Little White Lies

by Sara Ackerman

  “And here I was expecting you twenty minutes ago.”

  Tavis pulled out his pocket watch and winced when he realized he was indeed late for their meeting. “I was unavoidably detained,” he said.

  “I’m sure your lovely new wife wouldn’t have had anything to do with that, would she?” Wickes queried in a mild voice.

  “About that—”

  “Damn it, Tavis!” Wickes exploded and began to pace the small confines of the shack. “What were you thinking?”

  Tavis tried to reply but was not given a chance to speak. Wickes rounded on him and grabbed him by the front of his shirt. Though Tavis was a tall man, Wickes towered over him by several inches, and he used every bit of that advantage as he expressed his extreme displeasure.

  “You were supposed to get engaged to the chit and stay in London so you had time to conduct your own reconnaissance, not elope with her to the wilds of Scotland! That shouldn’t have been too hard even for you to handle, considering she was an unmarried woman allegedly plagued by a gypsy curse,” Wickes hissed. He released Tavis and stepped back. “Do you realize what kind of danger you have placed your new wife in? She cannot tell a lie, Tavis! Did you even think of the implications of that?”

  “Of course I did, Tom,” Tavis snapped. “Despite your obvious doubts, I am not a complete idiot. Her safety is my primary concern!”

  “Then explain to me what happened. Why would a man, a decorated officer and a goddamned national hero, no less, ignore direct orders from his chief officer and run off with some chit?” Wickes sneered and spit out, “I don’t care how plump her tits are rumored to be or how wide her arse, what possible reason can there be to explain your actions? Unless you were only thinking with your cock, that is. From all I have heard, in spite of her oddities she sounds like she’d be a willing partner in the bedroom.”

  A red haze filled Tavis’s vision, and he lunged at Wickes, crossing the room in one stride and pinning him to the wall. His hands circled Wickes’s neck and squeezed. “Don’t you ever speak of my wife in those terms again, you bastard! She is a good and honest woman, better than any other woman I’ve ever known. More importantly, she is my wife, Lady Stanton, and you will speak of her and treat her as the lady she is, or I will kill you with my bare hands. Do you understand me?” Wickes’s face had turned an alarming shade of purple in his struggle to take in air, but he managed to nod.

  Tavis released him, and Wickes beat on his chest, straining to fill his lungs with air.

  “Christ, Tavis, you nearly killed me!”

  “Had I wanted to kill you, you would already be dead.” Tavis retreated to the opposite side of the room, the pulsing anger slow to recede.

  “At least now I know why you did it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It’s obvious you care for her, if not already love her.” Wickes ran his fingers through his hair, clearly ignoring Tavis’s sputtering over the unexpected assessment. With a huge sigh, Wickes said, “This, of course, changes everything.”

  Tavis was still too busy processing what Wickes had suggested to understand what his friend meant.

  Exasperated, Wickes shook his head and began to explain his reasoning to Tavis as though he were a child. “If you care for her, Tavis, then it wouldn’t be ethical for us to use her as we had originally planned to get the information we need to implicate her father. And now you are married to her, well, I’m afraid you are done with this mission, old friend. I suppose we could target the older sister, or perhaps set up a new servant in the household, since Meeks has discovered nothing in all this time. Perhaps Blake would work. He’s quite unobtrusive.”

  “I don’t love her,” Tavis said. “We’ve…we’ve only known each other two weeks.”

  “Glad you finally rejoined the conversation, Tavis. I was tiring of my monologue,” Wickes replied, amusement lacing his voice. “But, yes, Tavis, whether you’ve realized it yet or not, you do love the woman, and as I said, that changes everything.”

  “I love her?” Tavis’s mind raced, thinking of all the little ways his life had changed since Amelia had become a part of it. For once, he was no longer alone and had found himself a witty, good-humored companion to share his life. It didn’t hurt she was also a beautiful, intelligent woman who shared his passions and, if asked, would share his burdens and his struggles, too. She soothed his fears and filled him with such a feeling of joy at times his heart felt…

  Oh, God! This was what I’ve been trying to run away from since coming home… This is what I was fleeing from.

