
"Grant! Tsk, tsk. So impolite." She faced Nicole. "I am
Lady Stanhope." The woman made a halfhearted motion of greeting. "The countess of Stanhope."
Nicole could have sworn Grant mumbled to her, "Not for long, sister." Had his lips even moved?
Wait...How could she be the countess? Thoughts crept in--Nicole desperately batted them away. "S-sister-in-law?" she finally managed.
"Yes," the countess answered slowly. As she openly scrutinized Nicole, she seemed to home in on her discomfiture as though it were a beacon.
Nicole strove for a disaffected mien. "So, which brother are you married to?" she asked, even as her mind was answering her own question. She glanced over the shining black hair and cameo perfection of her face in delayed recognition. This woman was beautiful, but not if you really looked in her eyes....
Lady Stanhope smiled unpleasantly. "There are only two brothers."
The lights flickered, then faded altogether. Why couldn't she get enough air? The invisible noose was back, only this time it was too bitingly tight....
Sitting in bed considering her situation, Nicole laughed, but it was a sad, humorless sound. No wonder the hateful bastard hadn't wanted to marry her. She'd thought she would cry all night, but she had no tears left for him. This morning she'd awoken with a hollow pang in her chest and the stark conclusion that she was an adulteress. That knowledge made her want to despise herself. Instead, she directed the feeling at him. Anger had a way of making her strong.
Nicole promised herself she would go on. She would not let this get in the way of her plans. And, most important, no one would ever imagine the pain she kept inside.
"Nicole, what on earth made you faint like that?" the marchioness asked over breakfast. "I didn't see it, but I heard you dropped like a rock."
She hoped it wasn't quite so bad. In Nicole's mind, she'd more or less sunk down, cushioned by the flounces of her gown. "It wasn't that terrible. Embarrassing all the same, of course."
"Are you ill?" she queried with a look of anxiety on her face.
"I am perfectly healthy. I'm just not used to the weight of the gowns and the closeness in the rooms yet," Nicole answered somewhat honestly.
The marchioness eyed her and was opening her mouth to say more, but Nicole cut her off. "How fast could we bring one of my suitors up to scratch?"
Her grandmother looked startled. "Well, I couldn't say..."