Lady Lyte's Little Secret

by Deborah Hale

  “Thank you,” Felicity managed to squeak. The gentle fumbling brush of Thorn’s hands had set her flesh atingle.

  She wiped the last residue of moisture from her eyes, thankful that by the time Thorn could see her clearly, the worst ravages of her silly tears would have faded.

  If that was vanity, well, so be it. She could not abide having an attractive man see her at less than her best.

  As she blew her nose, masked by the forgiving darkness, a thought struck her. “Are you all right, Thorn? After bringing down that awful man…then the way I went at you. I am so sorry. I can’t imagine what got into me.”

  “You were only doing your best to defend yourself.” Thorn chuckled. “And making an admirable job of it, too. I don’t believe I took any lasting damage, though.”

  A few blows from her wouldn’t have done him any harm, of course. But if that odious highwayman had managed to get off a shot with his pistol…Felicity would never have forgiven herself if Thorn had been injured on her account.

  “Well?” she prompted him, bracing herself for the reprimand she probably deserved. Thorn Greenwood seemed like a man who could deliver a stern scolding when one was called for.

  “Well…what?” He sounded genuinely puzzled.

  “The dressing-down you’ve been rehearsing in your mind ever since you left Bath.” Felicity blew her nose again. “Where is it?”

  “Oh…that.” Thorn gave a wry chuckle which succumbed to a deep, weary yawn. “It’ll keep until morning. For now, I believe we’d both be better served by an hour’s sleep if we can get it.”

  The poor fellow, he must be perfectly exhausted after spending the evening in search of his sister, then the last several hours in pursuit of her.

  “You talk sound sense, as always, Mr. Greenwood.” Felicity made a halfhearted attempt to rise from Thorn’s lap. “No doubt you would rest more comfortably without the burden of a blubbering woman to squash you.”

  She would likely benefit from putting some distance between them, too. It was difficult enough to keep regrets at bay without the sensation of his arms around her to remind Felicity what she would soon be missing.

  “You’re no burden.” With gentle insistence, Thorn drew her back into the protective circle of his arms. “Besides, I’m apt to sleep more soundly for the reminder that you are out of danger.”

  “In that case…” Felicity settled back into Thorn’s embrace. “I’m content to remain where I am.”

  More than content, in fact. Though she did not dare tell him so.

  “Thorn?”

  “Yes?” He sounded halfway to sleep already.

  She shouldn’t pester him with questions, Felicity chided herself, but she so liked the sound of his voice. “Wherever did you get a horse to come after me?”

  “From St. Just.” Thorn patted his pocket. “I’ve got blunt, too. Won it in a card game.”

  If Thorn had confessed to stealing the money, Felicity could not have been more surprised. “I thought you never gambled.”

  “Never did till tonight.” His words had the slurred, dreamy quality Felicity had heard so often in the past weeks when he’d held her close after their lovemaking. “Don’t know the devil about cards. It may have helped that I was the only sober fellow at the table.”

  “Perhaps a little beginner’s luck?” Knowing full well she shouldn’t do it, Felicity could not stop herself reaching up to brush her knuckles against Thorn’s side whiskers.

  “Perhaps.” He whispered the word as if it was the sweetest of endearments.

  Then, before Felicity could withdraw her hand, he tilted his head to catch her fingers between his shoulder and his cheek, nuzzling them in a chaste gesture of affection that brought a lump to her throat.

  She forced her question out past the obstruction. “How could you possibly stake yourself in the sort of bankrupting card game Weston St. Just favors?”

  Thorn’s head snapped up again, flinching from her touch in a way he had not flinched from her earlier attack. “I’m not a complete pauper, you know.”

  His fortune—or rather his lack of it. Even as she regretted her question, Felicity could not stifle a twinge of annoyance. How many years had she tread with bated breath around the subject of her late husband’s want of prosperity?

  At least Thorn Greenwood was making an effort to repair his family’s fortune. And by a more principled means than simply marrying the first available heiress.

