LITMIR.BIZ

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to a second cousin. The cousin had politely offered to let them continue to live at home with him, his wife and their brood. He had little feeling for them, but it would have looked bad for him to do otherwise. However, Lady Falcourt, who had as little liking for him as he did for her, and even less liking for his efficient, energetic wife and noisy pack of children, declined his offer with equal politeness and removed herself and her children to the house of her sister, Lady Buckminster.

      Lord Buckminster, her nephew, familiarly known as Bucky, was a friendly, easygoing sort who welcomed them to stay as long as they wished. Nicola, frankly, found herself happier at Buckminster than she had ever been at home. While she mourned her father, he had been a distant sort of parent who spent most of his time in London. Lady Falcourt was given to various illnesses, and so, from an early age, much of the decision-making for the household had fallen upon Nicola.

      But here at Buckminster, Lady Buckminster’s housekeeper was a supremely competent woman who ran the household with little more than a vague nod of approval from Lady Buckminster. Lady Buckminster’s abiding passion was horses, and as long as she was not inconvenienced or distracted from her riding and breeding and hunts, she paid little attention to the house or to the behavior of anyone in it. Freed from a governess for the first time, with the weight of household management off her shoulders, and under Lady Buckminster’s less-than-watchful eye, Nicola found herself more or less on her own, free to do as she wished.

      Therefore, she spent most of her time riding about the countryside, meeting the people who lived there. From childhood, Nicola had always felt at ease among the servants and tenants of her father’s estate. Her mother had usually been feeling too “invalidish” to spend much time with an active youngster, and Nicola had received the bulk of her love from their nurse and had returned it with all the enthusiasm of her nature. Her “family” had grown over the years to include most of the other servants, from the lowliest groom or upstairs maid all the way to the imposing figure of Cook, who ruled the kitchen with an iron hand.

      It was Cook who had inspired her interest in herbs, explaining to her the properties of each herb or spice she put into the food, while Nicola sat on a high stool beside her, watching with great interest. It was the healing properties of the herbs that most appealed to Nicola, and before long Cook was teaching her to grow herbs in a garden, as well as identify and pick them in the wild. She had learned how to dry them, mix them, how to make tinctures and salves and folk remedies of all sorts. Nicola had broadened her knowledge as she grew older by reading and experimenting, and by the time she was fourteen, she was called upon to cure this illness or that almost as much as Cook herself.

      It had cost her a good many tears to leave behind the servants when they moved to Buckminster. However, once there, she quickly began making friends wherever she went.

      The only problem in her new existence came in the form of the Earl of Exmoor. As the only other member of the aristocracy in the area, he was invariably present on any social occasion, and given the looser restrictions of country life, Nicola, though only seventeen, was usually often included in those events, as well. She was undeniably the belle of the area, sought after by the vicar’s pimply son, down from Oxford, as well as the Squire’s son and his frequently visiting friends. She didn’t mind such boys and their usually awkward attempts at flirtations. The Earl was another matter altogether. Mature and sophisticated, he courted her with all the smoothness of an accomplished rake. Without appearing in any way overbold in the eyes of her mother or Lady Buckminster or any of the older ladies present, he managed to find numerous opportunities to touch her in some way, and he talked to her in a low, silky way, with unmistakable gazes of passion, that both irritated and alarmed Nicola.

      She had no interest in the man. However, to her mother, as to most of the world, he seemed a marvelous catch. “Goodness, Nicola,” she responded when Nicola protested her inviting him on some outing, “I would think you would be flattered by his attentions. He is quite a catch, you know. Splendid family, the Montfords—wealth, a title. Why, you’re even friends with his cousin—what is that mousy little girl’s name?”

      “Penelope,” Nicola replied through gritted teeth. “And she’s not mousy, merely quiet. Yes, I like Penelope, and her grandmother, too, but that has no bearing on how I feel about Exmoor. I don’t like him. I don’t like the way he looks at me or talks to me.”

      “Oh, my dear,” her mother replied with a chuckle. “You’re simply too used to callow youths.”

      “Well, I prefer callow youths to an old man!” Nicola flared.

      “Really, Nicola, the way you talk…The Earl isn’t old. He’s in the prime of his life.”

      “He must be close to forty! And I am only seventeen, in case you have forgotten.”

      “Please, dear, there is no need for you to be rude,” Lady Falcourt said with a martyred sigh. “He is in his late thirties, but that’s scarcely too old to marry. Many men are quite a bit older than their wives. Your father, for instance, was sixteen years older than I.”

      Nicola bit her lip to hold back the sharp retort that sprang to them. It had been clear to everyone that her father had married her mother for her youthful beauty and then had found her a dead bore once the infatuation had worn off. That was why he had spent most of his time in London.

      “It doesn’t matter” was all she said. “I have no wish to marry anyone. I don’t plan to marry for a good many years yet, certainly not until I find someone I love. Grandmama left me a pleasant portion so that I would not have to marry at all if I didn’t want to.”

      Lady Falcourt gasped and sank back weakly against her chair. “I don’t know where you get these radical notions.”

      “Yes, you do. From Grandmama.” Her grandmother had been an outspoken and independent woman who had always looked somewhat askance at the fluttery, vapid woman who was her daughter. Her grandmother had been forced by family pressure into a loveless marriage, and she had made certain that none of her own three daughters had been compelled to do the same. She had often spoken to Nicola about following her own heart, and when she died, she left both her and Deborah sizable enough inheritances that they would be able to live independently if they chose to.

      “Yes. And you get them from your aunt Drusilla, as well,” Lady Falcourt agreed darkly. Her sister Drusilla had never married, but had lived with their mother in London, where she maintained a social salon of great note and wit. Lady Falcourt understood her even less than the horse-mad Adelaide, Lady Buckminster. “Drusilla is no one to pattern your life after. A spinster…no children to brighten her days, no husband to look after or home to keep.”

      Nicola sighed. This was a favorite theme of her mother’s, even though Nicola had rarely seen her mother lift a finger to organize the household or raise a child. “I have no intention of not marrying, Mama. However, it will be when and to whom I want. And that certainly will not be now or to Lord Exmoor.”

      Still, there was little way to avoid the man unless she wanted to become a social recluse. He was bound to be at any local party or dinner; having an earl in one’s house was considered a feather in any matron’s cap, even one as supposedly unworldly as the vicar’s wife. Worse, her mother insisted on accepting any invitation he sent their way.

      So it was that Nicola attended the hunt at Tidings, the Exmoor estate, and trotted into the yard, flushed from the activity, her hair coming loose in little tendrils around her face. As the Exmoor grooms rushed out to take the reins of the horses, Nicola looked down and found herself staring into one of the handsomest faces she had ever seen.

      He was larger than most of the grooms, taller and leanly muscled. Dark, mischievous eyes gazed out from his tanned face, framed by a mop of thick black hair. A smile widened his mobile mouth as he gazed up at Nicola. Nicola stared back, feeling rather the way she had the time she fell out of the oak tree when she was little, as if the world had somehow stopped and she was floating free from it, as if her lungs no longer worked, but her heart was skittering double time.

      He reached up his hands toward her, black eyes dancing. “Help you down, miss?”

      She could not answer,

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