Lady Lyte's Little Secret

by Deborah Hale

  To her surprise, Felicity believed the woman. She took a wary sip from the cup and found it a strange taste, though not unpleasant.

  Mrs. Merryvale nodded her approval. “If ye’re like most folk, ye’ll mend faster under ye’re own roof, my dear. Rest easy tonight, and I’ll give yer men leave to take ye on yer way in the morning.”

  She wagged her forefinger. “As long as ye promise not to make too great a haste, mind. Stop often to stretch your legs and take the air, then put in for a good supper before it grows dark.”

  “I promise.” Felicity took another drink of the strange tea. Now that she knew what to expect, she quite liked its queer taste. “I will take better care of myself from now on.”

  The innkeeper’s wife beamed. “Of course you will, my dear. Now I’ll leave ye to finish yer tea and get some sleep. That’s the best remedy for most ailments, I expect. Ring if ye need aught, whatever the hour.”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Merryvale. I hope I shan’t need to disturb you during the night, but there is one small task you could do for me now, if you would.”

  “And what might that be?”

  “Kindly assure Ned and Mr. Hixon that I’m in no danger and that their places in my household are secure for as long as they wish.”

  Their obvious loyalty to Thorn would make it impossible for her to take them with her when she retired to the country to raise her baby, which Felicity regretted. She would see them well-situated before then, however.

  Mrs. Merryvale beamed. “I shall be as pleased to pass that message on to them, lass, as I believe they will be to hear it. So don’t trouble yerself more on that or any other account.”

  “I’ll try,” whispered Felicity, as the innkeeper’s wife marched out of the room, knowing she could not promise more.

  Whether it was some power of Mrs. Merryvale’s brew or simply Felicity’s own weariness, a peculiar sense of peace stole over her. Though she did not understand it, nor entirely trust it, she gave herself up to it with a grateful sigh.

  A while later—Felicity could not tell whether it had been an hour or only a moment—the soft sounds of the door easing open roused her from a light doze.

  She coaxed her eyelids open just a little and glanced toward the door, expecting to find that Mrs. Merryvale had come back to check on her. Instead she beheld a familiar figure she had feared never to lay eyes on again.

  Thorn? Could this be but a sweet dream brought on by Mrs. Merryvale’s wholesome herbal draught? If it was, Felicity did not want to do anything that might dispel it.

  The man in her dream made no move to wake her, only stood silent, watching. Not daring to open her eyes farther, yet resolved not to close them as long as his dear image hovered in her view, Felicity gazed at Thorn, seeing him with a new clarity of heart.

  She had chosen him as her lover for all the wrong reasons, mistaking his obliging manner for weakness, his quiet constancy for dullness. She had turned a blind eye to his fine qualities, and when that had become impossible she’d fought a desperate, sometimes vicious, fight against her growing love for him.

  What had he seen in her that had made him tolerate her worst excesses? Felicity wished she could catch even a fleeting glimpse of herself through his eyes. How she yearned to be the kind of woman he had mistaken her for!

  After some considerable time, yet not nearly long enough to suit Felicity, Thorn backed toward the door with soundless steps. Since he seemed determined to go, she need not worry about some sound or movement of hers driving him away.

  “Please don’t go!” She struggled to rise from her pillows.

  Thorn started at the sound of her voice, then stopped as she had bidden him.

  He must be real. He must be here.

  Now what could she possibly say that would not drive him away again?

  “Y-you found me?”

  Even as the words left her mouth, she knew she was failing. Thorn’s features took on a tense, guarded cast.

  “What else could I do?” he asked. “These roads are no safer than they were when we came north, and I could not be certain you’d have the prudence to stop at a decent inn before dark.”

  She should have known. A vulnerable bud of hope in Felicity’s heart began to wither. Just because Thorn had come after her did not mean he still cared.

  He’d escorted her to Carlisle, so of course he would consider it his duty to escort her south again. No matter how he might abhor the task.

