Lady Lyte's Little Secret (25 page)

“Don’t be angry with Ivy,” he begged his aunt. “She only wanted to make the pair of you happy.”

Oliver glanced toward Thorn. “And her brother knew nothing about it, of that I can assure you.”

Felicity shook her head. For such a learned young man, her nephew had much to discover about the world and its deceit.

Before she could cajole any sense into him, Oliver spoke again, in a more determined tone than she had ever heard him use before.

“In any case, I cannot take you home just now. Ivy
and I mean to wed.” Oliver glanced toward Thorn. “Before nightfall, if I can persuade her brother to give us his blessing.”

Bad enough that the Greenwoods had tricked her in this way, but to use her dear Oliver as the means to advance their plan outraged Felicity even more.

Her nephew flashed her an encouraging smile. “I know this has all fallen out like a comedy of errors, but that will not signify if we can give it a happy ending. Won’t you and Thorn come with us to Gretna and make it a double wedding?”

To think how recently she herself had entertained such a possibility. Now, the notion made Felicity sick with disgust.

“You stupid boy!” she cried. “Can’t you see Ivy Greenwood is just like all the others—after you for
my
money?”

If she had descended upon him and soundly boxed his ears, Oliver could not have looked more dismayed. Though she reproached herself for being so harsh with him, Felicity would not take back what she’d said. For his own good, the boy must be made to understand.

A swift glance at Ivy restored Oliver’s composure. “All evidence to the contrary, I believe Ivy loves me, Aunt Felicity. And I know I love her.”

All evidence to the contrary?
Felicity could scarcely believe she’d heard him utter such words. What scientist worth his salt ignored a mountain of contrary evidence?

Oliver turned to Thorn. “Will you please permit your sister to marry me, sir? I promise to do everything in my power to make her happy.”

Was she in the midst of another nightmare? Felicity asked herself. If only it could be. But life seemed bent
on teaching her that disappointment, frustration and betrayal were the true way of the world. Trust, security and happiness were no more than ridiculous dreams.

Ivy Greenwood grasped Thorn’s hand and beseeched him with her winsome eyes. “Oh, please, Thorn, please say yes! Don’t do to me what Father did to Rosemary by forbidding her to wed Merritt.”

“Well…” Thorn wavered, just as Felicity had known he would. “…if the two of you have made it all this way without killing one another…”

Felicity could not keep silent a moment longer. “I don’t believe this! Don’t tell me you mean to indulge this silly whim of theirs, after everything we went through to stop them?”

Unless her worst suspicions were correct and this whole journey to Gretna had been nothing but a conspiracy to lure her into marriage?

Staring Thorn down, she offered him one final chance to refute her doubts. “If you ever had the least genuine feeling for me, Hawthorn Greenwood, you’ll forbid this match and fetch your sister back to Barnhill, where she belongs.”

For an instant some flicker in his eyes made her hope he might yield.

Then that flicker went out, and Thorn regarded her with a look of wistful regret, as if
she
had wronged
him
. “If you have the least feeling for me, Felicity, you wouldn’t ask me to sacrifice my sister’s happiness.”

He put his arm around Ivy’s shoulder, glancing from her to Oliver. “If the pair of you are set on getting married, I will give the bride away.”

Felicity flinched. “You are all in league against me, I see.”

Her eyes prickled with the sting of a thousand nettles. Whether they were tears of anger or hurt, she would not give anyone in this room the satisfaction of seeing them fall.

“Very well, then.” She prayed her voice would not break. “If you persist in this folly, Oliver, I shall have no choice but to cut you off without a penny.”

It was more than a threat calculated to deter him. If she must fall back on her original plan, to sever ties with Thorn and retire to the country to raise her child, Felicity knew she could not afford to maintain contact with her nephew if he threw his lot in with the Greenwoods. “See if
that
does not change Miss Greenwood’s inclination to marry you.”

Though Oliver tried to appear confident, he could not hide a passing qualm of doubt from the woman who had been like a mother to him for so many years. Ivy looked positively stricken by the news that Oliver would lose his grand expectations if he married her. Thus confirming every ugly suspicion Felicity had ever entertained about her.

“May we have a few moments’ privacy to talk this over?” Ivy asked.

