Lady Lyte's Little Secret (8 page)

The notion sent Thorn leaping to his feet again. “As well as you managed last night on the heath?”

Felicity shot him a withering look. “Ah! Here is the
lecture you’ve been saving since last night. I doubt it will taste any less bitter, warmed over for breakfast.”

He had never seen this unpleasant side of her character during their time together. Thorn cursed himself. He’d been a fool to let himself fall under the spell of her wit, her spirit and her passion. Any man of sense might have guessed that such a vibrant rose could not lack for thorns.

Well, he was feeling the sting of them now.

“Last night you as good as owned you deserved a reprimand.” Thorn struggled to suppress the memory of Felicity burrowing into his embrace, sweetly repentant. “I tried to show a little forbearance, believing you’d already learned your lesson in more forceful terms than any words of mine could match.”

Felicity surged to her feet, a welcome color returning to her face. “Why, you pompous…How dare you scold me as if I was one of your flighty little sisters?”

“My sisters have more sense than—” Thorn choked back the rest of his words as another party of inn guests descended into the posting hall.

He forced himself to pitch his voice lower, though his anger had not abated. “We can resume this discussion in private when I return from Berkeley. In the meantime, I suggest you rest and take some food.”

“I told you, I’m quite capable of looking after myself.”

If he stood there a moment longer, Felicity’s stubborn opposition might goad him to shake her. Worse yet, her nearness and the strange stirring friction between them might make him sweep her into his arms for a kiss so fierce and brazen it would fuel juicy gossip at the King’s Arms for years to come.

As Thorn Greenwood executed a crisp pivot on his heel and strode away from her, Felicity struggled to subdue the storm of emotions that raged inside her.

How could she have taken the man into her bed night after night without ever guessing his true character? She’d thought him quiet, gentle and amiable, not the sort to demand more than she could give him or make a nuisance of himself in her life.

That was part of the reason she’d chosen him as her lover over a number of other candidates who had far more to recommend them. How could she have guessed Mr. Greenwood’s accustomed mild manner masked an iron will that vexed her beyond bearing even as it excited a grudging respect?

The only thing she detested more than being bossed and bullied was being manipulated.

Perhaps some good had come of Oliver’s foolish elopement if it had opened her eyes to aspects of Thorn Greenwood’s temperament that she had either overlooked or willfully ignored. Now she could cast him off without any troublesome qualms of guilt.

Glancing out the window, Felicity spied the highwayman. Now that she got a good look at him in the belittling light of day, she could see he was no more than a spotty-faced youth. Damn his callow hide for giving her such a fright!

His hands were tied and bound to the pommel of his saddle. He appeared to be pleading with Thorn not to turn him in.

Quite against her will, a twinge of pity tugged at Felicity. The lad would almost certainly hang for his petty crimes—mischief that had probably sprung from some rash devilment of youth with no pause to consider the consequences. Just the kind of impulse that
had propelled her to the altar with Percy Lyte at that age.

At least she’d survived her youthful mistake and learned from it. Felicity forced herself to look away. She gave a start when she discovered the innkeeper hovering nearby.

“We have a room ready for you, Lady Lyte.” He beckoned her toward the staircase. “Nothing grand, but it’s a quiet one at the back of the house. If you mean to rest, you’ll not be disturbed by noise from the road.”

“Thank you, Mr. Mobley.” Felicity smothered a yawn. “I could do with a nap.”

Even before she’d set out from Bath last night, she’d found herself unaccountably weary during the day. Now she could scarcely keep her eyes open.

“A very agreeable gentleman, that Mr. Greenwood,” the innkeeper remarked as he led Felicity up the stairs. “You’ll be pleased to welcome him into the family, no doubt.”

“Family?” Were her feelings for Thorn that transparent?

“Aye, ma’am. With your nephew wed to his sister.” The innkeeper glanced back at her with a knowing grin. “Did you and Mr. Greenwood contrive the match, by any chance?”

Felicity resisted an urge to laugh. “Quite the contrary, Mr. Mobley.”

Either the innkeeper missed her meaning or he pretended to. “A love match, was it, then? Can’t say it surprises me to hear it. A body could tell just by watching the way she hung on his every word.”

