The Lady’s Secret

by Joanna Chambers

  “Try me. Or do you want me to take you to Dunsmore right now?”

  She shook her head. “Please,” she whispered. “Don’t take me to him. You helped me before. Please, just let me—” She broke off and let out a half sob. “Please. Is there anything I can do?”

  He stared at her. She seemed truly afraid but he wasn’t convinced. What she’d done over the last few months had been incredibly audacious. This had to be an act, designed to appeal to his merciful side. But he was nobody’s fool.

  He’d already helped her more than he ought to have. Why had he done that? Why had he pushed her up against the wall just as the door began to open? If he’d had even a moment to think…. He was horrified now by his impulsiveness. He’d put his reputation in peril and had been incredibly fortunate that it had been Dunsmore and Osborne who had emerged from that bedchamber. They had been as compromised as he.

  He stared into the wide eyes of the woman cowering before him and forced his disquiet to one side. She might look terrified but he didn’t know who on earth she was or what she’d been doing tonight. She’d been living as a man in his house for weeks now. Living a lie and very successfully too. For all her shaky tears, he’d stake a fortune that she was no innocent.

  But he wanted to be sure.

  “Hmm. Let me think. Is there anything you can do?” he repeated in a silky voice and took a deliberate step forward, bringing his body up against hers. He smiled slowly and raised a hand, stroking the backs of his fingers down her cheek. She jerked beneath the gentle touch.

  “What are you doing?”

  “What do you think?” His fingers followed her jawline, curling round to cup her chin.

  “I don’t know,” she whispered.

  “No? Well, here is the thing, Fellowes. You’ve asked me if there’s anything you can do to stop me handing you over to Dunsmore. And maybe there is. You see, when I had you pinned up against that wall a few minutes ago, I was tempted to kiss you for real.”

  A shocked huff of breath came out of her mouth. She was still gazing at him like a scared rabbit, her eyes fixed on him as though she didn’t dare look away. Oh, she was good! But what if he pushed her just a little more? How far would she take this charade?

  Slowly he lowered his head until his lips were almost, not quite, brushing hers. Her cheeks were silky and hairless, unmistakably female. He closed his eyes and discreetly inhaled. Up close, her scent was delicious. Subtle and heady.

  “I thought you liked women,” she mumbled.

  He opened his eyes and smiled at her, a cold, feral smile. “Right now, I like you.”

  “Don’t,” she whispered, her voice thick with distress. She tried to jerk her head away but he tightened his grip on her chin, forcing her to keep looking at him. Her chest was rising and falling.

  “Don’t what?” he asked, still smiling.

  She whimpered. “I am not what you think.”

  “Aren’t you? Are you quite sure about that?”

  She closed her eyes and nodded.

  “You’re wrong,” he said, his voice husky. She opened her eyes again, surprised by his change in tone. When her gaze went to his mouth, it was as though she touched him intimately. He had already been feeling provoked and now he was aroused. “I see you,” he assured her slowly. “You are not as invisible as you imagine.”

  She shook her head, almost angrily.

  He let go of her chin and lifted his hand to take a strand of her hair between his fingers, rubbing it softly. “I am fascinated by your hair. It feels like silk, just as I imagined. And the colour…” He smiled. “It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen before. Like silver and gold mixed. When you bow your head, you let your fringe fall over your face to hide from me. You do it all the time and think I don’t notice.”

  He dropped the lock of hair and looked back down into her eyes. The fear had been supplanted by astonishment. He reached for her hand and lifted it between them, examining it. “You have small hands and slim fingers, but they’re strong.” He lifted the hand higher to his mouth, kissed one of the fingers softly. She pulled it away. “And your eyes—”

  “Stop!”

  “—are that pale, pale green colour, like a winter pond—”

  “Please.”

  “I see you,” he insisted.

  “Stop! I cannot give you what you want!” Then, more calmly, “Believe me, you will be disappointed.”

