Lady Lyte's Little Secret

by Deborah Hale

  Money? Was that all?

  “Why, of course, my dear.” Felicity rummaged through her bags until she found her reticule. “Take whatever you need, by all means.”

  She tossed it to Thorn, who appeared more flustered than ever as he tried to juggle her reticule and his hat, only to end up dropping both to the floor.

  As Felicity looked on, caught between amusement and exasperation, he mastered himself enough to pick them up again and extract a handful of large coins from her reticule.

  “Thank you.” He passed the purse back to her with a look of shame that could not have been much greater if he’d stolen the money. “This should be more than sufficient. I trust the investment will prove worthwhile. Once I have Ivy and your nephew in my custody, I’ll bring them here so we can talk about what’s to be done.”

  Jamming the hat onto his head and the money into his pocket, Thorn withdrew again.

  Felicity considered going back to bed, but decided against it. Without the diversion of Thorn’s company, she would have nothing to keep unsettling dreams at bay.

  Besides, she did not want to be caught in her dressing gown for their confrontation with Ivy and Oliver. Her suitably dignified appearance might help impress upon the young pair the imprudence of their actions.

  To that end, the interview called for the one dark gown she’d brought with her from Trentwell, Felicity decided. And perhaps the stylish turban shot with gold threads. Pleased with her choice, she set her reticule on the bed and began to remove the necessary garments from her luggage.

  She smiled to herself remembering how Thorn had fumbled the bag, as if it was a hot potato. A further thought, chasing fast on the heels of the first, wiped the smile from her lips.

  This time tomorrow morning, Thorn would not need to ask her for money. Every particle of her property would be his, by law. If she wanted or needed funds, she would have to apply to her husband.

  For the first time since her spell of sickness in Gloucester, a powerful wave of nausea gripped Felicity’s stomach.

  She barely reached the basin in time.

  Chapter Seventeen

  The porter raised his hand to flag down another carriage and give away more of Felicity’s money.

  Thorn strove to keep his hopes from rising. Or falling.

  Who would have guessed that this early an hour on a spring morning would have seen so much traffic through the heart of this northern town? A surprising fraction obviously were not lovers heading across the Scottish border for a speedy wedding against the wishes of their families.

  Thorn had lost count of the number of vehicles he’d peered into, praying to catch a glimpse of red-gold curls, blue-green eyes and a pair of disarming dimples. Aside from all the other considerations, it had been several days since he’d laid eyes on his little sister. He wanted to satisfy himself that she was safe and well.

  As the coach slowed, Thorn ventured a glance toward the passengers. One that he hoped might be mistaken for casual curiosity.

  No doubt it would be some respectable Scottish matron, returning home from a visit to her daughter in the Lake Country. Or a man of business bound for one of the prosperous border ports.

  Instead, Thorn found himself gaping at the back of a young woman perched upon the knee of a young man. The pair were wrapped in a particularly ardent embrace. Natural discretion set Thorn’s face blazing and made him avert his eye.

  As he had a great many times that morning, the porter tossed a coin to the coachman and prepared to nod him on his way.

  Just then, a memory stirred to life in Thorn’s mind, of Ivy showing off a new bonnet she’d purchased with some money their wealthy brother-in-law had given her. Though Thorn seldom took particular notice of women’s apparel, he thought Ivy’s matched that of the girl in the carriage.

  It was enough to make him put modesty aside and look again.

  This time the young man’s hand had lowered from the young woman’s nape. A cluster of golden-copper curls peeped from beneath the back of her bonnet. Dismay at how close he’d come to missing them made Thorn wrench the carriage door open with more force than he’d intended.

  It also turned his greeting to his lost sister into a gruff demand.

  “I suggest you take your hands off my sister, Mr. Armitage!”

  The way they started and the bewildered countenances they turned upon him nearly compensated Thorn for everything he had been through since the night he’d discovered Ivy missing from Bath.

  “Thorn!” The little minx had the impertinence to round on him as though he was the one in the wrong. “What are you doing here?”

  Fortunately for Ivy, her brother was not a man disposed to violence. Otherwise, he might have tossed her over his knee then and there and given her young backside a thumping she’d have cause to remember.

  “Spoken as if you had no idea.” He settled for seizing her by the arm and pulling her out of the carriage.

  Every qualm of anxiety he had felt on her behalf over the past few days struck him afresh. “Have you made it your sworn aim in life to turn me gray-headed before I’m forty?”

  His righteous wrath seemed to awaken some proper sense of shame in his sister at last. Ivy’s pert little chin began to tremble and her luminous blue-green eyes looked ready to gush forth a torrent of repentant tears.

  “Pray don’t be angry with your sister, Mr. Greenwood,” a manly young voice bade Thorn.

  Oliver Armitage unfolded his lanky frame from the coach and brought his hands to rest on Ivy’s shoulders in a heartening, protective gesture. “The responsibility is mine.”

  The lad could hardly have uttered any words more apt to win Thorn’s approval, yet he did not soften the severity of his tone. These two needed to understand just how much distress their little escapade had caused him and Felicity.

  “I have plenty of outrage to go around, Armitage.” He shot the young man a stern glance, but was secretly pleased when Oliver did not quail before it. “You’ll come in for your share, never fear.”

  Thorn looked from Ivy to Oliver and back again, unable to guess whether the young lovers had consummated their marriage in advance. “I’m hardly surprised to discover my sister up to such high jinks, but I had credited you with better sense.”

  Throwing off her manner of proper remorse, Ivy twisted out of her brother’s grip and scowled at him with the kind of bold defiance he would never have expected from her…until today.

  “I will not permit you to speak to my fiancé in that tone, Thorn. Kindly apologize at once.”

