Lady Lyte's Little Secret (11 page)

All at once she recalled this place from her regular travels between Bath and her estate in Staffordshire. A deep stream ran beneath this bridge, its water flowing swiftly down from the Cotswolds, as if eager to merge with the mighty Severn.

A sense of alarm swelled in Felicity’s breast until it seemed to hamper the workings of her heart and lungs. She scrambled toward the riverbank. Just as she reached it, Thorn’s horse struggled up the steep incline, shaking water from its dark mane. Down in the stream, both Ned and Mr. Hixon were submerged up to their chests.

But where was Thorn?

The fear that had gripped Felicity when the highwayman accosted her carriage had been a mere twinge compared to the bottomless dread that now seized her in its ravenous jaws. How she hated being at its mercy!

Just then, the young footman dove beneath the water. He resurfaced a moment later with Thorn’s arm around his shoulders. Bobbing above the surface of the churning water, Thorn’s head hung slack.

Felicity clapped a hand over her mouth.

Mr. Hixon pulled Thorn’s other arm around his shoulders. Then he and the young footman struggled toward shore, burdened by the larger, unconscious man.

She must do something to help.

Fighting down her distress, Felicity rushed back to the carriage and dug out the lap robes that were used
when driving in cold weather. She scrambled back to the riverbank again just as her driver and footman wallowed the last few feet, burdened by the weight of their sodden clothing and the man they had rescued.

“Is he…alive?” Some superstitious dread made Felicity shrink from asking, but she
had
to know.

Too badly winded to do more than nod, her middle-aged driver gasped like a huge red fish landed by some angler after a hard fight. With a final great heave, he and the footman hauled Thorn onto the bank, then collapsed on either side of him, labouring for air.

“Are you sure?” Though she doubted she would receive an immediate answer, Felicity could not stop herself from asking.

As she wrapped one of the lap robes around young Ned, the boy strained to answer. “Aye…ma’am. He…retched up…a deal of…water…while we…was hauling him…ashore.”

Perhaps so, but he lay frighteningly still, now, sprawled on his belly where his rescuers had dropped him.

“Thorn, can you hear me?”

She tugged the lap robe over his shoulders and ran a caressing hand down his cheek. Side whiskers, a warmer shade of brown than his hair, softened the sharp angle of his jaw. They looked much darker, now, and tiny beads of water clung to them. The skin beneath felt frighteningly cold to Felicity’s anxious touch.

“Thorn?” Her voice grew more insistent as she shook his shoulder.

Then, as if it was the only answer he had the strength to give, more water gushed out of Thorn’s mouth. He began to choke and gasp for air. Suddenly,
Felicity felt as if she, too, could breathe again. When a passing breeze chilled her cheeks, she realized they were wet with tears.

She swept the hair back from Thorn’s face with trembling fingers as she glanced toward Mr. Hixon. Her driver’s face was slowly subsiding from its alarming shade of red and each breath no longer sent a great shudder through his broad chest.

“Did you see what happened?” Felicity asked.

Of course he must, to have responded with such swift action and sound judgment.

“Aye, ma’am.” Mr. Hixon pulled the lap robe tighter around him. Whether from the water’s spring chill or the shock of what had happened, his teeth began to chatter.

“M-Mr. Greenwood rode like f-fury to catch the coach ahead of us. Then it was like he d-didn’t even see the bridge in his path. His horse turned aside and w-went over the bank. I didn’t get a good look at what went on after that, for I was t-trying to get stopped to go to his aid.”

The other carriage—of course! The shock of what had happened had driven it from Felicity’s mind. Had it been carrying Ivy and Oliver? Had Thorn been so preoccupied trying to flag them down that he hadn’t noticed the approaching bridge until it was too late?

A low moan broke from Thorn, though he did not open his eyes. Felicity thought it one of the sweetest sounds she had ever heard.

She glanced from Mr. Hixon to Ned and back again. “What you did was truly heroic. I can scarcely thank you enough, but I will make certain that you’re both well rewarded for it.”

The driver gave a rueful grin, somewhat at odds
with his shivering. “I w-wouldn’t refuse, ma’am, but I’m pleased to have been able to come to Mr. Greenwood’s assistance. He’s a fine man, Lady Lyte.”

