The Lady’s Secret

by Joanna Chambers

  She glanced at herself in the looking glass over the fireplace, at the exquisite ice-blue gown she wore. She saw herself as he must see her. A little novelty. Interesting for a while.

  Nothing else.

  Nathan paced the library, waiting for Georgy. His thoughts were all over the place, their clarity obscured by the awful suspicions and hurt that had flooded him when the word ruined had crossed Lily Hawkins’ lips.

  At that precise moment, it had all seemed far too neat. His suspicious mind had swiftly calculated the plot—it was Lily who had sent Georgy to his house in the first place. And now it was Lily who spoke of ruin.

  Ruin. Only ladies could be ruined. And only marriage could save them. Was that what they were hoping for? Had this whole thing been an elaborate scheme to catch Georgy Knight a rich husband?

  No. It was a ridiculous idea, far-fetched in the extreme. But even as he told himself that, the suspicions wouldn’t entirely dissolve. He catalogued the flaws in the half-formed theory and still couldn’t quite put it aside.

  It would have been a ridiculous plan to form. Doomed to failure. No one would ever have realised that of all women, Georgy was the sort he would fall in love with—a quiet beauty with an audacious streak.

  But he had.

  Oh god. He had fallen in love with her. And it felt nothing like any of his old childish passions. This felt like the sea, deep and vast, possessed of currents beyond his understanding. It felt true and profound. It made him ache to even think of it.

  He stopped in the middle of the floor and groaned aloud. Had he been entirely mistaken? Was he so easy a mark?

  The door swung open and he turned on his heel to see Georgy standing in the entrance. She stepped into the room and closed the door behind her, then turned and put her hands behind her back.

  It struck him as a strange pose, unfeminine somehow. And then he realised what she was doing—standing before him was his valet, Fellowes, expression carefully blank.

  “Don’t.” He closed the gap between them and took her upper arm in his hand, pulling her towards him. She tensed against him, and he felt a jolt of satisfaction in her resistance, another in her angry expression. He didn’t want her retreating behind that old servile mask.

  “Don’t what?”

  “Hide.”

  She scowled and walked away from him, going up to a bookshelf and tracing her finger absently over the spines. It was typical of her, the way she would step away and re-order herself by touching the things around her, as though she was connecting herself with her surroundings again. It was a habit he’d come to recognise and seeing it now made his heart ache painfully.

  What had he been thinking about her? She wasn’t the sort of person to come up with the plan his fevered imagination had conjured. He was being absurd.

  But he had to hear the denial from her own lips. Only then would he know if he could believe her. “Did you intend all of this from the start?”

  Was that his own voice? It sounded stern, like his father’s used to. It had emerged from his mouth with a clarity that astonished him.

  Her shoulders tensed. “Intend what? To become your lover?” She turned round to face him as she spoke the last question.

  It wasn’t quite what he meant. He couldn’t quite bring himself to articulate the real question. But he didn’t need to. Her gaze sharpened on him, almost disbelieving.

  “I see,” she said faintly. “You mean, did I plan for Lily to come here and cry ruin?”

  “Yes,” he whispered.

  Immediately he wanted to call the question back. But it was too late.

  Georgy stared at Nathan; the man she loved. Could he really think such a thing of her?

  She recalled Lily’s words. He will never respect you. They don’t. Too late, she realised how right her friend had been. She had thought she was giving Nathan something beyond price, something that could not be bought or bartered for, her unique gift to him. But it turned out that he’d merely thought her cheap, his for a few gowns and trinkets…until now. Now he was wondering if she was going to prove to be more expensive than he could have possibly imagined.

  She had seen the shock on his face when Lily had said “you’ve ruined her.” He had looked angry, like a man put in a spot he didn’t want to occupy. He knew her brother was coming back to London soon, and that—rightly or wrongly—her brother had a claim on an earldom. He would be wondering if this affair would become public, and what her brother would make of her escapade. Before today, Nathan had looked at her and seen a woman he wanted to bed. Now he looked at her and saw a woman with pretensions of nobility, and a complaint against him.

