The Lady’s Secret

by Joanna Chambers

  “You call that a letter?”

  She looked at him again and had the grace to blush.

  “Well,” she said. “A note, then. But I was angry. You spoke to Lily as though I was your—your whore.” She looked away again, refusing to meet his gaze.

  Shame and sorrow lacerated him. He swallowed. “I know. I’m sorry, Georgy.” And this time he did touch her, unable to keep his distance any longer. He laid his open hand on top of her uninjured hand. Her fingers felt cold against his warm palm, unyielding in their passivity.

  “I had a moment of insanity, I think,” he muttered.

  She said nothing, her face still averted, rejecting him. He looked down at his hand, at its awkward stiffness as it rested over hers, and felt a pain in his heart.

  “I don’t know what came over me,” he said. “Everything between us until yesterday had been—” He frowned and gestured helplessly, struggling to find the words. “It was—just you and me. There was nothing else in it. Not my title or fortune. Just you and me. You seemed to want me for me.”

  “I do want you for you! That is—I did.”

  He swallowed. “But not now?”

  “What do you expect, Nathan? I didn’t expect you to marry me but I did expect you to respect me. And today you showed you don’t.”

  “I do respect you. More than anyone.” He paused then, forcing himself to be honest. “It’s just that, for a moment, when I heard the word ‘ruin’ I thought marriage. I suppose I panicked.”

  “Panicked at the thought of marriage to me.”

  “I was taken by surprise. Georgy. It was a mistake.”

  She didn’t look impressed. How to make her understand?

  “The thing is, when you’re set to inherit an earldom, there’s no shortage of women who wish to grace your bed, within or without the bonds of matrimony. There’s no shortage of friends either. Before my brother was cold in his grave, I began to notice the change in the way people treated me, even though I was very young.”

  She looked at him then, reluctant curiosity in her gaze.

  “I’ve lived his life since I was eight years old,” he explained. “I own his estate, bear his title. In a strange way, none of it has ever truly felt like it was mine—”

  “Of course it’s yours,” Georgy interrupted, her expression troubled. “I’m sure he wouldn’t have wanted you to think such a thing—”

  “—except you.”

  She stopped. Stared at him. “What?”

  “You felt like you were mine. I could tell you wanted me,” he said again. His cheeks heated to think of what he was revealing to her, the depth of his need, how much her desire had moved him.

  After an agonisingly long pause, she said quietly, “You underestimate yourself. I have no doubt many women have wanted you for yourself.”

  Perhaps it was true, he thought. He thought of some of the affairs he’d had. Of the women who’d chosen him, and why. For his looks, because he was of their class, because he understood the game they played. But it was all tied up with being the powerful Lord Harland. Not because he was Nathan.

  “I don’t think anyone has ever wanted me—me—as you have done. And I’m damned sure I’ve never wanted any woman the way I want you.” He looked into her eyes, hiding nothing from her. “I don’t care who you are, Georgy. I don’t care whether you’re Miss Georgiana Dunsmore or an aristocrat’s bastard. Christ, I wouldn’t care if you were the daughter of Napoleon Bonaparte and a pox-ridden whore! It doesn’t matter to me. I love you.”

  She stared at him for the longest time. And then at last she croaked out, “You love me?”

  He nodded, and her hand, which had been clenched below his own, slowly unfurled like the petals of a flower. Her fingers touched the side of his hand and gently curled around the edge. “Yes, I do. You’re like no one else I’ve ever known,” he said. “You’re free.”

  “Free?”

  “You don’t follow the rules. You didn’t set any price on yourself, not even a wedding ring. You gave me yourself.”

  “I took too,” she said, frowning slightly. “I wanted you. It was not a sacrifice.”

  He smiled at her, loving her earnestness.

  “I know. That’s what I mean.”

  “Oh.” And then she smiled.

  He stroked her wrist with his thumb, waiting, but she said nothing. Just smiled. It wasn’t enough.

  “Yesterday,” he said slowly, “You said you loved me. Even though I’d been such a cur. Did you mean it?”

