Little White Lies

by Sara Ackerman

  “There’s a small lake ahead, with a pretty view,” he explained to her. “You’ll rest there for a bit while we talk.” She nodded and settled her head on his chest, taking comfort in his strong arms and the steady beat of his heart. Too soon, they arrived at their destination and he set her down on the soft earth by the lake. He moved off behind her, only to return with his pack bag.

  “I thought you’d be hungry, so I rode into the nearest town and bought us some food from the local inn.” He shrugged in self-conscious embarrassment. “I had planned on coming to get you soon to break our fast by the lake. I thought you’d like looking at the view.”

  Her heart melted a little at his gesture. She patted the spot next to her. “Thank you, Tavis.” He ambled over to her and lowered his tall frame to the ground. Opening the pack, he served their meal of cold meat pies, bread, cheese, and fruit. “It was a very kind thought.”

  In companionable silence, they ate the meal Tavis had procured. When the last crumb was licked away, he lay back, cupping his head with his hands clasped behind his neck.

  “It was always on mornings like these, with the sun peeking over the horizon and the sound of birds stirring in the treetops, I could almost imagine myself at home again.” Watching him as closely as she was, she did not miss the wistful expression on his face. “Home again in the comforting green hills of Scotland instead of on a bloody battlefield in France.”

  “You were in the army?” After the last four days with him, she had expected as much.

  “Oh, aye. And a captain, to boot.”

  “Did you sell your commission, or are you on leave?” She tried sounding nonchalant, but it was difficult to do. Because if Tavis had a career as a soldier, she didn’t know how she would bear it if she had to let him go.

  “I did sell my commission,” he admitted, though the way he said it left Amelia to infer there was a but coming.

  “But not because I wanted to. About three months ago, I learned my brother and his wife had died, leaving my father’s estate without an heir.”

  Amelia felt a rush of compassion for him, thinking of the grief he must have experienced upon learning of the death of his family. “Oh, I’m so sorry for your loss, Tavis.” Laying her hand on his taut bicep, she squeezed it in sympathy. “I don’t know what I would do if I lost one of my sisters.”

  “Thank you, Amelia, for your kindness.” He had looked so sad when he told her about his deceased brother, and she thought he might say more to her, but the anguish she had seen on his face was replaced by a genial mask of good humor.

  “We had been estranged, in fact, for several years, and John—my brother—had been looking for me for some time. When my brother’s solicitor found me and informed me of his death, I sold my commission and went home to assume my responsibilities.”

  She had been right in her first assessment of him. He had been a second son. And as most second sons, he had bought a commission in the military. But because of several unfortunate incidents he was now… Amelia paused, coming back to the question that had plagued her since leaving with him. Who was he?

  He eyed her with caution, and she became uneasy at his expression. “What aren’t you telling me, Tavis? Who are you really?” she whispered.

  “I am Tavis McGuire, my lady, formerly Captain McGuire of Her Majesty’s Royal Army, and now the fifth Earl of Stanton.”

  Amelia’s eyes widened in stunned surprised. “You’re Stanton?” she squeaked. “Y-You lied to me!”

  She jumped up from the ground and stood above him with her hands on her hips, shaking in rage.

  “No, Amelia, I never lied.” He rose and backed away, using his hands to shield himself from attack. “I didn’t tell you all of my names.”

  “You knew I was supposed to meet Lord Stanton, and yet you played the fool at my expense, letting me ramble on and on about him.” She was furious with him, trembling in uncontrolled rage.

  “I did not know who you were until right before we went out to dance.”

  “Don’t lie to me again!” she screamed. “You knew who I was, and you decided to play with the freak, see if you wanted to waste your precious time meeting me.”

  “That’s not what happened. If you’d only listen to me, Amelia, I can explain.”

  Amelia was done listening. There was no Clarisse telling her to count to ten before acting in anger, and no one was there to restrain her actions. So when Tavis stepped toward her, she didn’t count or stop to think. She lunged.

