Lady Lyte's Little Secret Page 13

  Could Fate be offering her and Thorn a similar opportunity? Felicity asked herself as the gentle slowing rhythm of his breath lulled her toward sleep.

  If only she could have the luxury of a little time and distance to think things through, away from the sweet but confusing distraction of Thorn’s constant presence, she might sort out her feelings. A quiet week or two at Trentwell, perhaps, once this business with Oliver and Ivy was settled….

  “Trentwell, of course!” Felicity sat up so quickly, she almost bumped heads with Thorn.

  “What’s the matter, my dear?” he struggled up from the pillows to put his arms around her.

  “It’s all right,” she reassured him. “I just figured out where we can intercept Oliver and your sister—at Trentwell. I’m certain Oliver would not pass so close without stopping there.”

  “Oh? Good.” Thorn didn’t sound quite as pleased as Felicity had expected. Perhaps he was still disoriented from being woken so abruptly. “Whereabouts is this Trentwell? How soon can we get there?”

  “In Staffordshire.” Felicity reviewed past journeys between Bath and Trentwell in her mind. “If we get away from here early tomorrow and make good time, we might be able to reach there before nightfall.”

  The prospect of eating at her own table and sleeping in her own bed appealed to Felicity vastly.

  “We missed them at Newport and Gloucester.” Thorn fell back onto the pillows again. “Let us hope the third time’s a charm.”

  “You know what they say, men—third time’s a charm.” Thorn strove to inject a note of hearty confidence into his voice as he looked from Felicity’s coachman to her young footman and back again, not long after sunrise.

  “Indeed, sir.” Mr. Hixon exchanged a glance with Ned. “So we’ll press all the way through to Trentwell today, Mr. Greenwood?”

  Forcing himself to ignore the signs of weariness on their faces, Thorn nodded. “Apart from stops to change horses. We’ll contrive to get a bit of refreshment and whatnot then, as well.”

  “I reckon we’d better get moving, then, sir.” Felicity’s driver jammed on his tricorn hat. “There’s many a long mile between here and Trentwell.”

  “I’ll take your word on that,” Thorn replied. “I know what with checking all the inns for some sign of Mr. Armitage and my sister, neither of you got much sleep last night.”

  Felicity emerged from the inn just then, looking distinctly the worse for her own sleepless night. At least the two of them might be able to catch a bit of rest in the well-upholstered, well-sprung carriage box.

  “I’d be glad to spell you at the reins for a while this afternoon,” Thorn continued, to the coachman, “so you and Ned can close your eyes for a few minutes, at least.”

  “It’s kind of you to offer and all, sir, but I couldn’t hear of it. I’ll manage well enough.”

  “Nonsense, man.” Thorn ignored the look Felicity shot him. “We’ve all seen the unfortunate result of someone handling horses when they haven’t got their proper wits about them. I’m sure Lady Lyte doesn’t want her fine traveling coach landing in the middle of some river.”

  “Well, of course not…” Felicity sputtered.

  Thorn smiled. “There, you see? That’s practically an order from your mistress. You and Ned would be doing us a favor, taking our places in that stuffy box so we can get a bit of fresh air and sunshine.”

  “I suppose, when you put it like that, sir…” The coachman climbed aboard while Ned held the carriage door open for Thorn and Felicity.

  They were a good mile or more on the road to Tewkesbury when she finally demanded, “What’s got into you? Offering to exchange places with my coachman so he can sleep in the middle of a journey? I never heard of anything so ridiculous!”

  “What’s ridiculous about it? Those men saved my life, Felicity. Just because they’re servants doesn’t mean they deserve no consideration.”

  Aware of his voice growing louder and his tone sharpening, Thorn asked himself why this mattered so much to him. It had to do with more than her footman and driver, he realized. It had to do with seeing people for who they were, rather than for what they owned or what they did for a living.

  He looked her in the eye and made a conscious effort to speak more quietly. “When you can no longer afford to employ as many servants as you’ve been accustomed to, you soon learn to appreciate everything they’ve done for you. Would it do either of us any harm to drive your coach a few miles on a fine spring day?”

