Lady Lyte's Little Secret (21 page)

A delicious blush rose from her bosom, gathering intensity as it climbed toward her brow. “Mr. Greenwood, I see I have had a most devilish influence upon you.”

“Are you sorry?”

The lush sparkle of her eyes mocked the absurdity of his question. “Not in the least. There is nothing I like half so well as a dash of mischief in a respectable man. I only hope you do not repent it.”

“Never!” Thorn quite liked the look of himself
hovering behind her in the glass, one eyebrow cocked at a roguish angle. For the first time in his life, he thought his unremarkable features almost handsome. “Now, about that inspection of the bedchambers…”

Before Felicity could answer, the sound of hurrying footsteps made them both start and draw a decorous distance apart.

“Excuse the intrusion, ma’am.” A sodden footman hung back in the doorway, clearly reluctant to drip water on the elaborate parquet floor.

Felicity beckoned him in. “You have something to report, I take it. Have Master Oliver and Miss Greenwood been fetched home?”

The servant shook his head. “Not a sign of ’em anywhere on the grounds, ma’am. We’ve searched high and low.”

“Everywhere?” Felicity demanded. “Are you certain? What about the dovecote?”

“First place we checked, ma’am.”

“The shell grotto? Lady Elizabeth’s pagoda?”

At the mention of each place, the footman nodded. “Master Oliver and the young lady weren’t at any of them, ma’am. Not the west tower, neither. Nor the dairy.”

“They must be somewhere. Did anyone see them come back to the house?”

“Dunstan thought of that, ma’am. Had the maids take a look about in their rooms when they laid the fires.”

“And…?”

“Neither of them was about, ma’am. But their bags was gone.”

Felicity looked ready to curse. “I left orders that Master Oliver was not to be given a horse.”

“He wasn’t, ma’am,” the footman assured her. “Nobody at the stables seen hide nor hair of ’em—just Master Rupert. He took a gig into the village a while ago.”

Thorn didn’t like the sound of that. “It’s not a very pleasant evening for a drive. Do you suppose Norbury helped Oliver and Ivy give us the slip?”

Felicity pondered the suggestion, then shook her head. “I can’t think why he would. He and Oliver have never had much use for one another.”

“The fellow was obviously lying about his injuries.” Thorn cursed himself for not getting to the bottom of that when he’d had the chance. “Perhaps that has something to do with it.”

“So it might.” Felicity caught her lower lip between her teeth, her brow furrowed.

After a moment’s consideration, she turned back to the footman, who’d been patiently awaiting her orders. “Go make some inquiries in the village. Find out if anyone’s seen Master Oliver and Miss Greenwood, then report back to me at once. If you find them, do what you can to detain them while you send word back here.”

“Very good, ma’am.” The footman headed off.

Thorn opened his mouth to speak, but before he could get the words out, Felicity called after the young man, “Make sure you change into dry clothes before you go anywhere.”

The lad glanced back, acknowledging his mistress’s order with a self-conscious nod before continuing on his way.

Felicity made a wry face as she caught Thorn’s hand in hers and gave it a squeeze. “If I’m not careful, you’ll soon have me coddling all my servants.”

“It seems we’ve each been having our own influence upon the other.”

“Perhaps so.” Her teasing look turned earnest. “Only, don’t expect to change me altogether, my dear. I’m a selfish creature at heart, and I mean to keep it that way.”

Thorn considered reminding her that there was a difference between selfish and self-protective, but decided against it. He remembered how angry she’d become the last time he’d shown a particular insight into her character.

It was enough for him to recognize the difference and act upon it. Once Felicity understood that she could always depend upon him to guard her happiness, she would be able to relax her own vigilance. Then she’d become the warm, winning woman he had so often glimpsed behind her defences.

He shrugged. “Neither must you believe you can turn me into a charming rogue.”

“Why would I want to commit any such folly?”

Though she spoke in a jesting tone, Felicity’s voice also carried a sweet ring of sincerity. The transparent affection in her gaze made him feel as if he’d suddenly grown several inches in stature.

Could it be that in his modest, responsible way, he was the perfect partner for her?

Thorn and Felicity had just finished the second course of their dinner when the footman returned from the village. The look on the lad’s face told Felicity he had no good news to report.

