Nicola and the Viscount by Meg Cabot Page B

were both looking down at something on the street below, and laughing.
    Laughing! Nicola felt as if she might burst into flames on the spot, she was so angry.
    â€œI beg your pardon,” she said, intruding upon a private conversation (Madame would most certainly not have approved).
    Stella Ashton looked up from her punch glass and said sweetly, “Oh, Miss Sparks. Good evening.”
    â€œGood evening, Miss Ashton,” Nicola said with a nod. To Nathaniel, who was looking at her as if she were a madwoman, she said, “May I have a word with you, Mr. Sheridan? Alone ?”
    Nathaniel lifted one of his dark eyebrows in obvious amusement. But all he said was, “Certainly.” He set his punch glass down upon the windowsill, and bowed to the sallow-faced Stella. “Would you excuse me for a moment please, Miss Ashton?”
    Stella blinked her big—and, in Nicola’s opinion, vapid—eyes and said, “Why, of course,” in a confused manner, as if Nicola, instead of asking permission to steal away her escort for a moment, had announced that the room were on fire.
    A moment later, standing some feet away in a darkened corner of the room, out of the range of the dancers and at some distance from the musicians, so the noise was not quite as oppressive, Nicola whirled to face Nathaniel. She was a bit alarmed to find, when she did so, that Nathaniel’s face was only a few inches from hers. She had not been aware he’d been standing quite so close to her. Still, backing down would look as if she were intimidated by him, which she most certainly was not.
    â€œJust who,” she demanded in a voice just loud enough to be heard above the music, but not loud enough for Stella Ashton, who was looking at them very intently indeed, to overhear, “do you think you are, Nathaniel Sheridan, to cut me?”
    He had the decency to blush, at least. Looking abashed, that familiar lock of hair falling over his eyes so that she could not read them, he said, “I didn’t cut you, Nicky. I mean, Miss Sparks.”
    â€œYou most certainly did,” Nicola declared. “You looked right at me at the punch bowl just now, and then turned around and walked away without saying a word!”
    â€œBecause I couldn’t,” Nathaniel said, “think of anything to say.”
    â€œOh, and I suppose ‘Good evening, Miss Sparks’ would have been too banal for someone of your great mental prowess?” She felt quite proud of herself over that one. Nathaniel Sheridan was too impressed with himself by half. Imagine thinking poetry a waste of time!
    â€œI ought to have said good evening,” came Nathaniel’s unexpected reply. “You’re quite right.”
    Nicola, having anticipated a battle of much longer and more heated duration, was taken aback by this sudden capitulation. She had never known Nathaniel to agree so readily to an accusation she’d put to him.
    â€œAre you quite well?” she asked a bit worriedly.
    Nathaniel regarded her steadily, his eyes still shadowed so that she could not read them. “Of course I am,” he replied. “Why do you ask?”
    â€œWell, because it isn’t like you to actually let me win an argument.” Nicola studied him through narrowed eyes. “Are you sure you aren’t suffering from an ague?”
    â€œYes,” Nathaniel said, and he suddenly tossed his head so that the lock of dark hair was flung back, and Nicola saw, all too well, what was in his eyes. And what was in them, she saw, was anger. “But I wonder if I oughtn’t be asking the same of you. What can you be thinking, agreeing to marry that bounder?”
    Nicola sucked in her breath. She ought to have known it was coming. Still, she hadn’t expected him to be quite that up-front about it.
    â€œIf it is Lord Sebastian to whom you are referring in that rude manner, Mr. Sheridan,” she said haughtily, “then the