This was a house determined to remain steadfast no matter what time and chance threw its way. It was the sort of house that might come, so easily, to feel like a home.
“I have been told that there are secret passages in this house,” Bertie said. “Is that true?”
Eliza looked pleased. “It is indeed. Would you like to see one?”
“Yes, very much.”
Once they had returned to the house and doffed their hats, Eliza led Bertie to a corridor off the entry hall. The narrow dark space ended in a shadowy corner paneled in worm-nibbled wood. “Shift that table,” she said. “The little one, with the lion feet—there. Do you see a seam in the paneling behind it? I cannot recall where the catch is, but if you press along the height of it…”
Bertie did so as she spoke. When his hands pressed a spot at eye level, the wood gave with a tidy click. A section as tall as a doorway, but half the width, swung forward no more than an inch. Bertie worked his fingers into the gap and drew the hidden panel open.
The space behind was even tighter: scarcely wider than a man’s shoulders, and low enough to force him to duck his head when he stepped inside. Here were the bones of the house on view, a worn and pitted edge to the native stone. The air was chill and still and humid, as though it held the memory not only of yesterday’s rain, but of all the centuries of rain that had come before.
Eliza laughed. “Look, a lantern still hangs on that hook. My brothers and I must have left it there years ago.”
Bertie took it down, found a stub of candle within, and patted his pockets until he found his tinderbox. “Care to go exploring?”
He struck a light, lit the candle, and pulled Eliza into the narrow space after him.
Surrounded by the stone of the secret passage, she began to speak very quickly. “You should have played with my brothers and me when we were younger. We scared the life out of guests and spied on their flirtations every time my parents hosted a house party. Back when my mother was alive. And when there were funds enough to host a party. And when others were more known for scandal than were the Greenleafs.”
“Scandalous Eliza Greenleaf. Do you wish to reminisce?” The panel stood open still, letting in a spill of filtered light. Bertie hung the lantern back on its hook, relishing the confined space, the need to press against one another. Eliza’s hand found the small of his back. Steadying him? Drawing him closer?
“I wish to…” she breathed. “No. I don’t want to think about the past. Let us do something else. Whatever you choose.”
In this secret corner, there was no space to stand except in her embrace. He could not stand upright, and so his head bent to hers. “I choose a kiss,” he whispered in her ear. “If you will have it. A kiss, to begin.”
“Only to begin?” Her other arm joined the first, encircling him. His hips drew forward, jutting into hers, and he sucked in a sharp, hot breath.
“Everything starts with a kiss—whatever it might become afterward. You told me so yourself.”
The stub of ancient candle threw a flickering shadow over her features. “Then kiss me,” she said, and tipped back her head.
A former soldier and cavalry officer knew an order when he heard one, and this one was a pleasure to obey. His mouth covered hers, tasting softness and heat. Twining his hands about her waist, he caught fistfuls of the green cloak and drew her closer, harder, against him. Breathing in the warm scent of her skin.
Was this only a kiss? It drew forth his whole body, entrancing and enchanting him. The taste and scent, the sweet little sound she made as she rose onto her tiptoes to kiss him more firmly. Her lips parted, opening to his. Tongues touched tip to tip, their mouths swiftly a part of each other. Then another sortie to the lips, the cheeks, to whatever could be reached. He pressed more kisses along the line of her cheekbone, the hollow beneath her ear. He took her earlobe into his mouth, sucking gently until she gasped, then shuddered as she returned the favor.
Every time he tried to move an arm, to shift aside some of her clothing, he smacked into the stone bounding them. And so they did nothing but kiss, like sweethearts unsure of one another’s bodies. Like lovers learning each other’s hearts.
“Que l’enfer?”
The French curse, accompanied by a footstep in the corridor, brought them back to the present.
“We left the panel standing open.” Dreamy-eyed, Eliza raised a hand to lips darkened from kissing. “The servants will be shocked.”
“The servants are French,” Bertie reminded her. “Nothing shocks the French.” After a final, firm kiss, he blew out the candle and stepped back through the panel into the corridor.
