by Deborah Hale
“Certainly not.” Her laughter came out a trifle thin and shaky as she rolled off Thorn. “If you spouted any such nonsense, I would fear you’d taken a fall from your horse straight onto your head.”
“Come on, then.” She grasped his hands to help him off the floor. “Let this be the first night of a new beginning for us.”
“I like the sound of that.” Thorn perched on the edge of the bed to pry off his riding boots.
He shrugged off his coat, then went to work on the buttons of his waistcoat.
Caught up in her anticipation of the night to come, Felicity did not hear the approaching footsteps.
The door eased open, then burst the rest of the way as the innkeeper’s wife barrelled in.
“Lord-a-mercy, what’s all this?”
Felicity screamed.
Mrs. Merryvale bore down on Thorn like the brawny arm of some vengeful goddess, yanking him to his feet by the ear. “I’ll have yer hide, scoundrel, accosting defenseless ladies in my house!”
“Ouch!” Thorn struggled to free himself from the woman’s remorseless grip. “You’re mistaken, madam. I’m not accosting anyone. This is my…wife.”
“It’s the truth, Mrs. Merryvale,” cried Felicity, anxious to spare Thorn any worse punishment at the landlady’s hands. “My…husband heard I’d taken ill on the road, so he came to me at once.”
“Ye gave me the fright of my life,” the innkeeper’s wife scolded. But she did let go of Thorn’s ear. “I heard a noise and came to see if there were aught amiss.”
“Thank you for your concern.” Felicity tugged Thorn back toward the bed. “But I’m feeling much better now that my husband is with me.”
“Husband?” the innkeeper’s wife muttered. “I thought ye told me ye were a widow.”
Felicity scrambled to remember what she had said. “Perhaps you misunderstood me.”
Mrs. Merryvale shook her head. “A queer thing if I did. Don’t ye recollect? I asked what yer husband was thinking, letting you trundle about the country in yer condition—”
Felicity sprang from the bed, pushing the other woman none too gently toward the door. “I hardly knew what I was saying, then.”
“What condition?” asked Thorn.
Pretending she hadn’t heard, Felicity rattled on. “I’m feeling ever so much better now. I swear to you, this man is my husband, and we are both very tired, so if you don’t mind—”
“What condition?”
“Men!” The innkeeper’s wife heaved an exasperated sigh as Felicity urged her out the door. “What condition do ye think, ye great simpleton? With child, of course. Now if ye have any sense, ye’ll put yer foot down about her gadding all over the country. Or next time she’s taken poorly away from home, ye might not be so lucky!”
Felicity slammed the door behind the woman, not caring if it hit her broad backside.
If only she could have similarly evicted Mrs. Merryvale’s damning revelation, which hung in the air like a cloud of noxious gas.
Chapter Twenty
“Please, Thorn, I can explain.”
Felicity’s voice seemed to reach him from a great distance while a vast swarm of his own thoughts crowded between them, all clamoring at once.
He gave voice to the most insistent one. “With child?”
“Yes.”
“My child?”
“Of course!”
Thorn’s knees gave way. Luckily, he was near enough the bed to sit down hard upon it.
His child. How could that be?
The cruel truth kicked him deep in the belly, mocking him for a fool that he’d let himself be so easily duped.
You wondered why she’d taken a man like you into her bed! it roared, heaving him headfirst into the mud. Well, there’s your answer, you daft ass!
He groped on the floor for his boots.
Felicity snatched them away, just as she’d snatched the candle from his hand that night in Bath when he’d come to tell her about Ivy and Oliver.
“I won’t let you leave here until you’ve given me a chance to explain, Thorn.”
“Explain?” The word retched out of him on a gust of harsh laughter. “I prefer not to tax your powers of invention, my dear. I marvel that after a week like this, you have not strained them beyond recovery.”
Everything that had puzzled him about Felicity’s behavior this week suddenly made sense. Brutal, revolting sense.
“I was going to tell you.” In the fading light, she looked the very picture of guileless sincerity.
Thorn hardened his gullible heart.
“Indeed? When? On the child’s fifth birthday? His tenth? On my deathbed?” He held out his hand. “Stop lying to me, damn you, and give me my boots!”
She stepped in front of the door, hiding his boots behind her back. “At first I didn’t ever mean to tell you.”
“Now, that sounds like the truth.” Denied his boots, Thorn grabbed his coat from the bed, jamming his arms into the sleeves. “After such a steady diet of falsehood, I wonder that I can recognize such a rare delicacy when I hear it.”
He loathed the scathing mockery he heard in his voice. But Thorn could do nothing to prevent it. If he did not spew out the poison brewing inside of him, he feared it would eat away his heart.
“Perhaps you think I should be flattered that you chose me for a stud to sire your little foal.”
Felicity’s mouth fell open.
Thorn took some perverse pleasure in shocking her with his show of crudity.
“Is that what you believe I did?” she asked.
