She hesitated. She should just agree—it wasn’t as though she needed to honour a vow given under semi-duress. But somehow she knew he would keep his promise to her and that meant she would have to do the same.
He noticed her indecision—she saw it in his eyes—and he pressed his advantage.
“You owe me that at least.”
She nodded then. “All right. I promise I won’t run away. I’ll stay with you till we get back to London.”
“There is one last thing.” He leaned forward and slid his hand inside her waistcoat. She gasped as she felt his long fingers brush against her bound left breast.
“What—”
His hand emerged again. With the lock picks.
He shoved them into his own pocket and gave her a long stern look. “There will be no more skulking around trying to get into any room other than this one while we are here.”
She pressed her lips together, then she turned away and walked into the dressing room, relieved he didn’t say anything else. He hadn’t made her give her promise to that last demand.
Thankfully.
Chapter 14
Christmas Day, 1810
After the upheavals of the early hours, the rest of Christmas Day was remarkably uneventful.
Nathan spent much of it checking on Georgy. He was not prepared to allow a repeat of the previous evening’s events. He had his own plans for her, which would be quite ruined by her being arrested by the local magistrate.
He considered locking her into his chambers during the day, but that was impractical and would have drawn unwanted attention. Instead, he confiscated her belongings, as he had confiscated her lock picks the night before, and assured her he would be checking on her regularly. He made sure to appear in his rooms frequently and at odd intervals, making it plain to her that she should not try to predict his movements. When he wasn’t with Georgy, he was playing billiards with the older set of gentlemen. He wasn’t especially fond of billiards, but it enabled him to avoid Dunsmore and Osborne and it ensured his own comings and goings were not much noticed by the other guests.
Dinner was once again served at the hopelessly countrified hour of five o’clock, to allow the servants an early evening. He exchanged a few inconsequential words with Dunsmore over drinks before they sat down, and later with Osborne as the gentlemen took port. All three of them acted as though nothing untoward had happened, but to Nathan’s eyes, Dunsmore had a grim cast to his features and it was impossible not to notice that Osborne kept glancing at Nathan with barely veiled curiosity.
Dinner was followed by the most tedious evening of the party yet. Lady Dunsmore informed her guests that Christmas evening would be spent together. And so they were forced to play parlour games. Given the youth of the ladies and the presence of their parents, the games were very tame indeed. Charades, Wit, Snapdragon. There was a degree of amusement to be derived from watching Ross almost set his eyebrows on fire playing Snapdragon to impress Miss Howard, but still…
The trouble, of course, was that Nathan wanted to be somewhere else. He was entirely preoccupied by thoughts of Georgy.
When he had woken this morning, he had lain in bed watching her prepare his clothes. He liked her quiet, deft movements. When she was finished, he had asked her to shave him and had enjoyed far too much the feel of those light-fingered hands on his skin. True to his word, he said nothing when she excused herself while he bathed and had found himself donning his underclothes to spare her blushes before calling for her again. But otherwise he had made sure to make her very aware of him, lingering over his toilette, openly watching her and using her given name often. He enjoyed the way she reacted to his attention, particularly those surprising blushes of hers, ebbing and flowing in rosy washes across her pale skin.
He wanted to be back in his bedchamber now. He wanted to continue what had started last night. He wanted to get to the bottom of this clever, intriguing, not-so-innocent woman. He kept thinking about what he would say when he went up to bed and she had to help him undress, how he would draw her into conversation and begin the process of coaxing her secrets out of her. It would take some time, but once he had her at Camberley, away from the danger of discovery, it would be so much easier. It would not be long till they left now. He could be patient for another day or two.
Once the parlour games were over, the assembled company was herded into chairs to listen to the young ladies sing and play the pianoforte. Nathan was wedged between the hefty Toby Marchmont and the equally large Mrs. Hanley. Lady Dunsmore was always careful to keep him away from the young ladies and he was grateful to her for it, though it was not done out of kindness.
