Deborah Hale - Lady Lyte's Little Secret

In brief spells it was rather diverting, but to be shut up in a carriage for hours at a time with such a one held little appeal for Lady Lyte just then. She would much prefer to be alone with her thoughts and her plans for the future.

Besides… “I should not be gone long. A day or two at most, I expect. Surely I can manage without a maid for that interval.”

A look of relief eased the girl’s features as she smothered a yawn. “If you’re certain, ma’am, I’ll just go deliver your message to Ned and Mr. Hixon.”

She bobbed a curtsy and set off down the hall. Before Felicity could close her door, Hetty spun around again.

“Should I tell Cook to brew you a cup of tea before you set out, ma’am? Or make you up a basket of sandwiches and such for the road?”

At the mere mention of food, Felicity’s stomach revolted.

“For the men,” she ordered. “Nothing for me.”

Slamming the door shut, she dove for her washstand and retched into the basin until nothing more would come.

Spent from the effort, she wetted the edge of a towel in the tepid water from her ewer and hoisted herself into the chair before her dressing table. As she dabbed her cheeks with the damp towel, Felicity contemplated her pale face in the looking glass with dismay and wonder.

After twelve barren years of marriage and widowhood, Providence had played a fine joke on her. Her meticulously regular courses had suddenly ceased far too early for her age, and she woke every morning bilious. Before the summer waned, her belly would begin to swell.

Infinitely generous man that he was, Thorn Greenwood had granted her the dearest desire of her heart, and one of which she had long despaired.

A child.

But in doing so, he had made it necessary for Felicity to cut him out of her life.

If she thought she could get rid of him that easily, Lady Lyte had better think again!

As Thorn Greenwood rounded The Circus, he cast a glowering glance at the darkened windows of the New Assembly Rooms, long since deserted of ball-goers. After the mauling his pride had taken over the past two days, he was tempted to curse the place where he’d first set eyes on his troublesome mistress.

Where would he and his sister be now, Thorn wondered, if he hadn’t let Ivy coax him out to that first ball of the Season?

If some magical being from a nursery tale had suddenly materialized and offered him the chance to go back and relive the past two months differently, Thorn wasn’t certain whether he would accept or refuse.

True, it had vastly complicated his life and it had all ended on a sour note. While his affair with Felicity Lyte lasted, though, it had been very sweet indeed.

“Quit your mooning, man,” Thorn muttered to himself. He must think about raising the blunt he’d require for a journey—all the way to Scotland if need be.

His steps slowed from the indignant stride that had carried him away from Royal Crescent. A mild night breeze wafted up the gracious hills of Bath from the River Avon. It carried the aromas of fine cooking from the kitchen windows of many a fashionable town house, as well as the music and laughter from a number of private parties winding to a close. The air of conviviality and careless wealth mocked Thorn’s predicament.

Refusing to entertain regrets, he studied the problem with the same resolve he’d brought to bear on the calamity of his family’s fallen fortunes. If one thought hard enough and ruled out no potential solution as too difficult or distasteful, almost any dilemma admitted of a solution. Thorn had more experience than most men of his age and class in learning how to salvage something satisfactory from the bleakest of prospects.

As he wandered down Gay Street and turned onto George, Thorn mulled over the problem in his deliberate, methodical way. Raising one possible solution after another, he weighed each in turn, discarding the unworkable, then proceeding to the next.

He still had a few items of value he could part with to finance his journey, though most would be worth far more to him in sentiment than to a prospective buyer in gold. As his footsteps echoed on the cobbles of Milsome Street, Thorn cast that idea aside. The pawnshops on this busiest of commercial thoroughfares would be locked up as tight as all the other places of business. If he did manage to rouse some broker at this hour, the man would hardly be disposed to cooperate.

Reason counseled Thorn to go home, assemble his valuables, get what sleep he could wrest from the night then set out in the morning. The thought of Ivy and young Armitage gaining a greater lead spurred him to action now, as did the notion of Felicity trundling along dark and deserted highways in a fine carriage with only an ancient driver and a juvenile footman for protection.

Thorn cast his mind upon another prospect.

“Of course.” He chuckled to himself when it finally occurred to him.

He might be short of cash, but he was still comparatively wealthy in a man’s most precious asset—friends. If only he could get word to his brother-in-law. Merritt Temple had horses, carriages and funds he would have put at Thorn’s disposal in the blink of an eye. Unfortunately Merritt’s country estate lay many miles to the east. A detour in that direction would result in an even worse delay than waiting for the pawnbrokers to open in the morning.

Surely there must be a friend in Bath to whom he could appeal.

Weston St. Just! If any man owed Thorn assistance in his present entanglement, surely it was the fellow who had introduced him to Lady Lyte in the first place. Thorn’s stride picked up speed and purpose.

Finding himself near his own doorstep, he ducked inside long enough to scribble a note to their housekeeper saying he and Ivy had been called out of town and might not return for several days. When he emerged once again onto the dark stillness of the street, he turned south toward Sydney Gardens. St. Just kept elegant premises nearby.

Thorn had no worry of waking his old schoolmate at such a time. On the contrary, his concern was whether such a notorious night owl as Weston St. Just might not return home for several more hours. Fortunately, a light burned in the sitting room window and a young footman wasted no time answering Thorn’s knock.

When the boy ushered Thorn into his friend’s presence, St. Just looked mildly surprised to see him. Perhaps mildly amused, as well. “What ho, Greenwood? Has the beauteous Lady Lyte put the boots to you so soon?”

“I’m surprised she hasn’t told you.” Thorn knew all too well of St. Just’s insatiable appetite for gossip. “I received my marching orders from her two days ago.”

“The little minx!” His host gestured for Thorn to take a seat. “I must say, though, I envy you even a few weeks of her company.”

St. Just lifted his snifter of tawny liquid and nodded toward a side table arrayed with a decanter and more glasses. “Care to drown your sorrows?”

After his unsettling confrontation with Felicity, the offer tempted Thorn sorely. Perching himself on the settee opposite his host, Thorn shook his head. “I daren’t.”

St. Just cast him an indulgent look. “Of course, you never drown your troubles, or run away from them, or any other such cowardice, do you? Always look ’em squarely in the face and soldier on.”

“Tiresome, isn’t it?” Thorn wondered how the pair of them had remained civil, let alone friendly, all these years with such contrary temperaments.

Felicity might have done better to take St. Just as her lover, instead of merely using him as a go-between to approach his less suitable chum. Besides the classical masculine beauty of a Greek statue come to life, Weston St. Just had an easy agreeable way with women that made them flock to him like bees to a tall fragrant flower.