  All of a sudden, his knees felt a little weak, and he sank to the floor, leaning his head against the rough wall. He stared at the empty space in front of him as he came to terms with this new epiphany. When he felt a hand on his shoulder, he looked up in surprise, having forgotten Wickes was still in the room with him.

  “I love her,” he said in a panic. “Oh, God! I love her! What did I do? How am I going to keep her safe now?”

  Wickes put his hand on Tavis’s head and pushed it forward, so it rested between his knees. “Come on, man, breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth.”

  Tavis sucked in a deep breath of air and blew it out in unsteady bursts.

  “I feel like my stomach has been ripped out my ear and shoved back in through my nose.”

  “I’ve heard love can do that to a man,” Wickes said. “Knocks a body flat on their arse, it does. Though I can’t say as how I’ve ever experienced it. Looks like nasty business to me.”

  Tavis pulled up his head and glared at his friend. “You’re not being particularly helpful, Wickes, so shove it in your hole, would you?”

  His friend laughed long and hard. “To see your expression, Tavis! You look like a stag who knows it’s been targeted and is about to be killed. I never thought you’d succumb to Cupid’s arrow, but it seems I was wrong.” Wickes offered his hand to Tavis and pulled him up.

  “Now, how about you take me to the house for some breakfast, so I can meet this lovely wife of yours?” Wickes clapped a still dazed Tavis on the back. “I don’t know about you, but all this talk of love has really worked up my appetite.”

  ****

  When Amelia failed to show for breakfast, Wickes suggested they get in a spot of hunting before the day grew too much longer. Unfortunately, it didn’t take his old friend long to recognize how distracted Tavis was, and he sent him back to the castle to Amelia.

  Sprinting up the stairs, he opened the door with some haste. Amelia was not there. Hearing the unmistakable sound of splashing coming from her dressing room, he bounded across the room and opened the door.

  “I’m not ready yet, Margaret. I’ll call you if I need you,” Amelia said.

  Tavis stopped in his tracks. With her back to him, he wasn’t able to see as much of his bathing wife as he would have liked, but the parts he could see were enough to cloud his vision and fire his blood. Large expanses of ivory skin peeked over the top of the bathtub, exposing clusters of tiny freckles on her shoulder blades. Large tendrils of hair drooped down the back of her neck, and tiny pink ears peeked out from beneath the mass of curls she had pinned atop her head. On silent feet, he crept up behind her, hoping his presence would be a welcome surprise.

  “Margaret!” Amelia snapped. “I said I’d call you when I was ready.”

  He placed a large hand on her shoulder and squeezed. When she turned her head, presumably to give the persistent Margaret a scolding, he smiled charmingly at her, telling her with his smile what he could not yet say in words.

  “Tavis!” she exclaimed, her expression changing from stormy frustration to sunny delight. “I thought you were away until later this afternoon. My maid informed me you have an old friend calling.”

  “I was planning on being gone most of the day, when I left,” he explained, “but once we were out, thoughts of you distracted me until I had to come home.”

  Unable to resist any longer the urge to touch her fragrant skin, he took a bar
of soap in his hands and worked up a sudsy lather. Reaching into the tub, he took her arm and began to smooth the fragrant bubbles over it.

  Amelia sighed and sank a little lower in the tub at his relaxing caress.

  Tavis finished with the one arm and moved on to the other. “I missed you this morning for breakfast,” he whispered into the tight curls at the base of Amelia’s neck.

  “Don’t you mean at breakfast?”

  Grabbing an ear between his teeth, he bit her before caressing the sensitive flesh behind her ears with his tongue. “No. I meant for breakfast.”

  A flash of ivory on the floor caught his attention. “What’s this?” He bent to retrieve the fallen paper and held it up, unable to disguise his curiosity regarding the crumpled letter. Though he wanted nothing more than to smooth it out to better read the content, he resisted until Amelia gave him permission.

  “It’s from Bea.” At his questioning look, she urged, “Go ahead and read it.”

