Pallas had been pleased by his actions. Seating himself upon a delicate Louis Quinze chair in pale blue-striped satin, he had settled back to enjoy the remainder of the evening. His grandmother had been presiding over the pouring of tea from her position on a matching settee, and as he had sat down, they had exchanged affectionate looks.
Her blue eyes gleaming with amusement, Pallas had said, “Not fond of your own company?”
Nicolas had smiled. “Not when I can be with you.”
The countess of Sherbourne was a tiny woman, her once fair hair now silver, her soft pink-and-white complexion glowing; but the signs of her eighty-three years were obvious. Nicolas knew that she tired easily these days and that she no longer rose at first light as she had years ago. Staring at the thin, blue-veined hands as she offered him a cup of tea, he was suddenly conscious of how quickly she could be taken from him.
Concern in his eyes, he asked lightly, “All is well with you, sweetheart?”
“Oh, my, yes!” A limpid glance met his. “Especially since you are here.”
Athena was seated on a chair across from them, near the flames that burned brightly in the gray marble-fronted fireplace, and at Pallas's words, an unladylike snort came from her. “Oh, Grandmother!” she said disgustedly. “Don't toady to him! He is full enough of himself as it isâhe likes lording it over the rest of us that he is the
earl
of Sherbourne!”
Nicolas's eyes narrowed, and he glanced at her. “Really?” he drawled. “Considering I wasn't reared for the job, I thought I was handling myself rather circumspectly. Do you have some complaint?” It was the wrong thing to say.
“You know I do!” Athena returned hotly. “God! If only I'd been born a man,
I'd
be the earl! And then I wouldn't have to try to live on that paltry allowance you give me.”
Nicolas sighed. “If you wouldn't gamble so recklessly, you'd find it ample. And it's not paltry, nor was I the one who decided upon the amountâit was Randal, if you remember. I merely continued his wishesâif you'll remember, when we discussed this some months ago, you told me that it was sufficient for your needs.”
“But Randal,” she said from between gritted teeth, “always gave me advances when I found myself in dun territory! He never would have told me to return to Sherbourne if I had found my pockets to let!”
“You were coming home within the monthâand having seen how you spent your funds, I didn't see any reason to advance you more money so that you could throw it away on the gaming tablesâor
another
pair of slippers with diamond-studded heels!”
Athena surged to her feet, her hands curled in fists at her sides. “I pity your poor wifeâif you're fortunate enough to find some pathetic creature who is willing to put up with your despotic ways! I wish to God that it had been you who had died in that bloody duel and not Randal!”
“Oh, Athena, dear,” began Pallas unhappily, “you don't really mean that!”
“Don't I?” she ground out, and swept furiously from the room.
Nicolas and his grandmother exchanged glances. Pallas's eyes were full of distress. “You'd think, after all these years, she'd have learned to control that temper of hers. And I'm sure she didn't really mean those awful things. You know Athenaâshe always speaks before she thinks. You mustn't let her words hurt you, Nicolas dear.”
Nicolas smiled and gently held one of her hands in his. “I don't, Grandmother, and I know it's hard for herâshe and Randal were very close, and he
did
indulge her shamelessly.”
“You, ah, couldn't bring yourself to do the same?” Pallas asked hopefully.
“If it will make you happy, I'll talk to Robertson about increasing her quarterly allowances enough to keep peace in the family.”
“Oh, you don't have to do it for meâbut for Athena . . . and perhaps, for a better understanding between the two of you?”
Nicolas sighed. “For all of us.”
Pallas smiled warmly at him. “You won't be sorry, and I hope that someday you come to appreciate your sister. She can be exasperating, but she really isn't as arrogant and sharp tongued as she appearsâwinter before last, when I was so ill with that terrible racking cough, it hung on for
months
, she hardly ever left my side and was so good and considerate of meâthe two of you just seem to bring out the worst in the other.”
“If you say so,” Nicolas replied dryly.
“I do.” Her blue eyes twinkled at him over the rim of her cup. After taking a sip of tea, she set down her cup and said forthrightly, “And now, please tell me why you have returned home so unexpectedly. I thought you were going to stay in London until the end of the âlittle' season . . . or until you had found . . . ?”
Nicolas's mouth twisted wryly. Now what the hell was he to tell her? He could hardly say that it had been his growing uneasiness that he might weaken and find himself offering for the hand of Lady Maryanne Halliwell that had brought him home so precipitously. The whole purpose of going to London had been to find a bride. And as for the conversation he'd had with the duke of Roxbury . . . No, the fewer people who knew about that aspect of his return to Sherbourne Court, the better.
Her head cocked to one side, Pallas regarded him thoughtfully. “It wouldn't have anything to do with that dreadful Maryanne person, would it?”
Nicolas jumped as if stabbed. “How did you know about her?” he asked before he had time to think.
Pallas smiled. “Darling, you know there are no secrets in a household like oursâthe servants know everything. When you first met her years ago, Lovejoy wrote to his uncle Bellingham about it, and Bellingham mentioned it in passing to my dresser, Simpson, who told me that there had been a young lady who had caught your eye. It was only later that we learned she'd had the very bad taste to choose someone older and richer. From several of my friends who go out in society more than I do, I know she's a widow now and very beautiful.... Is she throwing out lures to you?”
“You are,” Nicolas said, half dismayed, half amused, “an absolute witch! Can I keep nothing secret from you?”
His grandmother chuckled and, after taking another sip of her tea, murmured, “Oh, I expect that if there was something that you especially didn't want me to know about, I would have a very difficult time discovering it.” A gleam in her faded blue eyes, she added, “Of course, you'd have to be very clever about hiding it from me!”
