CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
The lodging house in Mayfair cut straight through the brume. A group of gentlewomen with Scottish accents walked in pairs toward the entrance, glancing surreptitiously at Nicholas as he hovered outside.
He had arrived in London just before noon and headed straight for Portman Square. If anyone who mattered had seen him, they had not come forward to remind him of the court’s order.
Which is the least of my concerns for now,he thought as he turned the watch in his pocket.I am well within my rights to be here now that Sir Richard has fled the country.
Nicholas had checked in with Samuel the moment he had arrived. His brother had scoped the town and had confirmed the rumors he had previously heard: Lady Summer Harrow’s husband had left England for the Continent one week ago. And by all accounts, he had no intention of returning while a divorce was impossible to acquire.
“You have but to go to them, and the courts will retract your Oxfordshire arrest immediately,” Samuel had said when they met outside the Whitmore house on Portman Square. “You will be free to travel where you please. But you must go to—”
“I know where I must go,” Nicholas had interrupted, ducking back into his carriage. “Why do you think I have come down here and lied to the duchess about it?”
Amelia would despise him if she discovered the lie about Coventry.
But to his mind, it had been a necessary evil.
She would not have understood if he told her what he planned. Whatever uncertain future lay before them, he did not want to compromise her happiness by involving her in his atonement. This was something he had to do on his own, or he could never, in good conscience, hope for any future that wasn’t eternal damnation in loneliness and the bottle.
The play from von Kotzebue rang in his mind then. His lips curled at the bitter irony of his own situation. Redemption through a single act.
No. If a happy ending did exist for him somewhere in his fate, this would only ever be the first piece in setting it to be.
He proceeded toward the tall wrought-iron doors of the establishment. Taking the key from the proprietor under analias, he walked past the wide arch to the adjoining tearoom and made his way up the grand carpeted staircase. The Mayfair Lodging House was a favorite of theton, hosting luncheons for women and providing rooms to affluent travelers when they stopped in London.
But it was also the place where a meeting could be conducted in secret. Nicholas knew this from experience.
Inside the rented room, he paced by the fire. The brouhaha from the road outside provided a welcome distraction as he watched the flames dance in the hearth. Out of the corner of his eye, he glimpsed the first strains of snowfall through the sash window. His mind turned to Amelia, wishing she were with him to see the first snow of the year.
A familiar knock sounded then on the door, breaking through his melancholy meditations.
Summer Harrow had not aged a day in the months since he had last seen her. Her pale blonde hair fell in tight ringlets around her face beneath her turban. She wore a brown fur pelisse, modest enough to not attract attention. Her lips were painted her favorite shade of red.
Her appearance at the door made Nicholas’s gut churn with guilt and shame. The years of indulgence he once openly paraded left him only with regret. He could not wait for this meeting to come to an end.
“Well, well. What do we have here?” Summer drawled, peering past Nicholas into the otherwise empty boarding room. “May I enter?”
“Quickly,” Nicholas replied. He stepped aside to admit her and closed the door behind her once he was sure the coast was clear.
“To tell you the truth,” she continued once inside, “I mostly expected this to be a trap orchestrated by someone who loathes me very much. An angry wife with a grudge against me, for instance, or a highwayman taking me for ransom at the order of one, something of the sort. You are sight for sore eyes. Come to me.”
She moved to the bed and hovered at the foot. There, she opened her arms for him. He shook his head, folding his arms over his chest. He felt nothing at the sight of her but disgust for himself.
“Playing hard to get?” she curled a brow. “Or have you changed your mind?”
“Regarding what, precisely?”
She smiled in a simpering manner. “Ourliaison. Why else would you possibly be here?”
“To speak with you only. The note I left implied nothing more.”
He had sent a boot-boy from the Whitmore home to Summer’s apartment once he had arrived, calling her to the lodging house at this exact time.
“Oh, Avon. I do not believe that for a second.” Her delicate thin brows furrowed in displeasure. “Of course you were not going to write anything obscene in the note…”
“I mean it. And that is exactly why I did not call on you directly. I did not want to be seen by your abode. This private moment is for speaking alone. There are things we must make clear to one another.”
“No…” She shook her head. “You know that Dickie is on his way to Venice—if he is not intercepted by French troops, that is. Foolish old man that he is, he will most certainly die now that he does not have me to care for him.”