  Smoothing out the paper the best he could, he read the letter from Amelia’s sister:

  Dear Mimi,

  Everyone has secrets, Sister. Me, Evie, Father, Mother, you, and yes, even your new husband. When you finally find out his secret, don’t condemn him for it. Remember what made you go off with him in the first place, and above all, trust him. He’s a good man.

  Bea

  “Who exactly is your sister?” Tavis asked. “How can she claim to know my secrets when I’ve only ever met the woman once?”

  He was worried. He knew what secrets Amelia’s sister referenced, but for the life of him he had no idea how she knew. Her knowledge was a danger to his mission, putting Amelia into harm’s way. That was unacceptable.

  “You’ve met her once?” Amelia asked, excitement in her green eyes.

  He didn’t understand his wife’s excitement, either. Why did Amelia care if he knew her sister? Did she know his secret? That did not explain her happiness. Like last time, she’d be angry if she knew he’d been lying to her.

  To cover his growing unease, he asked, “Is your sister some kind of a…a witch?” He turned to look at Amelia. “What are you grinning at?”

  She rose from the tub and dried off with a towel before slipping her arms into the sleeves of her dressing gown. “I thought…” But then she stopped herself, as if she were unsure what to say.

  A hint of alarm entered her eyes, but before Tavis began to worry what was going on, she asked, “Do you…do you speak…”

  Tavis grew worried. Amelia was pale and trembling, and he didn’t understand why. When she turned to the wall and reached a hand out to steady herself, panic replaced worry, and Tavis sprang to action. He reached his wife as her body slid down the wall and landed in a heap on the floor. Tavis leaned over her and shook her loose body. Amelia’s eyes opened only a little and she slurred, “D’you speak Greek?” before they closed again and she passed out.

  “Amelia,” he shouted. “Amelia!” He shook her by the shoulders again, hoping to rouse her from whatever illness had caused her stupor.

  He pressed his ear to his chest. When he heard the reassuring thud of her heartbeat, he sat back on his haunches, trying to figure out what to do, a difficult feat considering all of his blood had drained from his head the moment he saw her falling.

  The door opened, and a small woman with a plump frame bustled into the room. She spied Amelia lying still and pale on the floor and rushed over to her.

  “What did you do to her?” she demanded, shooting a furious glare at Tavis. “Why is she on the floor? Did she faint?”

  “We were just… I was saying…” Tavis spluttered, too taken aback by this small whirlwind of a woman who was, if he weren’t mistaken, eviscerating him with her eyes. Who does she think she is? He was lord and master of this house, and she would do well to learn her place now. “Madam,” he said in his loftiest voice, “I am Stanton, lord of this house and this lady’s husband. Who are you to accuse me of wrongdoing toward my wife in my home?” He finished his speech by crossing his arms over his chest and leveling his own cool stare at the woman.

  The little termagant didn’t back down, though, as he had expected. What she did do was to push him out of the way and kneel by Amelia’s side. Taking Amelia’s hand in her own, she put two of her fingers on the inside of her wrist, all the while muttering under her breath. Then the nervy she-troll took out a small vial of liquid and unstopped it. Placing several drops on her fingers, she massaged the liquid at the base of Amelia’s wrists and at the back of her neck. Those ministrations accomplished, she stood and went to the chair by the fire. Over it was draped a fine, woven blanket, which she snatched and spread over Amelia’s still form.

  Her immediate care of Amelia complete, she acknowledged Tavis, who had grown only angrier at Margaret’s silence. “I am Margaret, my lord, Lady Amelia’s maid and servant since she was no more than eight years old.” Margaret tilted her head to meet Tavis’s gaze. “I figure I’ve been more of a mother to her than her own was, and weren’t I the one who always nursed her since she were young?”

  Though he knew it was a rhetorical question, Tavis felt compelled to answer, given Margaret’s intense, steely-eyed stare. As though he were a naughty schoolboy being scolded by his governess, he mumbled, “But of course,” feeling that much more the fool for being cowed by his wife’s lady’s maid.