  “The answer to your question is no,” she said. She spoke slowly and quietly, forcing herself to stay very calm. “I had no intention of bedding you when I first came here. I had no idea Lily would say what she did today. You are in no danger. No accusations will be made against you and no compensation will be sought. I’m quite sure I told you that the very first time. What I did, I did freely. Foolishly, but freely.” She paused. “I trust that sets your mind at rest.”

  She sounded like an uppity servant. Her tone was respectful but tinged with contempt.

  His mouth tightened and she realized her hands had crept behind her back again without her even noticing. She felt a thrill of malicious pleasure at his discomfort and couldn’t resist adding her old valet’s bow. “Now, if you’ll excuse me—”

  “Stop it, Georgy. Stop talking like that. It isn’t you.”

  The words were a red rag. She threw off her false obedience and straightened. “Oh really? And who am I, pray tell? What do you know about me?”

  He said nothing. His fists were clenched at his sides, his night-dark eyes hinting at turbulent thoughts that he seemed unwilling or unable to speak aloud.

  “Tell me I’m wrong then.” She flung the words at him. “Tell me I mistook your meaning. Tell me you’re not panicking right now about me asking you for something you don’t want to give me.”

  Pathetically, she hoped he would speak. But he said nothing, and his gaze didn’t alter. He kept his eyes on her, those dark soulful eyes. God damn him for looking as handsome as a fairytale prince when he was being anything but noble at this moment.

  “You can’t,” she said in the face of his enduring silence. “You see? You don’t know me at all.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said at last. “I don’t believe you would—” He broke off, shaking his head. “It was a moment’s doubt, Georgy. That’s all.”

  A moment’s doubt. It was staggering. Did he believe that should be enough of a—what? Apology? Excuse? He stood watching her with troubled eyes. He looked like an overwound watch; there was no give in him. He had just admitted he was wrong, but his hunched shoulders and belligerent stance said otherwise.

  “A moment’s doubt,” she repeated flatly.

  “Yes! Can’t you see it from my point of view? Your friend comes here—the very same friend who introduced you to me in the first place. And all of a sudden, she’s talking about ruin! Of course my suspicions were raised. A man hears that word and he thinks—”

  “Of marriage? Yes, I can see why you’d have been horrified.”

  “I wasn’t—Jesus, Georgy, stop looking at me like that!”

  “Like what?”

  “Like I’ve—betrayed you!”

  She laughed. “You have.”

  “What? Don’t be absurd! You’re blowing this out of proportion!”

  “Well, that’s how it feels for me. I thought you understood me. I thought we were special. My god, Nathan, I gave myself to you because—because I love you!”

  He went white at her confession, eyes widening. She was too angry and upset to care—though she knew regret would come later.

  “Georgy, please—” He stepped towards her but she stepped back.

  “I thought you understood me,” she said shakily. “But now I see my only attraction for you was my novelty.”

  “That’s unfair—”
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  “I’m leaving.”

  She turned away and reached for the door handle, fumbling, turning, pulling the door towards her. She rushed out in a flurry of skirts, Nathan right behind her.

  “Georgy, stop! What do you mean? You’re not leaving here. I won’t let you walk into danger.”

  “You can’t stop me,” she gritted out, taking the stairs two at a time, heedless of her delicate silk skirts.

  “I can, and I bloody well will!”

  She threw the bedchamber door open and lurched inside, turning on him where he stood framed in the doorway. “Don’t concern yourself. I’m not going to throw myself into danger over you. You’re not worth it. But the instant my brother gets back to London, I’m leaving this house.”

  “You can’t entrust your safety to him. He can’t protect you. I can.”

  “At least Harry cares about me.”

  “I care about you!”

  Her only answer was to slam the door in his face and turn the lock.

