Lady Lyte's Little Secret (23 page)

This was, after all, their last decent chance to intercept Ivy and young Armitage before the young couple reached Gretna Green.

“No carriage traffic to speak of at all, Mr. Greenwood.” Ned rose from the bench by the inn’s front door. The brisk breeze blowing up Solway Firth had nipped his face to a rosy glow, and he had his hands jammed into the pockets of his coat. “A market cart or two and a couple of fellows on horseback. Nobody who could have been Master Oliver and your sister.”

His report completed, the young footman failed to stifle a vast yawn.

“Glad to hear it.” Thorn glanced back down the main road that led to Penrith. “If they haven’t gotten ahead of us, which I doubt, they’ll likely turn up sometime today. Now, go tuck into a good breakfast, lad, then get some rest. Or the other way around, whichever you feel greater need of.”

“Bed first, I think, sir.” The lad rubbed his eyes as he headed for the door. “Good luck on your watch.”

“Thank you, Ned.” Thorn beckoned him back. “And thank you for your patience and discretion in all this. Lady Lyte and I are most grateful.”

“Glad to help, sir,” replied the young footman, lowering his voice when two men who looked to be merchants of the town passed by. “I know how I’d feel if it was my sister.”

As he headed off to bed, Ned muttered to himself, “Though not if she was with Master Oliver, of course.”

Thorn wished he could be so sure.

On the few occasions they’d met, he had found Oliver Armitage a good sort of fellow, though rather preoccupied with his studies. Still, the young man must have more on his mind than books and experiments or he never would have run off to Gretna Green with a lively lass like Ivy.

From his own experience in the past few days, Thorn had reason to know passions could run high between a man and woman pent up for long hours in close contact.

Remembering how he and Felicity had made love in her carriage on the road to Preston, Thorn felt his face burn with a heat too intense for the raw spring breeze to cool. Until he’d met Felicity Lyte, Thorn had never been shocked by his own behavior.

He did not care for the sensation.

Perhaps he could tolerate being the butt of gossip and even accept a future without children, if these were the price he must pay for making Felicity a permanent part of his life. But his feelings for her shook up his cautious, methodical nature to the very foundation.

Part of him found the change as exhilarating as that wild ride into Preston. Another part feared the loss of control over his own actions. Where might it end? His father’s imprudence with money had cost their family dearly.

Thorn shook his head to clear it of fatigue and his preoccupation with Felicity.

A small coach, drawn by a single pair of horses was approaching up London Road. It looked very much like the one Ivy and her beau had left behind when they’d slipped away from Trentwell.

Thorn stepped out into the street and flagged it down.

“Here now,” cried the driver, “what’s all this, then?”

Ignoring the man’s inquiry, Thorn strode to the door of the coach and wrenched it open.

A young woman, who bore absolutely no resemblance to Ivy, screamed and shrank back into her seat.

Before Thorn could stammer an apology, a ruddy-faced young man with ginger side whiskers demanded, “What is the meaning of this, sir?”

“I beg your pardon!” If he’d woken to find himself sleepwalking stark naked in the market square, Thorn could not have been more thoroughly humiliated. “I thought this carriage belonged to friends of mine. Please accept my apologies.”

The girl appeared ready to swoon. The young man looked far more vexed than the incident called for. Understanding hit Thorn with the force of a runaway carriage.

This young pair were bound for Gretna, too.

He’d probably given them the fright of their lives, thinking some of her relations had apprehended them at the last moment.

Thorn’s mortification turned to amusement, which he fought to suppress. He continued to beg their pardon while the young man glared at him and called for the coachman to drive on.

As he watched the hired rig continue on up the square to where the road split into three separate streets, the bells of nearby Carlisle Cathedral chimed the early hour.

Shaking his head, Thorn muttered to himself, “This is going to be a damn long day.”

A voice far too hearty for so early in the morning boomed out behind him. “Begging yer pardon, sir. Would ye be expecting a party this way?”

Thorn turned to find the inn’s porter regarding him with the unmistakeable glint of avarice in his deep-set eyes.

“Expecting?” Thorn shrugged. “Hoping? Very much so.”

