LITMIR.BIZ

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sank back against the squabs. “I didn’t think so, to tell you the truth, not when I heard it. Perhaps you’ve softened my heart? At any rate, I happened to overhear something about our dear friend Lord Sidmouth at my club last week.”

      “Our illustrious Home Secretary is no one’s dear friend, Fletcher. I doubt his own mother enjoyed him.”

      “True enough. Do you want to know what I heard, or not? Because after you surprised me with that passionate defense of the common man yesterday, I haven’t been all that hot to tell you. After all, it was only rumor, and I overheard no more than snatches, at that.”

      Lucas gave a small wave of his hand. “Go on. I promise not to launch into another hot-blooded speech anytime soon.”

      “And thank God for that. What I heard was that, between them, lords Liverpool and Sidmouth are determined to introduce new punitive laws and sanctions against those unhappy with the government. You know, those persons you were so staunchly defending in your magnificent but probably ill-timed comments.”

      “I see. And did you happen to hear how they plan to get the whole of Parliament to agree to these new laws, considering that we’ve been introducing reforms this term, not new sanctions?”

      Fletcher shook his head. “No, sadly, I did not, but I suppose they know. I’m sorry I can’t be of more help.” He took hold of the latch once more. “Should I be ready by six, do you think? Or is that too early?”

      Lucas was once again deep in thought, lightly tapping the side of his fist against his mouth. “Excuse me? Oh, yes. Too early by half. I doubt the duke sits down much before eight.”

      “Then seven it is. Perhaps the lovely Lady Nicole can serve to take your mind off what I’ve just told you?”

      “Fletcher, that young woman could take a man’s mind, period.”

      Fletcher laughed and exited the coach, at which time Lucas’s smile disappeared as he thought about his strange encounter with Lady Nicole.

      She had knocked him off balance, not physically, as a result of their small collision, but mentally, muddling his brain in a way that had never happened to him before that moment.

      She was astonishingly beautiful. She was astoundingly forward and impertinent.

      She possessed the most kissable mouth he’d ever seen. And clearly she knew that, or else why would she have affected that quick, enticing bite of her full bottom lip, if not to drive a man insane?

      She was also a distraction. With what Lord Frayne had just asked of him, with the information the man had just that morning dangled in front of him so unexpectedly, did he need a distraction at this moment in his life?

      No. No, he did not.

       CHAPTER TWO

      NICOLE TOOK HER TIME combing through her thick black hair, carefully working out a few tangles caused by having it all anchored up and off her neck. She could allow her new maid, the estimable Renée, the chore. But, since Renée seemed to be of the opinion that a woman should suffer for her beauty, Nicole had set her to pressing the hem of her peach gown instead.

      Looking into the mirror of her dressing table, she studied her sister as Lydia sat in a slipper chair, her head buried in a book. There was nothing unusual about that. Depressing, certainly, as they were in the middle of the most exciting city on earth, but most definitely not unusual.

      Nicole loved her twin more than she did anyone else in the world, but this past year had been very difficult. And so terribly sad.

      When their brother, Rafe, had returned from the war to take over the reins of the dukedom, he had brought with him his good friend Captain Swain Fitzgerald.

      And Lydia, quiet, levelheaded, studious Lydia, had tumbled head over heels into love with the man, only to lose him when Bonaparte escaped his prison and forced one last battle on the Allies.

      Even now, Nicole could see occasional hints of sadness in her sister’s huge blue eyes during quiet moments.

      Some might argue that Lydia, at seventeen, had been too young to really know her own mind, and that Captain Fitzgerald had been years too old for her. But Nicole would never say any such thing. Not when she’d held her sister in her grief, fearful that Lydia’s very heart would break inside her and she’d lose her best friend, the other half of herself.

      That terrible day, when the Duke of Malvern had come to this very house to inform them all of the captain’s death, Nicole had promised herself that she would never open herself to such devastating heartbreak. Life was to be enjoyed, gloried in, celebrated. Allowing one’s happiness to depend on someone else was to invite not only a chaotic mind but a vulnerability to pain that Nicole refused to consider.

      No, Nicole would never allow anyone else, any man, to have so much power over her, and had stated that fact quite firmly to both her sister and her sister-in-law, Charlotte.

      And they had only smiled indulgently. After all, what was a young lady of Nicole’s station to do but marry? As a sister to a duke, her options were limited, if, to many, all quite wonderful. A husband. Children. She would be mistress of a grand estate, an arbiter of fashion, become a successful and sought-after hostess. It wasn’t as if she could take to the high seas, or fight in wars or sit in Parliament…not that Nicole wished to do any of those things, either.

      In truth, she didn’t know what she wanted to do with her life or what she wanted out of that life.

      She only knew what she didn’t want.

      Mostly, she didn’t want to be desperate, like her mother. Mostly, she didn’t want to be heartbroken, like her sister.

      Mostly, she wanted to be left to her own devices so that she could someday answer that question as to what she wanted out of life. And in the meantime, if she thought the idea of some harmless flirtation and exercising of her charms to be a delicious entertainment, surely that wasn’t so terrible?

      She loved her family, desperately. She needed no one else. Although not the prodigious student her sister was, Nicole had not been above quoting Francis Bacon to Lydia. “He that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune; for they are impediments to great enterprises, either of virtue or mischief.”

      Yes, Lydia had reasonably pointed out that Nicole was not a man (which often chafed Nicole, as she believed men enjoyed much more freedom than women), and that she, Lydia, had never suspected that Nicole had aspirations to great virtuous enterprises. To her sister’s already known propensity for mischievous enterprises, Lydia’s response was only to roll her eyes and sigh in affectionate resignation.

      They were so different, she and Lydia. Her sister obeyed the rules, accepted her place in the world, caused not a smidgeon of trouble to anyone, while Nicole strained against every leash, saw every rule as a challenge and, although never purposely, had occasionally caused more than her sister to breathe resigned sighs.

      Nicole and Lydia had settled into their very different roles early in life, and Nicole realized now that she had allowed herself to become comfortable with always knowing her sister was dependable if sometimes boring, clearheaded if perhaps too intense, and always a model of propriety.

      Which did not explain what had happened earlier that day.

      “Lydia?”

      “In a moment, please, Nicole,” her sister said as she turned a page in her book and continued to read for several moments before closing the book over her finger. “I’m just reading the most interesting and rather bizarre argument.”

      “That’s nice, Lydia. Then I take it you are not still reading Miss Austen’s latest inspired bit of silliness?”

      Lydia shook her head. “I finished that yesterday. Today is for something Captain Fitzgerald recommended to me, written by one Thomas Paine. This volume is called The Rights of Man and—well, listen to this.”

      It was Nicole’s

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