“Bonjour.” He greeted a startled-looking footman. The man recovered swiftly, sketching him a proper bow. When Eliza emerged a second later, patting at her hair and tugging at her cloak, the footman’s expression softened into a knowing smile.
“Au revoir, monsieur, mademoiselle.” Without another word, he turned and strode in the other direction, leaving them alone at the end of the dim corridor.
Bertie pressed the panel closed, then shifted the lion-footed table before the secret door.
Eliza laughed, breathless and merry. “We must do this again tomorrow.”
“We must,” Bertie agreed. “All of it.”
Chapter 5
“Eliza, please walk with me into Tunbridge Wells,” Georgie begged the following morning. “I cannot go alone, and Mrs. Clotworthy has been rheumatic all week. If you come along, she’ll be able to rest.”
Privately, Eliza thought Mrs. Clotworthy would manage to rest no matter that lady’s obligations. The chaperone had drawn her knitting over her lap, then fallen into a doze before the cheerful little fire in the morning room’s grate.
Poking her needle inaccurately into her embroidery, Georgie dropped it into her workbasket and dragged her chair nearer to Eliza’s. “Please say you will. I haven’t been out of the house for at least two days.”
Eliza picked at the silk fringe she was meant to be knotting. “I doubt I would make a good chaperone.”
“That is precisely what I’m hoping.” Georgie gave a little bounce on the seat of her chair.
Eliza couldn’t help but smile, though she resisted agreement. When her father had been forced to retrench and lease the Friar’s House, he had taken lodging in Tunbridge Wells. While Eliza had remained in London, she was certain of avoiding him. She couldn’t be so sure her luck would hold if she promenaded through the small spa city.
“I should check the accounts again, to prepare for Michaelmas.” She took up two bits of silk and, squinting, wrapped them around each other. Were they the right length? The previous strands had fit together just as they ought, but these would not obey.
“Surely there will be time enough this afternoon. Eliza, please—I must go somewhere today or I’ll tear out my hair.”
The knot fell apart in a spill of red and gold. Damnation. “Georgie, you could go anywhere. After—what, nearly nine months in Hemshawe? You must have made many friends.”
“I did. Have.” Georgie picked up the end of the fringe, holding the shining silk up to the pale light from the window. “The people of Hemshawe are very kind. I befriended Belinda Leonard and Lady Sturridge almost at once. Since Belinda wed Adam Sturridge and went to Scotland—”
“Not quite Scotland, surely?”
“—I…well, I have missed her friendship.” With a rueful smile, Georgie tugged at a knotted tassel. “Belinda and I were single ladies together. Francesca—Lady Sturridge—is married, with a young son. She must always owe herself to someone else first.”
“Even single ladies must do that sometimes.” Eliza’s long spinsterhood—no, her independent womanhood—were proof of that. What good did it do, such owing? Could it ever be a pleasure instead of a burden?
Surely it could, for the right person. If not, everyone would be lonely.
In her fumbling fingers, the silks slid apart again. How s
he had created the tidy knotted row Georgie now held, she could not recall.
With a sigh, Eliza dropped the loose silks back into her workbasket. “All right, all right. My fingers seem cursed to clumsiness this morning. Maybe a walk will bring them back under my control before I try to hold a pen.”
“Excellent!” Georgie rolled the completed fringe and handed it to Eliza. “I have only one request: that we not drink the mineral water. Mrs. Clotworthy always forces me to choke down at least two glasses.”
“Ah, I see the real reason you want to walk with me. Never fear, Georgie. We shall go forth with nothing on our minds but the desire to be pleased.”
“And who shall please us?”
“That depends who is fortunate enough to cross our path.” Eliza rose, shaking out her skirts.
As Georgie stood, the door to the morning room opened. Bertie peeked in. “Georgie? Ready to walk out?”
“Right away. And Eliza will join us too. Isn’t that wonderful?”
The minx. She didn’t turn a hair.
