A Lady Never Lies

by Juliana Gray

  Finn stood frozen, willing himself to remain calm, to give nothing away until the final instant, when he would . . . what? Leap to her defense? Spirit her away? What, really, was the proper etiquette?

  The duke eased downward. “Although,” he continued, bracing one hand on the floor, “I daresay she wouldn’t recognize the emotion if it slapped her on her pert little . . .” He stopped. “Bloody hell,” he hissed, and struck the floor with his fist. “She’s gone!”

  With every atom of his self-control, Finn resisted the urge to bend down and see for himself. “Let me repeat: She was never there.”

  Wallingford straightened at last and turned to Finn. His face, hard with suspicion, gradually softened into something like sheepishness.

  Finn allowed a smile to curl the corner of his mouth. “Can’t a man make himself a second cup of tea without having his workshop ransacked, after all?”

  “I suppose not.” Wallingford returned the smile, albeit grudgingly. “All right, then, old man. My apologies. I’ll just take my hat and be on my way.” He turned and picked up his peaked cap from the worktable, next to the white porcelain cups with their fatal tea still rippling inside. With a lithe motion he settled the cap on his head. “But do remember what I said, eh?”

  “I shall.”

  “And if you find yourself in dire straits, well, there are solutions to hand, as you yourself pointed out. Been driven to it myself more than once lately, ha-ha!”

  “Delighted to hear it,” mumbled Finn, wondering just how far away Lady Morley had hidden herself.

  “Daresay you’re a regular expert, with all your monkish notions about a quick . . .”

  “Wallingford. Go.”

  “Until dinner, then!” Wallingford slipped through the front door at last and closed it with a decisive slam.

  Finn closed his eyes and began counting off seconds, quite slowly. When he reached twenty, he called out, in a low voice, eyes still closed, “Lady Morley?”

  From his left came the sound of a door opening. He turned and opened his eyes to see her, face smudged, dress disheveled, emerging from the cabinet.

  “Is the coast clear?” She wore the barest hint of a rueful smile.

  “Yes. Are you all right?”

  “Yes.” She stood there, hesitating, smoothing her dress with both hands in long, mechanical strokes, then moving on to pat her hair, which straggled from her chignon in untidy waves.

  Finn realized he was trembling. “Can I . . . I suppose your tea is cold . . .”

  “Oh, the damned tea . . .” She brushed a strand of hair from her cheek.

  “Do sit down,” he said, more decisively. “You must be done in. I’ll make more tea.”

  “Why?” she said, shaking her head. “Why did you do that?”

  “Do what?”

  “Hide me like that. And it would be so much easier if Penhallow or Wallingford assisted you, instead of me. Why did you chase them off?” Her eyes were bright, gleaming, watching him with peculiar intensity.

  “It was the honorable thing to do.” He wanted to shrug, to demonstrate a certain amount of nonchalance, but his shoulders wouldn’t obey him. “I let you stay, after all. You were under my protection. You had a right to expect it.”

  Her eyes fell away at last, down to study the tips of his toes. “Thank you.”

  Silence gathered between them, thick and full and expectant. The sun had shifted and was now pouring through the south window, warming the air, striking the back of Finn’s neck in a hot beam and turning the skin of Lady Morley’s face into gold. He turned and strode to the long table against the wall, where he’d made the tea less than an hour ago, a lifetime ago. His hands began to fiddle with the objects there, arranging them, gathering up the tea things to put back in the cabinet, forgetting entirely that he’d promised her another cup.

  She cleared her throat behind him. “Rather fascinating, hearing you gentlemen talk with one another. You’re all quite frank, I see.”

  “Just the usual sort of rubbish.”

  “I couldn’t help wondering, of course, just what you meant by it all.”

  Wallingford, may God damn you and your descendants to the darkest pit of Hell.

  “Oh. Yes. That. Hands and . . . and whatnot. Haven’t a clue, in fact. Your guess as good as mine.”

  “No, not that. I mean before. What was rubbish, as you say, and what was sincere.” Her voice was clear and plain, not at all like her usual voice, as if all the layers of artifice had been stripped away.

