The Lady’s Secret

by Joanna Chambers

  Why not? At least the women at Yvette’s only wanted his coins.

  “You’re on. Let’s have some sport.”

  It was well after noon before Harland rang for her.

  When she reached his bedchamber she tapped the door, counted to ten and eased it ajar.

  “Come.” His voice was croaky and listless. Georgy swung the door fully open and entered. The room reeked of stale alcohol. Harland lay on his back, one arm thrown over his face. He still wore his crumpled clothes from the previous evening, with the exception of his coat, which he had somehow managed to wrestle off and which now lay in a sorry heap on the floor. He must have been ridiculously foxed to have treated his coat like that.

  “My lord?”

  “I feel awful,” he groaned from under his arm.

  “Would you like me to get you some breakfast, my lord?”

  “Just coffee,” he said faintly. “I have to meet Bradwell at three to discuss House business. If I did not, I would pull these covers over my head and go back to sleep.”

  “Very good, my lord,” Georgy murmured and withdrew.

  She tripped downstairs to the kitchens, where Mrs. Simms ordered a maid to brew the coffee. She insisted on adding toasted muffins and the customary orange to the tray as well.

  By the time Georgy returned to the bedchamber with the breakfast tray, Harland had removed the rest of his clothes and donned his favourite red silk robe. He was sitting up in bed, the covers pushed aside, his lean hair-roughened legs stretched out and crossed at the ankle. His fingers were pressed to his temples, his eyes closed. When she approached the bed he dropped his hands from his head. She placed the tray over his thighs and he recoiled slightly at the sight of the muffins.

  “Mrs. Simms,” Georgy explained quietly.

  “I should probably eat something,” Harland said with a distinct lack of enthusiasm. He shifted into a more upright position and winced. “Ah, Fellowes, my head is pounding like the very devil. Do you have a magic brew you can give me to make it go away? Aren’t valets supposed to know about these sorts of things?”

  Georgy opened her mouth to speak, then thought better of it and closed it again. There was something she could do for him but she was reluctant to offer. “Did Mr. Jarvis have a magic brew?” she temporised.

  “God, no. Jarvis thought that if one brought misery upon one’s own head one should bear it like a man.” He winced again. “I’ll have this coffee and then you can shave me.”

  “Very good, my lord.” Georgy bowed herself out of his presence again, leaving the room backwards. The first time she had done that, she had felt idiotic. But it had quickly become habit. It was the role she performed—part of that strange dance between master and servant.

  She wandered back down to the kitchens and waited while Rosie boiled her a kettle, then ran back upstairs with the kettle to perform the usual door-knocking shenanigans. Tap, tap, tap. Opening the door a mere inch till she had his permission to enter. On his command, she went in and wandered through to the dressing room to prepare to shave him. Oil, towels, soap. Strop the blade. Beat the lather. Everything laid out just so. By the time she was ready, he was making his loose-limbed entrance, as self-possessed as a sultan.

  He sat down carefully and laid his head back on the headrest, expression pinched. Georgy set a towel over his shoulders and lathered his face, which had a distinct ashen tinge. She shaved him deftly, her movements neat and efficient. As she bent close she could smell the brandy on him. Stupidly, she wanted to make him feel better. Two hot flannels today, she thought.

  After she’d lifted the second flannel away and given his face a final wipe, she said, somewhat diffidently, “My lord, if your head is still pounding, perhaps there is something I can do to assist.”

  He opened his eyes. “How? Have you recalled a magic brew after all?” She looked down at his upside-down face and felt her cheeks heat faintly. Lord, but he was beautiful; he quite undid her at times.

  “I—actually, no. But I could rub your head. It is quite effective with the headache, I find.” She had been plagued with sinus infections when she was younger, and her mother used to rub her head for hours to relieve the pain. Later, Georgy had learned how to do it for herself.

  “I would try anything, Fellowes. Do your worst.”

  “Very good. Please—close your eyes, my lord.” He did so while Georgy cast around for some kind of unguent. There was only the scented oil. She opened the bottle and shook a small amount onto her palm, then quickly rubbed her hands together, spreading it evenly. The spicy scent drifted up to her nostrils and she saw Harland’s expression relax slightly as the same familiar aroma reached him.