  Of all the impudence! The little baggage had led him a chase the length of the country. And now that she’d been fairly caught she made it sound as though he had no right to be vexed with her.

  “That young man is not your fiancé,” Thorn growled, “and I will speak to him in any tone—”

  He suddenly noticed how many curious stares their confrontation had drawn. Not wanting to make himself more of a spectacle than he had already, Thorn struggled to curb his outrage.

  Of all the things he expected Ivy to say next, he did not anticipate the question she posed. “Is Lady Lyte with you?”

  What difference did that make? Still, Thorn seized the opportunity to continue their discussion away from prying eyes.

  “She is.” He nodded toward the inn. “Let’s go inside and see what she has to say to the pair of you.”

  He bowed to the porter to acknowledge his assistance, then strode through the door of the inn and headed up the stairs to Felicity’s room. Now and then he glanced back to make certain Ivy and Oliver were following him.

  They were—clinging to each others’ hands and looking for all the world as if they were being led away to summary execution. As often happened when he was called upon to discipline his little sister, Thorn’s ire began to soften.

  After all, if these two hadn’t run off together, he would not be on the brink of marrying the woman who had captured his heart. That favor deserved a little forbearance, did it not
?

  The sound of footsteps coming up the stairs put Felicity in mind of the night Thorn had barged into her town house. Could it have been less than a week ago? With all that had happened, it felt as though every day of a month had passed.

  The footsteps halted outside her door and a firm but quiet knock sounded. She was not the least surprised to hear Thorn’s voice. “Lady Lyte, I have my sister and your nephew with me. May we come in?”

  She sniffed the air, hoping her liberal application of rosewater masked the sour smell of morning sickness. Soon it would no longer matter if her condition became known. But she wanted to share the good news with Thorn before anyone else, and at the time and manner of her own choosing.

  “You may enter,” she called, rising from her chair by the fire.

  Thorn pushed open the door and stood back to let Ivy and Oliver in.

  They clasped hands tightly as they stepped into her presence. Oliver looked chastened, yet determined, and Ivy…

  The young woman regarded Felicity with an eager curiosity that seemed to divine far more about her situation and feelings than she wished to reveal. In an effort to steady herself, Felicity fastened her gaze upon Thorn.

  He closed the door behind him, then moved to stand with her so they might confront the younger couple together. Felicity caught his eye and a look of fond reassurance passed between them.

  “It worked!” cried Ivy, hurling herself upon them. “I knew it would. I just knew it!”

  Had Thorn’s sister gone mad? Felicity wondered as the girl kissed her on the cheek then threw her arms around Thorn. What had Ivy known? What had worked?

  The explanation came in a breathless, giggly tumble. “I told Oliver if the pair of you were cooped up together in a carriage all the way to Scotland, you’d soon realize how much you cared for one another.”

  Ivy looked from Thorn to Felicity, her young face the very picture of gloating triumph. “And you did, didn’t you?”

  As the truth crashed down on Felicity, it felt as though a rough hand had thrust itself inside her and clenched around her stomach. She wrested herself out of Ivy’s impulsive embrace, in part because she feared she might be violently ill all over the young woman’s gown.

  And also because she could not bear Ivy’s touch or Thorn’s nearness. They seemed to swarm around her, forcing their will upon her. Like a pack of hounds, driving the desperate fox to her doom.

  “Do you mean to say you planned all this?” The words retched out of her, sour as bile.

  Did she even need to ask? It should have been obvious to her from the first. This was the only explanation that answered all the questions and inconsistencies that had been nagging at her since the night she’d left Bath.

  How could she have been so blind? How could she have let herself be manipulated this way…again?

  “Did you not have any intention of marrying my nephew?” she demanded.

  “Not at first,” Ivy admitted in a cheerful chirp that made Felicity want to cuff some sense into the girl. “It all started as a ruse to bring the pair of you together, but one thing led to another…and…”

  A ruse to bring the pair of you together. The words rang like a taunt in Felicity’s head. A trap had been laid for her, and she’d bolted straight into it. Had the past taught her nothing about being wary? Or was she too stupid to learn?

  Her horrified gaze met Thorn’s. A scatterbrained creature like Ivy Greenwood could never have contrived a scheme like this on her own. “You were in on this, as well, weren’t you? Did you put them up to it?”

  Something hard and cold reared in Thorn’s gaze, confirming her worst suspicions.

  She backed away from him, only to find herself trapped against the hearth. “I can’t believe I was gullible enough to let you twist me ’round your finger this way.”

  Thorn pushed past his sister. “I knew no more of this than you did, I swear.” He tried to take her in his arms. “Surely you can’t believe I’d stoop to such a thing?”

  How desperately she longed to believe him and to feel safe in his arms again. To plan a future together. But the safety and the future Thorn Greenwood offered were both lies of the worst kind.

  “Keep your distance.” She shrank back from his touch, more afraid of her own traitorous yearning to believe him, than of the man himself. “Don’t touch me!”

  With all her considerable will, Felicity struggled not to betray her weakness. But as she looked from Ivy Greenwood to Thorn, she saw instead the faces of the disagreeable governesses of her youth and her grandfather. Looking from Thorn back to his sister, she saw her philandering late husband and his top-lofty mother.

  Only when her gaze fell on the dear, trusted face of Oliver Armitage did her mounting panic lessen.

  “I don’t hold you to blame for any of this, my dear boy. We have been abominably used, both of us.”

  She extended her hand to him and with it a plea. “Just take me home…please.”

  The lean planes of her nephew’s face canted at sharp angles, the way she had often seen when he puzzled some scientific enigma. Felicity saw something more, too. A pained perplexity that sometimes took hold of him when he could not reconcile two facts that both appeared correct, yet flatly contradicted one another.

  “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 everyth
ing 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.