Lady Lyte's Little Secret

“It’s my sister, Ivy. She’s taken it into her head to elope with young Armitage—Lady Lyte’s nephew.”

“Has she, by George?” St. Just sat up a little straighter, his dark languid eyes glittering with something like interest. “I wish I had a scapegrace little sister to get up to all kinds of mischief and keep me productively occupied rescuing her bacon from the fire.”

“I’d offer to lend you mine,” growled Thorn, “but I wouldn’t trust you within a mile of Ivy.”

He related the rest of his predicament. How Felicity had insisted on pursuing the young lovers without him. His desperate need to get ahold of a good horse and some money to finance his journey.

Whenever he was tempted to resent St. Just’s ironic amusement over the whole situation, Thorn did his best to conceal it. If he wanted to be on his way tonight, this man was his most promising source of assistance.

“I suppose you’ll expect me to keep all this lovely gossip to myself, now that you’ve confided in me.” St. Just drained his glass and rose from his chair none too steadily.

Thorn leaped to his feet. “It wouldn’t do me much good to fetch Ivy back from Gretna only to have her reputation ruined by word of all this leaking out. Then I’d be obliged to wed her off to Armitage in order to satisfy honor. For all you prattle on, Wes, you’ve always been a good friend in the pinch. What do you say? Can I count on your discretion and your assistance?”

“As to the first,” St. Just raised his hand, “I swear on my rather dubious honor.”

“As to the second,” he turned out his pockets, “I’ve just come from a monstrous night at the tables. I won’t tell you how much I lost or you’d be scandalized. Enough, I fear, that I couldn’t lend you a brass farthing until I have an opportunity to meet with my banker upon the morrow.”

“Damn!” The word was hardly out of his mouth before Thorn started to cudgel his brains for someone else who could help him.

Weston St. Just pressed the tips of his fingers together. “Unless…”

“Unless?” prompted Thorn. The word had a hopeful sound, but the tone in which his friend had said it made him uneasy somehow.

“Got anything on you of value?” St. Just cast a glance at Thorn’s signet ring as if appraising how much it might fetch.

“This.” Thorn twisted the ring back and forth on his finger, a sensation he’d always found curiously comforting. “And my grandfather’s gold watch and fob. It’s no good, though. I thought of that already. The pawnshops are all locked up tight as drums until morning.”

“I don’t mean you to hock them, old fellow.” St. Just stretched his long graceful limbs as though he’d recently woken from a refreshing night’s sleep. “But how would you feel about wagering them?”

Thorn opened his mouth to protest, but his host cut him off. “One good hand at the game I left behind and you’d have blunt aplenty to see you to Gretna and back. Three good hands and you could probably finance a Grand Tour.” He ushered Thorn toward the sitting room door.

“I’ve never been a gambler.” Thorn protested. “You know that as well as anybody.”

In a sense, he’d taken a flutter on his liaison with Felicity Lyte—hoping to win a jackpot of pleasure. He’d dealt himself a hand believing he had everything to gain and nothing to lose. Too late he had come to realize that he’d bet on his ability to bed a woman without falling in love with her.

The stakes had been nothing less than his heart. And he had lost it.

Weston St. John paused at the doorway and regarded his friend. “You may try as hard as you like to play it safe, old fellow, but life is a gamble any way you look at it. You’re welcome to stay here the night, then roust me out at some uncivilized hour of the morning to see my banker. Or, if you’re determined to be on your way before sunrise, you can come along with me and risk your invaluables on the turn of a few cards. Which will it be?”

Rubbing the face of his signet ring, Thorn struggled with his decision. The watch was so old it showed only the hour, which limited its use in all but the most leisurely time keeping. The signet ring was older still. Both had passed down, father to son, through the Greenwood line to him.

He had slight reservations about leaving his watch and ring as security against a loan, to be redeemed at the earliest opportunity. To run the risk of losing them altogether…

Of course he would still be head of the family without these ancestral badges of authority. Yet somehow, deep in his heart, it felt otherwise.

Reason assured Felicity Lyte she was following the only sensible course of action open to her. Her heart warned her otherwise, but she had learned long ago to place no trust in that capricious organ. Not even when her coachman agreed with it.