  “Of course!” she huffed, making him smile. “I would not have said it if it was not true!”

  “Good.” Then, after another long pause he added, “Might you say it again?”

  A smile twitched at her lips. She cocked her head to one side and considered him for a moment. “I love you,” she said, almost wonderingly. Then she nodded, definite. “I love you, Nathan.”

  He gave a little gust of a laugh, surprised and delighted despite himself.

  “Do you?” he said. “My word!” They both laughed.

  And then he kissed her.

  He leaned forward, carefully avoiding her bandaged arm, and pressed his mouth to hers. She sighed, parting her lips, and he sank into that happy sigh, heart dancing, blood singing. Their lips melded and moved, tongues touching tentatively, soft breaths and happy murmurs drifting between their mouths, each to each. He lifted his hand to cup her jaw, his fingertips drifting into her hair. His heart ached with a happiness too big to contain. They kissed and looked into each other’s eyes and murmured love words to one another. No boundaries.

  When he pressed a little closer she let out a yelp and he drew back swiftly.

  “Your arm!” he exclaimed in dismay.

  “It’s fine,” she said, trying to draw him to her with her free arm, but he held back.

  “I need to get you home,” he announced.

  Her expression flickered. “I have to speak to Harry first,” she said. “He may not—” She gave Nathan a strange look. “He may believe, erroneously, that it is within his power to forbid me doing what I want.”

  “Why would he prevent you coming back with me?” Nathan asked, puzzled. “You are injured. You need rest. Where else are you to go?”

  “Well, of course it makes sense when you put it like that, but he’s not stupid, Nathan. He’ll realise that—well, you know.”

  Nathan stared at her, comprehending only too well. She had misunderstood him. He wasn’t sure whether to be amused or offended. He felt a little of both.

  “No,” he said slowly. “Pray, explain.”

  She blushed. “He’s my brother, Nathan. He will not like the idea of his sister being, well, someone’s mistress.”

  He stared at her, watching as her blush deepened. Mistresses did not blush. Not any he’d ever had, anyway.

  “You know, Georgy, when you fainted earlier, I carried you through here with your brother on my heels.” He pointed at the mattress. “I put you down here and your brother said to me, ‘Have you ruined her?’”

  She looked appalled. “Oh good lord, what did you say?”

  “I said yes, I had.”

  “You what?”

  His lips twitched with the desire to laugh. She had raised a hand to her mouth and her eyes were wide with shock.

  “I think he’s planning on forcing us up the aisle,” Nathan continued.

  “Oh no! You shouldn’t have answered! You should have let me talk to him first!”

  “Well, I might have done. But the truth is, it rather suits my purposes.”

  “But I—” She broke off and sent him a suspicious look. “What do you mean?”

  “I’m rather hoping he’ll get his shotgun out.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “You know, force us up the aisle?”

  “Aisle?”

  “As in church? As in wedding? Marriage? Man and wife?”

  “Marry? Us? This morning you nearly had an apoplexy at the mere idea!”

  H
e grimaced. “I told you, I made a mistake. I should never have ridden off and left you like that. It only took me a few hours to realise I couldn’t live without you, that I want you in my life forever. I want you at my side, at Camberley. I want us to have children and raise them, together. Marry me, Georgy. We needn’t do it in a church if you’d prefer. We could jump over a campfire like the gypsies.”

  She snorted. “I can’t imagine the elegant Lord Harland jumping over a campfire!”

  “You’d be surprised what I’m capable of.”

  She shook her head slowly. “No, I wouldn’t. Look at what you did today.”

  “Am I your hero?” he asked roguishly, lifting an eyebrow.

  “Oh yes,” she said, serious but smiling. And then the smile faded. “But really, I can’t marry you, Nathan.”

  Her words incited a panicky sensation in the region of his heart but he forced himself to stay smiling. “Whyever not?”

  “I’m no closer to proving I’m Georgiana Dunsmore than I ever was. In fact, I know now I’ll never prove it. To the world I’m a bastard. An actress’s bastard, at that.”

  “So?”