  “Georgy!” he called out. “Let me in!” He hammered on the door, calling her name over and over, begging her to let him in.

  She ignored him. He kept knocking and pleading for several minutes before he finally fell silent. Even then she could still feel his presence on the other side of the door.

  She sensed the exact moment he gave up.

  Chapter 27

  When Nathan’s brother died, his parents left. They didn’t go anywhere as such, just retreated, both from each other and from Nathan and his sister. His father immersed himself in estate business and local politics; his mother in good works. A few short months later, Nathan was sent off to school to live most of the year away from his family. It was as though his brother’s death had broken whatever it was that held the rest of them together.

  Perhaps retreating was a family trait. Within minutes of storming away from Georgy’s locked bedchamber, Nathan had called for his horse and was changing into his riding clothes.

  He took his gelding all the way out to Richmond Park and gave him his head. The snow had melted over the last few days and though it was far from warm, it wasn’t freezing. Nathan relished the punishing effort of the ride, pushing all thoughts of Georgy to the back of his mind. The wind was on his face, the massive heft of the horse tense and swift beneath him. He leaned forward over the gelding’s neck and let him gallop at full tilt, keeping going even when his hat was ripped from his head. When he returned for it, he found it gently floating, ruined, in a puddle.

  On the way back to town, he couldn’t banish his thoughts any longer. He kept seeing Georgy’s expression of disappointment, disillusionment.

  Tell me I’m wrong.

  He hadn’t been able to. He’d stared at her, wondering what to say, knowing he’d been phenomenally stupid but not knowing how to go back.

  Should he have told her he loved her? He’d never said those words to anyone before. No one. Not even his family. And standing there, staring at her closed bedchamber door—he just couldn’t do it. He couldn’t tell her something like that from the other side of a closed door, not knowing if there might be a servant nearby listening to him pour his heart out. And not without so much of a glimpse of Georgy to measure her reaction by. Even now, the thought of throwing all caution aside and making such a declaration made him feel positively panicky.

  Over the last few years he’d separated out the components of his life—family, friends, mistresses, politics—so that each was kept tidily within its own compartment. He’d made sure too that his emotions did not escalate beyond the modest limits he felt comfortable with. Now, for all his envied reputation as a man who enjoyed the best of everything life had to offer, his life had become…predictable.

  As he rode his gelding back into town, he realised with a jolt that it had been years, really years, since he’d taken any risks. His life was lived within a set of self-imposed rigid rules that permitted him only a small range of choices. And he associated only with people who saw the world just as he did.

  Until Georgy. Through her eyes he’d seen a world where desire had nothing to do with status or money. Where a gift was just that. Where love—something he’d considered unattainable before now—was within his grasp. And Georgy had simply given it to him, asking nothing in return. I gave myself to you because I love you…

  On an impulse, he decided to visit Ross, needing to talk to a friend and still, cravenly, not ready to see Georgy. Not ready to grovel just yet.

  Ross wasn’t in when he arrived but he was due back directly so Nathan elected to stay. The exhausted gelding was led away for a rubdown while Nathan was taken to the library. He nursed the same glass of brandy for an hour while he waited. He was just about to give up and leave when Ross appeared, his expression surprised.

  “Hello, old man! It’s not like you to drop by like this! Are you all right?” Ross strolled into the room, throwing his hat on the desk and easing off his gloves.

  “I’m fine,” Nathan replied. “I dropped by on a whim. Have you been driving with your lady?”

  “My lady and her aunt,” Ross corrected, “who has now whisked her off for a trousseau fitting.” He smiled happily and Nathan reflected that Ross was unrecognisable from the man he’d been just a few months ago.

  “You look well,” Nathan said. “Impending marriage agrees with you.”