  He stepped minutely closer. She was backed against the wall and he was pressing into her. “You don’t even know what I want.”

  She made a disbelieving sound. “I am not that green,” she said scornfully.

  “You think I want you in my bed?”

  She flushed. A deep crimson swept over her face like a tide and he watched its progress with fascination. It was gauche and utterly charming. Impossible to feign, surely. Good lord, how much was real and how much was pretence with her? Just when he was convincing himself she was nothing but smoke and mirrors, she went and blushed like that!

  “Don’t you?” she parried.

  He made himself smile, heart thudding with excitement. “For now, all I want is a kiss.”

  “A kiss?”

  “Yes. Just a kiss.”

  At the back of his mind, he knew this was getting out of hand, but he didn’t much care. He wanted to get to the bottom of the puzzle she presented. Not to mention the fact that his cock was pulsing in his breeches. He was so close to her, the scent of her seemed to permeate the very air. She smelled so feminine—he was astonished he hadn’t noticed that before. Or perhaps, he thought, thinking of previous physical reactions he’d had to her, his body had noticed even if his mind had not.

  “For now?” she repeated.

  He smiled, sensing capitulation approaching. “Yes.”

  She paused, biting her lip. “So will you want more later?”

  His smile widened. “Let’s negotiate that separately. For now, just a kiss will do. Let us say, in gratitude for my saving you from being caught by Lord Dunsmore.”

  “And if I kiss you,” she said carefully after another pause, “will you promise not to hand me over to Lord Dunsmore?”

  He almost laughed, reluctantly admiring her audacity. He suspected she had already decided to give in to his demand but was playing for better terms. Clever girl. His groin pulsed heavily as he watched her through heavy-lidded eyes.

  “If you kiss me properly, I promise I won’t hand you to Dunsmore.”

  Even as he agreed, he knew it was a stupidly rash decision, driven partly by his obsession with the womanly form beneath the masculine clothes and partly by the sheer piquancy of the situation. At this moment, he’d have promised virtually anything to have that kiss.

  She considered for a moment, her plump bottom lip caught between white teeth, her fair brow frowning. She made a charmingly erotic picture: Innocence compromised.

  “Very well then,” she said at last. She took a deep breath, then closed her eyes and lifted her face to him, her expression unhappy.

  He touched her cheek with one finger and she opened her eyes again.

  “That will not do, I am afraid. You are not to suffer this kiss. You are to bestow it. And as I said—” he smiled before he went on, “—you have to kiss me properly. I want it to be stirring.”

  She dropped her gaze, staring at his chest for a moment, and he wondered if she would do it. But when she looked up at him again, peeping at him through her silky fringe, he knew she would. She was going to kiss him; he read the determination in her face and his gut flip-flopped. There was something innocent yet knowing about her, something both winsome and provoking that reached him in ways he didn’t quite understand yet. But he would.

  “Will you close your eyes?” she said.

  “All right.” He did so, and then, because he couldn’t resist, he added, “And remember—stirring.”

  He felt her step up against him and her hands come to rest on his upper arms. Her hair brushed his cheek and then the warmth of her br
eath was on his face. He couldn’t stop his lips curving upwards as he waited for her kiss.

  Her first foray was just a little pluck of a kiss. Not a proper kiss at all, just the sweetest persuasive pull that caught at his lips—a moist little suckle of a kiss that was over before it had really begun. It left him yearning towards her when she pulled back. Then, just as he was about to open his eyes and demand “Is that it?” she kissed him again.

  She moved right into him this time, her hands brushing up past his shoulders, her fingers twining into the hair at the back of his neck as her body came up against him and her mouth returned to his, parting this time, the tip of her tongue stroking the seam of his lips. His whole body gave. His arms came round her and his lips opened, his tongue meeting hers. He enfolded her body with his own and let her draw him into her kiss more deeply. And God, the feel of her; her scent. Now that she was kissing him, he could smell the pomade in her hair too. It slightly masked that lovely, light fragrance he’d detected earlier but not entirely, not now he had her scent. He swallowed the little noise she made in the back of her throat as she pressed closer.