It was eleven o’clock before he was able to escape. He pleaded fatigue to Lady Dunsmore—a very real fatigue by this time—and bowed over her heavily ringed hand. Dunsmore was standing at his mother’s side, his expression wary. He said a cool good-night and Nathan nodded affably back before wandering off.
Dunsmore was a strange one, Nathan reflected as he made his way to the stairs. The biggest surprise wasn’t the truth of Dunsmore’s inclinations, but the fact that he had acted upon them, and with Osborne of all people, a gorgeous butterfly of a man, lusted over by half the men and women in society. Even more astonishing to Nathan, though, was Osborne’s interest in Dunsmore. He’d always laughed at Dunsmore’s conventional ways, openly deriding his pomposity.
Nathan was privy to a scandalous secret now. Of course he would never speak of what he’d seen. But he understood Dunsmore’s wary look. He only hoped that Dunsmore and Osborne would be similarly restrained about what they thought they’d observed him doing.
Nathan forced himself to walk slowly up the stairs to his bedchamber despite wanting to run. The room was dim when he unlocked the door. A fire burned low in the grate; no candles were lit. He kept hold of his own candle and crossed the chamber to the dressing room door. He knocked lightly and pushed the door gently when there was no reply. Georgy lay on the bed, fast asleep.
Nathan looked down at her. Evidently she’d not intended to fall asleep—she was still in her clothes. She lay on her front on the truckle bed on top of the bedcovers, her head turned to the side. That extraordinary hair was like a bright halo on the pillow, making the pristine white linen look almost dull. He felt covetous, looking down at that gold.
He leaned his shoulder on the door frame and just watched her for a while. His first impression of her when she’d come for her interview had been of peaceful serenity. She was good at being quiet. She had tiptoed round him for weeks, hiding herself from him in plain sight. And yet, something about her had alerted his senses; he had noticed her despite her precautions. He had known there was something about her even before he’d discovered she was woman. And then last night he’d discovered something else again—a glimpse this time of the passion that lay beneath the composed surface.
Her kisses had kindled the same passion in him. He’d wanted to topple her onto the bed and take her there and then. Oh, what a fascinating mix! That coolness and that heat together. He was tempted to wake her now, take her in his arms and pick up where they had left off.
Instead, he levered himself away from the doorway and fetched a blanket, settling it over her sleeping form. She barely stirred.
The next morning, Georgy woke early, still in her clothes. Damn. She’d fallen asleep before getting undressed and now her clothes were horribly creased.
Today promised to be much like the day before. They were not leaving for Camberley till tomorrow and she had no doubt that Harland would once again be checking up on her endlessly to ensure she didn’t go a-wandering.
It was so frustrating! She couldn’t stop thinking about Dunsmore’s study. It was a mere twenty yards of corridor from Harland’s bedchamber but as inaccessible as the moon to her right now. She could have cried—this was the last chance she was ever going to get to find evidence. Yesterday she had been on the verge on leaving Harland’s rooms a dozen times and on each occasion he had turned up just as she was scre
wing up her courage. The sensible, rational part of her brain pointed out that it was unlikely there was any record of her parents’ marriage in Dunsmore’s study anyway. Lily was right. If her grandfather had been so determined to hush it all up, there was a good chance he’d have destroyed every shred of any evidence he unearthed. She’d known before she’d even come here it was a chance in a thousand she’d find anything. And then there was the danger. Breaking into a locked room was a crime and who knew what Dunsmore would do to her if she was caught in an act of burglary?
She had half convinced herself that it was no bad thing that she wasn’t going to get the chance to the take the risk, when she discovered there might be one last opportunity after all. She was in the kitchen having breakfast and the other servants were talking about what the guests would be doing that day. Dunsmore would be leading the younger set on a walk through the extensive grounds while Lady Dunsmore and the older ladies took tea and gossiped in the morning room. The older gentlemen had planned yet another billiards competition. If Harland joined Dunsmore’s group on the walk, as he would be expected to do, there would be a short period of time when she could be sure of his—and everyone else’s—absence.