  Another lady of fortune might have dismissed the notion out of hand, but Felicity seemed to heed what he was saying—perhaps even the deeper meaning beneath his words.

  “I suppose it wouldn’t be all that different from tooling around Sydney Gardens in a phaeton.”

  A beam of sunshine penetrated the carriage window just then, making the tiny dust motes sparkle like flecks of gold. A ray of hope shimmered in Thorn’s heart, as well, gilding the warm smile he lavished on Felicity.

  “Capital! It’ll be a lark—you’ll see.”

  One of her fine dark brows lofted in a dubious look. “Very well, then. On one condition.”

  Now it was Thorn’s turn to raise his brows.

  “I want to hear more about this Barnhill of yours,” said Felicity. “About growing up there with your sisters and the summers Merritt Temple came from school with you for holidays.”

  “That’s not much of a condition.” Thorn settled back into the corner of his seat and stretched his legs out. “I’ll be glad to give you a full account, though I warn you I’m not half as diverting a storyteller as Ivy.”

  “That’s not all.” Felicity made herself more comfortable in the seat opposite him, bringing her feet up to rest on his out-stretched riding boots. “I want to hear everything about your sister’s second courtship with her future husband. For instance, what sort of little push did you and Ivy give them toward the altar?”

  “Very well, I’ll tell you all about that, too.”

  Her request stirred a curious image in his mind. Before he had a chance to think better of it, Thorn heard himself say, “Shall I be like that sultan’s bride in the Arabian Nights—as long as I continue to amuse you with stories, you’ll keep me around?”

  The look that came over her face made him wish he could take back the awkward jest that had strayed too close to his true feelings. Her eyes seemed to hold a conflicting mixture of apprehension and wistful longing. Or did he only fancy a reflection of his own confused emotions?

  Before he could stammer out an apology, she confounded him with a flirtatious little smile. “You never know. Perhaps I might.”

  His thoughts buzzed with the implications of what she’d just said, though perhaps he was fooling himself and she hadn’t meant anything beyond a little banter.

  He was powerless to stop a daft grin spreading across his face, just the same. “I’d better get started then, hadn’t I? Hmm, what can I tell you about Barnhill? It’s very old, but not very grand, I’m afraid. Greenwoods have lived there for time out of mind. There’s a good beech wood nearby, which is probably where the family came by our name.”

  If he kept on at this rate, he’d put Felicity to sleep, rather than induce her to continue in his company. Thorn plundered his memory for any curiosities about Barnhill that might pique her interest.

  “A brook cuts through the estate to empty into the Ouse. When Merritt came to stay with us in the summers, he and I used to fish and swim there. Once, Ivy dared Rosemary to spy on us. To see whether we wore our breeches in the water.”

  “Did you?” A lively challenge sparkled in Felicity’s eyes.

  “Of course not!” Thorn lofted his reply toward her. “Lady Rose paid for her carnal curiosity when she lost her footing and tumbled down the hill into the water.”

  Thorn began to chuckle. “If you knew my sister, especially as she was then.” He shook his head. “Very beautiful and elegant. Not to mention overly conscious of her dignity. I wish you could have seen her cartwhe
eling down that riverbank, then plopping into the water!”

  “The poor child!” cried Felicity as Thorn’s laughter gathered momentum. “Was she hurt?”

  “Only her vanity.” Thorn gasped for breath. “But that took a terrible bashing. All her perfectly curled hair sodden and bedraggled around her face and her dress a ruin. It’s a wonder Merritt and I didn’t drown. We were laughing so hard, we kept falling down into the water. Rosemary flounced off with her nose in the air and refused to speak to either of us for a week.”

  “I’d have made it a fortnight,” insisted Felicity, though she appeared more amused than indignant on Rosemary’s behalf. “What else did you do for entertainment in the summers, besides cavorting naked in the brook and laughing at the misfortunes of your poor sister?”

  “Let me think. Battledore and shuttlecock matches when the wind was calm. Ivy and I played against Merritt and Rosemary. Sometimes we’d pack up a lunch and go off picking berries. Endless card games and chess matches on rainy days, or each curled up with a book in the sitting room, reading the best bits aloud to each other.”