The young woman’s subdued manner and plaintive tone touched Felicity’s heart in spite of her determination to resist. She could not afford to be duped by whatever show of sentiment the Greenwoods might now stage for her benefit.

“Take as long as you like.” Felicity gathered up her wrap, gloves and reticule as she made her way to the door. “I shall wait in the carriage for ten minutes. If Oliver does not join me by then, I will return to Bath without him and instruct my solicitor to write him out of my will.”

While she issued her ultimatum, Felicity kept her gaze averted from Thorn, fearful of the power he wielded over her heart, power he might not scruple to use.

As Lady Lyte shut the door behind her with firm finality, Thorn struggled to rally his wits. He felt almost as if he’d been thrown, once again, from a fast-moving horse into a cold, dark river.

He had been galloping toward a happy future with everything coming neatly into place. Felicity had agreed to marry him. They had succeeded in recovering Ivy and Oliver. Then, without any kind of warning, it had all shattered around him.

With cold loathing in her eyes, Felicity had accused him of conspiring with his sister to trick her into marriage. That the woman he loved could believe him capable of such infamous conduct stung Thorn Greenwood to the depths of his dutiful heart.

Looking from his sister to Oliver Armitage, he struggled to find words that might make sense of what had just happened, for they appeared as bewildered as he. Part of him wanted to thank Ivy for what she had tried to do for him, while another part could not help wishing she had minded her own sweet, meddlesome business.

He was too stunned by this sudden reversal to say anything coherent, Thorn decided. He’d already wasted one minute of the ten Lady Lyte had granted her nephew. Once Oliver made his decision, there would be time for Thorn and his sister to talk, if either of them could bear it.

With a sigh and a rueful shake of his head, Thorn
left the room and wandered downstairs, muffled in a thick daze of regret.

As he paused on the landing just out of sight of the posting room, he overheard Lady Lyte settling her bill with the innkeeper.

“Have my servants summoned at once,” she ordered, “and have my luggage brought down. Instruct the hostlers to ready my carriage for the road. I must leave without delay.”

A tidy sum must have changed hands, above the usual reckoning, for Thorn heard the innkeeper bellow Lady Lyte’s instructions, followed by the sound of scurrying feet.

He told himself to stay put or to steal out the front door and go wander the market square until Felicity had departed Carlisle. He told himself pleading with her would do no good, only further erode his self-respect.

Unfortunately, his feet were not well under control. Before Thorn knew what was happening, they bore him down the final dozen steps and face to face with the woman he had hoped to wed in a few hours’ time.

One stern glance from Thorn sent the innkeeper bustling off, issuing orders left and right.

“Please, Felicity.” As he spoke, Thorn felt his knees stiffen. He’d gone down on them to this woman once before. He would never do it again. “Won’t you take a few minutes to reconsider? You stand to lose as much by this as any of us. More, perhaps.”

He tried to convince himself that he would not lose anything that had ever truly been his. Nor anything he truly wanted.

But when he looked in her eyes and saw beauty unmarred by the anger and anguish that haunted them,
Thorn remembered every ray of sunshine Felicity had brought into his life. Every glitter of starlight, every blush of candle glow.

Suddenly, it was all he could do not to bow his head and weep for that loss.

Felicity shrank from him, as if she feared he might strike her. In doing so, she struck him a far more grievous blow.

“Leave me be, Mr. Greenwood.” She spoke through clenched teeth. Indeed, every part of her seemed clenched tight against him.

Her heart tightest of all.

“Have you and your sister not done me enough harm, today?”

“I would
never
harm you!” Prudence and propriety cautioned Thorn to keep his voice down, but he refused to heed them. “And my sister is guilty of nothing worse than a generous impulse taken to ill-considered lengths. I told you she fancies herself a matchmaker.”

“Ah yes, Lady Cupid.” A subtle venom tipped Felicity’s words. “If I recall my schoolbooks correctly, Cupid made all sorts of mischief among gods and mortals. I wish your sister had saved her arrows for some other quarry.”

“No one
made
us fall in love, Felicity.” Why could he not make her see? “Or perhaps I should amend that. You made me love you. And until a short time ago, I believed I had made you love me. All Ivy and Oliver did was throw us together when we would rather have run away from one another.”