She began planning even as she ate her breakfast. There were three other guests on their floor—Colonel and Mrs. Hadley, and Mr. Howard. As part of the younger set, they should all be on the walk. The only other occupants of that floor were Lady Dunsmore and Dunsmore himself, and their rooms—including Dunsmore’s study—were on the stretch of corridor around the corner from Harland’s and the other guests’ bedchambers. Even if the Hadleys or Mr. Howard came back suddenly, they shouldn’t go anywhere near the study. The only real risk of discovery would be from Dunsmore himself, his mother, or one of the other servants.
The maidservants would have finished their upstairs cleaning by then and Dunsmore himself would be out with the others on the walk. That left only Lady Dunsmore—and surely she would have no reason to venture into the study?
The more she thought of it, the more her excitement and fear grew. All these months in Harland’s household, passing herself off as a man had come to this: her last chance. The opportunity was slim, the risks vast. It was a horrible gamble.
And she had to play.
Nathan sighed, adjusted his cravat minutely and descended the main staircase.
He had not disclosed to Georgy that he was about to depart on a walk. Better to keep her on her toes, expecting him back in his chamber any moment. He’d left her sewing a button on one of his coats. She had presented a piquant picture performing the domestic task in her male disguise, the sunlight gilding her bent head.
A large group had already congregated in the hall when he reached the bottom of the stairs. For the most part, the young ladies stood on the right, giggling together. They were clad in stylish walking gowns and bonnets, their hands thrust into warm muffs. On the left, a group of gentlemen stood. Dunsmore and Osborne were at the centre of it, Dunsmore dismal in grey and black and Osborne alluring in brown and green. Slightly apart from these two groups stood Ross and Miss Howard, conversing and laughing quietly, their heads bent together. Nathan tried to remember the last time he’d seen Ross with a respectable young lady but the best he could come up with was a foggy memory of his friend with a half-dressed whore—as opposed to a fully nude one—on his lap.
Changed days.
“Are we all ready?” Dunsmore asked the assembled party. The gentlemen stepped forward to offer their arms to the ladies. Osborne quickly snared Mrs. Marsh—the only unattached female who looked as though she might have anything interesting to say. Dunsmore offered his arm to Miss Hodge, a favourite of his mother’s. Nathan ended up extending his arm to Miss Hodge’s younger sister Lucinda. She smiled brightly at him, and he smiled back, making an effort to conceal his dismay. He’d spoken to Miss Lucinda several times over the last few days and had already exhausted her repertoire of conversation twice at least.
The grounds of Dunsmore Manor were large and well-landscaped. An extensive set of formal gardens to the rear of the house gradually became less and less manicured until they blended into a ruthlessly tamed “wilderness.” A series of small man-made waterfalls led to a hermit’s cave.
They walked slowly through the formal gardens and the cherry orchard, past trees that were sadly bare, all the way down to the wild garden, pausing for a few minutes at a Chinese-style bridge for the ladies to catch their breath. Nathan eyed Ross and Miss Howard enviously. They seemed to be enjoying themselves, smiling and talking in a concentrated way that excluded everyone else.
When they set off again, Miss Lucinda leaned on Nathan’s arm, picking over tree roots as though they were great boulders, chatting incessantly all the while about the Season she’d just enjoyed in London—her first. She could only be nineteen at the very most, but it was impossible to imagine she’d ever been a girl. Her grip tightened on his arm as the path took on a slight incline. He let her lean on him more heavily, adjusting his gait again to shorten and slow his stride.
He seemed to recall that his own sister, Louisa, had become like this when she was this age, adopting the feminine tendency to seek male assistance at every turn. But when she was younger she’d romped round Camberley with him, as rough as any boy. One minute she’d been tearing off her stockings to tickle trout with him in the river, and the next she’d been announcing that she was too old play.
When did that happen to girls, he wondered. When was the moment they became women, when they stopped running, stopped playing, started leaning on men’s arms every time so much as a pebble got in their way?