Though he was not naturally inclined to take strangers into his confidence, what did he have to lose by it?

“Been chasing my sister and her young man all the way from Bath. I believe we overtook them somewhere between here and Staffordshire. I was rather hoping to head them off before they cross the border.”

The man nodded over Thorn’s account as if he’d
heard it every day for many years. Given where he worked, perhaps he had.

“I shouldn’t flag down every coach that comes up the London Road if I was ye, sir.” The porter screwed up his mouth to express his disapproval. “Could land yerself in no end of trouble.”

“I’d prefer not to if I could help it,” Thorn assured the man. “But it wouldn’t have been worth my time coming all this way just to let them drive past into Scotland.”

The porter gave a sympathetic nod. “So it would be worth a little something to ye, would it, sir, to have any northbound coaches stop for a moment for ye to have a look in at the passengers?”

“More than a little. Would such an accommodation be possible?”

Flashing Thorn a broad grin, the porter tapped the side of his nose with his forefinger.

“Folks coming to Gretna is a flourishing trade in these parts, squire. Everybody makes his little bit off it some way or other. It’s mostly all the same lads drives this last leg of the trip up from the south, ye see. Year in, year out, we’ve got to know each other.”

“I see,” replied Thorn, for he was beginning to.

“A signal from me,” continued the porter, “and the drivers will stop long enough for me to slip ’em two-pence or fourpence.”

“Provided by me?”

“You do see, squire!” The porter beamed at him like a society hostess over her protegé. “While they’re stopped, you have a quick glance in the window to see if you recognize anybody. If not, the coach drives on with none inconvenienced or any the wiser.”

What would old Lord Hardwick say if he knew
what commerce his Marriage Act had generated here in the north? Thorn wondered.

Spin like a top in his grave, no doubt.

“And your fee for performing this signal service, my good fellow?”

“Guinea a day, flat,” said the porter, “plus half again of whatever I pay out to the drivers. Most folks call it a bargain.”

Thorn’s eyes widened. “You must prevent a very good class of elopement.”

“I do, squire, and proud of it.” The man’s smug countenance testified to that. “The niece of a peer, just last week. A Derbyshire heiress not long before that.”

“My sister is not of that rank.” Thorn commenced to empty his pockets. “Except to me. It would be worth every penny of that sum to secure her future happiness.”

As he began to empty his pockets, he heard a vehicle clattering its way up the road behind him.

The porter gave a cheery wave of his hand. The carriage slowed, just as he had said it would, stopping long enough for the porter to snatch twopence from Thorn’s palm and toss it up to the coachman.

The carriage door opened a crack and a querulous voice demanded, “Why have we stopped? What’s going on, driver?”

Inside the coach, Thorn spied an elderly couple and a middle-aged woman.

The coachman winked at the porter as he called down to his passengers, “Just about to inquire which is the road to Kirkhampton, gov’ner.”

“Humph! A queer thing to hire out as a driver if you don’t know the roads.” The carriage door slammed shut.

The porter made a show of providing directions, then the coach moved on.

“I take it neither of those ladies answered to yer sister’s description, sir?”

“They did not.” Thorn poured a jingling stream of copper and silver coins into the porter’s large open palm. “But it provided a fine demonstration of your service.”

He nodded toward the money. “That sum won’t last long if any amount of traffic passes this way before I locate my sister. I can go get more, but…”

Would Felicity approve such an expenditure? And would this be the first of many occasions when he’d be obliged to go cap in hand to his wife for money?

True, her property would be considered his, by law, once they married. Yet Thorn knew he would never think of it as such. And he would never be comfortable with the disparity between their fortunes.

“Worried the young lady will pass by while yer gone?” asked the porter, ever helpful…for a price. “Don’t give it another thought, sir. Tell me what she looks like, and I’ll see to it any coach carrying a passenger of her description tarries until ye get back. Horses going a bit lame and such.”

“Very well.” Thorn glanced around the square and back down London Road. He could see no sign of anything but local market traffic. “You shouldn’t have any great trouble spotting her, she’s the kind of young lady men notice.”

He gave the porter a brief description.

