A Visit From Sir Nicholas (4 page)

"He's leaving London, you know," Jules said with a casual shrug, as if Nicholas Collingsworth's leaving was of no importance whatsoever.

"So I have heard." Lizzie's tone was as casual as her sister's, belying the urgency that Nicholas's plans triggered within her. "Jonathon said he's sailing tomorrow. For America, I believe."

"Well, I for one shan't miss him, although I daresay he'll be here tonight. I can't imagine anyone missing the Effington Christmas Ball."

"It would be most impolite of him." And disastrous to Lizzie's plans. She had to know if what she felt about him was real or imagined. Simply a momentary lapse in judgment, and nothing at all serious, or lasting and important. And if her feelings were real, did he feel the same?

"I can't wait for tonight." Excitement sparkled in Jules's eyes. "This will be the very first Effington Christmas Ball that I won't have to watch in secret."

For as long as Lizzie could remember, the younger Effington children and their cousins had watched the Christmas ball festivities from a hiding place in an unused balcony overlooking the ballroom. Although to say they watched in secret was not entirely accurate, since every year, promptly when the clock struck ten, whatever governess was in residence at the time would fetch them and send them off to bed.

"I still can't believe Mother is allowing you to attend. She did not allow me to attend until I had come out in society, and you won't do that until spring."

"But I am nearly seventeen and Mother is not tied down by antiquated conventions. She is a modern woman," Jules said loftily, then grinned. "In truth, though, I think I simply wore her down."

"I know the rest of us have certainly been worn down," Lizzie said wryly. Jules's campaign to be allowed to attend the grand party had begun in earnest two years earlier, when Lizzie, at age seventeen, had been allowed to attend her first Christmas ball. Jules's unending assault on her mother was a subject of great amusement in the household, if a bit trying.

"Besides, Lizzie"—Jules leapt to her feet and twirled about the room—"it's Christmas and anything is possible at Christmas. Anything at all."

"I do hope so," Lizzie murmured.

Jules stopped abruptly and stared. "Whatever is the matter with you? You've been exceedingly quiet and even thoughtful in recent days. Not at all like your usual self. One would think you had a world of troubles on your mind."

"Not at all," Lizzie said firmly. "Why, what on earth could possibly trouble the frivolous Lizzie Effington?" She forced her brightest smile. "And you're right, it is Christmastime, and anything is indeed possible at Christmas. Now, shouldn't you be getting ready for tonight?"

"I most certainly should." Jules nodded and headed toward the door to her room. "I have a scant six hours, and as this is my first Christmas ball, my first ball ever, I want to look my best. Better than my best. I want to look," she tossed her head and cast her sister a wicked look over her shoulder that was far more adult than was seemly for a girl her age, "better than you." Lizzie raised a brow and bit back a grin. "Oh?"

"You may well be the Effington everyone considers the most fun, but I fully intend to be the one most sought after." Jules grinned, then sobered. "This will be a night I shall remember always, Lizzie. I'm certain of it." She nodded, turned, and swept from the room.

Lizzie laughed. When Jules set her mind on something, there was no stopping her. If she was indeed determined to become the belle of London, she would succeed. Lizzie had no doubt that Jules would do whatever she wished to do in this life.

As for Lizzie's own life, she had never once doubted where she was headed and what would become of her. She couldn't remember ever being confused or uncertain.

Until Nicholas.

Now, she wasn't certain she knew either her own mind or her heart. She loved Charles. She always had.

There wasn't a question at all about that. But did she love Nicholas as well? Was it even possible to love two men at the same time? One who warmed you with the comfort of his presence and the other who made you tremble at the mere sound of his voice?

She had to find out, and tonight would be her only chance. Before Charles asked for her hand. Before Nicholas left London, left her life, possibly forever.

Lizzie turned to the paper on the desk, thought for a moment, then penned a few lines. She sat back and studied them. Personal, but not too personal. Affectionate, but not overly so. One could read her words in any number of ways depending on the reader's own feelings. Yes, it would do. She pulled open a drawer and drew out the book she had purchased. She'd been lucky to find one still available. The bookseller had said they could well be sold out entirely before Christmas. She opened the small volume, drew a deep breath, then carefully wrote the decided-upon lines on the flyleaf and waited for the ink to dry.