As the young footman nodded his agreement, an unwelcome heat rose in Felicity’s face.

Of course, she knew her servants must be aware of Thorn’s comings and goings from her Bath town house. But to hear one of them allude to her relationship, even in so roundabout a manner, made her feel ashamed in a way it might not if a less honorable man had been involved.

“Indeed.” She shifted the subject as abruptly as her carriage had hurtled off the road. “Now, we must get all three of you to some place warm and dry before the sun sets much lower. And Mr. Greenwood must be seen by a physician straightaway. Are you able to drive, Mr. Hixon?”

“Aye, ma’am.”

“Good,” said Felicity. “Have you both a change of livery in the carriage?”

Her driver and footman gave ready nods.

“Then by all means go change clothes,” she ordered them. “So we can get on our way at once.”

Master Ned did not need a second invitation. The words were scarcely out of Felicity’s mouth before he had scooted off to the carriage.

The coachman lingered a moment. “Begging your pardon, ma’am, but I often bring along a wee nip of spirits to keep the chill off during a long drive. If you could coax a drop or two into Mr. Greenwood, it might revive him some.”

“A capital idea.” Felicity barely refrained from admitting that she could do with a
wee nip
, herself.
“Send Ned with it once he’s changed clothes. Now off with you before you catch a chill.”

“Aye, ma’am.” Mr. Hixon took the lap robe from around his shoulders and laid it over Thorn before dashing off to the carriage.

Her servants returned so quickly they would have done credit to a pair of experienced actors changing costume between scenes. Part of Felicity’s judgment recognized and commended their haste. Yet in another way, every moment seemed to stretch and stretch, pulling her nerves taut along with them.

Though she’d continued to stroke Thorn’s cheek and call his name, he had yet to open his eyes. Both the chill of his skin and its grayish pallor alarmed her. A memory alarmed her even more.

Her late husband had never regained consciousness after being thrown from a horse.

Cold, dark water had swallowed him.

Thorn could not tell whether he was rising toward the surface or sinking forever into oblivion. He tried to rally his wits and his strength, but both had deserted him, sapped by the heavy, soul-numbing chill that threatened to suck the very life out of him.

Perhaps he was a fool to resist it when he had nothing to resist
with
…except his will. Perhaps he should just surrender and be done with it.

Then, as if from a great distance, he heard a single word whispered by a voice that made his heart beat stronger. That word, he realized, was his name.

He could not summon an image of the whisperer, nor could he give her a name. Yet her voice dangled in the black, torpid depths that entombed him, like a fine filament of gold. He could not frame the thought
properly, but he knew if he followed the slender thread, it would lead him back to himself.

Fearful that such a gossamer strand might snap or simply disappear at his touch, he grappled onto it with all that remained of his strength.

“Thorn. Thorn.” It vibrated like magical music on the string of an enchanted harp. “Come back, my darling. Wake up.”

A touch!

He had forgotten there could be any sensations but cold, heaviness and exhaustion. Now he felt pain that somehow defined the boundaries of his body. It made him want to lapse back into blessed numbness.

But he felt something else, as well. Something that persuaded him to brave the pain when a returning glimmer of sense warned him not to. The warm, gentle caress of a woman’s hand on his face and through his hair.

Memories flooded his mind in a shimmering cascade. Of dark silken tresses splayed over a plump white pillow and over a rounded white breast. Of soft lips and nipples like sweet, red Madeira. Of a slick, sultry chasm, that…

What was this? His body could feel heat, as well as cold? Pleasure, as well as pain?

He tried to move…to reach for her. Even to wrest open one eye so he could see her again. But his body refused to obey. It remained trapped in the remorseless grip of that ponderous chill from which his spirit had barely managed to break free.

As something warm and very soft brushed down the side of his face, he caught her scent.

“Can you hear me, Thorn?”

This time the whisper came from so near, he wondered
if it might only be a fancy within his own mind. Then he felt that touch against his face again, and he knew it could only be her lips.

Might her kiss restore him completely to himself? Thorn wondered.