  “I was told you had taken ill.” Thorn could not mask the genuine concern in his voice.

  “I’m much better now,” said Felicity, anxious to make light of it. “Wrought up nerves on top of the long journey.”

  If she blurted out the truth, that she was carrying his child, Thorn would do his duty by her, even if he could not forgive the way she had treated him.

  She would not entrap him that way. Nor would she subject her child to life in a home full of veiled hostility and resentment on the one side, bitter regret and hopeless yearning on the other.

  But what if…?

  Was there a chance she could win Thorn’s forgiveness? Reawaken the love he had felt for her?

  “Oliver and Ivy?” she asked, determined to distract him from the subject of her indisposition.

  How ironic that the match she had worked so hard to prevent might now provide a bridge between her and Thorn.

  “Man and wife some hours now.”

  The severe set of his features lightened as he spoke of it, setting hope aflutter in Felicity’s heart on tiny, fragile wings of heartbreaking beauty.

  “I insisted they make their vows in front of a proper clergyman, at least.”

  “Thank you for that.” Felicity could not coax her voice above a whisper. Oliver married, and she had not been there, by her own selfish choice.

  Thorn took a step nearer the bed, but with an air of reluctance, as if drawn against his will. “Hard as this may be to credit, Oliver does love my sister, you know. And she him. No doubt they’ll have a squall or two over the next year as they come to know each other better….”

  His voice trailed off, but he soon rallied it. “With the support of their families to sustain them, I believe they’ll weather those early storms and come to see that their impetuous decision was a wise one after all.”

  Did she hear a pleading note in his voice when he spoke of the need for Ivy and Oliver to have the support of their families? Or was that only an echo of the pleading from her own heart?

  “I will not disown my nephew.” She sat up slowly so as not to ward Thorn off. Neither did she want to risk rousing the pain with him present. “It was wicked of me to threaten such a thing.”

  Thorn did not contradict her.

  “I remember how I hated being controlled by those who had power over me,” Felicity continued. “Today I used my power over Oliver—his inheritance and whatever feeling he may once have had for me—to control him.”

  Thank heaven she had wept herself dry of tears in the privacy of her carriage box. If she wept now in front of Thorn, she knew she might touch and turn his tender heart. But she did not want to win him back with pity any more than with duty.

  “I am so vastly ashamed of how I behaved this morning, I may never be able to bear the sight of myself in a looking glass again.” She hung her head.

  The soft sound of a footstep made her glance up through her lashes. Thorn had drawn nearer the bed. If she stretched out her arm, she might brush her forefinger against the breast of his coat.

  As he eased himself into a crouch, Felicity held her breath. In her heart, she prayed as she had never prayed before to a deity she’d previously never given more than lip service. One who had been invoked against her frequently during her childhood—powerful, controlling, exacting.

  Shadows had begun to lengthen in the late spring dusk. From off in the distance came the murmur of horses being stabled, luggage fetched and the muted hubbub of the taproom. Within the snug walls of Felicity’s room an expectant, fearful hush ho
vered, begging her to fill it with the anxious thunder of her heart.

  Now, if she extended her arm, she might brush the backs of her fingers against the warm, springy softness of Thorn’s side whiskers. Her whole arm tingled with the sweet threat to rise of its own accord.

  But while she struggled to keep it in check, her tongue turned traitor. “I don’t know which of you I maligned the worst today—you, Oliver or Ivy. You must all hate me now. I suppose I don’t blame you if you do. I am not very fond of myself, just now.”

  A question rose to her lips, unbidden. Not for Thorn to answer, but for herself. “I wonder if I have ever been?”

  Thorn gathered his composure around him like a wall, for he could feel a great wave of excitement building from deep in his toes that might crash down upon him, sweeping away everything in its path.

  “None of us hate you, Lady Lyte.” His tongue stumbled on the unaccustomed formality, but at the moment he did not trust himself to call her by a more intimate name. “Put that out of your mind once and for all.”