  With a jolt, Thorn roused from his reminiscences. “Sounds tedious, doesn’t it?”

  Felicity shook her head. “Not at all. I’d have given most anything to be part of such goings-on when I was that age. Tell me, did you ever go to parties?”

  “Once in a great while the girls would coax us to squire them to the Assembly Hall in Lathbury. And I seem to recollect Sir Edward Faversham hosting a grand fete at Heartsease.”

  “Heartsease?”

  “A big estate not far from Barnhill. After Sir Edward died, the place went to some distant relation of his who put it on the market.”

  His voice trailed off. Happy as he’d been when Merritt Temple had come to Lathbury and bought Heartsease, Thorn had hated to see it pass out of the Faversham family.

  Might the same thing happen to Barnhill one day, if he had no sons?

  Chapter Twelve

  “There’s something I still don’t understand,” said Felicity a while after she and Thorn had taken over her coachman’s accustomed perch. “How did your brother-in-law come to own a large estate like Heartsease? I thought you said he hadn’t any money.”

  “He hadn’t when we were young.” Thorn kept his gaze on the horses and the road before them. “At least not much. Enough to put himself through school and buy a modest commission. However, my old friend returned from his time in Spain with General Wellington something of a hero. As a result of his fame, he caught the eye of…”

  For an instant Thorn’s hesitation puzzled Felicity. Then she understood. “A lady of fortune? Your friend married an heiress?”

  Thorn nodded.

  “Pity.” Her stomach clenched. “I had rather liked the sound of your Mr. Temple…until now.”

  “Merritt did not wed the woman for her fortune, if that’s what you presume.” Thorn’s hands tightened on the reins. “He loved her…or thought he did. At first.”

  A Royal Mail coach overtook them just then with a great clatter. It must have been behind schedule, for the maroon-liveried coachman did not spare his whip. Two young men, who occupied the cheapest places on the outside of the vehicle, shot curious looks at Felicity, perched up on the driver’s seat of her carriage. She barely resisted the childish temptation to stick her tongue out at them.

  The mail coach finally gained a great enough lead that Felicity could hear herself speak. “I take it the first Mrs. Temple failed to meet your friend’s expectations.”

  When love died in a marriage, no amount of money could provide a remedy. Unlike Merritt Temple’s first wife, at least she had survived her marriage to reclaim her independence. The thought of having gone to her grave unwept by her husband, then having him use her fortune to attract a second wife made Felicity’s gorge rise along with her temper.

  They rode on for a time, an awkward silence falling between them until at last Thorn broke it.

  “The truth is, Merritt failed to meet his wife’s expectations. He has never said an ill word about the first Mrs. Temple in my hearing, but Rosemary has let the odd remark slip. And I know my friend well enough to guess what his first marriage must have been like.”

  “And how do you guess it must have been?” Her question came out in a sharper tone than she had intended.

  Thorn shrugged and slanted a fleeting glance toward her. “The lady assumed she’d purchased him. For his fame, I suppose, and perhaps for his looks. From an ill-fed youth, Merritt had matured into quite a handsome fellow. His wife probably thought she had a right to order him around like a servant or some sort of lapdog.”

  If Thorn had turned and thrashed her with the coachman’s whip, which he hadn’t once touched to the horses, Felicity could not have taken a deeper cut. She had never treated Percy the way Merritt Temple’s wife had treated him. Had she?

  Did Thorn believe she would treat him in that high-handed fashion if he was fool enough to wed her?

  Pulling her cloak tighter about her, she stared off at the Midland countryside where the county boundaries of Shropshire, Worcestershire and Staffordshire got hopelessly mixed up.

  Almost as mixed up as her emotions.

  “Unequal fortunes can place a grave strain on a marriage.”

  Was she trying to excuse her past actions or to caution Thorn and herself against flirting with dangerous fancies? Felicity hardly knew.