  “Oh, I daresay . . . that is, I don’t remember much of it.” He looked down at his fingers, which were shaking. He pressed them hard against the tabletop.

  “Wallingford said . . .” She hesitated, and went on. “I suppose you were wondering what Wallingford meant, about . . .”

  “About?”

  “About . . . kissing.”

  Finn squeezed his eyes shut. The sound of her voice, floating behind him in the warm, still air, was almost unbearable. “Yes. That. I seem to recall he’d mentioned it before.”

  “I want you to know . . . I want you to know that it only happened once. A very long time ago.” Her voice slid downward, soft and low. “I was so young, you see. I’d just come out. I thought”—a little choke—“I had all these romantic notions, as girls do. I thought I had only to fall in love with the highest in the land, and he would love me, and it would be all rainbows and sunshine and . . . Well, anyway, he kissed me, there on the terrace at Lady Pembroke’s ball, and it was lovely, sunshine and rainbows, just as I’d hoped. So ardent. You can’t imagine . . . a girl of nineteen . . . I was so silly. I thought it meant he loved me. The way he looked at me . . .” She stopped.

  He wanted to go to her, to take her in his arms, to tell her . . . what? He’d no name, no birth, no standing, nothing at all that Lady Morley sought. His mother was a fallen woman, living in Richmond in a house bought for her by a man who was not her husband.

  “Very silly indeed,” she said, more brusquely. “For you see, I went off to find him afterward, and at last came upon him in the library . . .”

  Finn drew in a sharp hiss of air.

  “Ah yes! I see you’ve heard the tale. So there I stood—oh, all very tragic and pathetic, his kiss still burning on my lips and all that—and there he stood, heaving away, his trousers about his ankles, a woman bent over the desk before him. Rather a clean break with one’s girlhood illusions, I daresay. I accepted Lord Morley’s offer a week or so later and have laughed at the notion of love ever since.”

  “I’m very sorry,” Finn said quietly.

  She didn’t reply. He felt her presence behind him, could sense the steady rhythm of her breath into the stillness.

  “Yes,” she said. “I expect you are.”

  His fingers idled about the bottom of the gas ring. “Don’t lose hope, Lady Morley. You’re young and beautiful. There are a few good fellows left in the world, I assure you.”

  “Beautiful. But I’m not beautiful, not really. I give a good impression of it, I suppose, but it’s not the same thing.”

  “Rubbish. You’re quite beautiful.”

  She hesitated. “Well, that’s very kind of you. I wish . . .”

  “You wish?” His hand clenched against the metal ring.

  “I wish . . .” Her shoe moved against the floor, a single hesitant step. “I wish . . . I want to tell you . . . how very beautiful you are.”

  His heartbeat thundered against his ears. “That’s absurd.”

  “No, it isn’t.” Her words came in a rush. “Your brilliant mind, and your face, and your eyes. And your hands—how I love your hands, large and clever, cracking walnuts and soldering wires . . .”

  He turned at last and saw her, standing in the middle of his workshop, gilt with sunshine, her face open and vulnerable and more beautiful than anything he’d ever imagined. Something shattered within him, a sharp, almost audible crack, and in two strides he’d crossed the distance between them. Her pink lips parted, r
eleasing a gasp of surprise or perhaps anticipation, and he took her face in his hands and bent his head and kissed her.

  * * *

  When Alexandra was eight years old, she had come upon the cook in the pantry in late autumn, filling glass bottles from a large iron-hooped oak barrel, one by one, and sealing them tightly with cork and wax. She’d asked the cook what she was doing, and the cook had answered that she was bottling last year’s yield of apple brandy—the Harewood estate was a respectable one, but hardly extravagant—for the master and mistress to drink through the winter. Alexandra, who loved apples, thought this sounded like an excellent plan, and the next afternoon, feeling thirsty, she’d tripped down the stairs to the pantry and opened a bottle of apple brandy and drank herself legless.

  Kissing Phineas Burke was rather like that.

  For all the suddenness of his approach, for all the passion with which his hands clasped the sides of her face, his lips moved gently on hers, slowly, as if he were savoring her, and the tottering remains of her composure collapsed at last. He tasted of tea and honey and himself, sweet and exotic and so perfectly delicious that her lips opened up beneath his, wanting more, wanting to absorb his flavor through every channel of her body. “Lady Morley,” he murmured, “Alexandra,” and she had never heard anything so deep and harmonious as the sound of her name in his throat, against her lips.