  ****

  Though it had taken her some time, Amelia calmed herself down and was sitting on a log near the lake, while her companion washed his wounds in the lake. Even from where she sat, she heard him grumbling under his breath. “Serves you right, Tavis, or should I say Lord Stanton,” she muttered.

  “What?” he demanded. He stopped washing and was now glaring at her, water dripping from his hair and onto the once-dry linen of his shirt. She took a strangled breath as the wet shirt clung to his broad chest. Drat the man! After everything, I still want him.

  To cover her growing unease at her uncheckable desires, she waved and responded with false gaiety, “I said it serves you right. What a shame if your wounds turned putrid and you were to lose a limb, or better yet, die.”

  He doused his head with water one more time and stomped out of the lake. “You little hellcat,” he growled. “If you had listened to me before attacking, I could have told you what happened.”

  “Like I would believe anything you would have to tell me now.”

  A dark shadow loomed over her. Looking up, she was confronted with the imposing figure of a very wet and very large man. He stared down at her with teeth gritted and panting in restrained anger.

  “You are dripping water on me,” she said, dismissing him with a flick of her wrist. “If you were any sort of a gentleman, you would kindly step back.” She pushed at him, but her efforts were ineffectual. The man was like a stone wall.

  “Oh, no,” he said with grim satisfaction, capturing her hands in his. “You can’t cast me as the devil one moment and then expect me to behave as the gentleman the next.”

  “Fine,” she said on a huff. “I’m leaving.” She stood but was shoved down by Tavis’s blunt fingers.

  “You’ll stay, and you’ll listen to me, or so help me God, I will turn you over my knee and give you the spanking you so richly deserve.”

  Her pulse beat faster in alarm at the thought of Tavis laying hands to her. Or maybe it was beating faster from the thought of him touching her in so intimate a place. Either way, she shivered and decided to stay put.

  After several moments in which she remained mute, he broke their tense silence by saying, “I didn’t know who you were, Amelia, when you ran into me at the stables. I was not expecting anyone to venture there that time of night.”

  He blew out a large breath and started to pace. “It wasn’t until you said you were visiting your father’s stables I began to ken who you were. You asked me what I was doing in the stables, Amelia, and by the end of the night, you had figured it out for yourself.” He stopped his pacing in front of her. “I was planning all along to steal those horses you saw me take.”

  “But why?” she asked. “You are the Earl of Stanton and can buy anything you want.”

  “It all started with a bet.”

  At her interested look, he continued his story. “Are you familiar with the betting book at White’s?”

  “You mean the one listing ridiculous wagers placed by silly men so they can prove they are better than other silly men?” She arched a red brow. “That betting book at White’s?”

  “Er, yes. Well, as it turns out, my father and your father had a bet that was placed in the books when they were both at university together. I think my father must have been two or three years older than yours. One day, after classes, they were boasting about who was the better horseman and who would have the better stables when they each took over their respective estates. Each, of course, thought it wo
uld be himself, and that’s when the idea for the bet was born.”

  “I don’t understand,” she said shaking her head. “What does a bet at White’s have to do with you stealing my father’s horses?”

  He held up his hand to stop her inquiry. “I’m coming to that, my lady. While our fathers were vehemently arguing for their own talent, all the other lads at the school had gathered round and were keenly interested in determining who the better horseman was. Several ideas were tossed back and forth, but one young gentleman suggested a truly good horseman would be able to whisk away several horses from someone’s stables without anyone being the wiser. When questioned as to how that proved superiority in horsemanship, the gentleman replied only a truly superior horseman would be able to persuade a high-strung team of horses to willingly depart from their comfortable lodgings. And so the bet was struck.”

  “What was the bet?”

  “The gentleman who was able to steal the other gentleman’s horses from underneath his very nose would be declared the superior horseman. But since both of our fathers were highly competitive, it didn’t stop there. Once the first team of horses was stolen, and I believe it was by your father, well, my father had to get even, you see. He stole those horses right back and had them in their stalls before the week’s end. Soon after, those horses and others throughout the years were traveling across the countryside on a regular basis.”