  He tried to ease the unspoken intensity between them. “It was Ivy who bid me come after you, though she swears today’s events have cured her of chronic matchmaking. I think that remains to be seen.”

  His attempt at a chuckle failed miserably.

  “Your sister is generous beyond her years,” whispered Felicity, “to take pity on me after I falsely accused her of fortune-hunting.”

  Then why did his sister’s gesture of forgiveness make Felicity look so stricken?

  She expelled a rueful sigh. “The fact that she wed my nephew in spite of my threat to disinherit him proves her feelings for Oliver are genuine. It grieves me to think I almost prevented him from knowing that happiness.”

  “But you didn’t.” Thorn ached to take her in his arms, if only he could be certain she would welcome it. “In a roundabout way, you may have done them a favor. Now your nephew will never once doubt Ivy’s love is for him alone. And she will treasure the assurance that he was willing to give up his very considerable expectations for her sake.”

  Felicity shook her head. “How I wish that was all it were—a ruse like the one you played on Rosemary to convince her and Mr. Temple of the sincerity of her affection for him.”

  An idea took Thorn by storm, kindling a smile that warmed his face from the inside out.

  “Who is to know that’s not all it was, if we support each other in that story?” His words gathered speed and conviction as he spoke. “We can claim we were only trying to prove to ourselves and to Oliver and Ivy that their feelings for one another were strong and true.”

  A chuckle bubbled out of him, a real one, this time. “By heaven, I wish I had been clever enough to come up with such an idea.”

  Felicity raised her eyes to his. The depth of pain Thorn saw in them choked off his laughter.

  She lifted her hand to shield her lips or perhaps to still a tremor. “You would do that? For me?”

  He nodded. “For Oliver and Ivy, too. I would rather they believe you a brilliant actress carrying out a convincing deception for their benefit, than…”

  Thorn could not make himself say the rest.

  To his surprise Felicity did not flinch from the harsh truth. “…than to have our future relations poisoned by the knowledge that I truly thought my darling nephew a fool and his dear wife a fortune huntress.”

  “Better for all, wouldn’t you say?”

  She had seldom looked more beautiful to him, though grief and weariness haunted her face. Her rich dark hair spilled over the shoulders of her white nightgown. The fine fringe of her lashes once again stood delicate guard over the secrets in her eyes. Her wistful-looking lips beseeched him to kiss them into a smile.

  How often in the past months had he come to her bed? For all the delight he had found there, Thorn had never quite trusted that he deserved his place in her arms. To know she had believed him capable of conspiring with his sister to dupe her and her nephew into marriage made him feel sorely in need of a bath.

  And yet…

  Felicity glanced up at him again. “I have done nothing to deserve such generous treatment from you, sir.”

  Venturing another look into her eyes, he saw such gratitude, as if she’d owed an unpayable debt that had suddenly been cancelled.

  Who, then, was the richer of them?

  Felicity, with her full purse, but so much else in her life empty? Or him, with a wealth of love from his family on deposit in his heart, yielding bountiful interest?

  Surely he could afford to extend her a little generosity?

  “On the contrary, Lady Lyte.” Thorn held his hand out to her, willing it to stay steady. “You have given me the happiest weeks of my life.”

  Her hand inched over the coverlet toward his, but hesitated before completing the journey. “They cost me nothing to bestow. In truth, I believe you gave me more than you received.”

  He beckoned her hand with his fingers. “Perhaps when a man and a woman both give freely to one another, without counting the cost, they both reap ample reward.”

  Slowly she bridged the physical gap between them, bringing the cool delicacy of her hand to rest against the firm warmth of his. “Can you ever forgive me, Thorn?”

  “Are you asking me to?”

  “Begging.”

  He closed his fingers over hers before she could withdraw them. “No need to beg. I believe I know why you said what you did, this morning. It was because of the way you were treated as a child, wasn’t it? And later, by your husband and his mother?”

