Read Online Nicola and the Viscount by Meg Cabot - Free Book Online Page B

casting her a sharp glance. “You aren’t offended by what I said, are you, Nicola?”
    â€œI most certainly am.” How could he doubt it? Was he as dense as he was cowardly? “You’ve no business telling me how I ought to behave, Harold. You’re only a second cousin, several times removed, if I’m not mistaken. And though you might be my elder by several years, I’m quite certain I could still thrash you, like I did that day you tried to keep me from going swimming.”
    Flushing deeply at hearing this brought up—for it was a dark day, Nicola was sure, in any young man’s memory that he happened to have been trounced by a girl—Harold cried, “You were only six years old!” He glared at her. “You might have been drowned!”
    â€œIn a stream only four feet deep?” Nicola’s disgust with him deepened. “There’s the turnoff for Park Lane, Harold. Kindly take it.”
    Only the Milksop didn’t take the turn. Instead he pulled the horses to a halt and turned in his seat to face Nicola.
    â€œI believe I have every business telling you how to behave,” he informed her with what, for the Milksop, was a good deal of forcefulness.
    Nicola blinked at him. “Oh? Pray tell me what makes you think so. Because I’d be very interested to learn it.”
    â€œBecause,” Harold said with an air of self-satisfaction that was quite unmistakable, “I happen to have every intention of marrying you.”

CHAPTER SIX
    Openmouthed with astonishment, Nicola could only stare at the Milksop. Had he—or was it her imagination?—just proposed to her?
    â€œOh, yes, Nicky,” Harold said much too loudly, so that the people in the carriages passing by theirs—for Harold had already caused a disruption in the flow of traffic around the park by stopping in the middle of the track—looked at them curiously. “You heard me correctly. We’re getting married. I’ve already asked Father, and he’s all for it. He intends to post the banns at once.”
    Nicola, thoroughly nonplussed, gripped the sides of the phaeton and said to herself, Whatever you do, don’t laugh. Don’t laugh, Nicola.
    But it was too late. A bubble of throaty laughter came welling up from deep inside and burst from her before she could stop it.
    As she’d expected, the Milksop didn’t at all appreciate his proposal being laughed at. He said with a forbidding glare, “I’m quite serious, Nicola. And I would be a little more circumspect in my reaction, if I were you. You aren’t likely to receive many proposals, you know, a girl in your position.”
    â€œOh, Harold,” Nicola cried, reaching up to wipe tears of laughter from the corners of her eyes. “I am sorry. But you can’t mean it. You know we shouldn’t suit one another at all.”
    â€œI fail to see why not.” Noticing finally the annoyed stares he was getting from the drivers of other vehicles on the path, Harold at last released his team, and they began again to circle the park. “We have a great deal in common, you and I.”
    Nicola was tempted to ask just what, precisely, the Milksop thought they shared in common, but decided against it. She wasn’t at all convinced she could keep herself from chortling through his answer.
    â€œHarold, it would never do,” she settled for saying gently instead. For, much as she disliked him, she could not help feeling sorry for him. That he should love her enough to want to marry her…well, that she had never imagined. She was very sorry she’d laughed at him earlier.
    â€œWhy not?” Harold wanted to know. “I’m…well, fond of you.”
    And with that, Nicola stopped feeling sorry for Harold. Fond of her? He was fond of her? She hadn’t the slightest interest in marrying him, but she couldn’t help thinking that if she had been so inclined,