  “Phineas,” she breathed back—what luxury, to speak his name—and his hands moved deeper, speared into her hair, dislodged the rest of her pins as he caressed the back of her head in long strokes. “Phineas,” she said again, dreamily.

  He stopped and drew back, his breath warm on her skin. “Finn,” he said.

  His eyes looked into hers so deeply, so sternly, it took a moment for the word to make its way to her brain.

  “Finn?” she repeated breathlessly.

  “It’s Finn, not Phineas. My mother calls me Phineas.”

  She felt a smile spread across her face. “Finn,” she said, testing the word, and stretched her arms upward to circle his sturdy neck. The hair at his nape felt soft as down under her fingers. “Finn. Darling, marvelous Finn. Say my name again. Say it.”

  “Alexandra.” He settled her against him and kissed her again, boldly now. His silken tongue grazed hers, his hands slid downward to span the hollow of her back, and she strained hard against him, wanting to feel every inch of his body, to be surrounded and engulfed by him, until she no longer had to think and plan and act and pretend: She had only to exist.

  Had only to be herself at last.

  She hadn’t intended to entice him, not exactly. Almost until the end, she’d kept herself under exquisite control, reminding herself that the Dowager Marchioness of Morley maintained an irreproachable dignity at all times, even when wedged underneath the greasy reaches of an experimental motor-car with a feral dust speck gnawing at her throat. She’d listened to the patter of conversation, heard the way Finn defended her, heard the way the Penhallow brothers abused her—rather humbling, that—with admirable fortitude. Even the seductive effect of Finn’s forthright share my bed had been shrugged off in the end, in the surge of relief at the duke’s initial departure.

  No, she’d held out beautifully, and had even constructed an opening line to dismiss the experience as beneath her notice (What shocking dust beneath that motor of yours, Mr. Burke! Another minute and I should have been as dirty as you are . . .) when Wallingford’s words invaded her ears.

  Are you, Lady Morley? Are you in love with my friend Burke?

  And the answer her brain had returned, reflexively, before she’d had a chance to consider the question, made her legs give way underneath her. Only the thick wooden walls of the cabinet had kept her upright.

  Now, of course, that particular task was being performed by Burke himself, to glorious effect. His mouth traveled away from hers, down the line of her jaw to the hollow beneath, some sensitive spot she’d never dreamed existed, now nibbled delicately by his warm lips. The breath left her body. She sagged into his enclosing arms. She could have sworn that the sunlight dimmed for just an instant, beaten back by the mighty flame of their passion.

  Finn stiffened.

  “What is it?” she gasped out, clinging shamelessly to his neck. It could not end yet. It could not. She hadn’t had nearly enough of him.

  “Damn it all.” He took her hand and hauled her back to the cabinet and pressed a hard kiss against her lips before shoving her inside.

  A brisk knock sounded on the front door.

  “No.” She braced her arm against the cabinet door and eyed him fiercely. “Not this time. I shan’t hide any longer. I’ll call off the wager, do whatever . . .”

  The door began to open. Alexandra slipped under Finn’s arm and smoothed at her dress in desperate strokes. Not that any improvement to her disordered clothes would make any difference, she realized, given that her hair tumbled freely around her shoulders and down her back in wild, slatternly chestnut waves.

  Perhaps this wasn’t the cleverest idea, after all.

  But it was too late. A figure was entering the room, a male figure of medium height, backlit somewhat by the sunshine and not quite distinguishable to Alexandra. It was not, she grasped at once, with a gust of relief, either of the Penhallow brothers.

  “Why, Delmonico.” Finn stepped forward. “What a great pleasure. I . . . I hadn’t expected to see you here.”

  “Signore Burke! There you are.” The newcomer doffed his hat and held out his hand for a vigorous shake. “How pleased I am to have found you at last.” His English was nearly flawless, enunciated with great care and attention, as if he’d spent considerable time among Englishmen.

  “You received my last letter, I take it?” said Finn.

