Handsome and gay, Nick starts the story as an awkward middle class boy from the provinces hungry to explore the wider world.
Fiercely intelligent, with a First from Oxford and a passion for Henry James, he is seduced by the beautiful things and people that he encounters through the glamorous Fedden family. As he increases in confidence, Nick becomes a self-assured and charming player in this new world of privilege.
Nick wants to be all things to all people but is never quite at home anywhere. He forms a protective bond with Catherine Fedden, whose illness interests him and whose sexual experience impresses him. He desires Toby, respects Rachel's upper-class languor and acts as a second son to Gerald, whom he treats with jovial reverence.
Nick is the embodiment of romantic readiness. He is quick to fall in love, and frustrated that each of his relationships have to be conducted as clandestine affairs. Though aware of the social gulf between them, Nick throws himself headlong into an affair with Leo, his first love, but has his heart broken as a result. With Wani, Nick acts as an indulgent parent towards a child he loves too much, constantly amazed by Wani's beauty.