  “I didn’t say you were a pauper. Most men don’t carry a great deal of ready money around in the middle of the night, that’s all.”

  Thorn did not answer at once. Had he fallen asleep, Felicity wondered, or was he too offended to reply?

  “I have an old watch and a signet ring,” he said at last, as if confessing to a crime. “St. Just managed to convince the other players they were worth something.”

  His admission stung Felicity in a vulnerable spot, just as her question about his gambling stakes must have done to Thorn. She knew very well the watch and ring to which he’d alluded. What price they might fetch from a jeweller, she could not guess. Yet they were priceless to Thorn—a reminder that he belonged to an old family of good breeding.

  Despite her fortune and the title for which she’d paid so dear a price, Felicity knew many people still scorned her as an upstart tradesman’s daughter. Suitable only as a mistress for a respectable gentleman like Thorn Greenwood, but never a wife.

  Such a union would cause no end of talk. And respectable gentlemen abhorred being a topic of gossip among tattles like Weston St. Just.

  Thorn’s arms relaxed their grip on Felicity, and his breath warmed her hair in slow, rhythmic gusts. As she steeled herself to put a great deal more distance between them on the morrow, a further significance of his gambling stakes struck her.

  He had gone to a great deal of trouble on her account. First, gambling his most valued possessions, then riding through the night to overtake her carriage. Finally, risking his life to rescue her from danger. Thorn Greenwood was not a man given to pretty speeches, but his actions spoke eloquently of his feelings for her.

  Percy Lyte had never valued her as anything more than a source of hard cash and heirs. And when she’d proven deficient in the latter capacity, her husband’s thinly veiled contempt had eroded something vital within her. Something that Thorn’s honest, unconditional affection promised to nourish.

  He had put aside his natural prudence to take a gamble for her sake, Felicity mused as the first feeble glimmer of daybreak gilded his strong, agreeable features. She, on the other hand, would need to curb her own daring impulses, lest they induce her to take a reckless gamble on Thorn Greenwood.

  And risk losing far more than she could afford.

  Thorn woke with such a violent start he might have dumped Felicity onto the floor of the carriage, if her arms had not been clasped so firmly around his neck.

  The jolt did succeed in rousing her from her own sleep, though.

  “What’s the matter, my dear?” she asked. “Did you dream about that awful highwayman?”

  “Ah…something like that.” Thorn struggled to curb the sensation of panic that galloped within his chest.

  He could scarcely recall his dream, now, though it had seemed so real and urgent only a moment ago.

  He’d been playing some curious game of cards for stakes that had grown larger and larger. Until he could no longer fold his hand without being ruined. Fear and reckless confidence had warred within him when he’d finally lain down his promising handful of hearts, only to be soundly trumped by strange cards that looked like miniature banknotes.

  As the winner raked in the pot, Thorn had realized that he’d risked both his honor and his heart. And lost.

  “Where do you reckon we are now?” He concentrated on slowing his breath as he disengaged himself from Felicity.

  Something about the unsparing light of day made it impossible for him to continue holding her in his arms, even within the privacy of her carriage.
No matter how much he wanted to.

  Felicity made an unsuccessful effort to smother a yawn as she peered out the window. She seemed no more anxious than Thorn to continue their awkward embrace. Perhaps he had only imagined the wistful warmth in her voice last night and that delicious brush of her fingers against his side whiskers.

  “We’re coming to a small bridge,” she said. “I believe Newport lies just the other side of it, and I have good reason to hope we may catch up with our runaways there.”

  As she told Thorn about her custom of stopping in that village when coming and going from Bath, Felicity shifted onto the seat opposite him. “Do you know the hour?”

  He fished the venerable timepiece from his watch pocket and consulted it.

  “After seven.” Thorn shook his head. “Your poor driver and footmen will be done in, to say nothing of the horses.”

  “I hope we catch Oliver and your sister before they’ve had a chance to stir.” Felicity stared out the window, ignoring Thorn’s gaze. Or, perhaps, avoiding it. “Then we can all take a day’s rest before returning to Bath at our leisure.”