“Out with it, man. They’ve gone, haven’t they?” Frustration sharpened her voice. She’d been looking
forward to a pleasant interlude at Trentwell with Thorn, once they’d chastened Oliver and Ivy.

The footman gave a reluctant nod. “They had been at the Fox and Crow, ma’am. I only missed ’em by an hour. The innkeeper said they arrived on foot, then a while later Master Rupert called to collect them.”

Thorn bolted the last mouthful of wine from the bottom of his cup. “Did the innkeeper know which way they were headed?”

“No, sir. He thought Master Rupert might be fetching them back to Trentwell.”

Under her breath, Felicity muttered, “Heaven forbid that young scoundrel should ever do anything to oblige me.”

“Pardon, ma’am?”

She waved him away. “That will be all, thank you.”

As the footman withdrew, Felicity turned to Thorn. “A slippery pair of fish, aren’t they? I should have sent the servants out to round them up the moment we arrived. It never occurred to me they might steal off to the village on foot, and I didn’t—”

When she hesitated, Thorn shot her a questioning glance.

Felicity stared down at her lap as she folded and unfolded her napkin. “I didn’t…want to part from you any sooner than I had to.”

When she finally gathered the courage to look Thorn in the face, she saw pleasure and chagrin vying for control of his features. “That makes two of us. I could have searched the grounds for Ivy as soon as I found out she and Armitage were here. Should have, obviously.”

If, in the years to come, Ivy suffered any regrets
about her elopement, Thorn would hold himself responsible, because he’d followed his own inclinations rather than his brotherly duty. Felicity had no doubt of it.

“What shall we do now?” she motioned for the serving maid to remove their plates.

Thorn held his tongue until the maid had replaced their empty dishes with a fresh course and gone below stairs again.

“What else can we do but take up the chase? The circumstances between you and I may be altered, but that does not make this elopement of Ivy and Oliver’s any less a mistake.”

He was right, of course, Felicity realized as she nibbled at her fillet of turbot with a greatly reduced appetite. Their errand had lost some of its urgency for her, since she’d almost made up her mind to accept Thorn’s proposal.

Still, she must not forget her nephew’s future happiness.

“If you’d rather stay here at Trentwell,” Thorn offered, “while I carry on the chase…?”

His suggestion tempted Felicity.

Sleeping in her own bed. Taking regular meals from her own good kitchen. Not cooped up inside a bumping, rattling carriage…

…with Thorn.

Somehow, that consideration made all the bother seem positively attractive.

Besides, if she stayed behind at Trentwell, filled to the rafters with reminders of how her first marriage had gone wrong, her usual wariness might reassert itself. She might fall prey to all manner of doubts she didn’t want to entertain.

“I’d rather come along, if you don’t mind.”

Before Thorn could protest, she reached out and laid her hand on his. “Not because I don’t trust you to manage on your own or any nonsense of that sort. It’s just that, in spite of all our misadventures, I’ve rather enjoyed the past few days with you.”

Wasn’t the kind of man who made such things possible worth keeping in her life?

Thorn’s brows shot up, as if he’d just discovered something surprising. “I’ve enjoyed them, too. Apart from nearly drowning.”

“And being accosted by that dreadful highwayman.” Felicity shuddered.

She gave Thorn’s hand a parting squeeze before returning to her dinner. “That’s all settled, then. We’ll go together.”

“If you insist,” said Thorn, who didn’t look as though he’d needed much persuasion. “I’ll tell you, though, I’ve had my fill of chasing after Ivy and your nephew only to miss them by minutes. I suggest we press on for Carlisle with all speed and wait there for them to come to us.”

“An ambush?” Felicity savored the notion. “Yes. It would serve them right after the bother they’ve put us to. I’ll tell Mr. Hixon to be ready first thing in the morning.”

Thorn shook his head vigorously. “We shouldn’t delay. They have only a few hours’ head start on us, if that. We’ve never been so hot on their heels.”

He thought for a moment. “At least not that we’ve been aware of. I believe we should go as soon as we’ve finished eating. Can a carriage be readied for us in the meantime?”

