Lady Lyte's Little Secret (30 page)

When he straightened again and walked toward the
door, Felicity had to bite her lip to keep from crying out his name.

Perhaps something in him heard and responded to her mute plea, for he turned, leaned back against the door and slowly slid to the floor.

“Go ahead and speak then.” The words wafted out of him on a weary sigh. “I will hold you to your promise about the child, mind. Whatever it takes.”

Now that he had given her the chance to explain herself, Felicity could scarcely rally her voice to begin.

“Whatever else you doubt, trust this. I did not take you as my lover to sire a child. I believed what I told you on the night St. Just introduced us, that I was barren and therefore as free as any man to take my pleasure.”

“I remember.”

So did Felicity. If she could go back to that night at the Upper Assembly Rooms, knowing what she knew now, would she take Thorn Greenwood as her lover again? Or would she settle for requesting a dance and spare herself all that had happened since?

The answer that welled up from the depths of her heart surprised and frightened her. Had she changed so much during this mad dash to Gretna?

“When I realized I must be with child, I was as dumbfounded as you were, just now. I must have asked myself a hundred times how it was possible until finally I guessed the truth—that the women with whom my late husband had been unfaithful might not have been faithful to him.”

A soft, sharp grunt from the direction of the door told Felicity the idea had never occurred to Thorn, either.

“I cannot think why I never saw it before, especially
since none of Percy’s
natural children
resembled him except in his own fancy.”

“Tsk, tsk, tsk. Poor Lady Lyte,” muttered Thorn. “All those years a childless wife, then your gay widowhood spoiled by an inconvenient infant.”

An angry retort rose to Felicity’s lips, but she reminded herself that the bitterness of his tone was only a measure of his hurt.

“I thought no such thing. I was beside myself with joy and more grateful than you can imagine. I believe it was from that moment I began to fall in love with you.”

“Ha!” Thorn mocked her…as she deserved. “You have a most singular means of showing gratitude and affection, I must say. That charming note, for instance, in which you told me to make myself scarce. The way you threatened to have me tossed out of your house when I came in search of my sister.”

“I know I treated you abonimably, and I have never been sorrier for anything in my life. But what was I to do, Thorn? If I’d told you about the baby straightaway, what would you have done?”

“Offered to marry you, of course.”

“Of course.” It was small comfort to know she’d been right about that, at least. “All the while wondering if I had lied about my barrenness to entrap you?”

“Never!”

“Never?” she challenged him in a whisper.

After a thoughtful pause, Thorn admitted, “Perhaps it would have crossed my mind.”

“I told you how reluctant I was ever to wed again and all the reasons why.”

“You did.”

“And you seemed to understand, better than I did myself. Can you not find a cold crumb of that understanding left in your heart, now?”

“I might.” Thorn’s shoulder’s bowed as if they had been asked to bear one burden too many. “But why should I? Did you spare a thought for me when you decided to cut me out of your life and rear our child without my knowledge?”

“No,” Felicity admitted. “At least, not enough. I have told you time and again that I am a selfish person, Thorn. Always you made light of it or claimed to understand. What did you call it once—self protective? I did what I believed I had to do to protect myself and my child.”

“From me?”

“From a man I hardly knew except as a pleasant companion and a considerate lover.”

“Do you know me so much better, now?” From across the room his dark gaze bored into her. “Well enough to give your child away to me in return for an hour of listening and no promises?”

“I know that if our child needs to be protected from one of its parents, that one is me.”

Was she reaching him at all? Or had exhaustion sapped the energy from Thorn’s anger, making him sound more forbearing than he felt? At least it seemed she’d put to rest the ugly suspicion that she had deliberately used him to sire her child.

A minor consolation, to be sure. But Felicity took it and was grateful.

If only Thorn would lower the shield protecting his heart. Then he might employ the special wisdom that had nothing to do with reason, and he might judge her less by past failings than by future promise.

But if he held her to any measure other than his bountiful compassion, Felicity knew she would fall woefully short.

Just as he had predicted, Thorn found himself wanting to believe every winsome word that passed Felicity’s lips. Which was precisely why he must not.