Just as she had once paid such rapt attention to Percy Lyte? The thought made Felicity wince. It also
made her wonder what had drawn the vivacious Miss Greenwood to a quiet young man like her nephew, if not the fortune he stood to inherit.

“Here we are ma’am.” The innkeeper halted before the last door along the passageway and pushed it open for her. “Shall I send the wife up with a tray of breakfast for you?”

Just then the scent of food drifted upstairs, sending Felicity’s stomach into rebellion. “Tea and rusks will be fine. I never sleep soundly after a full meal.”

“Tea and rusks.” The innkeeper chuckled to himself, shaking his head. “The wife lived on ’em when she was breeding.”

When he realized what he’d said, the poor man went as red as a radish. “Tea and rusks. Tea and rusks, indeed. I’ll have them sent up directly, ma’am. Be sure to ring if you need anything else.”

“I’m sure I’ll be quite comfortable, Mr. Mobley, as always.” Felicity found herself only slightly less flustered than the innkeeper.

She ducked into the room, barely resisting the urge to slam the door behind her. “He didn’t mean anything by it,” she whispered to herself as she wilted onto the bed. “He can’t possibly have guessed.”

Though she knew it was true, the innkeeper’s offhand remark had unnerved her all the same. In some curious manner, it suddenly made her condition more real to her.

A baby was growing in her womb—the child she had longed for and despaired of ever bearing. In some ways this would be even better than if she’d borne Percy’s child, for this little one would not carry all the dynastic ambitions of the Lyte family. It would be
hers, and hers alone, to raise and to love. To nurture and protect.

The intense conflicting emotions of the past few days slowly loosened their grip on her as Felicity pictured herself launching a toy sailboat with a small boy, holding a little girl on her lap while they played a duet on the pianoforte. She would finally know the untainted joy of childhood that had eluded her during her own youth.

Then her dream child turned its sweet young face toward Felicity, lavishing her with the tender, earnest gaze of Thorn Greenwood.

Chapter Six

F
elicity’s eyelids fluttered, then slowly opened.

On his seat by the door, Thorn fought to keep his own eyes from sliding shut. He had stolen into this room at the King’s Arms some little while ago to let Felicity know he’d returned from his errand in Berkeley and to advise her they ought to set off for Gloucester soon.

When he’d found her fast asleep on the bed, all soft and loose-limbed, he could not bring himself to wake her. Instead, he’d subsided onto the one chair these modest quarters afforded and drunk in the delicious sight of her.

Now she opened her eyes and looked back at him.

In that first hazy moment of waking, her gaze fixed on Thorn with the promise of a thousand springtimes shining in her eyes. Some dry, wizened bulb, buried deep in the loam of his practical heart unclenched itself then, sending a slender green shoot straining toward the sun’s life-giving warmth.

If he hadn’t been half-asleep himself just then, Thorn would have known that soft look was a mistake,
a passing fancy too sweet to last. Just like everything else about his romance with Felicity Lyte.

In the space of a heartbeat, her eyes widened and she sat up on the bed with a gasp.

“What are you doing here?” One hand raised to her bosom, as if to quiet a thundering heart. “How long have you been sitting there?”

Her tone, sharp with…hostility?…fear? sliced through the fragile sensation that had begun to blossom inside Thorn.

He might have barked out a sharp reply, but he was too weary. “Don’t look so alarmed. I was just watching over you while you slept. I haven’t been here above half an hour. I meant to wake you, but you looked so peaceful I hated to disturb you.”

He neglected to mention how hard he’d fought the urge to stretch out beside her on the narrow bed. If she’d woken to find him there, she might well have boxed his ears.

Perhaps it would have been worth it, though.

His soft answer did appear to turn away Felicity’s wrath. She rubbed her eyes and stretched, pulling the muslin bodice of her traveling gown tight against her breasts. The palms of Thorn’s hands and his fingertips tingled with the physical memory of touching her bare body.

He reached up to loosen his neck linen which had grown tight all of a sudden.

Felicity fixed him with a gaze that lay somewhere between her first soft look and the hard emerald glare she’d fired at him when she’d come fully awake. “Did you manage to get our juvenile criminal properly disposed of?”