  Thorn nodded and made vague noises of agreement, though with scant conviction.

  Of course, he wanted to recover his scapegrace little sister before she mangled her reputation beyond repair. But that would mean parting from Felicity again. This time, with no chance of reprieve.

  In spite of his disquieting dream, Thorn had trouble working up the least enthusiasm for that.

  Chapter Five

  Six hours after it had left Bath, Lady Lyte’s carriage rolled to a halt in front of a prosperous-looking inn. It stopped beneath a sign emblazoned with some royal coat of arms from years long past.

  Felicity made herself look Thorn Greenwood in the face as she strove to keep her tone casual. “Surely Oliver and your sister won’t have gotten on the road yet.”

  She was thoroughly ashamed of the way she’d lost her nerve last night. Screaming like a lunatic when Thorn and the highwayman had landed in the carriage, then pummeling her poor rescuer within an inch of his life. As if those weren’t bad enough, she’d further humiliated herself by bursting into tears, and clinging to Thorn like a frightened child.

  That he had borne it all with such generous sympathy should have made her feel better…but it did not.

  If the past thirty-odd years had taught Felicity Lyte one thing, it was that a woman must be prepared to look after herself and take her own part against the world. No one else could be trusted to do it for her—least of all anyone who wore breeches.

  She could not afford to let Thorn Greenwood convince her otherwise.

  On the seat opposite Felicity, Thorn stretched his long limbs as a wry chuckle rippled out of him. “If young Armitage can roust my sister out of bed at a reasonable hour of the morning, he’s a better man than I.”

  The significance of his words must have struck him, for Thorn’s brow furrowed. “Your nephew would hire separate rooms for them, I hope?”

  For some reason, that question rasped against Felicity’s tightly wound nerves.

  “Of course Oliver will make certain they have separate lodgings,” she snapped. “My nephew is an honorable young man. Just because he was foolish enough to run away to Scotland with your sister doesn’t mean he’ll compromise her virtue. It’s not as though she were an heiress and he a fortune hunter.”

  For over half a century, Lord Hardwick’s Marriage Act had made it more difficult for unscrupulous men to prey on naive young ladies of fortune. A truly determined number now chanced the long journey to Scotland where underage women could still wed without the consent of their families. Many an unprincipled scoundrel took the added precaution of relieving the young lady of her virginity during the journey.

  Thorn glared at Felicity. “Are you accusing my sister of pursuing your nephew for his fortune?”

  “She would not be the first.”

  The words had barely left her lips before Felicity wished she’d bitten her own tart tongue. Whimsical and imprudent Ivy Greenwood might be. For all that, she seemed a warmhearted, unaffected little thing—unlike some of the avaricious creatures who’d stalked Oliver during their past several Seasons at Bath.

  If she and Thorn found the young lovers at the King’s Arms, as Felicity was certain they would, she might never see him again after today. Perhaps if she picked a quarrel with him and they parted on bad terms, it might trouble them both less.

  Felicity wished she could believe it.

  Instead she feared the look of injured dignity in Thorn’s expressive eyes would plague her sleepless nights for years to come.

  “It might surprise you how many men and woman form romantic attachments with no thought of fortune, madam.” He could have hurled the words at her like an accusation. Instead, Thorn spoke them in a tone of quiet forbearance that vexed Felicity even worse.

  The acid retort flew out of her before she could contain it. “When there is no fortune involved, perhaps.”

  Thorn did not flinch or strike back, yet something in his steady gaze told Felicity she had just diminished herself in his eyes.

  At that moment, her young footman pulled open the carriage door.

  Plucking his hat off the seat beside him, Thorn Greenwood prepared to debark. “Let us go collect our strays and be done with it, shall we?”

  “By all means.” Felicity let him help her down from the high carriage box, acutely conscious that the chaste touch of his hand would probably be her last.

  Once she had firm ground under her feet, she forced herself to pull her hand away. Then she swept into the King’s Arms, leaving Thorn to follow in her wake or not, as he chose.