Maybe because Georgie looked so pleased, Eliza felt suddenly shy. “Your brother is accompanying you? I don’t need to go, then.”
Didn’t need to, no. But if they would only reassure her…she liked the idea of walking with the two Gages, as though there were a place for her in their family.
“Nonsense!” Georgie exclaimed. “Eliza, you must come along. Walking with Bertie is like walking with a—”
“Careful how you finish that sentence,” he warned.
“—wonderful brother who doesn’t appreciate any of the shops in Tunbridge Wells.”
“That’s a fact.” Bertie shouldered the door fully open, filling the doorway. “If you want to shop with Miss Greenleaf, I needn’t accompany you.”
“You two will make me weep if you continue trying not to walk with me,” said Georgie, not sounding at all downcast.
Eliza would have liked to fill her hands with knotted silks again. Empty, they felt agitated, wanting something to grasp and hold fast.
Bertie looked so calm. So certain. Even a little amused. But when she caught his gaze, something hot kindled in its dark depths.
Maybe he would offer her something to hold onto at last.
For now, the promise of a walk was enough. “All right,” she said lightly. “But before we reach Tunbridge Wells, we ought to agree on a few things.”
Bertie leaned a shoulder against the door frame, a rare break in his military-straight posture. “I am all ears.”
“A list of things we do not want to do.”
“Such as, ‘I do not want to drink the mineral water,’” said Georgie. “It’s awful.”
Bertie tipped his head, regarding his sister. “It can’t be that bad.”
“You think not?” She marched across the room to face him. “All right. Let me amend my item: I do not want to drink the water unless my brother drinks it first.”
“Fine, fine. For your health, I will. For my part, I don’t want to be dragged into a milliner’s shop.”
“What about a dressmaker’s?” Eliza could not resist asking.
“Acceptable. Dresses are necessary. Most hats are fashionable nonsense.”
“No milliners,” Eliza agreed.
Bertie stood aside, allowing his sister to pass through the morning room’s doorway, then turned back to Eliza. “What is your wish-not-to?”
That was easy to answer. Far too easy.
I don’t want to call on my father.
I don’t want either of us to remember how easily we were once split apart.
Closing her lips on these replies, she waved a careless hand. “I’ll think of something if need be. Only let me fetch my fashionable nonsense of a hat, and I shall be ready to walk out with you.”
* * *
Tunbridge Wells was a very different town when seen at the side of Eliza Greenleaf.
When Bertie walked here with Georgie, he spent his time fetching shawls and mineral water to keep her comfortable. When he called on Andrew Greenleaf with news about the Friar’s House, he generally felt the need for a pint or three at the Joyful Shepherdess on his way home.
But with Eliza on one arm to balance his concern over Georgie on the other, this was a pleasure outing. For the first time as he walked The Parade, he noticed the intricate march of clay tiles beneath his feet. The fine new buildings edging the pavement, trim and colonnaded. The shops’ plate glass windows sparkling on the ground floor, with bays on the upper stories and arches like mischievous eyebrows.
Here were coffee houses leaking the acrid scents of roasted beans and tobacco smoke; here, too, were bakeries from which wafted the scents of spice and cooked fruit. Dressmakers. Milliners—shudder. A cobbler. An apothecary.
A pleasant variety, really.
As the trio strolled, they passed many familiar faces. Bertie nodded to acquaintances time and again, while Georgie burst into ready conversation. Miss Peterson and Miss Rogers, chatty as ever, would hardly let her walk on without them.
“Your sister has many friends,” Eliza said in Bertie’s ear. “You see how lively she is?”
“I have never doubted her liveliness. Only her strength.” Next to the other young women, Georgie looked frail within the heavy sweep of her cloak.
Along with friendly greetings of her own, Eliza won curious glances. Why that should be, Bertie couldn’t imagine. Anyone who knew she was Greenleaf’s daughter ought to understand why she wasn’t living in her father’s household. Who would unless compelled to?
She would, a treacherous voice whispered from memory. She did. She chose her family’s good name over yours.