  “Yes, but I make no excuse on that account.” Felicity raised her chin in a flash of defiant spirit. She might crave his forgiveness, but clearly she wanted none of his pity.

  “You have never treated me with anything less than kindness and sincerity. To compare you with those others was an undeserved insult of the worst kind. All the more so because I know how much your integrity means to you. Asking your forgiveness does not seem sufficient, somehow.”

  Before Thorn could answer, she hurried on, as if fearful of hearing his answer. “I can hardly say which I regret more—maligning you so cruelly or ignoring your excellent advice to reconsider my actions. Once reason caught up with my runaway suspicion I realized what a fool I’d been.”

  And that bitter knowledge had sickened her.

  Thorn could not find it in his heart to compound the punishment she’d already suffered at the hands of her own conscience.

  “I cannot pretend your accusations left me unmoved.” He raised his free hand to encase hers. “I should be grieved if you truly believed me capable of conspiring to entrap you—”

  “I didn’t!” Twitching her legs around until they dangled over the edge of the bed, Felicity brought her other hand to close over his. “I only thought the circumstances made sense, like the plot of a bad play.”

  She shook her head. “But when I tried to cast you in the villain’s role, you didn’t fit at all.”

  “I know,” said Thorn. “I know your fortune means nothing to me but a nuisance. I know I want you in my life, not your property. That’s what matters, in the end. That’s why I can and do forgive you.”

  He wasn’t certain what sort of reaction he’d expected from her. A tear or two, perhaps? An embrace would have been welcome. But Felicity held her place on the bed, gazing at him with a peculiar look he could not fathom.

  “Y-you want me in your life?” She spoke in a tone of hushed wonder that kindled a strange giddy joy in Thorn’s chest. “Still?”

  A slow teasing smile spread across his lips.

  “Well, of course,” he replied in the same tone he would use to answer whether the sky was blue or whether there were twenty shillings in a pound.

  For the rest of his life Thorn would remember her squeal of delighted astonishment as she wrenched her hands from his and threw her arms around his neck, sending them both sprawling onto the floor.

  It was not enough to hear his words. Felicity needed to feel his a
rms, strong and dependable around her. She needed the familiar reassurance of his kiss to be certain Thorn’s feelings toward her had not altered.

  All her senses quivered to a feverish pitch, attuned to any subtle sign that might contradict Thorn’s declaration.

  His arms closed around her as he lay on the floor, with her draped over him. His lips found hers with unerring aim.

  The kiss did feel different, somehow, than any they had shared before. But Felicity approved the difference—a new masterful confidence that set her flesh aquiver even as it soothed her afflicted spirit.

  She had been forgiven.

  Like a warm rain over parched fields, the enriching power of that unfamiliar sensation soaked into her heart.

  Her family had never forgiven her for not being a son. The Lyte family had never forgiven her for not bearing a son. And she, in turn, had never been able to forgive her husband’s infidelities. Not that he’d ever asked.

  Time and again on their trip north, Thorn had seen the worst side of her character—imperious, distrustful, insecure. Yet he had persisted in caring for her, even when she’d been bent on driving him away.

  Did Thorn also feel a difference in the way she responded to him? Until this moment she had always held part of herself back, fearful of giving away what she could not afford to lose. Now she offered herself to him completely, confident that he would accept the sum total of who she was, even those parts of herself she did not much care for.

  Oh, the warmth of his hands as they stroked her body through the thin barrier of her nightgown! The delicious potency of his kisses! Both the sweeter because she had expected never to feel them again.

  “If I were a fanciful fellow,” Thorn murmured between kisses, “I would say that even a wooden floor feels like a feather bed as long as I have you in my arms.”

  He made a droll face of exaggerated pain. “I hope you will not think it an insult if I say that bed of yours looks deucedly appealing after a long day in the saddle.”