A pretty riddle that! And Thorn too tired to puzzle it out.

He had to grant her one point—she probably did know him a good deal better after this one turbulent week than she had after their pleasant tranquil interlude in Bath. He certainly knew her a good deal better than when they’d set out for Gretna.

Or so he’d thought until an hour ago.

“Suppose I’m willing to believe what you’ve told me so far.” He paused to indulge in a deep yawn. “Were you only leading me on, since we left Bath, with all this talk of marriage? How am I to know you didn’t seize on Ivy’s innocent matchmaking scheme as a convenient way to get rid of me at last?”

“All that talk of marriage was true!” Her words pealed with a desperate conviction.

“Except the great hue and cry about not being able to bear children. When I think how I struggled to accept that, all the while you were carrying my child.” If he hadn’t been so confoundedly tired, Thorn might have walked away then.

“I had to know you cared for me as more than a source of children. If you recall anything I told you about my marriage to Percy, perhaps you’ll be able to understand.”

Perhaps if he had a good night’s sleep, a hot breakfast and several cups of coffee, he could go back over
all that had passed between himself and Felicity to sift out the true from the false. Yet Thorn doubted he would sleep soundly until he had resolved it to his satisfaction.

From out of the darkness Felicity challenged him. “Was what I did really so much worse than when your friend Mr. Temple told Rosemary he’d lost his money when he hadn’t?”

Her question roused Thorn from his lethargy. “Of course it was different! Rosemary didn’t give a fig about Merritt’s fortune.”

“Whereas you cared a great deal about having a family.” The plaintive note in Felicity’s voice told him she was near tears. “Yet you were still willing to marry me, even though you thought I could not give you children. You cannot imagine what that meant to me, who have never been loved on my own account.”

Amid the shifting quagmire of truth and falsehood where he now wallowed, Thorn could feel something solid beneath him for the first time. But was it large enough to build on?

“You were the one who said we must weigh each thing that stands between us against the prospect of a future apart. I know this all must weigh very heavily against me, Thorn. Too heavily.”

She seemed to shrink before his tired eyes, and her voice sounded bereft, yet curiously resigned. “Somehow you found a way to forgive me for the way I behaved this morning. I know you well enough to be certain you cannot forgive me this. I only wanted you to hear my side. You have been more than patient in that. I will not detain you any longer.”

Just then a very old memory roused in Thorn’s mind while all the others were falling asleep. A quote from
back in his school days. Pythagoras, was it? Or Archimedes?
Give me a solid place to stand and I can move the world
.

Other words came to him, as well. Words he had first heard long ago, and which his sister had echoed today.
Love is a powerful force, if only we can find the courage to use it
.

It took courage for a man of reason to say, “I was wrong.”

“What?”

Thorn wanted to ask himself the same question.

From some strange newborn place inside him came an answer that surprised him at least as much as it seemed to surprise Felicity.

“I was wrong to talk of weighing love like so many cabbages in the market. It’s not like a bank balance, either, with deposits, withdrawals and interest charged for an overdraft.”

He didn’t remember getting to his feet, but all of a sudden Thorn found himself standing. Which way his feet would carry him, he hardly knew.

“What is it then?” asked Felicity in a murmur that sounded hopeful, yet frightened.

“Love is an all-or-nothing wager,” Thorn heard himself say as he took a step toward the bed.

“For more than you can afford to lose.” He took another step. “Against very long odds.”

If his father had risked telling Thorn the true state of their affairs, they might have worked together to recover his losses. Instead Royce Greenwood had taken his secret shame to his grave. Had he been too proud to reveal his folly to his children? Or had he feared they would never forgive him?

Thorn heard a rustle of bedclothes.

“That doesn’t sound like something a sensible man would do,” whispered Felicity from only a few inches away.

Thorn shrugged. “It isn’t.”

“After everything that’s happened, are you reckless enough to gamble your happiness on a risky proposition like me?”

Felicity sounded so forlorn and vulnerable, nothing like the clever, confident lady of fortune who’d recruited him to become her lover. Now Thorn understood her show of assurance had been a brittle facade. In the rich soil of his love, true confidence would take root and flourish, proof against the insecurity that had led her to test him again and again.

