by Deborah Hale
As the sun dipped lower behind the Welsh hills to the west and the miles galloped by, Thorn fell into deeper and deeper thought about himself and Felicity and their future.
If they had one.
What was Thorn musing about with such grave concentration? Felicity wondered as she watched him through the carriage window. Was he, perhaps, regretting his insistence that they stop in Newport?
Though she enjoyed being proven right, Felicity could not bring herself to be sorry for the chance to rest. Both the nap and the light breakfast had revived her. In fact, she felt better now than she had in days.
She’d heard this phase of biliousness when a woman was breeding did not last. Might she have put it behind her already? If so, she could probably afford to resume her affair with Thorn Greenwood and let it run its natural course to the end of the Season, safe from the fear that he would catch her in one of her sick spells and guess its cause.
The prospect of taking up with Thorn where they had left off brought a fleeting smile to Felicity’s lips as she admired his confident seat in the saddle and his crisp patrician profile. The paltry few days since she’d last welcomed him into her bed felt much, much longer. She found herself craving his touch the way women in her condition were inclined to crave strange foods.
As her carriage rolled and swayed over the final miles of the coastal highway between Bristol and Gloucester, and the spring sun cast longer and longer shadows, Felicity watched Thorn Greenwood with increasingly avid eyes. She felt herself slipping back in time to the mild March night when he’d first become her lover.
She hadn’t reckoned on his lack of experience, though perhaps she should have. Unlike her, Thorn had never been married, and he was not the type of man given to casual encounters with the fair sex. Upon reflection, Felicity marveled that he had made an exception in her case.
To her vast surprise, his lack of experience had proven endearing…even piquant.
After all, her late husband had been a skilled lover. Which meant he’d honed his amorous technique on a long parade of other women. It made a refreshing change to be fondled and kissed by a man as though her body was some rare treasure and the act of mating with her a sublime rite.
In subtle ways, she had tutored her unseasoned lover in the arts of pleasure. He had proven a very apt pupil, indeed. The knowledge that he had limited scope for comparison had freed her to explore some novel avenues of lovemaking…with most gratifying results.
Her mouth grew moist as she recalled how the flicker of candlelight had caressed Thorn’s naked lean-limbed frame and kindled rich, warm hues of polished wood in his unbound hair.
Ah, the delicious repertoire of touches he had cultivated…Some light as a summer night’s breeze through the leaves, drawing her desire ever more taut until she quivered with anticipation. Others slow, deep and sensual as warm oil, that set her passion smouldering. Still others, fervent and fierce, provoking a fiery tempest that threatened to consume her.
Thorn Greenwood could arouse her without having to lay a finger on her, Felicity realized as the gallop of her heart outstripped that of his horse. Her breath came in hot, sharp little gasps, and she squirmed on the gently bouncing seat of the carriage.
She would not be sorry to continue their liaison for a little longer. In fact, once they apprehended Ivy and Oliver, perhaps she and Thorn could steal a brief tryst at some Gloucester inn before they all returned to Bath.
Even as the prospect made Felicity tingle with anticipation, the words she had spoken to Thorn back at The King’s Arms returned to plague her.
“If parting now makes us unhappy, imagine how much worse it would grieve us in a month’s time.”
For herself, the promise of pleasure might be worth the risk of pain…but what about Thorn?
When she’d written him that letter, it had never occurred to her that their parting would distress him. Except, perhaps, for the loss of regular physical gratification.
Yet, from the moment he had burst into her town house last night, everything about his behavior had betrayed a greater depth of feeling. Something beyond the mere loss of carnal pleasure or even wounded masculine vanity. When she’d hinted that she might have grown too fond of him, Felicity had sensed a poignant echo of that feeling beneath his usual mask of resolute composure. Would he agree to resume their relationship at her whim after she had already hurt him once?
It was all such a hopeless, distressing muddle!
Unshed tears prickled in the corners of her eyes. Felicity despised herself for them. Ever since she’d invited Thorn Greenwood into her bed, her emotions had become heightened and dreadfully mixed up. Worst of all, they were no longer fully subject to her control. Perhaps she would be better off to oust the man from her life before he wreaked any further havoc…no matter how much she yearned for him.
Because he made her yearn for him so.
With a sudden twitch and pounding pulse, Thorn came fully awake again after having fallen into a potentially dangerous doze. His growing exhaustion coupled with the lulling rhythm of the horse’s gait seduced him to sleep. It became harder and harder to resist as his weary mind lapsed into deep thought.
He had been musing about Felicity and all the sound, logical reasons they could never be more to each other than transient lovers.
Her fortune, for instance. Plenty of men would have considered it a powerful inducement to marriage, but Thorn shrank from that notion in horror. Privately, he had vowed not to wed until both his sisters were happily settled and he had restored the Greenwood fortunes by his own efforts.
He recoiled from the prospect of what gossip would result if a man in his straitened circumstances married a woman with her wealth. It would paint him an unscrupulous exploiter and her a pathetic creature who must stoop to purchasing a husband. The latter fell so far from the truth as to be laughable, but Thorn was not the least inclined to laugh.
Felicity and he were both proud people in their way—not anxious to expose themselves to such humiliating tattle.
For all Thorn knew, Lady Lyte had no interest in marrying again, nor any need. She had both a title and a large fortune of which she would remain in control only so long as she remained unwed. If she wanted a child, she would be obliged to adopt one, whether she married or not.