“In a manner of speaking.” Thorn braced himself
for a row he felt too tired to fight. “You got a good look at the young bounder, I take it. Barely old enough to shave. His pistol wasn’t even loaded.”

“You let him go?” Felicity rubbed her eyes harder and stared at Thorn as if wondering whether she might be dreaming.

“Of course not.” How could she imagine he’d ever do such a thing? “The fool boy committed a serious crime, robbing and frightening people like that. All the same, I hadn’t the stomach to let him swing for it.”

“What did you do?”

“The local regiment was recruiting in Berkeley this week. I gave the young scoundrel a choice of being turned over to the magistrate or enlisting in His Majesty’s infantry. They need every man they can get if General Wellington is to put a stop to that troublesome Bonaparte fellow once and for all. The lad had sense enough to choose the army.”

Felicity sprang from the bed and flew toward Thorn. He prepared to defend himself yet again.

But what was this? Instead of the blow he’d expected, her arms went around his neck. She pressed her lips to his in a kiss quite different from any she’d previously given him.

The others—light and teasing, deep and sensual or fierce and hot—had all been exclusive to their lovemaking. This one had an intriguing air of innocence, beneath which Thorn sensed a greater depth of feeling.

A sweet, soft warmth infused him from head to toe, as though he’d tossed back a large snifter of distilled sunshine.

When Felicity finally let him go, looking almost as shocked as he by what she’d done, Thorn recovered
his breath enough to ask, “What on earth was that for?”

As soon as he found out, he’d be sure to do it again.

“That…” She bestowed a gossamer kiss on his brow. “…was for being such a wise, compassionate man.”

If he’d been half as wise as Felicity seemed to think him, Thorn would have held his tongue. But something in her kiss set free the question that had throbbed in his heart for the past few days.

He reached out to graze the tips of his fingers against hers. “If I’m such a paragon, what made you so anxious to be rid of me all of a sudden?”

Flinching as though he had struck her, Felicity looked vulnerable in a way he had never seen her. The shadowy compound of wariness and regret that glistened in her eyes almost made Thorn wish he hadn’t spoken.

But he had to know, and this might be his only chance to get an honest answer from her. “I thought we had an understanding, you and I. It all seemed to be going so well. Then, from out of the blue, I got your letter, ending it all. Do I not deserve an explanation, at least?”

“You deserve more than that, my dear Thorn, but I cannot give you more.” Her voice wavered.

Felicity pressed her lips tightly together and drew several deep breaths before continuing. “My decision was not due to any
fault
of yours. I should have taken greater pains to assure you of that in my letter.”

Her tone of gentle pity riled him. “I’m not a child, Felicity! You needn’t lie to spare my feelings.”

“Men!” she shot back with equal fervour. “You
are all alike. Thinking everything must center around you.”

“If I am not the problem—then what?” Thorn threw up his hands. “You admitted I deserve an explanation, so give me one that makes some sense.”

For a moment that seemed to stretch on for hours, Felicity stared at him without speaking.

Thorn’s ample supply of patience had nearly run out by the time she murmured, “Very well. Perhaps you are the problem, though not in the way you imagine. Did you never consider I might have grown
too
fond of you during the time we’ve been together?”

If he’d been standing, Felicity’s admission might have rocked Thorn back on his heels. Of course he hadn’t considered that possibility. He might not have believed it now, but for the look in her eyes and the blissful echo of a kiss that still tingled on his lips.

“I don’t understand.” His weary mind struggled to make sense of it. “Why does that present…a problem?”

Felicity shook her head, clearly exasperated. “Perhaps you are not as wise as I thought, Mr. Greenwood. Tell me, how did you feel when you received my letter, the other day?”

“Well…I…” Thorn sputtered. He wasn’t used to giving his feelings much thought, let alone putting them into words. The deeper those sentiments ran, the more difficult he found it to frame them properly.

“Did it make you…happy?” Felicity prompted him, like an impatient governess simplifying her question for an impossibly dull scholar.

In just the way a baffled, embarrassed schoolboy might have done, Thorn scowled and shook his head.