“What else am I to believe, pray?” The faintest hint of a doubt flickered within him, but Thorn trod it under his heel. “You assured me you were barren, which is clearly not the case. By your own admission, you meant to keep your condition a secret from me, and I have only your word that you ever intended to tell me.”
To think he’d flattered himself that a woman like her could care for him. When all the time he’d been no more to her than a convenient object of use. Once they’d set out from Bath, he had become an inconvenient burden, to be placated with hollow flattery and false promises until he could be safely discarded.
Though Felicity shrank from his reproaches, she did not budge from in front of the door.
“I know I’ve given you no reason to trust my word, Thorn, but I beg you to listen just the same. I see now that what I meant to do was wrong, but at the time I felt I had no other choice. Bad as that was, it is not half so bad as it may look to you now. If you hear me out, I feel certain you will believe me.”
“Of course I’ll believe you, dammit!” Thorn ploughed his fingers through his hair. “Haven’t I swallowed every other honey-dipped lie you’ve ever fed me? I am a fool, Lady Lyte—a daft, besotted fool, ready to let you lead me ’round by the nose…or some other portion of my anatomy.”
This was probably how his father had brought their family to the brink of ruin, by giving ear to lies he wanted so desperately to believe.
The realization that he had let his soft, partial heart overrule his sound judgment shook him to the core. It made him feel as if he no longer recognized himself. He despised what he had become—what Felicity Lyte had made of him.
“I will not stay and be persuaded of what I wish to believe.” He strode toward the door. “I can do without my boots if you insist on keeping them from me. The night is not cold enough to prevent me riding barefoot.”
But how would he shift her out of the way without touching her? And how would he stop touching her once he’d begun?
The anger that surged through his veins like fire had not seared away the bedeviling itch of his desire for this woman. Rather, each fueled the other—two sides of the dangerous coin that was passion. He had been right to keep it out of his cash box until now.
Yet, torn as he was, Thorn Greenwood had never felt so fully alive.
Felicity did not cower as he approached her. Neither did she move. “No matter how much you hate me at this momen
t, I know you will not harm me.”
How well she knew his every weakness, and how skillfully she played upon them.
“Get out of my way, woman, or I will not be answerable for my actions!”
Felicity held her ground. “When I told you I was barren, I believed it to be the truth.”
Why would she have permitted that insufferable Norbury cub in her house if she had reason to know the young man was not her husband’s natural son?
The wheedling little voice in his mind only stoked Thorn’s fury, for it proved what an easy mark he was for this woman’s well-aimed lies.
Taking firm but restrained hold of her upper arms, he lifted her off her feet and moved her clear of the door. If he could only keep his renegade desire in check for a few moments more, he’d put himself beyond her seductive power…forever.
And count himself lucky to have escaped her clutches with a few shreds of his self-respect intact.
She was losing him!
If she let him get away now, the Thorn Greenwood she had come to know in the past week would disappear—stifled by propriety, stabbed through the heart by her deception, buried under a mountain of suspicion and resentment.
Is this not what you wanted? whispered the loathsome little voice of her selfishness. Thorn Greenwood conveniently out of your life and your child’s?
“No!” Dropping Thorn’s boots, she grabbed hold of his coat cuffs the instant he released her arms.
For her own sake she could not have humbled her pride to cling and plead with him like this. But she could not permit her child to be deprived of such a father. Better if…
Suddenly, Felicity knew what she must do.
For her, that brief timeless interval between one heartbeat and the next ached with loss and remorse enough to fill a lifetime.
“Would you abandon your child to a woman like me?” The question stung her throat.
“Eh?” Thorn froze.
Felicity willed her voice to keep steady. If she became overwrought, she would drive Thorn away. Perhaps, forever.
“I have greater confidence in your judgment than you appear to, my dear. I am asking you, for the sake of our child, to hear what I have to say with an open heart and mind. If you will do that, I promise I will give you the baby to rear once it is born.”
“If this is another trick of yours…” Thorn jerked his coat free of her hands, but he made no move toward the unblocked door.
Felicity shook her head. “I would never say such a thing if I did not mean it with all my heart.”
For a moment that stretched almost too long and tight to bear, Thorn did not move or speak.
At last he found his voice. “Why?”
“Why would I give you my baby?” The prospect made Felicity tremble. “Because today I proved I cannot be a good aunt, let alone a decent mother, while you have proven you can be mother and father both.”
If she stood another minute, she would swoon. And Thorn would probably catch her, as he had on the night this whole fateful journey to Gretna had begun. Then some compound of pity and desire might overpower his reason, and he might accept what she told him without truly believing it.
Much as she wanted to hold on to him, she could not do it at that price.
Her legs had just enough strength to carry her back to the bed. “If you still wish to go, I will do nothing more to prevent you.”
She drew the bedclothes up to her chin, knowing that neither their warmth nor the glowing coals in the hearth could protect her from the chill of Thorn’s leaving.
Darkness had fallen in earnest, now, but the embers of the small fire gave off enough rosy light that Felicity could see Thorn bend and pick up his boots.
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 f
orbearing 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?”