  Margaret nodded. “And seeing as how I was her nurse and maid, I know the only times my lady ever takes ill like this is if she has told a lie. Now I ask you again, my lord, what did you ask my lady that she would rather make herself ill and faint than to answer it?”

  The tension in Tavis’s body eased somewhat as he realized the cause of his wife’s unexplained sickness. Of course it was the curse! Because he had not seen it in their two weeks together, he did not know what to expect. Now he knew it was a lie that had brought on her faint, he felt more at ease.

  Yet if she fainted, it must mean my question upset her in some way. Otherwise she would have answered it honestly and not be unconscious on the floor.

  He tried to recall what they had been talking about before she fainted.

  “I had asked her why she was smiling,” he responded after replaying their conversation in his head.

  “That doesn’t make much sense.” Margaret looked as confused as he. She tapped her finger on her chin in thought. “Maybe there was something before that? There’s got to be something else to make her clamp up and refuse to tell the truth.”

  “We were discussing the letter her sister sent her, which was disturbing in and of itself.” Tavis felt the anger returning as he wondered again what it was his new sister-in-law knew about him.

  “Bea certainly knows how to disturb a body. What did she say in her letter?”

  Tavis glared at Margaret and debated whether or not to call her out for her impertinence. Chances were if he did reprimand her she’d only stare at him with those beady little eyes of hers until he broke down and answered her.

  Might as well save her the effort of glaring, at least.

  “In her letter, she told Amelia I had secrets. She urged Amelia not to condemn me for them when she found out.”

  He refused to squirm under Margaret’s steady gaze while she contemplated what he said. They passed several moments that way, the two locked in an intense battle of wills, until she spoke.

  “I won’t be asking you if you do have secrets, because in my experience most men do.” She held up her hand in defense when Tavis began to protest. “You know I speak true, my lord. No sense in denying it.”

  Motioning to the floor where Amelia still lay unconscious, she said, “You might as well pick her up and bring her to bed. It could be hours before she awakens again.”

  Tavis lifted his wife into his arms, being mindful to protect her head as he walked through the door into the master chambers. Laying her under the counterpane, he was struck at how fragile she looked and realized he had never thought of her in those terms before. She was normally s
o vibrant and full of life it was difficult for him to reconcile the woman he had come to know with this pale, delicate creature on the bed before him.

  “You can go about your day if you wish, my lord,” Margaret stated as she moved a chair closer to the bedside to better tend Amelia. “I’ll sit with her until she awakens. Don’t you worry.” She went to sit in the chair, but Tavis’s hand on her upper arm stopped her.

  “I will watch her, Margaret. She is my wife, and I will care for her.” For a moment, it seemed like Margaret would protest, but she must have noted the determined set of Tavis’s jaw and realized it was useless to argue with him.

  “Right you are, my lord.” Going into the adjoining room, she returned moments later carrying a small basin of water and a dry cloth. “If she gets hot, you can wipe her brow with a damp cloth. Sometimes it helps to put the cloth on the back of her neck, too.”

  “What about the liquid I saw you put on her wrists and neck? Should I do that again?”

  “I shouldn’t think so. It was just a bit of lavender oil to calm her down, you see. Every time she has one of these spells, her heart gets to racing so fast I worry it will pump clean out of her chest. I’ve found a little lavender oil on her wrist and neck helps to calm her, even while unconscious.” She took the small vial out of her apron pocket and put it next to the basin. “Here. I’ll leave it with you just in case she starts getting restless again.”

  “Thank you, Margaret. I will call if I have need of you.”

  Margaret curtsied and walked to the door. “My lord? I know you will have your secrets. It’s only natural.” She paused and seemed to be searching for what to say, something he doubted she had to do very often. “I would only hope…when she does find out what it is, she won’t be hurt too bad.” Margaret glanced at Amelia lying on the bed and smiled a tender, sweet smile. “She’s a special person, my lord, so kind and trusting.” Her voice wobbled a bit, and she curtsied again before reaching for the doorknob. “Ring for me if I am needed.”