And if she desired a man’s company, the lady could simply take a lover. A woman of her wit and beauty would have plenty of eager candidates from which to choose.
The notion made Thorn’s gorge rise and his hands clench and unclench around the reins. How would he bear it if Felicity discarded him for another man? One younger and better looking, with a facile wit to keep her amused. One canny enough to be satisfied with what she could give him in the bedchamber and not pine for more.
What had put the ridiculous idea of marriage in his mind, anyway? Thorn asked himself. Even if he’d been rich as Croesus and Felicity anxious to wed him, it would never do. When the time came for him to marry, he would need a bride capable of bearing him sons, which Lady Lyte was not.
Otherwise his beloved estate, Barnhill, would pass out of the immediate family to some odious distant cousin. Not for anything would he allow that to happen. Duty would not permit it, and he had long been a creature of duty.
With a jolt, Thorn had suddenly become aware of himself and his surroundings once again. He took a great gulp of air and shook his head to clear it. For a moment he considered signaling Felicity’s driver to stop the carriage and accepting her offer of a seat inside. He discarded the idea almost as quickly as it had formed.
One way or another, they were bound to catch up with Ivy and young Armitage soon. If he and Felicity did not overtake the young lovers’ coach on the road, they would likely find the pair spending the night in Gloucester. Then Thorn could surrender to sleep with the serene conviction of an important duty fulfilled.
What was that on the road ahead—another carriage?
All Thorn’s faculties stirred to heightened alert, though his lingering
fatigue gave him a queer sense of distance from himself. As the road took a wide bow to the northwest, he raised his hand to shield his eyes against the glare of the setting sun.
It was a carriage!
He glanced toward Felicity’s rig to find her eyes trained upon him. Her beauty struck him anew, as though it had been months, rather than minutes since he’d last looked upon her.
“I think I see them!” Thorn shouted, exaggerating his words in case she could not hear him over the rattle of the carriage and the tattoo of the horse’s hooves.
Felicity cocked her head and shot him a puzzled look.
“Up ahead!” He jabbed his forefinger in the direction of the other carriage. “Ivy and Oliver, I think!”
Her eyes widened and her brows shot up.
Again Thorn pointed. “I’ll ride ahead to check!”
He nudged the gelding with his knees. Though it had been keeping up a brisk pace since they’d left the toll booth, the beast responded, surging forward. Yard by yard they began to overtake the other coach.
In his mind, Thorn began to rehearse what he would say to his sister. Impress upon her the folly of what she’d done, for a start, and the anxiety she had given him on her behalf. If Ivy fancied her usual half-cheeky expressions of remorse would win her brother’s immediate forgiveness, the little chit had better think again!
St. Just’s horse clearly enjoyed a chase, for the closer it drew to the carriage ahead, the faster it galloped. In another moment, Thorn would have a clear view of whoever was riding in the coach.
His impetuous little sister would not be the only one to catch the sharp edge of his temper, either. Thorn had a few hard questions to put to Oliver Armitage. The lad was supposed to be a scientist, after all. Could he not have predicted the consequences of eloping to Gretna with young Miss Greenwood? Did he not foresee what a bitter mistake marriage to a creature of Ivy’s mercurial temperament might be?
With any luck, the past day’s journey cooped up together in the close confines of the coach, might have shown the two young people exactly how ill-suited they were. Both Ivy and Oliver might feel secret relief at being rescued from their folly.
As Thorn drew level with the coach, he peered toward the window, hoping to see his sister.
Instead, the heavily-powdered visage of an older woman glared back at him. She motioned for him to be off and mouthed some words that Thorn was thankful he could not hear.
Fighting a twinge of disappointment, he prepared to slow his mount and fall back to report his mistake to Felicity.
Thorn wrenched his gaze away from the coach just in time to see a narrow stone bridge appear ahead of him. Fortunately, his horse saw it, too.
Before Thorn could gather his weary wits enough to rein the beast in, it veered to the right and plunged down a rather steep slope into a wide stream. The water immediately halted the gelding’s progress, but not that of its rider.
Thorn felt himself jerked clear of the saddle and flung over the horse’s neck in a high, lethal arc. His limbs flailed in vain for something to break his fall, but found only air.
The water rushed up to meet him, driving the wind from his chest in the instant before a burst of black pain hurled him into the sleep he’d fought so hard to resist.
Chapter Eight
The carriage slowed abruptly, jolting Felicity back into the upholstered seat. Outside, the horses whinnied as Mr. Hixon bellowed at them. They veered off the road, dragging the carriage in a drunken stagger over a bit of ploughed field. Thrown about the interior of the carriage like ivories in a gamester’s box, Felicity shrieked.
What could be happening?
After a few tumultuous moments that seemed to go on forever, the carriage finally lurched to a halt. As Felicity tried to recover her wits after that fearful jostling, she heard her footman and driver scramble down from their perches. Their voices quickly retreated into the distance.
Why had they not checked at once to make certain she was unharmed?
Muttering under her breath about men and their entire lack of consideration, Felicity pushed open the carriage door and slid down to solid ground on very unsteady legs. She scanned the field, looking for some sign of Ned or Mr. Hixon and some clue as to what had just taken place.
The two servants were nowhere in sight, though Felicity could hear their voices, as well as the sound of water splashing. For a moment she stared at a narrow stone bridge, which stood not far from where her carriage had left the road.
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 tee
th 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.