But not every woman was like that. He recalled Georgy, walking along the Serpentine with Lily, running across the path to pick a daisy, vaulting that fence to fetch her handkerchief…
He was reliving that moment when he felt a sharp pull at his arm and heard his companion cry out. Before he could do anything to stop her, Lucinda Hodge toppled over and landed on her backside.
“Ow!” she cried out.
“Miss Lucinda!” He dropped down beside her, feigning the sort of concern gentlemen were supposed to show in these situations. “What happened?”
The rest of the group began to gather around them, a ceiling of politely solicitous faces peering down at them.
“I’ve wrenched my ankle,” she wailed. “My foot turned on a stone—I don’t know how I didn’t see it.”
Nathan suppressed the urge to point out that she might try looking where she was going once in a while, rather than rabbiting on about who she danced with at her come-out ball.
“Oh my dear!” Miss Hodge pressed through the crowd of guests and dropped down to kneel beside them, her expression as alarmed as if Miss Lucinda had just been shot by Napoleon rather than merely turning her foot.
She embraced her sister tenderly, the effect of which was slightly ruined by Miss Lucinda’s request that she take care not to crush her bonnet. Nathan seized the opportunity to stand up.
“What is to be done? What is to be done?” Miss Hodge fluttered. Nathan suppressed his irritation. No other gentleman stepped in to save him, so he offered himself up gallantly.
“I will carry Miss Lucinda back to the house, if you would be so good as to chaperone, Miss Hodge?”
Miss Hodge’s saintly expression faltered. “Oh, but…the walk…” She turned her head to look at Dunsmore. “My lord?”
But Dunsmore wasn’t going to let an avenue of escape like that be closed off.
“I think Lord Harland has the right of it, Miss Hodge. I shall miss your company, but I cannot abandon my other guests. I know you are too good a sister to do otherwise than accompany Miss Lucinda in her hour of need.”
And that was that.
Nathan hoisted the none-too-light Miss Lucinda up into his arms and began the half-mile trudge back to the house, consoling himself with the thought of returning to his bedchamber—and Georgy.
Georgy waited fifteen minutes after the ladies and gentlemen set off on
their walk before she did anything. She removed her shoes and tucked the hairpin she’d found in her inside pocket. She checked that she had her lucky coin in her pocket, then off she went.
She stood for a few minutes in the doorway, listening. She could hear the sounds of doors opening and closing upstairs, a few clatters as the maids tackled the guest bedchambers on the floor above. She knew they’d already finished with this floor; she’d seen them gathering up their supplies to move upstairs half an hour ago. Around her, there was no sound at all. At last, heart pounding, hands shaking, she set off down the corridor in her stocking feet.
In truth, she expected to find the study door locked and to fumble uselessly with the hairpin for several hair-raising minutes before returning to Nathan’s bedchamber unsuccessful. She had not expected to turn the door knob and have it simply swing open. But it did.
She stepped inside and closed the door behind her, heart galloping, breath short.
The room was panelled in walnut, with bottle green drapes obscuring much of the window. One wall was lined with books, two full shelves taken up with large leather-bound ledgers. The desk, which dominated the room, also had several ledger books on it, one lying open.
Georgy sidled behind the desk and stepped back to study the drawers. There were three on each side and she tried them one by one. Every one of them was locked. She extracted the hairpin from her waistcoat and inserted it in the first keyhole with shaking fingers. For long minutes she fiddled at the lock, trying to gauge the shape and movement of the mechanism with the thin wire. Nothing. She could detect nothing of it at all. Her pin scraped around uselessly as sweat gathered under her neckcloth. It felt nothing like the lock-picks she’d finally begun to master. At last, defeated, she took the pin out and stuck it back in her pocket.
The cabinet, then.
After her failure with the drawers, she had no confidence left. She would try to open the cabinet doors and fail again. Eventually she would have to leave, weak with fear, angry at her lack of success.
The Lady’s Secret Page 13