  “Yes, I did, though your location was nonetheless difficult to find. What has brought you to this—ah—remote idyll?” Delmonico took in his surroundings with a sharp black eye, which settled with polite brevity on Alexandra before looking away.

  Finn laughed. “Privacy, of course. But I beg your pardon, signore; I’ve been remiss. Will you allow me to introduce to you my assistant, Alexandra, Lady Morley?” He turned to her with the greatest respect, as if presenting a valuable treasure for Delmonico’s inspection. “Lady Morley, this is Signore Bartolomeo Delmonico, under whose hospitality we gather in Rome in July, for the automobile exposition.”

  Delmonico lifted his eyebrows. The sun struck his olive skin at an angle now, allowing Alexandra a better view of his face, with its regular dark features and friendly expression, cast in relief by a collar of startling height and whiteness. He wore brown English-style tweeds and a round bowler hat, which he removed with one hand while extending the other to grasp the tips of her outstretched fingers with unctuous correctness. “A pleasure, Lady Morley,” he said, and looked back at Finn. “A fortunate fellow you are, to have acquired such an amiable assistant.”

  “Lady Morley is remarkably able.”

  Alexandra found her voice. “Oh, very able,” she said, acutely conscious that she looked more like a five-shilling strumpet than the assistant of a legendary scientist and inventor. She indicated her grease-streaked dress. “Indeed, I’ve spent most of the morning under the chassis, as you see.”

  Delmonico ran his eye up and down her figure. “Indeed. Really, my dear Burke, your gallantry is wanting. Ought you not to have allowed the lady to wear your smock? It is a great shame, I believe, that a dress of such loveliness should be exposed to such filth.”

  “You’re quite right, of course,” Finn said, looking guilty. “Remiss of me.”

  “I have an apron,” Alexandra protested.

  But Delmonico wasn’t listening. His attention had already turned to the automobile in the center of the room, still on its blocks. “So this is it, Mr. Burke? Your great project?” He took a step forward, and a distinct crunch rose up from his shoe. “Dear me. Are these perhaps your hairpins, Lady Morley?”

  Alexandra’s face grew hot. “Why, yes, Mr. . . . S
ignore, that is, Delmonico. I believe they are.” She and Finn lurched forward at the same time, but Delmonico beat them to it, leaning downward in a graceful gesture and brushing the dozen or so pins into his left hand, which he held out to her with a knowing smile.

  “Thank you.” She twisted her hair back into its knot, shoving the pins ruthlessly into place as the cottage teemed with awkward silence.

  “They came loose, you see, while Lady Morley was removing her eye protectors,” Finn burst out.

  “Yes, I see,” Delmonico said.

  Alexandra tried to remember whether Tuscany was susceptible to earthquakes, and if so whether one (of the mild variety, of course) might be persuaded by fervent prayer to strike at that precise moment. Which was, of course, ridiculous. She was a marchioness. The opinions of a lowly foreign mechanic ought not to carry any weight with her whatsoever.

  Nonetheless, the time seemed right for a strategic retreat.

  “If you’ll forgive me, Signore Delmonico,” she said, in her loftiest voice, “I believe I shall retire for luncheon. No doubt you and Mr. Burke have a great deal to discuss.” She did not miss the relieved look that flickered across Finn’s rather thunderstruck features.

  Delmonico removed his hat and tucked it under his arm. “Lady Morley, I should be desolated to cause you to leave.”

  “Nevertheless, leave I must. Good day, signore. Mr. Burke, shall I see you at dinner?”

  “Yes, of course.” His green eyes burned into hers.

  “Splendid.” She turned and walked with ladylike dignity out the door and into the verdant Italian noontime, acknowledging the murmured masculine farewells behind her with a little wave of her hand. When she had cleared the cottage entirely she began to gather speed, and by the time she had reached the first terraced vineyard she was running, her skirts and petticoats all tangling about her legs, her face and lungs burning, her eyes aching with a half decade’s worth of tears.

  * * *

  There you are!” exclaimed Abigail, as Alexandra thrust through the door from the kitchen garden. “You’re just in time! He’s just arrived! Good heavens, you’re a dreadful mess. What on earth have you done to your hair?”