  “How odd I didn’t know that about my father. All these years, and he never let on.” She gave Tavis a puzzled look. “Funny, isn’t it? How we can live with someone all of our lives and still know nothing about them?”

  Tavis gulped and pulled at his collar, his face flushing a dull red. “Er, yes.” Clearing his throat, Tavis said, “After my father died, the tradition seemed to die with him. Except your father must have decided to try once more to prove he was the better horseman, even though his rival had been dead for years. He succeeded again in taking those horses, and I imagine he thought my brother would continue the tradition he had had with my father. Unfortunately, your father didn’t know my brother was on his deathbed and therefore unable to act. At some point, your father must have discovered John’s death, because on my arrival home a note was waiting for me from your father.”

  “What did it say?” she asked, more than a little excited from hearing about such intrigues happening at her home.

  “He invited me to your sister’s ball, where he said he would divulge his little game and I could have my horses back if I were horseman enough to take them. It’s where he also invited me to meet you.”

  “So when I ran into you in the stables you were…?”

  “I couldn’t very well let your father get away with taking my horses, now, could I?” He smiled mischievously, bringing her in on his little secret. “I was looking for them when we ran into each other, so I could make a hasty getaway after the ball was over.”

  “Did you even want to meet me?” She felt her old anxieties returning, always feeling like she was not good enough.

  “At first I was reluctant, I admit, but your father was most persistent. He told me of your many accomplishments and your shining beauty. Aye, after that I was a little more eager to meet you than I had been.”

  “Yet you knew how I felt about meeting Lord Stanton, er, you.” She flushed when she met his gaze.

  “I did, except you failed to meet me, my lady,” Tavis reminded her. “I spent an hour in your mother’s company, delightful as it was, but it did not allow us to formally meet in the eyes of your parents.”

  “I am sorry, Tavis, but you had just asked me to run away with you. I needed to think.” A suspicious thought entered her mind, and before she had time to consider her words she blurted, “Why did you ask me, if you knew we were to meet so soon? Was this a game to you?”

  “Never, Amelia. As soon as I learned who you were and how you felt about meeting Lord Stanton, I didn’t want you believing I had been forced to meet you. After what you shared about your experiences with the gentlemen of the ton, I knew you weren’t keen on meeting me. But we also shared an easy camaraderie and a mutual attraction for each other. That’s the reason I asked you to run away with me as Tavis McGuire and not as Lord Stanton.”

  “What if I had showed and had met you as Lord Stanton?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe I would have taken you into the gardens and kissed you until you were no longer angry at me.” Tavis wiggled his eyebrows at Amelia, who rolled her eyes at his antics.

  “You are all talk, Lord Stanton. Kiss me until I wasn’t angry. Humph! You have had plenty of chances to kiss me—at the stables, outside my window, under the stars—and last night. And when you finally do, you push me away and sleep with the horses. I am beginning to think you don’t want me anymore.”

  “You can believe me or not, but I knew we had things to discuss. If you objected to what I had to say, I wanted you to be free to leave. Had I compromised you and then told you the truth, you might have felt compelled to stay even though you had come to hate me for lying. I couldn’t do that to either of us.” He reached his hand up to ease her hair behind her ear. “As you so perceptively pointed out, I may not know a lot about women, Amelia mia, but I do know in a marriage it’s the wife who rules the roost, and if she isn’t happy, no one is happy.”

  Taking her hands and kissing each one on the palm, he asked, “Not want you, you foolish woman? I burn for you, Amelia. Never doubt that.”

  She frowned and nibbled on her lower lip. “What if you change your mind after I tell you my secret?”

  “About what?”

  “I’m cursed,” she whispered, once again hanging her head, but this time in shame.

  Gentle fingers caressed her chin, pulling her head up. “Aye, lass, I already knew that.”