“Possible.” Felicity tapped her fork against the side
of her plate. “But not advisable. Really, Thorn, there are times a little self-interest is not such a terrible thing.”

“But if we don’t reach Carlisle and prevent them from crossing the border into Scotland, all our efforts until now will have been wasted.”

Under the table, she ran the toe of her slipper down his booted leg. “Not
entirely
wasted, I hope.”

The color rose in Thorn’s face.

Though she knew she should not take such amusement in teasing him, Felicity couldn’t help herself. There was something curiously endearing about a man who could blush.

“The word
waste
was badly chosen, I’ll admit. But you know what I mean, Felicity. Unless we intend to do whatever we can to stop this elopement, perhaps we had better stay put at Trentwell and enjoy ourselves.”

She lowered her chin, casting him a mischievous, inviting look through the dark fringe of her lashes. “You mustn’t tempt me like that.”

“Felicity…” The pretended severity of Thorn’s tone matched his look.

If she finally made up her mind to marry him, Thorn might try to curb her occasional excesses. But never too harshly and always for her own good. Always honest and open, never underhanded or manipulative.

To Felicity’s surprise, the notion of such firm but loving limits kindled an unaccountable feeling within her. One so unfamiliar that she scarcely recognized it at first.

Could it be…security?

Chapter Fifteen

W
as he mad to risk his heart and his future on such a passionate, headstrong woman? Thorn asked himself the next day as Felicity’s carriage sped north, past the cotton and wool milling towns that huddled along the ragged edge of the wild Yorkshire moors.

Against his better judgment, he’d let Felicity persuade him to pass the night at Trentwell before continuing their journey. The sly minx had cajoled him into staying with veiled promises of lovemaking in one of Trentwell’s enormous beds. During the few minutes it had taken her to steal down the gallery and into his guest chamber, however, Thorn had fallen so deeply asleep she hadn’t been able to rouse him.

He found that all but impossible to imagine.

Yet something—her scent, perhaps, or the warmth of her body pressed against his—had trickled deep into his dormant mind. That sweet, twilight awareness of her had soothed and cheered his dreams, granting him the most restful night’s sleep he could recall in a very long time.

Evidently it had been less so for her. When they’d rolled away from Trentwell that morning, it had been
just light enough for Thorn to make out the dusky smudges beneath her eyes. Later, while they made swift progress through the flat, green plain of Cheshire, he had caught Felicity more than once rubbing her eyes or stifling a yawn.

By the time they passed the smoky sprawl of Manchester, her head had lolled against his arm at increasingly frequent intervals, and her conversation had gradually subsided into deep, easy waves of breath. Now, she rested against him, calm and quiet in repose as she would never be otherwise.

Long suppressed feelings for her surged in Thorn’s heart, even as faint eddies of doubt lapped around the edges of his resolve. No matter how much he wanted to,
could
a man like him hope to make a woman like Felicity happy…for as long as they both should live? And if he failed, how unhappy would that make them both?

Thorn couldn’t bear to answer either question, so he occupied himself with watching the changing countryside. All the while wishing Felicity would open her eyes, whisper his name and dispel all his foolish, reasonable doubts.

Good Lord, what was that?
Thorn started when Felicity’s hand, which had lain slack on his thigh, began to move, setting a hot, hungry plague of sensation swarming through his loins.

He glanced down at her face, expecting to find her staring up at him with a naughty little smile, eyes brimming with lusty mischief. Instead, he discovered her still asleep, though her eyes seemed to rove in a restless manner behind her closed lids.

Had he caught her in the midst of a sultry dream? Or was she only feigning sleep to bedevil him?

Suspecting the latter, Thorn slid his own hand between hers and the far too sensitive flesh of his thigh. It helped, but only a little. The sweetly suggestive motion of her fingertips made him ache to remove every barrier between them and his bare skin.

Exercising every ounce of restraint he could summon, Thorn shifted her hand back to her own lap. Though part of him yearned to rest his fingers there and give Felicity a taste of her own provocative medicine, he managed to resist.

In an effort to quench the impish flames of lust that nibbled at him, he forced his mind to the most tedious subjects he could imagine—summing columns of numbers, deciphering the fine print in legal documents, listening to pointless, repetitious gossip in the Pump Room at Bath.