Nicola and the Viscount Read Free Page A

dawning, Nicola cried, “Oh, you mean Lord Renshaw? But he isn’t my uncle, Lady Sheridan, only my cousin…and my guardian. And yes, he knows all about it. My staying with the Bartholomews, I mean.” She narrowed her eyes at Nathaniel. “The Grouser is a bit of a curmudgeon, but at least he isn’t a narrow-minded poetry hater.”
    Nathaniel opened his mouth to comment on this, but his mother said, before he could utter a sound, “Fine, then. If Nicola’s guardian knows and approves, then I don’t think, Nathaniel, that we can have any objec—”
    â€œOh, he doesn’t approve,” Eleanor interrupted with a giggle. “The Grouser was quite put out with Nicky for not agreeing to stay with him and that dreadful milksop of a son of his in London. Wasn’t he, Nicky?”
    Lady Sheridan looked heavenward. “Eleanor,” she said. “Kindly do not refer to Lord Renshaw as the Grouser, and his heir as a milksop.”
    Eleanor, surprised, asked, “Why shouldn’t I? He is one.”
    â€œNevertheless—”
    â€œMademoiselle.” Martine, still standing in the doorway, cleared her throat meaningfully. “I am sorry to interrupt, but we must not keep Her Ladyship waiting.”
    Nicola turned to Lady Sheridan. Really, this was not the way she’d wanted to say good-bye to these people who’d been so kind to her for all the years she and Eleanor had been at school together. Then again, surely they’d see one another quite often, once they were all back in London. She and Eleanor would undoubtedly be invited to many of the same balls and soirees….
    Unfortunately, it seemed likely Nathaniel would also be there. But Nicola intended to maintain an air of queenly disdain around that person from now on. Imagine, slighting the God in that way!
    â€œI must go,” Nicola said regretfully to Lady Sheridan. “But might I call upon Eleanor, when she is settled back at home?”
    â€œYou may call upon Eleanor anytime you like, Nicola,” Lady Sheridan said, reaching out to wrap her daughter’s closest friend in her arms. “And remember, if you should change your mind about staying with the Bartholomews—for whatever reason—our home is always open to you.”
    Nicola returned the hug gratefully, averting her gaze from Nathaniel, who she saw was still looking at her with a very grim expression on his face. Eleanor’s brother was a tease, it was true. But he was also very, very intelligent. Didn’t his first in mathematics prove that?
    Still, he was wrong, Nicola knew, both about poetry and about Lord Sebastian Bartholomew.
    And she’d prove it to him, one way or another.

CHAPTER TWO
    Dear Nana,
    I hope you received the gifts I sent you. The shawl is pure Chinese silk, and the pipe I sent for Puddy is ivory-handled! You needn’t worry about the expense; I was able to use my monthly stipend. I am staying with the Bartholomews—I told you about them in my last letter—and they won’t let me spend a penny on myself! Lord Farelly insists on paying for everything. He is such a kind man. He is very interested in locomotives and the railway. He says that someday, all of England will be connected by rail, and that one might start out in the morning in Brighton, and at the end of the day find oneself in Edinburgh!
    I found that a bit hard to believe, as I’m certain you do, too, but that is what he says.
    Nicola paused in her letter writing to read over what she had already written. As she did so, she nibbled thoughtfully on the feathered end of her pen.
    Nana was not, of course, her real grandmother. Nicola had no real grandparents, all of them having been carried away by influenza before she was even born. Because her sole remaining relative, Lord Renshaw, had had no interest in nor knowledge of raising a little girl, Nicola had been reared, until she was old enough to go away to school,