  “You did? And it doesn’t frighten you?”

  “No, mo chroí, your wee curse doesna scare a big, bad Scot like me,” he said in a thick Scots burr. “I want to know how it works, though, so I can be prepared in any case.”

  She let out a breath she didn’t even know she’d been holding. On the rare occasions she had revealed she was cursed, people treated her as if she had the plague. Even though she asked for her secret to remain one, it soon spread. Before long, everyone in town knew her family’s wretched plight. By the end of her first season, more than half the ton reviled her as an unholy spawn of Satan while the other half thought she was a ridiculous liar hoping to draw attention to herself by inventing ludicrous stories about a gypsy curse. It had been several lonely years since her come out.

  Tavis not only accepted her curse, he wanted to know more. A warm, happy glow began to chip away at the shield around her heart, giving her a warmth she usually found only with her family and Clarisse.

  “I’d like you to know, too.”

  Tavis dug out a blanket from his pack and spread it on the ground. Pulling her down with him, the two leaned up against the log as Amelia told Tavis how she came to be cursed all those years ago.

  “So, if someone were to ask you a question, you can’t tell a lie?” he asked, startling Amelia with his deep voice. He had remained silent throughout her lengthy story and explanation of how the curse worked, and she had almost forgotten he was there next to her.

  Almost, but not quite. His warm body pressed by her side was reminder enough he was near. “Yes, that’s right.”

  “What happens if you don’t answer someone honestly?”

  “I get very ill to my stomach, and sometimes I even faint.” Amelia shrugged. “Over the years, I’ve developed several tricks for delaying the inevitable truth I must tell.”

  “Like what?”

  “I speak over half a dozen languages. Did you know that?”

  “Aye, well, not that it was so many. Your father told me you were an accomplished linguist. How can speaking so many languages help you?”

  “If someone asks me a question and I don’t want to hurt their feelings, I reply in a different language. They usually find it ch
arming and forget all about the fact I didn’t answer them in a language they understand.”

  “Clever girl,” he praised.

  “I can stall, or ask people to repeat, but in the end I have to answer or I’ll be sick.”

  A speculative gleam entered Tavis’s eyes. “Then if I were to ask you a personal question, you would have to answer honestly?”

  She gulped and nodded, loving the rich way he rolled the “r” in the word personal. Tiny tremors of excitement began to form in her spine, and as they spread throughout her body she became lightheaded and giddy.

  “Did you ever have any serious suitors before me?” Tavis asked.

  Amelia was disappointed. She had hoped for a much more personal question than one about her past suitors.

  “What? Why do you ask?”

  “Just curious.”

  “No, not really. My first year out, I had several suitors, but most did not linger past an initial outing together. After that, word went around I was rude, and soon it was rumored I was cold. Suitors stopped calling after that.” She fidgeted with her hands and then laughed, a rather derisive, lonely sound.

  “Mother and Father never gave up, though, despite lack of interest. Mother especially took it as her personal mission to find me a husband, and Father even went so far as to pay gentlemen to dance with me. I can’t tell you how many of their friends they’ve thrown at me over the years.”

  “Was it very terrible, lass?”

  “Not at first, no. Some of the gentlemen were very kind and charming. I would be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy the attention.” Her eyes flitted downwards to stare at her fingers clenched in her lap. “But then, well, the men after that weren’t so kind or charming. Most were older than my father and several…” She trailed off and swallowed to hold back her tears.

  Tavis reached over to hold her hand. Giving it a squeeze, he prompted, “Several were what, Amelia?”

  She flushed and turned her head away, refusing to look at Tavis, his kind face so near her own. Amelia couldn’t bear to see his disgust when he found out. “Several tried to compromise me,” she whispered. “One would have, if my sister hadn’t happened to come along and found me. He…Jeremy was—and still is, I imagine—a house guest. My father took his side instead of mine. M-my father told me if I continued to wear such revealing clothing then I was just asking for male attention.”