Deborah Hale - Lady Lyte's Little Secret

When she tried to stop picturing Thorn’s face, however, she encountered considerable difficulty.

Unbidden images of him plagued her. Thorn appearing at her bedroom door in search of his sister, his dishevelled state rather endearing. Thorn hovering over her when she’d stirred from her foolish swoon, a warm air of concern radiating from him. Thorn, angrier than she had ever seen him, full dark brows brooding like thunderheads on the horizon. No sooner did Felicity banish one memory of Thorn Greenwood than another rose to take its place.

Perhaps it was just as well she’d been forced to make this break with him now, before the unsettling influence he exerted upon her grew stronger.

As the horses settled into a steady, mile-eating trot, Felicity pulled her cloak tighter and wedged herself into one corner of the carriage. Resting her head against the smooth fabric of the upholstered seat, she tried to elude all thoughts of Thorn Greenwood by fleeing into dreams.

When that didn’t work, she decided to concentrate her mind on one subject sure to divert her from anything else.

Her baby.

Under her cloak, Felicity passed a hand over her flat belly in a gesture at once tender and fiercely protective. Despite all evidence, she still had trouble believing there could be a baby growing inside her.

How many times, during the early years of her marriage, had she prayed for this very thing, only to be cruelly disappointed again and again? Meanwhile, Percy’s tribe of merry-begotten offspring had grown apace. Each one an added insult, proof of his virility, to be cared for and educated by the bounty of her fortune.

How many odious cures had she endured for her barrenness? Sometimes downright painful, always humiliating.

Year after year, she had watched the lack of an heir eat away at her husband and at her marriage. Until she could no longer bear to look him in the face because she knew what he must be thinking. Why had he married this tradesman’s daughter, to refill the empty coffers of his noble family with her fortune, when she could not produce a child to inherit what he’d sacrificed so much to restore?

As Lady Lyte’s carriage drove through the tranquil shadowy countryside of Sommerset, a queer sound like the bastard spawn of a sigh and a bitter chuckle echoed within, too quiet for either the driver or the footman to hear from their outside perches.

Who had been the more gullible goose, Felicity asked herself—she or Percy? How could neither of them have suspected his mistresses might’ve had other lovers to sire their children? Foisting their maintenance off upon him because he had the wealth to provide for them and because he was so pitifully eager to prove his virility by claiming them as his own.

Now here she was, with child at last. By a man she had no intention of marrying.

Would Thorn Greenwood ever have consented to become her lover if he’d thought there was any danger of her conceiving? Felicity knew the answer to that, for Thorn had raised the question himself when she first approached him with her scandalous proposition.

He’d blushed and stammered with an awkwardness she’d found endearing in such a consummate gentleman. It had taken two or three tries before he could frame his query in blunt enough terms for her to understand what he was asking.

She had almost abandoned the whole undertaking then and there, rather than expose her painful past. Then some baffling compulsion, deeper than her embarrassment and self-pity, had made her confess the truth.

“Don’t trouble yourself on that account, sir. While we were married, my husband sired several children—none of them by me.”

To forestall any word or look of pity, she had forced herself to laugh. “So you see I am as free as a man to take my pleasure.”

Perhaps those words had tempted fate to play her for a fool. She would have the last and best laugh, though. Her fortune and her widowhood would make it possible for her to enjoy the pleasures of motherhood without the bothersome encumbrance of a husband.

Her conscience protested her thinking of Thorn Greenwood as an encumbrance, but Felicity turned a deaf ear. Even if she had been willing to risk marriage again for the sake of propriety, she’d gauge a husband’s suitability on a different scale than the one she’d used to pick a lover. Thorn would have been far down on her list of candidates.

“Perhaps I should have brought Hetty along, after all,” Felicity grumbled to herself. “At least her tiresome prattle might have distracted me from thinking about that man.”

Mustering more of the desperate resolution she’d employed to lock Thorn out of her bedchamber and order him out of her house, Felicity tried once again to evict him from her thoughts. She concentrated on making plans for herself and her baby once this troublesome business with her nephew and Ivy Greenwood was settled.

First, she would retire to the country for her confinement. Somewhere quiet, with a healthy climate. Far away from Bath and equally far away from the Lyte family seat in Staffordshire. Somewhere in Kent might do quite nicely. Except…

Did Thorn have a country estate in Kent? Felicity rummaged her memory, but could not recall. Had they ever talked about it?

No. They’d seldom spoken of anything beyond immediate trivialities, perhaps out of fear that it might lead to a deeper attachment on one side or the other.

“You’re thinking about him again,” she scolded herself.

If she wanted to know his home county, she should save her questions and put them to Miss Ivy on the drive back to Bath.

That sensible idea hit upon, Felicity settled herself to imagine the quiet, cosy household she would fashion for her family of two. She scarcely noticed her breath slowing to keep time with the gentle bounce and sway of the carriage.

Some while later, she roused slightly as the sound and tempo of the ride altered. Awake only enough to tell herself they must be traveling over the cobbled city streets of Bristol, she sank back into slumber.

She woke next in a sudden, disorienting manner as the carriage slowed abruptly, sending her hurtling forward onto the opposite seat. Darkness still wrapped the landscape outside. How long had she been asleep? Where were they?

High skittish whinnies from the horses penetrated the interior of the carriage as it came to a full stop. Felicity regained her seat, then reached up to rap her knuckles on the ceiling and demand an accounting from Mr. Hixon. The next sound from outside made her hand freeze in midair and her stomach churn in a way that had nothing to do with her pregnancy.

“Stand and deliver!”

Could someone be playing a tasteless prank? Felicity wondered as she scooped her reticule from the floor to hide in the folds of her cloak. Surely highwaymen were a fixture of the last century, not this one.

Or had travelers become more cautious about venturing over deserted stretches of road after dark? Thorn’s prudent warning echoed in her thoughts. It will be a difficult journey—perhaps even dangerous.

She’d been so anxious to distance herself from him and so impatient with his attempts to take control of the situation. What had she expected? Thorn Greenwood was a man, after all, not a lapdog.

“Give us leave to pass,” shouted the coachman. “What do ye want, anyway?”

“Wha’ d’yer think?” came the reply, followed by harsh laughter that made Felicity break out in gooseflesh. “Nice lookin’ rig like this, bound to have good pickin’s, eh? Let’s take a look.”

Felicity wedged herself into the corner farthest from the carriage door as she heard a rider dismount and footsteps approach.

“I’ve got a pistol cocked and I ain’t afraid to use it,” called the highwayman for the benefit of anyone inside the carriage.