  Ross’s smile became a wide grin. “Yes,” he said, throwing himself into a chair beside Nathan. “Though I can’t wait for the wedding. I can’t wait to get Anne back to Shropshire. Take her to all my favourite places and show her off to my neighbours and—well, you know, the usual stuff. Have long, long nights with her.” He laughed. “Ah, it’s hell to wait but it’s heaven as well. We grab kisses whenever we can, which isn’t often. I can hardly wait to teach her it all—”

  He broke off, colouring lightly. Nathan stared at his friend, hardly knowing what to make of this new, almost innocent Ross. It was as though his friend had been changed back to a schoolboy again. Hard to believe this was a man who once thought nothing of taking two women to bed at the same time. He felt a stab of envy.

  “You’re happy.”

  “I’m happy,” Ross agreed, eyes sparkling. “Of course I am. I’m in love.”

  In love. Nathan stared, fascinated by the ease with which Ross announced this—and to him, an old comrade in cynical debauchery. “Have you told her?” he asked.

  “Have I told her?” Ross laughed. “I tell her a hundred times a day. She must be tired of hearing it.”

  Christ, Ross made it sound so easy! But of course, it was easy for him. Not only had Ross taken one look at Anne Howard and fallen head over heels, but she’d been suitable. Exactly the sort of young lady his mother would have chosen—the granddaughter of a viscount, with a decent dowry. He’d courted her and proposed to her and she’d accepted him. And there it was. That simple.

  “What did she say the first time you told her you loved her?” he asked.

  Ross looked at him in surprise.

  “It was quite funny, actually,” he said, after a brief silence. “I’d been working up to it for days. I was worried about it. Oh, I knew she wouldn’t laugh at me but I was worried she wouldn’t welcome my feelings.

  “When it came to it—we were walking through Dunsmore’s rose-garden at the time—I said it all wrong. Instead of saying ‘I love you,’ I said, ‘What would you say if someone told you they loved you?’” He chuckled. “And being Anne, she didn’t think, oh, he’s saying he loves me, she just treated it like a real question. As though I’d asked her because I was curious. She screwed her eyes up and hmmed a bit. And then she said, ‘I’m not really sure. I think it would depend on the circumstances.’”

  Nathan laughed.

  “I thought that she was letting me down gently. I didn’t say anything more to her that day. But then another day or two went past and we all went on that walk—do you remember the one where that tiresome girl sprained her ankle? You carried her back to the house.”
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br />   “Yes, I recall that day,” Nathan said, smiling.

  “Anne and I were at the stream, all on our own, looking at a little Chinese bridge—pretty thing, do you remember? And Anne said, ‘I should love to bring my horse here and jump right over that bridge! He’s such a goer he could do it too!’ And it made me laugh, you know? It all just came out then. I told her I loved her—this time I said it right—and asked her to marry me and she said yes. And that was that.”

  Nathan stared at him. Surely this sort of thing should be difficult for Ross? He wasn’t supposed to be good with words. He had always relied on Nathan for that.

  “Why are you asking about love?” Ross said then. “Are you thinking of taking a wife?”

  “Marriage? No.” Nathan frowned down at his boots. A silence stretched and he grew shamed by it, by his silence about Georgy. He hadn’t spoken of her to anyone he knew, even though he longed to. It was why he’d come here—because he wanted to tell Ross all about her. Because he wanted to describe everything he loved about her. He glanced at Ross, who was waiting, eyebrows raised, and somehow the words tumbled out.

  “It’s just that I’ve, ah, fallen in love myself.” He felt his face beam with sudden, unfamiliar heat.

  Ross’s grin widened. “What? That’s wonderful, old man. Who is she?”

  “Do you remember the woman I mentioned to you recently?”

  Ross frowned.

  “The woman staying at the Bloomsbury house.”

  Ross opened his mouth then closed it again. “Oh,” he said at last.

  Just that. Oh.

  “Yes,” Nathan said, watching his friend carefully. “She’s like no one I’ve ever known. I—well, I’ve fallen in love her. I love her.” Saying it made him feel good. Lighter. He smiled.

  But Ross didn’t look pleased for him. His brows knit together. “You’re in love with your mistress?”