It was the perfect Christmas gift for a man she might or might not love. A man who might or might not love her. The perfect gift for an old family friend about to embark on endless travels or someone who might well be very much more than a friend.

She closed the book gently and studied the red cloth cover with the words
A Christmas Carol
by Charles Dickens
emblazoned in gilt and encircled by a gold wreath. Jules was right.

One way or another, this would most certainly be a night to remember.

"There's no reason for you to leave, none at all." Frederick, the Earl of Thornecroft, sat in his favorite chair in his favorite room at Thornecroft House, sipping his favorite brandy with his favorite and ever-present cigar in his hand, and glared at his favorite, indeed his only, nephew. "You'll have my money and my title as well when I'm gone."

"Ah, but the key there, Uncle, is that you should have to die first," Nicholas Collingsworth said mildly, prowling the perimeter of the Thornecroft library in a manner even more restless than usual. "And I am far and away too fond of you to wish that."

"That's something, at any rate," Frederick muttered. "Still, I can well provide you with whatever you desire in life, and glad to do it."

"You have provided for me since the day my parents died. It's past time I provided for myself."

"You're just like your father, you know."

"Thank you." Nick flashed the older man a grin. For a moment, uncle and nephew fell silent, each with his own memories: one of a cherished younger brother, the other of a beloved father taken far too soon.

"Still, I hope we are not too much alike."

His uncle considered him thoughtfully, as if comparing father to son in his own mind. "James was a good man, but he had no head for business."

"He was a dreamer," Nick said absently, stepping around a precarious tower of books stacked unsteadily on the floor. The untidy appearance of the library was a constant source of dismay for Mrs. Smithers, the housekeeper. While the room was officially forbidden territory for Mrs. Smithers and her staff of maids, Frederick and Nick knew full well she managed a bit of clandestine cleaning nonetheless.

"He refused to see past the dream of an endeavor to the reality."

"And you are far more practical?" It was as much a statement as a question.

"Indeed I am," Nick said, deftly skirting a pile of correspondence and unread manuscripts. Uncle Frederick had a secret passion for all manner of scientific and scholarly pursuits, especially those of a historic nature. While few of his social acquaintances knew of this more serious aspect of his character—

indeed, he was better known for his pursuit of women than for anything else— in certain amateur academic circles, he was considered something of an expert on the flora and fauna of ancient Egypt.

"With more desire as well," Frederick said under his breath.

It was not a new thought for the older man, and Nick had accepted the truth of it a long time ago. As the second son of the Earl of Thornecroft, James Collingsworth, Nick's father, had been heir to nothing beyond the family name and had always seemed to have few aspirations beyond that. No one had been more surprised than his brother to learn of James's determination to make his own fortune independent of his family. His quest had taken him, and his wife, away from England to America. Unfortunately, James's desire had not coincided with either his ability or his nature. His disposition had been more suited, as Nick's mother's had, to a life of frivolity and gaiety. His had not at all been the kind of temperament needed to succeed in anything of a financial nature save the inheritance of great wealth. Even then, Nick had often wondered, after he'd come to live with his uncle, whether the family coffers would have been sorely depleted— indeed, would have survived at all—had his father been the oldest son.

Still, James had been a good man with a kind heart and generous spirit. Nick's memories of his parents were shaded by laughter and love. And if their lives had been built on credit and the financial support of his uncle, as a child Nick had only been vaguely aware of his father's failures. And as none of them had seemed important to his parents, why should they have seemed important to him?

It was only after their deaths in a flu epidemic that Nick had learned of the extent of his father's incompetence. Knowledge gained not from his uncle, who Nick suspected would defend and protect his younger brother to his own dying day, but from James's own words in long saved letters to Frederick and various papers and files and notes of indebtedness.

Nick was determined to succeed where his father had failed and, in doing so, redeem him, even if Nick realized the irony of such a pursuit. No one would have found more amusement in the idea of Nick following his father's path in the pursuit of James's redemption than James himself.

"It's that American influence no doubt." Frederick glared at his nephew. "All that land of opportunity business. The absurd notion that a man can become whatever he wishes if he works hard enough. I thought I'd managed to overcome the ill effects of those years you lived in America, but they've ruined you, my boy. Damn egalitarian nonsense."

Nick laughed and pulled a volume from the shelves, more from a need to do something with his hands than the desire to read anything whatsoever. "You don't believe that. Any of it."