  He moaned, loving the feel of her fingers at his nape and her softness all around him. She kissed wonderfully—he decided she certainly wasn’t an innocent. He moved his hands to her hips and then to her bottom, cupping her round buttocks in his hands. She ground against him, tearing her mouth from his to press a hot kiss to his throat. He groaned with satisfaction, loving her passion.

  His cock was hard and thick in his breeches, his balls tight. The brush of fabric against his sensitised flesh made him groan again.

  “God, I want you,” he muttered, his hands roving over her. “Come to bed with me. Please.”

  Chapter 13

  Georgy stiffened and pulled back. How had she gotten so ridiculously carried away? It wasn’t as though she’d never been kissed before! She liked kissing—but it had never been quite like this. Consuming. Self-stealing.

  “What?” she said.

  He opened eyes that had gone black, the dark brown irises eaten up by greedy pupils dilated with passion.

  “I must be insane,” he muttered. He lifted a hand and pulled her loose cravat from her neck, dropping it to the floor. “I want you so much it hurts. Come to bed with me. Let me see you properly.” He pressed his lips to her jawline, his mouth travelling up towards her ear, his warm breath sending prickles of sensation all the way down her neck and side. She hunched her shoulder helplessly against the pleasure, but fear was beginning to win over desire. She couldn’t let him see her!

  She began to extricate herself from his grasp. “You said you only wanted a kiss.”

  “That was before you kissed me,” he murmured against her ear, giving her gooseflesh. “You kiss amazingly well, you know. You’ve made me want more and I’ve a fair idea you feel the same.”

  “Oh, and you can tell this from one kiss?” She tried to make her voice disbelieving, but there was a tremor in it and she knew he heard it. He laughed.

  “Yes, easily. Come. Take these clothes off. Come to bed. Let me see your skin. Let me see those pretty breasts.”

  Breasts?

  She stiffened and pulled roughly out of his grasp. “What did you say?”

  And in that one moment, her desire ebbed away and was replaced by panicky disbelief.

  For an instant, his face showed total surprise, as though he genuinely hadn’t realised what he’d said, then he laughed softly. “Oh you know, Fellowes. Those lovely breasts you’ve got bound up under your shirt?”

  Georgy’s mouth fell open in shock, and the wretch laughed.

  He knew what she was.

  “How long have you known?” she asked faintly.

  “That you weren’t a man? Not long. A week or so.”

  “And you didn’t say anything.” She lifted one hand to her throat. Beneath the skin, she could feel her pulse hammering.

  Harland stepped closer, regaining the space she had put between them when she’d pulled out of his embrace. She tried to move farther away but the wall was behind her and Harland was everywhere else. He smiled dangerously.

  “I was fascinated, of course. Why would a woman masquerade as a male valet in my household?”

  They stared at one another in silence. She did not intend to answer his question.

  “Well,” she said at last, forcing herself to appear calm, “I gave you your kiss.” A kiss she was seeing quite differently now.

  “Yes.” He placed a hand on the wall next to her head and leaned in close, his body brushing against hers. “And you managed to stir me.”

  She wondered for a moment if he was going to kiss her again, but he didn’t. He just gazed into her eyes for a long moment, and then added, “So I’ll keep my promise. I won’t hand you over to Dunsmore.”

  She watched him, suspicious.

  “But I want you to tell me who you are, and why you entered my employ.”

  He was calm, genial even—though with a hint of danger that put her on edge. He smiled at her as he caged her against the wall, waiting for his order to be obeyed.

  “I can’t,” she whispered.

  The humour left his face, the dark eyes growing cold, the faint hitch of his mouth falling away.

  “Why not?”

  She stared at him with wide eyes. “It’s a secret. And not just mine.”