  Thorn’s shoulders appeared to slump a degree or two—or had she only imagined it? “Merritt told Rosemary much the same thing when he first returned to Lathbury with his infant son, after his wife died.”

  Those words gave way to a wry chuckle—the last sound Felicity had expected to hear from Thorn just then. “The poor fellow almost ruined his chances with my sister then and there. He had no idea how our fortunes had fallen in recent years, and Rosemary was too proud to tell him. When he finally found out, Merritt assumed the worst—that Rose had kept the truth from him intentionally while she pursued him for the fortune he’d inherited.”

  “How awful!” Felicity’s heart warmed in sympathy for both Merritt and Rosemary. In either of their places, she might have done or believed just as they had.

  “A bad business, keeping secrets,” said Thorn. “Especially from those we love. Somehow whatever we’re trying to hide always comes out at the worst possible moment. Then it makes the situation ten times worse than it was before.”

  All the air seemed to rush out of Felicity’s lungs, as though she’d been clouted by a low-hanging tree branch. For a moment she feared she might pitch off the carriage.

  How would Thorn react if he found out the secret she’d been laboring to keep from him?

  That wasn’t hard to guess. He’d hate her for not telling him, but that wouldn’t stop him from insisting they wed—for the sake of respectability and duty. As grounds for a lasting union, those would be as inadequate as the exchange of wealth for fame or title that she and Merritt Temple had endured in their first marriages.

  She must have swayed or given some other subtle signal of her distress, for Thorn gathered the carriage reins in his left hand, then slipped his right arm around her shoulders.

  “Is something the matter?” He held her steady, with both his firm grip and his tone of fond concern. “I know the height and the motion can set one dizzy. Shall I stop and let your driver take over again?”

  “I’m fine,” Felicity insisted, praying she sounded sincere. “I only thought how awful for Mr. Temple and your sister. How did it all work out in the end?”

  “I had a hand in that as a matter of fact.” Thorn tugged on the reins to slow the horses as they approached a village. “The most devious bit of thinking I’ve done in my life.”

  He sounded touchingly proud of himself. “I knew that neither Merritt nor Rosemary could abide the slightest suspicion that she had wanted to wed him for his fortune, so I suggested he pretend to have lost his money in bad investments.”

  “That was devious.” A week a
go, Felicity would not have believed him capable of hatching such a scheme. But since the night he’d stormed into her town house in search of Ivy, Thorn Greenwood had proven himself a man of hidden depths. “Did your sister believe him?”

  “Why would she doubt it after what had happened with our father?” Thorn spared Felicity a quick sidelong glance. “Just as I’d hoped, Merritt’s pretended loss of fortune did nothing to lessen Rosemary’s feelings for him. They were married shortly afterward and have been happy ever since. I’d be dead envious if I didn’t love them both so well.”

  The wistful craving in Thorn’s voice echoed one that gnawed at Felicity’s heart.

  “What did Rosemary say when she discovered her husband had lied to her about losing his money?” Felicity asked. “Wasn’t that every bit as bad as her keeping the secret of your family’s financial reversal?”

  “Perhaps so.” He considered for a moment. “Rosemary may have decided that Merritt’s innocent deception set them even. I gather she forgave him most readily.”

  Thorn’s sheepish grin ripened into a rather devilish one. “Or perhaps it was because he told her the truth just after he’d made love to her on their wedding night.”

  “Indeed?” Felicity found herself laughing, though a quiver of unease went through her at the same instant. Was there anything she might not forgive Thorn if he asked during the lazy weightless warmth after lovemaking?

  Only half in jest, she inquired, “What if I was to tell you I’d lost my fortune?”

  Thorn greeted her question with a hoot of laughter. But after a moment’s reflection, his answer sounded as solemn and sincere as Felicity had ever heard. “I would tell you what Rosemary told Merritt and just as truly. It would make no difference to me.”

  Easily said under the circumstances. But how she longed to believe him.

  “Wait,” said Thorn. “Let me amend that. It would make a difference. I would prefer you without a great fortune. For then you could be certain my feelings are genuine. And there’d be no odious gossip about me wanting you for your money or you having to buy a husband.”