  Taking a deep breath, she laid one hand on either side of his face, her palms cupping his jaw on either side, her fingertips meeting in the middle of his chin. Gently, she exerted some upward pressure.

  “Oh, that’s good.” Harland sighed.

  She smiled to herself, remembering just how pleasurable the relief from pain could be. After half a minute of pressing upwards, she slowly ran her fingertips up either side of Harland’s jaw, pressing firmly, right up to the base of his earlobes, where she began to rub small circles, moving upwards. Harland groaned. She paused at his temples and slid her thumbs to the base of his skull, and rubbed there too, her thumbs and fingertips all moving together at the front and back of his head.

  “This is wonderful,” Harland sighed after several minutes. “How did you learn to do it?”

  “My mother.” Georgy let her fingertips drift to his cheekbones, pausing every half inch to press a firm circle until she reached the bridge of his nose. Again, her fingertips met.

  “Close your eyes,” she murmured. Harland made a rough sound of assent, his jaw slack with pleasure.

  Georgy gently traced the upper ridge of his eye sockets with her thumbs, following the curving bones. She paused again at the bridge of his nose, pressing firmly on either side and then working her way along the lower ridge of the eye sockets and cheekbones.

  “Ah,” said Harland. It was little more than an exhalation really, an appreciative sound borne on a sigh.

  Her hands ached but there was one last thing her mother used to do, the thing that felt the best of all. Georgy drew her fingers slowly back to Harland’s temples again then tunnelled them into his dark silky hair and began to knead his scalp. She used all of her fingers, her thumbs and the heels of her hands in the task. He groaned again and the sound of his pleasure grabbed her, down low.

  She looked down at him, at that dark head relaxing on the headrest, at his lean length sprawled in the chair below her, at his expression, relaxed at last. His robe had worked loose and she could see his upper thighs, hard and muscular and rough with dark hair. Her eyes moved upwards and stopped again at his throat, strong and vulnerable all at once. His hair felt silken in her fingers, the planes of his head firm and warm in her hands. The oil scent infused the air. She gazed at his dark lashes, his lips, which moved minutely as she worked. She imagined what it would be like to press hers down on them, to stroke a hand over his smooth throat, to feel his pulse there. Her own body heated with that wanting.

  It was then she saw that he was hard.

  Fellowes’ fingers stopped moving quite suddenly. Nathan opened his eyes but Fellowes was not looking at Nathan’s face. Eyes wide, he was staring lower, at the semi-erection Nathan was sporting.

  Nathan scrambled upright and Fellowes’ hands fell entirely away.

  “Thank you, Fellowes,” Nathan muttered. His neck felt hot. “Would you brush down my blue coat, please?”

  “Of course, my lord. Any particular waistcoat?” Fellowes’ voice was as quiet and calm as usual. He was already moving away, as though the last few minutes had not happened.

  “No. Whatever you think.”

  Nathan stood and walked to his linen closet, pulling out a pair of drawers and hurriedly yanking them on. By the time Fellowes came back with the coat and waistcoat, Nathan was tying the drawstring a
round his waist. Fellowes stared at this unusual sight in momentary surprise before masking his expression and turning away.

  Bloody hell. He had been aroused by Fellowes! No, he amended the thought quickly. He had not been aroused by Fellowes. Just by Fellowes’ hands on him. An anonymous pair of hands had brought him pleasure—that was all. Any pair of hands would have done the same.

  These rationalisations did nothing to relieve his horror though. He felt embarrassed and awkward. And exploitative. Especially when he remembered what had brought Fellowes to his door—a master who had tried to take advantage of Fellowes’ youth and inexperience.

  From the lad’s expression as he’d stared at his tented robe, Nathan was sure that he was fairly innocent. His eyes had been wide with palpable shock at Nathan’s arousal. But it was not merely shock. There had been something else there too after the immediate reaction.

  Interest. Just for a moment. And that was the most disconcerting thing of all.