He held his arms open to her. “I believe the winnings will be worth the risk…for us both and for our child.”

“You are a hundred times too good for me.” Felicity drifted into his embrace. “But I will strive with all my heart to make you happy.”

Thorn inclined his head by gentle degrees until his brow rested against hers. “Allow yourself to be happy, my love, and you cannot fail to bring me happiness.”

She lifted her lips to his like a parched flower to the warm, gentle rain, and deep in his heart Thorn knew it would be so.

Epilogue

Lathbury, England

February 1816

“I
vow, I never saw a sweeter-tempered baby.” Ivy Armitage nuzzled the downy cheek of her infant niece and namesake, Ivy Olivia Greenwood. “Not a peep out of her at the christening. Not even when the vicar dribbled that cold baptismal water on her dear little pate.”

As a soft, gentle fall of snow blanketed the Buckinghamshire countryside, a merry blaze crackled in the sitting room hearth at Barnhill, where all the Greenwood family had gathered for Miss Olivia’s christening breakfast.

“Do you hear that, Master Hawthorn?” Rosemary Temple demanded of her sturdy little son as she bounced him in her arms. “Your Aunt Ivy means to remind everyone that you wailed loud enough at your christening to make all our ears ring for hours afterward.”

The child blinked his enormous blue eyes and chortled at the droll face his mama had made.

Merritt Temple paused in the story he was reading to his elder son. “Don’t laugh, you young rascal. The vicar’s nerves haven’t been the same since.”

From his post at the sideboard, where he was ladling hot punch into cups, Thorn Greenwood called, “The prospect of a tribe of lusty young Armitages at the baptismal font will likely drive the poor man into retirement.”

“Indeed,” said Merritt, casting a searching look from Oliver to Ivy and back again. “Is there some chance of that happening in the near future?”

Oliver made no reply, except to stare at the floor and blush.

“Aha!” Thorn and Merritt cried in perfect chorus.

“Congratulations!” Rosemary stooped to kiss her sister’s cheek. “When may we expect the new arrival?”

“Thorn!” wailed Ivy, “I was saving the news for a surprise announcement at breakfast.”

“Did somebody mention breakfast?” Felicity Greenwood breezed into the sitting room. “You must all be famished for it.”

Though Ivy had seen her sister-in-law often during the summer and autumn, she continued to be surprised by the alteration that marriage to Thorn had wrought in Felicity. Everything about her seemed to have softened and ripened. The special radiance of motherhood had further enriched her dark, delicate beauty.

“I’ve come to tell you everything’s ready, at last.” Felicity beckoned them all. “Let’s eat while it’s piping hot. And what’s this I hear about an announcement? You haven’t told them already, have you Thorn?”

“No, my dear.” Thorn handed his wife a cup of punch and passed another to Oliver. “I just happened to divine that the Armitages have a happy event in the offing. Now Ivy’s vexed at me for guessing. Will you be vexed at her and your nephew for making a woman of your tender years a great-aunt?”

“Indeed not.” Felicity caught Oliver’s hand and gave it a squeeze. “Especially if they are kind enough to furnish Olivia with a little girl cousin for a playmate. I’d hate to see her too badly outnumbered by the boys.”

“Don’t try to divert us, you two.” Merritt Temple hoisted three-year-old Harry onto his shoulders. “What’s this news you haven’t told us, Thorn? People are letting cats out of bags left and right this morning.”

Master Harry wiggled around, peering all over the room. “I don’t see any cats, Papa!”

Thorn laughed as Merritt tried to explain the queer figure of speech to his son. “Never fear. You shall hear my news soon enough. Let’s go tuck into that breakfast before it gets cold.”

As if on cue, a trio of maidservants appeared to bear the younger guests off to Barnhill’s newly refurbished nursery. Meanwhile their parents, aunts and uncles repaired to the dining room for a feast of good things, all seasoned with laughter and congenial talk.

“Kippers, Oliver?” asked Merritt as he helped himself to a generous portion. “They say fish is good for the brain. How’s your research progressing, by the by? Made any great discoveries?”