  She found the large entry hall abustle with a party of travelers anxious to make an early departure. Felicity peered around for any sign of Oliver or Ivy among the crowd, but saw none.

  She did recognize the innkeeper’s wife, threading her way through the departing guests bearing a breakfast tray for others who would not stir from their lodgings until a more civilized hour.

  Might a dish of buttered eggs and kippered herring nestle on that tray beneath the crisp white napkin? Felicity wondered. Oliver insisted a morning diet of fish and eggs stimulated his mental processes.

  Once again, his aunt asked herself how an aloof scholar like Oliver Armitage had become entangled with such a flighty little chit as Ivy Greenwood. However it had come about, Felicity vowed to disentangle her nephew. Even if it meant threatening to disinherit him.

  The innkeeper appeared just then to present the departing patrons with their bill.

  The moment he spied Felicity, he left his other guests to tally their charges while he marched over to greet her with an exaggerated bow.

  “Lady Lyte! A great pleasure as always, ma’am. We weren’t expecting to see you back from Bath for a few weeks yet. I fear your usual rooms have been let until the day after tomorrow, but of course we will endeavor to accommodate you as best we can. I remarked to Mr. Armitage just last night that his arrival was all the more welcome for being something of a surprise.”

  “So he is here!” Dizzy with relief, Felicity barely refrained from clasping the fastidious retired soldier in an embrace that would have flustered him to death. “If you would be so good as to show us to Mr. Armitage’s room, I have an urgent need to speak with him.”

  The innkeeper’s smile faded as he shook his head. “There must be some mistake, ma’am. Mr. Armitage and his lovely bride dined here last evening. But after that they left for Gloucester to spend the night.”

  Behind her, Felicity sensed Thorn give a start at the word bride, though he said nothing.

  “Gloucester?” she repeated. “Are you certain?”

  “Indeed, ma’am. Mr. Armitage was most particular about it. I recollect thinking it a late hour for them to be on the road and hoping they’d be able to find vacant lodgings once they arrived there.”

  The innkeeper glanced at his other guests, who looked impatient to be off. “If you’ll e
xcuse me a moment, ma’am…?”

  Felicity tried not to let her dismay show. “By all means.”

  Once the innkeeper and his guests were occupied, she turned to Thorn. “Gloucester? What could have made Oliver press on so far? We always stop at The King’s Arms on our way to Trentwell.”

  “I’d say the why is rather obvious, wouldn’t you?” replied Thorn. “They’re eager to reach Gretna as soon as they can. Besides, Armitage is a clever young fellow. No doubt it occurred to him that if you gave chase, this would be the first place you’d come looking.”

  How dare Thorn Greenwood sound so calm and rational when her whole world had turned on its head? She had so counted on finding Oliver here and putting a quick stop to this whole troublesome business.

  Felicity felt her gorge rise on a bilious tide. “If we keep driving, might we reach Gloucester before they move on?”

  “It’s well over fifteen miles.” Thorn shook his head. “With market traffic, we’d do well to get there by noon. Even Ivy isn’t that excessive a slugabed.”

  If Felicity could have got her hands on her nephew and Miss Greenwood, she would have throttled them both. The last thing she needed just then was to be chasing the length of the country after them.

  “Besides.” Thorn gestured toward the window, through which Felicity could see her carriage. “We can’t simply pile back in and keep on driving. We need fresh horses, and your poor coachman and footman must get a little rest. Then there’s the small matter of that highwayman. We have to deliver him to someone in authority and swear out a complaint.”

  Was the whole world conspiring against her? Felicity asked herself as her palms went clammy and her stomach grew more sour by the minute. If she hadn’t emptied it so thoroughly the night before, she might have been violently ill in front of a room full of strangers.

  And, worse still, in front of Thorn Greenwood.

  It would serve the woman right if he left her there, Thorn fumed. With his winnings from last night’s card game, perhaps he should pursue young Armitage and his sister on his own, leaving Felicity Lyte to fend for herself.