  Nathan dressed quickly, for the most part declining Fellowes’ assistance. He even elected to tie his own cravat, which was stupid, since he had to discard several attempts before finally getting it right. His behaviour was odd, he knew, but he felt faintly panicked that he might get another erection if Fellowes touched him. Absurd!

  He took off as soon as he was dressed, ordering his carriage and making for his club where he was meeting Bradwell.

  As his carriage bounced miserably over the cobbles, he closed his aching eyes and reviewed what had just happened. Had he over-reacted?

  Systematically, he set about reassuring himself. He had been drunk last night and hungover this morning. He was not in working order. He had quite simply not been in his own head when Fellowes had administered that soothing head-rub. His body had reacted to the pleasure itself, not the giver of the pleasure.

  He pointed these facts out to his own tired brain several times and still didn’t feel entirely reassured.

  Chapter 5

  10 December 1810

  The days passed quickly for Georgy. The life of a servant was one of routine and constant occupation. Besides dressing Harland two or three times each day, there was an unending list of tasks—repairs to be made, cleaning to be done, boots to be shined, baths to be drawn, equipment to be kept up to scratch, orders to be placed and fetched.

  All in all, she was fully occupied from dawn until late in the evening. She was lucky that Harland was not a master who insisted she stay up every night to help him undress. Sometimes she was on call—usually if he’d attended a ball and was wearing very formal evening clothes that he simply couldn’t extricate himself from. But at least half of the week he sent her to bed and said he’d manage himself. Even so, every day was long and busy and, immersed in her role as she was, it was sometimes easy to forget why she was here. Dunsmore’s Christmas house party was still ten days away.

  She looked forward to her Sunday afternoons all week, a small slice of time when she could put her life as a servant to one side, meet her friends and get news of how Harry was faring. She knew how lucky she was. Mr. Taylor had been at pains to point out to her that only the upper servants got regular time off and that was a half day every month. A half day every week was an unbelievable luxury and one which Mr. Taylor was clearly alarmed Harland had agreed to. After the interview Taylor had made a point of deducting a portion of the salary her predecessor had been paid as “compensation” for this favour.

  She was rarely free until two o’clock on Sunday afternoons, by which time she had been up and working a full day already, and she had to be back for servants’ dinner at six. But she wasn’t about to complain.

  Today she was meeting Lily in Hyde Park, which was very close to Harland’s townhouse. But first, she had to deal with dressing Harland.

  He’d been at a ball the previous evening and had risen late. At one o’clock, he had announced he was taking his phaeton out and was now being irritatingly choosy about his clothing. Having granted his valet the boon of a half day off every week, Harland had an annoying habit of forgetting about it.

  “I don’t like this waistcoat,” he declared, at five minutes to two.

  “The green then, my lord?”

  Harland stayed silent in the face of this question, merely staring into the looking glass. Georgy wanted to tell him, very frankly, what he could do with his waistcoats. Why did it matter so much anyway? He dressed as though for battle sometimes, with all the gravity of a warrior choosing his weapons.

  “The cream,” he decided at last.

  She helped him off with his tight fitting coat and the offending russet waistcoat. She fetched the cream waistcoat, helped him on with that and then it was on with the coat again. She tidied his cravat and swept a brush over it to remove every speck of lint. When she finished, Harland didn’t look much happier but thankfully he decided that this would do…although he wanted his boots burnished again.

  By the time he finished dressing—at twenty minutes after two—Georgy wanted to scream aloud. Finally dismissed, she hurried to her small attic room, tidied her own appearance, flew down the backstairs and half ran, half walked to the Park.

  She rushed through the gates, overtaking strolling couples and children out with their nursemaids. It was an unseasonably warm day. The sky was a bright, happy blue and it was impossible not to feel cheerful.

  Lily was dawdling at their designated meeting place by the Serpentine, looking ridiculously pretty, a pastoral ideal of an apple-cheeked country lass in her simple muslin gown and yellow shawl.