  “I am not a suitable wife for you.”

  He looked her squarely in the eye and said slowly, “I don’t care, Georgy. I really don’t.”

  She made an incoherent sound of frustration.

  “I don’t care!” he repeated. “Oh, we’ll be cold shouldered by the Ton, but so what? I have a few friends who will be loyal to me and I can do without the rest of them. Of course, maybe you won’t want to put yourself through it but I hope you will. I hope you feel, as I do, that what we have together is enough to make up for any censure we and our children might face.”

  “Of course I won’t mind!” she exclaimed, almost aggrieved. “I don’t know any of them, so what do I care for their approval? But I care for you. You have lived amongst these people your whole life. How can you bear to be cut by them? What about your political career? And what will your family think of it?”

  “My family will understand,” he said, with perfect unconcern. “Everyone else can go hang. I don’t care, Georgy.” He registered her doubtful expression and moved close again, caging his arms on either side of her body to keep any weight from her bandaged arm.

  “I don’t,” he insisted. “I want to be happy and you make me happy. I want something—someone—of my own. Not a woman who fancies being Lady Harland, but the woman I love and who loves me in return. Now—” he smiled tentatively, “—will you marry me, you aggravating tomboy?”

  She lifted her eyes and looked at him, serious for a moment. And then she smiled, a bright and dazzling smile. He actually blinked in the face of that smile. It was like purest sunshine.

  “Yes,” she said. “I’ll marry you, Nathan.”

  Chapter 32

  Georgy refused to leave until she was satisfied that Max was comfortable. She hovered while Nathan and Will lifted him into bed, then made Will repeat her instructions for his care back to her.

  While she was fussing, Nathan went to speak with Sir Percy, the magistrate, who was sitting with Dunsmore, Osborne and Harry Knight in Eddington’s dining room. Lady Dunsmore had already been taken home by a mixed contingent of her own footmen and two constables. Davy and Goudge had been dispatched to fetch a carriage to take Georgy, Harry and Nathan back to Bloomsbury.

  “It’s a bad business,” Sir Percy said, handing the packet of letters back to Harry after reading the topmost one. He glanced at Dunsmore. “What say you, Dunsmore?”

  Dunsmore still looked stunned from the events of the last two hours. He glanced at Harry and gestured at the letters. “I’m told your mother was killed the day it was sent.”

  Harry merely nodded, animosity coming off him in waves.

  Dunsmore glanced at Sir Percy again. “The man referred to in the letter—Monk—was a servant of my father’s. My father entrusted him with a number of somewhat…delicate matters.”

  Sir Percy was not a subtle man. “Such as what?” he asked, frowning.

  Dunsmore opened his mouth to answer, but nothing emerged. He looked at Osborne, who stepped in.

  “Monk undertook the last Lord Dunsmore’s dirty work,” Osborne said. “Peter, you must tell them.”

  “I cannot,” he whispered, dropping his head into his hands. “You do it.”

  Osborne sighed heavily. “In our first year at university, Peter was blackmailed.” He glanced at Sir Percy. “Someone found out he was—well, someone found out something about Peter he would not have wanted anyone to know. The blackmailer wrote to Peter’s father, demanding money.”

  “Who blackmailed him?” Nathan said, frowning. He struggled to think back all those years ago, when they were at Cambridge together.

  “Do you remember Archie Frain?”

  Archie—it was the name Dunsmore had uttered earlier.

  “Archie Frain? He was the chap who—” Nathan broke off, stunned. “The chap who drowned.”

  “He didn’t drown,” Dunsmore said through his hands, his voice muffled. “He was killed.” At last he looked up, his gaze tortured. “My father summoned me to his study to tell me—Monk was there, smiling through it all. Archie was a stupid, greedy boy, but I would never have wished that on him.” He looked over at Harry and gave a bitter laugh. “I didn’t even want the title. I wanted to go into the army.”

  Sir Percy watched him with a disapproving expression. He had undoubtedly worked out what the nature of the blackmail secret was. And he was the sort of man who bracketed homosexuals with murderers.