“She does sound a beauty, sir, no mistake. Wish I could say the same of most of the ladies I see passing through to Gretna. That Derbyshire heiress, now…”
The porter made a face and shuddered. “No doubt she had a pretty purse to make up for her face and figure.”

The jest hit Thorn with the force of a physical blow as he thought of such things being said about he and Felicity.

“I’ve a word of advice for ye, sir,” continued the porter, “and no extra charge for it, neither. Once ye’ve got young missy back, ye’d best marry her off to some good steady fellow, so ye won’t be back here in six months’ time doing this all over again.”

“Sound advice, indeed,” agreed Thorn. “I’ll just go fetch that money before the traffic gets busy.”

The man had a point, he decided as he fought his way up the stairs to Felicity’s room against a tide of departing guests. A serious-minded young man like Oliver Armitage might seem an odd choice for his headstrong, vivacious little sister, but she could do far worse.

Better Armitage than the kind of charming wastrel Thorn had often feared Ivy might take up with.

“Any sign of Oliver and your sister?” Felicity held her dressing gown closed with one hand as she un-bolted the door to admit Thorn.

“Not yet. If they spent the night in Penrith, it could be a while before we see them.” He shifted from foot to foot, fumbling with his hat. “I’m sorry to wake you.”

“I was stirring before you arrived,” she lied. “Thinking of getting dressed and ringing for some breakfast, as a matter of fact.”

“You should have a nice, late lie-in.” Thorn glanced toward the bed. “Try to catch up on your sleep while you have the opportunity.”

And go back to that awful dream she’d been having? One in which she was a fox with a luxurious red tail being driven by a pack of hounds into a narrow gorge from which there could be no escape? No, indeed!

“I’ve had all the sleep I care to.” She drew closer to Thorn. His presence, his very scent, gave her an illusion of safety she needed just then. How much safer would she feel wrapped in the sanctuary of his arms?

“I might be persuaded to return to bed, though.” She trailed one end of her dressing gown sash along the sleeve of his coat. “If I had some congenial company…”

He glanced toward the bed again with a thinly veiled expression of horror, as if it was the trap she’d barely escaped in her dreams. “A…tempting invitation, but I can’t just now. Someone needs to keep an eye out for Ivy and your nephew.”

Though she endeavored to hide her disappointment, Thorn must have perceived it.

Lifting one hand to her face, he stroked her cheek with the backs of his fingers. “Soon enough I’ll be making a nuisance of myself so often you’ll grow tired of my company. You should enjoy this last opportunity to have the bed all to yourself.”

Though he spoke in a tone of gentle jest, it seemed to Felicity that he was in greater earnest than he might realize.

“I shall never grow tired of you, my dearest.” She raised her own hand, pressing his more firmly against her face. “The more I come to know you, the better I love you. If it keeps up, I shall be quite besotted presently.”

“That will make two of us.” Thorn chuckled. “So treacly sweet, we’ll make all our acquaintances quite bilious.”

Felicity felt her grip tighten on Thorn’s hand. If only she could keep him close by until they had made their vows before some Scottish clergyman, blotting out all her misgivings with hot passion or fond repartee.

“Once we return to Bath as man and wife, we must pay a call on Weston St. Just and amuse ourselves watching him strive to hold his gorge!”

As they laughed together, imagining it, Thorn bent toward Felicity and she raised her face to him. Their lips met in a kiss of infinite restraint that still managed to send ripples of urgent desire romping through her flesh.

After a long, sweet moment, Thorn stirred and pulled away with obvious reluctance.

“I should return.” He sounded winded, as though from a fast run. “To keep watch for Ivy and Oliver. Before there is a line of carriages backed up all the way to Penrith.”

Felicity touched her forefinger to her lips. “Pay me one more small penalty, and I’ll release you.”

“Penalty?” Thorn shook his head. “Say rather a prize. One I’m always more than eager to claim.”

Claim it he did, this time with less restraint, as though the banked fire of his passion for her was consuming his self-control.

Again he pulled away from her, this time with greater force, as if it required more energy to resist.

His words confirmed Felicity’s impression. “I must go. While I still can.”

When the door had closed hard behind him, she
wilted against the wall and let out a long tremulous breath.