Nicola and the Viscount Read Free

fetch you. Their carriage just pulled ’round. They are all waiting for you downstairs.”
    â€œSo those are Lord Farelly’s bays, then,” Phillip said with a low, appreciative whistle. “Well, no wonder.”
    His elder brother’s reaction to this news was not nearly so sanguine, however. Nathaniel nearly leaped from the seat in which he’d been lolling a second before. “Lord Farelly?” he burst out, not very politely. “What the devil? You’re not going to stay with the Bartholomews , are you, Nicky?”
    â€œWhat if I am?” Nicola wanted to know, as she reached for the bonnet her maid held. “They are perfectly nice people.”
    â€œPerfectly rich people, you mean,” Phillip said. “No wonder Nicky’s staying with them, with bays like that.”
    â€œPhillip!” Lady Sheridan looked to be at the end of her patience with her children. “It is uncouth to comment upon the financial status of others. And Nathaniel, I told you before, you are to address Nicola as Miss Sparks.”
    â€œAnd really, Phil,” Eleanor said scornfully. “The idea of Nicky choosing to stay with the Bartholomews over us simply because they happen to have more money than we do is positively ridiculous. How could you think something so wicked, and of our Nicky? Why, it’s got nothing to do with that. The fact is, she’s in love with Lord Sebas—”
    â€œEleanor!” Nicola cried.
    But it was too late. The damage was done.
    â€œSo that ’s who you were talking about when I walked in.” Nathaniel pushed some dark hair from his eyes and glared at Nicola. “Well, just so you know, Sebastian Bartholomew is nothing but an oarsman .”
    Nicola, furious over hearing the God slighted—though she couldn’t imagine why joining a college rowing team should be such a crime—but equally furious with Eleanor for letting her most treasured secret slip, gasped. She could not remember ever feeling so truly angry with anyone. Anger, Madame had always reminded her pupils, was unbecoming in a lady. And so Nicola struggled to contain her feelings. But she could not. They burst from her in a frothy torrent.
    â€œYou should be ashamed of yourself, saying things like that,” Nicola cried. “You don’t even know him!”
    â€œI know him a good deal better than you do,” Nathaniel replied. “He was in my same college at Oxford.”
    â€œAnd?” Nicola demanded. “So what if he was an oarsman? I should think that’s a good deal more exciting than what you were doing at Oxford.”
    â€œGetting an education, you mean?” Nathaniel’s laugh was humorless. “Yes, I should say Bartholomew had a more exciting time of it at Oxford than I did.”
    Though she still wasn’t certain what he meant, Nicola felt another spurt of rage. How dared anyone speak disparagingly of the God! She wanted to break something, but since this was Eleanor’s room, and not her own, there was nothing nearby that she could get away with breaking, so she settled for stamping a slippered foot and declaring, “You make him sound like a wastrel!”
    â€œYou said it,” Nathaniel retorted. “Not me.”
    â€œDon’t pay any attention to him, Nicky,” Eleanor said. “Lord Sebastian is a poetry lover, like you. You know how Nat feels about poetry.”
    â€œNathaniel’s feelings about poetry aside,” Lady Sheridan said, stepping between her son and her daughter’s friend, who stood almost nose-to-nose, their arms folded across their chests and their breath coming a little too quickly as they glared angrily at one another, “are you quite certain your uncle approves of your staying with Lord and Lady Farelly, Nicola?”
    â€œMy uncle?” Nicola shot Lady Sheridan a bewildered glance.
    â€œThe Grouser,” Eleanor prompted helpfully.
    Understanding