“Are you sure this journey of yours can’t wait until morning, ma’am?” Even Mr. Hixon’s massive hand could not stifle the great yawn that threatened to tear his face in two.

“I regret having to drag you out of bed at this time of night.” Keeping her tone polite yet insistent, Felicity resisted the urge to yawn in reply as Hetty helped her on with her cloak.

Even in May, the nights could be chilly, particularly when one would be sitting in an unheated carriage for many hours.

“I’m afraid this cannot wait. Is the carriage ready to go?”

“Aye, ma’am.” The coachman turned his old-fashioned tricorn hat around in his hands as he nodded toward the front door. “Where are we bound, if I may ask?”

“I hope to be in Tewkesbury by tomorrow evening.” Felicity made a few quick calculations, guessing when Oliver and Miss Greenwood might have left Bath.

She prayed her nephew had hired a post chaise, rather than relying on the faster stage coaches or, worse yet, The Royal Mail. “I hope we shan’t have to venture much farther than that before we can return.”

The coachman nodded, as evident eagerness to be out on the open road battled his fatigue. “At least we’ve clear weather and a good moon.”

He opened the door and held it for his mistress as she emerged onto the moonlit street. “What with leaving now, we’ll be through Bristol before even the market traffic. If we make good time, we should be able to stop at The King’s Arms in Newport for breakfast.”

“A capital suggestion, Mr. Hixon.” Felicity descended the front steps of her town house and climbed into her carriage.

They nearly always stayed at that clean, well-run inn on their way to or from Bath. If Oliver had hired a coach and spirited Miss Greenwood away some time after noon, they would almost certainly have spent their first night at The King’s Arms. Felicity could catch news of them there, perhaps even intercept them if they did not get back on the road at too early an hour.

The coachman scrambled up to his perch, and, a moment later, Lady Lyte’s elegant traveling carriage rolled off toward Bristol Road. Inside, Felicity smiled to herself in the darkness. She could picture the astonished look on Thorn’s face when she arrived back in Bath tomorrow evening with his chastened little sister in tow.

When she tried to stop picturing Thorn’s face, however, she encountered considerable difficulty.

Unbidden images of him plagued her. Thorn appearing at her bedroom door in search of his sister, his dishevelled state rather endearing. Thorn hovering over her when she’d stirred from her foolish swoon, a warm air of concern radiating from him. Thorn, angrier than she had ever seen him, full dark brows brooding like thunderheads on the horizon. No sooner did Felicity banish one memory of Thorn Greenwood than another rose to take its place.

Perhaps it was just as well she’d been forced to make this break with him now, before the unsettling influence he exerted upon her grew stronger.

As the horses settled into a steady, mile-eating trot, Felicity pulled her cloak tighter and wedged herself into one corner of the carriage. Resting her head against the smooth fabric of the upholstered seat, she tried to elude all thoughts of Thorn Greenwood by fleeing into dreams.

When that didn’t work, she decided to concentrate her mind on one subject sure to divert her from anything else.

Her baby.

Under her cloak, Felicity passed a hand over her flat belly in a gesture at once tender and fiercely protective. Despite all evidence, she still had trouble believing there could be a baby growing inside her.

How many times, during the early years of her marriage, had she prayed for this very thing, only to be cruelly disappointed again and again? Meanwhile, Percy’s tribe of merry-begotten offspring had grown apace. Each one an added insult, proof of his virility, to be cared for and educated by the bounty of her fortune.

How many odious cures had she endured for her barrenness? Sometimes downright painful, always humiliating.

Year after year, she had watched the lack of an heir eat away at her husband and at her marriage. Until she could no longer bear to look him in the face because she knew what he must be thinking. Why had he married this tradesman’s daughter, to refill the empty coffers of his noble family with her fortune, when she could not produce a child to inherit what he’d sacrificed so much to restore?

As Lady Lyte’s carriage drove through the tranquil shadowy countryside of Sommerset, a queer sound like the bastard spawn of a sigh and a bitter chuckle echoed within, too quiet for either the driver or the footman to hear from their outside perches.