Within his coat sleeve, his biceps flexed in a protective reflex. No. That had been long ago. This was now: Eliza, who had kissed him tongue to tongue until he thought he would combust. Eliza, holding his arm, a fashionable nonsense of a hat tipped at a lovely angle above one of her wicked eyes.
“Are you ready to drink the water?” Georgie gave a tug at Bertie’s other arm, and he realized they’d arrived at the building that housed the town’s famous spring. Cream-colored and sturdy, the structure was practically the seat of Tunbridge Wells. A steady flow of traffic—on foot, in wheelchairs, on canes and in the arms of caregivers—proceeded in and out.
They all looked much more ill than Georgie. As he squinted at her, evaluating, he wondered whether her cheeks were rosy from the cool breeze, or whether health and high color were returning to her.
When she shivered and clutched at the edge of her cloak, though, he was decided. “Into the line we go.”
Bertie paid their admission, and they joined the line, shuffling across a smooth floor until their turn came to face the spring itself. Framed within wicked-looking iron pikes, a stone basin was set into the floor. From it, rusty-hued water welled up and was dipped out into glasses.
“One for you, Georgie, and one for me. And one for you, Eliza?”
She stepped back, laughing. “I’d use my wish-not-to on this if you asked it of me.”
“Not necessary.” Bertie sniffed at the brownish liquid in his glass. It carried a strong odor of sulfur that would have made his cavalry horse snort and refuse to drink. Trying not to inhale, he gulped it quickly.
“Blargh,” he spluttered, handing the glass back to the dipper. “It tastes of rusty metal.”
“I told you it was awful,” Georgie said. Her glass was still untouched.
“It wasn’t.” His voice sounded hoarse and false. “It was wonderful. I feel so strong and healthy now.”
“So convincing,” said Eliza.
Bertie narrowed his eyes. “Drink your mineral water, Georgie. You owe me. I mean—you owe yourself. For the sake of your good health.”
“So convincing,” repeated his sister. “Very well. The revenge water shall be consumed.” With a practiced toss, she swallowed the drink, shuddering as she returned the glass. “That’s the most I’ve ever enjoyed taking the
water here. It becomes much more pleasant when someone else drinks it first.”
“Anything for you, sister dear.” Bertie grimaced. His mouth tasted of old nails.
“Does this anything extend to the consumption of a cream puff?” Eliza asked as they made their way out of the building. “Or some other baked treat? Because I suspect your sister would consume such a thing even if you did not lead the way.”
Georgie bounced on her toes. “I could eat an entire tray of Madame Florian’s biscuits. The walk from the Friar’s House has given me a prodigious appetite.”
“I know just the place,” Eliza said. “One street north, there’s a bakery that creates wondrous confections with puff pastry and piped sugar.”
“I need that,” said Georgie. “North, you said?”
As she strode off, gesturing impatiently for them to follow, Eliza laid a hand on Bertie’s shoulder. “I’ve chosen my wish-not-to,” she murmured, her breath a tickle in his ear.
Of its own volition, his hand covered hers. His throat felt tight. “And what is that?”
“I wish for this not to end.”
Before he could unlock his tongue, she slid from his hold and walked off after Georgie—leaving him puzzled and yearning in her wake.
He ordered his feet into service, following after Eliza. Toward wondrous confections. Toward something Georgie wanted that he had never thought to give her.
I wish for this not to end. Whatever Eliza had meant by that—this moment? This hour? This day or season?—he agreed.
They had already lived through endings enough. He could not let her slip away again.
Chapter 6
By the time the few remaining days before Michaelmas had passed, Bertie had realized three things.
First, a well-run household bore much in common—in organization and camaraderie—with a well-run cavalry regiment. Through hours in the study, the stables, and the butler’s pantry, he could give free rein to habits he’d honed in the military: punctuality, meticulous record-keeping, a patience with the grievances of one’s underlings, and a bit of reckless flair to keep everyone full of energy. Best of all, as in the 13th Light Dragoons, there was a companionship and satisfaction in working together toward a common goal.
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