Nicolas snorted. “Damned clever! But to answer your question, yes, I suppose it was because of Maryanne that I left London so unexpectedly.” He shot her a keen look. “She'd be willing to marry me now, you know. . . .”
“Really, dear? But of course she won't do, will she? After all, she had her chance and she threw it away.” Pallas's little nose wrinkled with distaste. “We Talmages do not settle for secondhand goodsâunless your heart is set upon her. Then I would suppose that we would just have to make do!”
Putting down his cup and saucer, Nicolas said moodily, “My heart isn't set on her, but I'm afraid that finding a bride is not quite as easy as I thought it would be.”
“Well, naturally not! You're not buying a brood mare for your stables, you know. You're looking for a wife. Someone who will be the mother of your children and someone with whom you will share the rest of your life.” His grandmother leaned forward intently. “I know that you want to please me, and it is vital that you marry soon, but Nicolas,” she said softly, “you must also please yourself. That is paramount. You will live with this woman, hopefully, for many years after I am moldering in my grave.” Her face became pensive. “Don't be in such a rush that you make a dreadful mistake. . . .”
“As you did?” he asked quietly.
Pallas looked dismayed, and she knew exactly what he was referring to. “Oh, no, my dear!” she said passionately. “I never thought marrying your grandfather was a mistake!”
It was not a subject that had been discussed between themâhis grandfather's name was seldom mentioned and then usually in scandalous tonesâbut it suddenly dawned on Nicolas that he had never heard Pallas ever speak ill of her husband. “You don't blame him for leaving you? For treating you in such a shameful manner?” he asked incredulously.
A soft light entered her eyes, and she glanced over at the huge painting that dominated one wall of the room. “No,” she said huskily, “I've never blamed him. I loved him, respected him, and pitied him more than I can ever say....”
His curiosity aroused, Nicolas stood and walked over to stand in front of the oil painting. “You made a handsome couple,” he said neutrally as he stared at the picture.
The portrait of his grandparents had been painted when they had been married for only six months, and there was such a glow on Pallas's young face, such open love for her tall, commanding husband at her side, that it hurt Nicolas every time he looked at it. Pallas had been painted seated in this very room, grandly garbed in a ball gown of pale blue silk and fairly dripping with all of the famous Sherbourne diamondsâthe tiara, the earrings, the necklace, the brooch, the bracelet, and the stunning ring that had comprised the largest diamond Nicolas had ever seenâdiamonds that had disappeared along with her husband.
Wresting his gaze from that ring, Nicolas studied his grandfather's faceâa face startlingly similar to his own. It was a proud face, arrogant even, the thick black hair brushed back from his noble brow, the Spanish black eyes gleaming with a hint of humor, the chin determined, and the long, mobile mouth curved with a faint cynicism. It wasn't, Nicolas admitted slowly, on the surface, the face of a man who would steal another man's wife, carelessly abandoning his own wife and newborn son in the process. In the portrait, Benedict's hand lay possessively along the back of the chair on which Pallas had sat, and his other hand rested suggestively on the sword that hung at his side. Nicolas had the curious conviction that those two simple gestures told a great deal about his grandfather, that they were not mere poses. Everything about him stated clearly that this was a man who took care of his own.
“I always thought that you must have hated him,” he said slowly as he turned and walked back to his chair.
Pallas shook her white head. “Never. He was good to me, Nicolas. Kind. Considerate.” She looked off, her eyes seeing things that he could not. “I was so young. And so in love with himâI still am. I knew the whole, horrid tale of the broken betrothal and Gregory's dastardly abduction of Theresa, but I was so certain . . .” Her mouth twisted ruefully. “I was so certain that I could make Benedict love me, that I could drive out Theresa's image from his heart....” She smiled faintly. “I couldn't, of course. The bond between them was too strong. It wasn't their fault that they loved each other so desperately, and I couldn't even hate him for marrying me while loving herâafter all, he did need an heir. And though I know that she had all his love, in his manner with me, he never once let me know that his heart was elsewhere, never once gave the smallest sign that he had married me only because circumstances had decreed that the line must be carried on. He always treated me with respect and considerationâsomething few wives of my generation can claim about their husbands!”
His gaze thoughtful, Nicolas asked abruptly, “What do you think happened to them? From what I've heard, it was as if they vanished off the face of the earth.”
Pallas shrugged, but there was a flicker of pain in her eyes, and Nicolas marveled that after all these years, an event that had taken place over sixty-five years ago could arouse such deep emotion. “I don't know. In my kinder moments, I like to think that they managed to make it to the Colonies and that they have had a long and fulfilling life together.” She bent her head and admitted fiercely, “Other times, I hope that they had a long,
miserable
life together, that his beloved Theresa turned out to be a carroty-topped, purple-eyed shrew!”
Nicolas laughed, and they exchanged a glance of amusement. Thinking they had spoken long enough of the painful past, he said lightly, “Well, enough of ancient history for tonight. Now tell me what has been happening since I was last home.”
They conversed idly for several moments as Pallas brought him up-to-date on local happenings and life at Sherbourne Court. Leaning comfortably back on his chair, Nicolas let her gentle chatter wash over him. But then she said something that made him sit up and pay attention.
“Old Squire Frampton is dead? I thought the old devil was so stubborn and irascible that he wouldn't
let
himself die!”
“Hmm, yes, I knowâI thought so, too,” Pallas replied. “But he did finally die, oh, I guess about three years ago. His oldest son, John, is now the squire. Do you remember him?”
Nicolas shook his head. “Not very well. He's a few years older than I am, isn't he?”
“Yes, I think he's about thirty-nine.... He and your sister sometimes seem uncommonly friendly.”