When he’d been young enough to be cared for, rather than always taking care of others, his mother had liked to tell him whimsical stories of princesses wakened from deathlike sleep by the kiss of true love.

“So you see, my little hawthorn blossom, love holds great power if only we have the courage to use it.”

He hadn’t thought of those old stories in years. Nor of his mother in such an intimate way, lest it stir other memories that would riddle his heart with the kind of pain that now throbbed through his broken body.

Suddenly Thorn could picture his mother’s face more clearly than he’d been able to in years—a good deal like his sister’s, but without the faint shadow of sorrow Rosemary had worn until so recently. There had been a little of Ivy’s looks in that beloved face, as well. All of the charm without the often maddening caprice.

Had there been something of himself there, as well? Thorn hoped so. Just as he hoped he’d cultivated whatever special qualities he’d inherited from his mother.

A great wave of weariness washed over him. It promised an escape from all his hurts, if only he would trim his sail and let it carry him away.

Again his mother’s voice came to him with heartbreaking clarity. “I have to go away, my dearest boy.”

He’d known she didn’t mean to the seaside at Bournemouth or to take the waters at Bath, neither of
which had ever effected more than a temporary improvement in her delicate health. He hadn’t wanted her to speak of going away. He’d wanted to keep pretending she would soon be well again, though he could scarcely recall a time when she had not been ill.

“I feel so much easier in my mind knowing you’ll watch over your sisters for me. The baby, especially. It won’t be easy for her, poor wee thing.”

He’d been strongly tempted to refuse. Perhaps, if he declined responsibility for Rosemary and Ivy, his mother would not be able to leave. At the very least, she might fight harder to remain with them.

He’d wanted to ask why she was placing the burden of his sisters’ future on his young shoulders, rather than those of his father. Even though he’d known the reason as well as she did.

But he’d been a dutiful boy, so he had not refused. Nor had he questioned. He hadn’t given in to tears, either, though he’d sensed they might ease the tight ball of fear and grief that had lodged deep in his belly.

Since that day he’d done everything in his power to rear his sisters into the kind of young women who would have made their mother proud. And to see them happy. When Rosemary had finally wed his old friend, Merritt Temple, Thorn had felt half the weight of that pressing responsibility lifted from his shoulders.

If he failed to rescue Ivy from her romantic folly, his sacrifices would all be for naught.

So he fought on when he would much rather have surrendered in the hope of mercy, clinging to the tattered remnants of consciousness with dogged persistence that was a useful virtue…if not a glamorous one.

The next voice Thorn heard belonged to a man—some administrator of torture, evidently.

“Nothing broken, so far as I can tell,” the tormentor said in a jocular tone as he poked and prodded in a determined effort to break something. “He’s not much bruised, either, thanks to the cold water.”

“Sod off!” A harsh dry croak erupted from Thorn’s throat as he flinched away from the prodding fingers.

At least his body was obeying him again. Would his eyes open if he willed them hard enough?

They did!

Expecting to see a stretch of Gloucestershire riverbank or perhaps the inside of Lady Lyte’s carriage, Thorn started at the sight of a candlelit bedchamber. Was he truly conscious now, or still conjuring vivid fancies like the voice and face of his long-dead mother?

Heedless of Thorn’s ungentlemanly language, the owner of the voice chuckled and took another poke at a very sensitive spot on Thorn’s ribs. “Yes. I thought that might bring him ’round.”

“Keep that bloody finger off me!” Thorn cuffed it away and tried to make his eyes focus on the speaker. “Unless you want me to remove it from your hand.”

“His wits seem to be intact,” the voice chirped.

Thorn’s eyes decided to cooperate fully. At least he thought they did. The man he saw standing beside his bed, a stout little fellow with a hook nose and an old-fashioned periwig, looked less like a real person than like some figment of an overstimulated imagination.

The man thrust his hand toward Thorn’s face. “How many fingers do you see?”

“Three.” Resisting the urge to bite them, Thorn contented himself with a verbal snap instead. “Now will you please let me alone?”

“My examination is almost complete, sir, if you’ll indulge me a few moments more.”

“Make it quick,” Thorn growled. “Anything that ails me won’t be improved by your prodding. If you want to make yourself useful, fetch me a drink. I’m parched.”