Who had been the more gullible goose, Felicity asked herself—she or Percy? How could neither of them have suspected his mistresses might’ve had other lovers to sire their children? Foisting their maintenance off upon him because he had the wealth to provide for them and because he was so pitifully eager to prove his virility by claiming them as his own.

Now here she was, with child at last. By a man she had no intention of marrying.

Would Thorn Greenwood ever have consented to become her lover if he’d thought there was any danger of her conceiving? Felicity knew the answer to that, for Thorn had raised the question himself when she first approached him with her scandalous proposition.

He’d blushed and stammered with an awkwardness she’d found endearing in such a consummate gentleman. It had taken two or three tries before he could frame his query in blunt enough terms for her to understand what he was asking.

She had almost abandoned the whole undertaking then and there, rather than expose her painful past. Then some baffling compulsion, deeper than her embarrassment and self-pity, had made her confess the truth.

“Don’t trouble yourself on that account, sir. While we were married, my husband sired several children—none of them by me.”

To forestall any word or look of pity, she had forced herself to laugh. “So you see I am as free as a man to take my pleasure.”

Perhaps those words had tempted fate to play her for a fool. She would have the last and best laugh, though. Her fortune and her widowhood would make it possible for her to enjoy the pleasures of motherhood without the bothersome encumbrance of a husband.

Her conscience protested her thinking of Thorn Greenwood as an encumbrance, but Felicity turned a deaf ear. Even if she had been willing to risk marriage again for the sake of propriety, she’d gauge a husband’s suitability on a different scale than the one she’d used to pick a lover. Thorn would have been far down on her list of candidates.

“Perhaps I should have brought Hetty along, after all,” Felicity grumbled to herself. “At least her tiresome prattle might have distracted me from thinking about that man.”

Mustering more of the desperate resolution she’d employed to lock Thorn out of her bedchamber and order him out of her house, Felicity tried once again to evict him from her thoughts. She concentrated on making plans for herself and her baby once this troublesome business with her nephew and Ivy Greenwood was settled.

First, she would retire to the country for her confinement. Somewhere quiet, with a healthy climate. Far away from Bath and equally far away from the Lyte family seat in Staffordshire. Somewhere in Kent might do quite nicely. Except…

Did Thorn have a country estate in Kent? Felicity rummaged her memory, but could not recall. Had they ever talked about it?

No. They’d seldom spoken of anything beyond immediate trivialities, perhaps out of fear that it might lead to a deeper attachment on one side or the other.

“You’re thinking about him again,” she scolded herself.

If she wanted to know his home county, she should save her questions and put them to Miss Ivy on the drive back to Bath.

That sensible idea hit upon, Felicity settled herself to imagine the quiet, cosy household she would fashion for her family of two. She scarcely noticed her breath slowing to keep time with the gentle bounce and sway of the carriage.

Some while later, she roused slightly as the sound and tempo of the ride altered. Awake only enough to tell herself they must be traveling over the cobbled city streets of Bristol, she sank back into slumber.

She woke next in a sudden, disorienting manner as the carriage slowed abruptly, sending her hurtling forward onto the opposite seat. Darkness still wrapped the landscape outside. How long had she been asleep? Where were they?

High skittish whinnies from the horses penetrated the interior of the carriage as it came to a full stop. Felicity regained her seat, then reached up to rap her knuckles on the ceiling and demand an accounting from Mr. Hixon. The next sound from outside made her hand freeze in midair and her stomach churn in a way that had nothing to do with her pregnancy.

“Stand and deliver!”

Could someone be playing a tasteless prank? Felicity wondered as she scooped her reticule from the floor to hide in the folds of her cloak. Surely highwaymen were a fixture of the last century, not this one.

Or had travelers become more cautious about venturing over deserted stretches of road after dark? Thorn’s prudent warning echoed in her thoughts. It will be a difficult journey—perhaps even dangerous.

She’d been so anxious to distance herself from him and so impatient with his attempts to take control of the situation. What had she expected? Thorn Greenwood was a man, after all, not a lapdog.

“Give us leave to pass,” shouted the coachman. “What do ye want, anyway?”