  “Well,” he said shortly, “whatever the truth of the matter, you can’t just give the title away to this young fellow.” He gestured at Harry. “There is no proof of anything here. Just an ambiguous letter written on the same day a woman died. In the absence of marriage lines, I could not conclude this young man to be the legitimate Earl of Dunsmore, even if you want me to.”

  There was a brief silence.

  “What is to be done with regard to my mother?” Dunsmore asked quietly.

  “I don’t see there’s much that can be done,” Sir Percy replied. “She received a letter fifteen years ago that may or may not have been a confession of something—that’s no crime. And while she came in here today and waved a gun around—well, no one was harmed.”

  “She was going to kill us,” Harry said in a driven tone. “My sister was assaulted. Our friend was beaten.”

  “The men responsible will be dealt with. As to whether Lady Dunsmore intended to do anything more than frighten you, we can prove nothing,” Sir Percy said. “And as matters stand, she remains a peeress. Your complaints, I am afraid to say, are very unlikely to be acted upon.”

  “This is a disgrace,” Harry said in a disgusted voice.

  Dunsmore lifted his head. He looked Harry straight in the eye. “I promise you this. I will send her away. She will be kept secure but away from society.”

  Harry returned his cousin’s bleak gaze and his own softened fractionally.

  “Thank you,” he said gravely.

  Georgy was pleasantly surprised when Nathan suggested that Harry come back to the Bloomsbury house with them. Harry wanted to stop off at their old lodgings first, to pick up some clothes, and when Georgy said she wanted to go in too, Nathan shrugged and announced that he’d better accompany them, given the state of the pair of them.

  As soon as they walked in the front door it was plain that someone had broken in at some point. The place had been all but turned upside down. The floor was strewn with contents of the drawers and cupboards, everything upended—cutlery and linens, underwear and ribbons, the entire contents of Harry’s writing desk. A spilt pot of ink had dried to flaky blackness on the wooden floorboards.

  Georgy felt sick looking at it all, at the grubbiness of this intimate intrusion. The thought that someone—Monk?—had been through her things made her feel violated.

  “Sit down,” Nathan said gently, guiding her to a small armchair. “Let me clear thi
s up.” She sat, legs trembling, while Nathan calmly set the furniture to rights and began to clear the detritus from the floor. Harry helped him, working more slowly.

  “What’s this?” Nathan asked after a few minutes. She looked at him. He was crouching on the floor beside Mama’s tea caddy. It lay on its side on the floor, the crystal mixing bowl in shards.

  “Oh no!” she cried, vexed out of all proportion. “Look Harry—the bowl is broken.”

  The compartment lids had all come off and there were tea leaves all over the ground, sage green and black and brown, like a mound of dried earth.

  “I’ve seen this before,” Nathan said, frowning. “Or one like it.”

  “Papa brought it from his travels for Mama,” Georgy said. “I used to love playing with it. She sometimes played tea parties with me when I was small. I’d be surprised if there was another the same.”

  “There is,” he insisted, as he put the compartment lids back on and righted it. “And I know where—I’ve seen one exactly the same at Dunsmore Manor. It has a secret drawer, doesn’t it?” He lifted the box up, and began to look underneath. Georgy stared at him, then looked at Harry, who was frowning.

  “What secret drawer?” they said in unison.

  Nathan was already fiddling underneath the box. He slid his hand around the bottom of it, feeling for something, then lifted it, putting his head to one side to peer beneath. He seemed to find what he was looking for, held whatever it was in place, and fiddled with the sides. With a rasping sound, one of the sides lifted half an inch, then another half inch.

  And there it was. A secret drawer. Just as he’d said. The wood was bright and shiny, the colour untouched, its surface pristine.

  They all looked at one another.

  Nathan set the caddy down on a table and stepped back.

  “You should open it,” he said.

  Georgy rose from her chair and walked over. Harry did too. They glanced at one another, then Georgy pulled the drawer open. It was full of papers.

  Harry reached inside and pulled out a small sheaf of them.

  He unfolded the topmost one.

  It was a marriage certificate.