  The only movement on Harland’s face came from the flickering light of the candles. Everything else about him was perfectly still. He was a cold, angry man, a man holding the advantage of his power over her. Georgy shivered and the silence stretched.

  “Am I going to have to take you to Dunsmore after all?”

  “You can’t,” she pointed out in a small voice. “You promised you wouldn’t if I kissed you, if I stirred you. And you’ve admitted I did.”

  He laughed without mirth and pushed away from the wall, putting a clear yard between them. Finally she could take a deep, shaky breath. Not that Harland seemed to notice. He was frowning at the floor, his jaw clenched.

  When he lifted his head again, his expression was accusing. “You entered my employ on false pretences. You owe me some sort of explanation.”

  They stared at one another in silence for a few moments. Georgy was the first to look away.

  “I’m sorry to have deceived you,” she said. “Truly. My pretending to be a man—it has nothing to do with you, I swear. And I apologise. You must be mortified to have had a woman for a valet all this time.” She glanced at him nervously. “The best thing would be for me to remove myself at first light. There must be an inn near here where I can catch a stage back to London.”

  He made a rough sound of disbelief. “That will not be happening. You’re not going anywhere.”

  She tried to banish the fear that was rising in her again. “But you said you wouldn’t hand me over. You promised.”

  He looked at her for a long moment, his gaze resentful. He was plainly regretting his hasty promise now, but she could tell he couldn’t see an honourable way out. It seemed, as she’d hoped, that for Harland a promise was a promise.

  “I won’t hand you over. But I’m not letting you go yet either.”

  “You can’t keep me here!”

  He opened his mouth, looking as though he was about to contradict her, but in the end he closed it again without speaking and turned away from her.

  Georgy watched his back for a minute, throbbing with frustration and fear and unable to think what to do. She should have agreed to his demand to go to bed with him then taken the chance of running off afterward. It wasn’t as if it would’ve been a hardship.

  She scowled at her traitorous thoughts.

  At length he turned back to her, and his face was calm, the anger banished. “You’ll stay with me until we return to London. Then you can leave and go back to whatever life it is you have there.”

  “But I don’t—I mean, why would you want me to stay with you?”

  He glared. “It’s not the easiest time or
place in which to be finding myself a new valet. What do you expect me to do?”

  She reddened, embarrassed by her own presumption. “You mean you just want me to continue working?”

  He shrugged. “You are an excellent valet. It’s actually rather inconvenient that you’ve turned out to be a woman. Staying with me for another week or two is the very least you can do given I’m not handing you over to Dunsmore.”

  She flushed. She wasn’t sure she entirely believed in his claim to want her only as a valet. Whatever her reservations, though, she had no choice but to accept what he was saying. She was stuck in the rural depths of Bedfordshire at Christmas. Walking home was impossible and she had no idea where the nearest posting inn might be. All she could do was wait to see if the option of running away might present itself at some stage.

  “All right,” she said at last. He nodded. It seemed they had reached an agreement of sorts.

  “What’s your real name?” he asked suddenly. “I refuse to call you Fellowes for a moment longer.”

  “Georgy.”

  “Your real name,” he said impatiently.

  “It is Georgy. Georgiana, to be precise.”

  “Georgiana what?”

  “I am not going to tell you that.”

  She thought he might insist, but he merely inclined his head. “Very well, Georgiana.”

  “Everyone calls me Georgy,” she corrected automatically.

  “Georgiana is much nicer.”

  And it sounded nice, the way he said it, drawing out the four syllables of her name with those long, languid vowels.

  “It’s Georgy,” she insisted.

  He shrugged again. “All right. Let’s go to bed.” She startled and he raised a wry brow. “I mean you to yours and I to mine,” he clarified. “I don’t know about you, but I’m ready to drop.”

  Absurd to be stung by his lack of interest.

  “Oh yes, of course. Good night, then.”

  “Before you go, Georgy—”

  She stopped, shivering to hear her name, so intimate, on his lips. “Yes?”

  “No running away. Promise me.”