“Wha’ d’yer think?” came the reply, followed by harsh laughter that made Felicity break out in gooseflesh. “Nice lookin’ rig like this, bound to have good pickin’s, eh? Let’s take a look.”

Felicity wedged herself into the corner farthest from the carriage door as she heard a rider dismount and footsteps approach.

“I’ve got a pistol cocked and I ain’t afraid to use it,” called the highwayman for the benefit of anyone inside the carriage.

Felicity fumbled in her reticule, extracting several pound notes from the large number inside. This knight of the road would never miss them. Though her pulse throbbed in her ears, she lunged for the carriage door and threw it open.

“Here.” She thrust her reticule toward a man-shaped shadow. “Take it and let us be on our way. I must get to Gloucester by morning—my mother is very ill.”

If such nefarious creatures had hearts, that story together with her ready cooperation might save her from being molested further.

Or perhaps not.

“I’m right sorry to ’ear that, ma’am,” the highwayman replied.

He shook the reticule. Several golden guineas at the bottom jingled. “Thanks for this little gift. But don’t be in too big a hurry to get on your way again. Those prads of yours sound a bit winded to me.” He referred to the horses.

When he took a step nearer, Felicity retreated into the depths of the carriage.

“Are ye as pretty as ye sound, I wonder?” A gloved hand reached in and groped toward her.

“I’m not at all pretty, and…” Felicity floundered for anything she could say that might deter this criminal from doing what he appeared intent on. “…and…I have the pox!”

Felicity heard a dull thud, then the highwayman pitched into the carriage. The scream she’d been choking back for some minutes ripped from her throat.

Chapter Four

Thorn Greenwood shifted in his saddle. He’d been riding hard for several hours on a succession of narrow county roads which skirted around Bristol to reach the highway that ran between that bustling port and the city of Gloucester, over thirty miles to the north. A bilious sense of urgency gripped his belly as he spurred the spirited mount St. Just had loaned him.

A brisk west wind from off the mouth of the Severn whipped the horse’s mane and threatened to snatch away Thorn’s hat. He jammed it down tighter and kept riding.

“I should never have let her leave Bath without me,” Thorn muttered aloud the words that had drummed in his head over and over while he’d been riding.

The full moon hung low in the sky, casting a pale ghostly light over the heath and on the black ribbon of road that wound through it. Thorn squinted into the shadowy darkness, straining to catch the faintest sign of Felicity’s carriage.

Might he have reached the highway before her? Or was she several long miles ahead of him on this lonely, perilous stretch of road?

Thorn did not have long to ponder the question, for just then his horse reached the crest of a slight rise. From that vantage he could make out a small bobbing light not far ahead—one that he prayed was being cast by a driving lamp on Felicity’s carriage.

A sigh of relief rose to his lips, only to be sucked back in a gasp. The light had abruptly stopped moving.

That might mean any number of things, but at the moment Thorn could think of only one. Crouching low in the saddle, he urged his flagging horse to one last desperate dash, fearing he might be too late. The pounding of his heart outstripped even the fast-rolling thunder of hooves against the road.

In the instant he drew close enough to see, Thorn recognized Felicity’s equipage. The flame of satisfaction that flared within him rapidly quenched at the sight of a man preparing to enter the carriage box.

A man with a white handkerchief shrouding the lower portion of his face.

As Thorn drew near the carriage, he reined in his mount, then hurled himself from the saddle onto the intruder. The two of them pitched into the carriage as a woman’s scream pierced the darkness.

The boneless sprawl of the man beneath him told Thorn the fellow had been knocked senseless. Just to be safe, he groped around the carriage floor until his hand closed over the highwayman’s pistol.

“Keep away from me!” cried Felicity. “Keep away, do you hear?”

Thorn struggled to speak so he could reassure her that all was well—at least better than it had been a few moments ago. But his flying tackle of the highwayman had both winded and stunned him. Unable to coax out any words louder than a whisper, he scrambled up from the floor, intent on comforting Felicity in his embrace, instead.

As he reached for her, she screamed again, loud enough to make his ears ring. At the same time, her heeled slipper came into violent contact with his midriff. Thorn doubled over with a grunt of pain.