  “George, darling! At last!” she called, eyes alight with mischief. Lily found it highly amusing to pretend Georgy was her beau when they met in public. She’d invented a lurid history for them, worthy of Mrs. Radcliffe. Georgy was a promising young architect and Lily was the daughter of a drunken impoverished lord who wished to marry her off to a wicked duke.

  Georgy, not to be outdone, took Lily’s hand and pressed a kiss to her gloved knuckles. “My darling,” she said, her expression anguished. “The hours have felt like days, the days like weeks, the weeks like months, the months…”

  Lily broke first, snorting out a laugh.

  Georgy gave a small smile of triumph and offered her arm. She was becoming used to living as a man now and these gestures didn’t feel strange anymore.

  They strolled along, putting their heads together as they chatted. Lily was only an inch shorter than Georgy, so they were well suited in height and build.

  “So,” Lily said, “how is life with Lord Perfection?”

  At the beginning of her tenure as his valet, Georgy had told Lily of some of Harland’s ways—his pickiness about his linen, his insistence on silence in the mornings, the eight precise slices of orange at breakfast. Lily had found these details fascinating and hilarious. Georgy had come to wish she had never opened her mouth.

  “Fine,” she said now, adopting an uninterested tone.

  Lily was undeterred. “It must be tiresome, having to put up with his demands. Does he change his clothes three times every day?”

  “Of course not,” Georgy said irritably. Why did she have this absurd compulsion to defend him? To say, he’s not some brainless dandy. It’s just that clothes matter to him, they’re …

  “Georgy?”

  …. armour.

  She blinked at Lily, realising she’d lost herself for a moment.

  “Sorry. I was miles away. What were we talking about?”

  “No, I’m sorry,” Lily said with a rueful smile. “The last thing you must want to do is talk about Lord Harland after spending every day with him. When is Dunsmore’s house party?”

  “We depart in ten days’ time.”

  “So you don’t have too much longer to bear working as his valet then.”

  “No.”

  Shouldn’t that make her ecstatically happy?

  “Have you heard from Harry?” Georgy asked, changing the subject.

  “Max had a letter yesterday,” Lily said. “But it didn’t
say much. Just that he was still going from village to village.” She paused and gave Georgy a sympathetic look. “He’s sure to find something sooner or later.”

  Georgy smiled at her friend, appreciating her pretended confidence. The truth was Lily would be as astonished as Georgy if Harry found anything in Yorkshire.

  “Unless you find something at Dunsmore’s house first,” Lily added.

  “Fingers crossed,” Georgy said.

  They shared a look, and then Lily patted her arm. “Well, if it’s there to be found, you’ll find it, George, I’m quite cert—”

  She broke off, staring straight ahead. Georgy followed her arrested gaze to see none other than Sir Nigel Agnew walking towards them, a young lady at his side. A respectable young lady. Two older ladies walked behind. Chaperoning. Georgy glanced at Lily, just in time to see her mask her dismayed reaction.

  Sir Nigel looked their way, a horror-stricken expression crossing his face.

  Lily turned her head to look at Georgy squarely and gave her a dazzling smile. “Don’t say anything. Just pretend to be besotted with me.”

  And so they walked past Sir Nigel and his companion, smiling and laughing and talking with utter absorption, and completely ignoring Lily’s lover. Georgy kissed Lily’s hand and looked at her rather as she imagined a dog might look at a bone. They kept the charade up long after they’d passed Sir Nigel. Georgy paid Lily outrageous compliments, prompting her to laugh in a merry way that suggested she hadn’t a care in the world. When Lily dropped her handkerchief and it fell behind a fence, Georgy vaulted the fence to retrieve it, a feat of derring-do that made Lily’s eyes sparkle. She handed the errant handkerchief over with a bow and flashed a wicked smile.

  “My word, George,” Lily laughed. “You would turn any girl’s head, I declare. You are quite wasted as a girl.”

  Georgy chuckled. “I should be a chap, shouldn’t I? But I lack one very important thing. Were you to marry me, I think you would be very disappointed on our wedding night.”

  “Now, it must have been a man who told you that,” Lily said archly. They both laughed again and Lily glanced down the path. “He’s looking,” she whispered. And then she leaned forward and kissed Georgy.