At that moment Felicity’s driver and footman burst into the entry hall. Ned had misbuttoned his livery, and he was rubbing sleep out of his eyes.

Mr. Hixon looked from Thorn to his mistress in some alarm. “Is it true, ma’am? That we’re to leave at once? Is something wrong?”

“A great deal is wrong,” replied Felicity, “though none of it that you need fret about. We will return south as soon as the horses can be harnessed.”

Without a further word to Thorn, she swept out of the room, a pair of baffled servants following in her wake.

Ned paused at the door. “Are you not coming with us, Mr. Greenwood?”

Thorn shook his head. Though he hadn’t meant to speak, he heard himself say, “Take care of her for me.”

“I’ll try, sir,” replied the lad. “Lady Lyte doesn’t make it easy.”

The ghost of a smile tugged at Thorn’s lips as he gave a knowing nod.

From off in the distance came the sound of Mr. Hixon calling the young footman.

Still Ned hesitated. “Whatever happened, I’m sorry, sir. For you…and for her.”

With that, he hurried away, rebuttoning his coat as he went.

Though Thorn had no intention of doing so, he found himself following. Perhaps at the last instant Felicity would realize precisely what she stood to lose. Particularly if Oliver Armitage held his ground.

If the sight of Thorn served to drive that vital knowledge home, he would do it. Pride be damned.

He strode from the inn, around to the narrow alley that led back to the stables. In that courtyard, beside the watering trough, stood Lady Lyte’s fine carriage. The hostlers had just finished harnessing the horses,
in record time, no doubt. Another servant came down a flight of outside stairs bearing Lady Lyte’s luggage, which he hoisted up to Ned in the boot.

Thorn trained his gaze on Felicity, who sat stiff and still as a wax statue inside the box. Staring straight ahead of her, she gave not the slightest sign that she was aware of Thorn’s presence.

Silently he willed her not to let her troubled past destroy her future…and his.

Behind him the bells of Carlisle Cathedral chimed the half hour. Lady Lyte’s coachman bid the horses to get moving, and the carriage began to roll.

As it came toward him, Thorn stepped out of the way. Yet he still stood close enough to mark a pair of tears that rolled slowly down Felicity’s ivory-sculpted cheeks.

She knew what she was giving up, those tears assured Thorn. But to hold on to it would have cost his lady of fortune more than even she could afford to pay.

Chapter Eighteen

F
elicity cursed the two mutinous tears that betrayed her weakness. Not for anything in the world would she expose further vulnerability by letting Thorn see her wipe them away. So she stared straight ahead, refusing to acknowledge either his nearness or the distressing effect he had on her.

But when her carriage passed beyond the old walled town that lay at the heart of Carlisle, and she was certain Thorn could no longer catch a glimpse of her, Felicity’s brittle composure crumpled tear by tear.

She tried to convince herself she was weeping for Oliver.

That her nephew would abandon her after all the years of their acquaintance and all she had done for him grieved her sorely. And to have turned his back on her for the sake of a young woman he’d known such a short time spoke ill of Felicity’s ability to inspire and hold the loyalty of those she cared for.

Percy. Thorn. Oliver. Would everyone she loved end up hurting her?

“Not my baby!” Felicity vowed, wrapping her arms around her body in a fierce, protective embrace.

Not unless she’d been foolish enough to tell Thorn the truth while he’d held her in his thrall. Then her poor child would have become the rope in a tug of war between its mother and father. Thank heaven she’d had the sense to hold her tongue!

The day wore on as Lady Lyte’s carriage rolled south, through a narrow valley nestled between the Rivers Eden and Petteril, both of which cut a swath through the old Forest of Inglewood.

On either side of the road, lines of gray drystone walls separated absurdly small plots of farmland. At intervals, a group of tidy white houses, a small church and sometimes a posting inn would cluster together in a village. Off to the east stretched the crooked gray hump of England’s backbone, the Pennines.

It had been too dark to see any of this on the previous night when she and Thorn had driven the final stretch into Carlisle. Now, the peaceful, remote charm of the place settled over Felicity, soothing the turbulent outrage that battered her spirit.