He lurched backward, only to trip over the unconscious highwayman and crumple onto the seat opposite Felicity. Before he could catch his breath or collect his wits, she fell on him, scratching, slapping, pummelling like a wild creature. Thorn fell back before the onslaught, his hands raised to fend off the worst of it.

“Felicity!” he gasped.

Her attack did not abate. If anything, it gathered speed and force, each blow punctuated by a squeal or high-pitched grunt.

“Felicity, it’s Thorn.” He caught her deceptively fragile wrists in his hands to stay her assault and gave her a good hard shake to bring her to her senses. “You’re safe, now.”

She froze for a moment. “Thorn? Is it really you?”

Some overwound spring inside him fell blissfully slack. “Do you know anyone else daft enough to chase you halfway across the county at this hour of the night?”

“Thorn.” She choked out his name again. Then, with all the power and passion she had thrown into fighting him, Felicity hurled herself into his arms, weeping in great gusty sobs.

“Hush, now, hush.” Thorn gathered her close, stroking his side whiskers against her hair and fighting a fast-rising tide of desire that threatened to drown his self-control.

First, the headlong race to overtake her, spurred by his fears for her safety. Then, confronting the worst of those fears, only to have Felicity launch her furious assault upon him. It had fired his blood as hot as any love play—the physical contact, the heightened passions, the pounding hearts and panting breath.

And now, cradling Felicity in his arms as she unleashed a torrent of tears on his topcoat, her backside warm against his thighs, with only a flimsy barrier of muslin and broadcloth between his flesh and hers.

At that moment, Thorn would have bartered everything he owned for them to be back in Felicity’s bedchamber, rather than on the open road in a cold carriage with a dazed highwayman beginning to stir at their feet.

“M-Mister Greenwood?” a tremulous young voice inquired from beyond the open carriage door. “Is that you, sir? What happened?”

“Has Lady Lyte come to any harm, sir?” asked a second, deeper voice.

“Apart from a nasty shock, I believe she’s well enough.” Chilling thoughts of what might have befallen Felicity sharpened Thorn’s tone. “No thanks to the pair of you.”

“He did have a gun, sir,” the young footman protested.

The driver offered no excuse, but his voice sounded thoroughly chastened. “Is there aught we can do, now, Mr. Greenwood?”

The highwayman groaned and tried to sit up. Thorn applied some weight to his right foot, which rested between the fellow’s shoulder blades, forcing him back down.

To the driver and footmen who hovered outside, Thorn ordered, “Find a bit of rope to truss this black-guard up.”

“Very good, Mr. Greenwood, sir.”

“Tie him to his horse if you can find it, or to mine if you can’t,” Thorn added. “Then tether it to the carriage. We can turn this fellow over to the proper authorities at the first town we reach. For now, I believe we’d better continue on our way as quickly as possible, in case others of his ilk might be lurking about.”

Perhaps goaded by that warning, Lady Lyte’s driver and footman wasted no time finding some material with which to bind the highwayman, who sounded too befuddled to put up much resistance.

By the time the carriage had recommenced its journey northward, Felicity’s weeping had quieted to a volley of sniffles. Still, she made no effort to distance herself from Thorn. Greedily, he drank in the touch and scent of her, all too conscious of how much he had missed her in the short time they’d been apart.

Might the trouble he’d taken to ride to her rescue have changed her mind about terminating their liaison prematurely? he wondered as he cradled Felicity in his arms.

Hard as Thorn tried not to be enticed by that will-o’-the-wisp of false hope, he failed.

She ought to push Thorn away, order him out of the carriage or, at the very least, rail at him for frightening her half to death. But as her carriage sped on toward Newport, Felicity found herself unable to take any of the actions she ought.

There would be many long years ahead for her to manage without the warm, steadfast comfort of Thorn Greenwood’s embrace. For the present, she needed it more desperately than she had needed anything in a great while. And Lady Felicity Lyte was not accustomed to denying herself anything she needed.

She could not remember ever being so badly frightened. Her heart kept up its rapid flutter in her bosom, and despite a good warm wrap, she began to tremble.

“There, there.” Thorn stroked her arm.

Was it her imagination, or did he press a fleeting kiss on the top of her head?