Lady Lyte's Little Secret. Deborah Hale

his advice, his assistance nor his company. Why could he not wash his hands of her, as any rational man would?

      Until recently, Thorn had prided himself on being a rational fellow. Then he’d stared into Felicity Lyte’s incomparable green eyes and lost himself.

      At the moment, that vibrant green looked rather washed-out, while the rosy springtime hue of her complexion had blanched and chilled.

      “What’s the matter, my dear?” He caught her icy hand in his. “You look dreadful.”

      “And you have a great deal to learn about being a lady’s man, Mr. Greenwood.” Wrenching her fingers from his grip, Felicity looked as though she longed to slap his face with them.

      “Of course I look dreadful. Why shouldn’t I? Woken out of a sound sleep to trundle over the countryside in the middle of the night. Accosted by a highwayman. And now with the prospect of chasing the length of England after my ungrateful nephew. I’d probably shatter a mirror if I looked in one.”

      The other inn guests were casting inquisitive glances their way. Thorn detested few things worse than being an object of curiosity. He drew Felicity off to a little alcove by the main staircase.

      “That’s not what I meant, and you know it. You’re as lovely as ever. Only, you look wrought up…or ill.”

      Before she could fire off a retort, he held up his palms in mock surrender. “Both of which you have good cause to be, I admit. For once, hold your tongue and listen to me. You need proper rest and food, as do your servants and the horses. I’ll arrange that with the innkeeper. Then, while you’re recovering from last night’s journey, I’ll hunt up someone to take that outlaw off our hands.”

      For a wonder, Felicity did not interrupt him. She waited until he’d finished before asking, “What do you propose we do after that?”

      Thorn tried to hide his surprise. He’d expected more of a battle from her. “After that we must talk. To decide on our next move.”

      “Very well.”

      “Do you mean it?”

      The old verdant sparks leapt in her eyes once again, igniting an answering flame in Thorn’s formerly rational heart. “What manner of question is that? Do you think I oppose you for amusement?”

      “Of course not,” Thorn lied. “I only meant—” What could he say that wouldn’t dig him deeper into trouble? “Never mind.”

      The other guests, having settled their bill at last, departed with a maximum of noise and commotion. Thorn found himself glad of the distraction.

      Once they had gone, he approached the innkeeper. “We will have to be on our way before nightfall, but in the meantime, Lady Lyte, her driver and her footman all need rooms in which to rest.”

      The innkeeper’s eyes lit up. No doubt he relished the prospect of hiring out the same rooms twice in one day. “Always delighted to oblige her ladyship, sir.”

      “The horses will need tending, as well.”

      “I’ll make certain the hostlers know to take special trouble with them, Mister…”

      “Greenwood. Hawthorn Greenwood.” Thorn steeled himself against the fellow’s meddlesome scrutiny. “I’m an old friend of Lady Lyte’s. Her nephew’s…er…bride is my sister.”

      “Indeed, sir?” The innkeeper beamed, as people tended to do when speaking of Ivy. “A lively little creature. Not one I’d have picked for a serious young scholar like Mr. Armitage if I’d had the ordering of it. But love often goes by contraries, then, doesn’t it, sir?”

      “Perhaps so.” Did that explain his own intense, wayward feelings for Felicity? Thorn wondered. “By any chance, did my sister or Mr. Armitage mention where they might lodge once they reached Gloucester?”

      The innkeeper’s smile widened further. “As it happens, sir, they asked if I could recommend any place that might offer them a warm welcome even if they arrived at a late hour.”

      “Did you?” Thorn strove not to sound as desperately interested in the information as he felt.

      “I should say so, Mr. Greenwood. The wife’s cousin keeps an inn in the old part of town between the cathedral and the shirehall. It don’t get as busy as the big posting inns on the roads to London and Bristol. I told Mr. Armitage it would be a rare night he and his fair bride couldn’t find a bed there, no matter what hour they knocked.”

      “I appreciate your advising them.” Thorn fished out a shilling from his card winnings. He offered it to the innkeeper, who made a token show of refusing before sliding the coin into his own pocket.

      “I’ll just see to the rooms for Lady Lyte and her servants, Mr. Greenwood.”

      “One more thing, if I may?”

      “Aye, sir. What might that be?”

      “We ran into a spot of trouble on the road from Bristol—a highwayman.”

      “My life, sir!” The innkeeper’s eyes grew wide. “No one hurt, I hope. That scoundrel’s been making a right nuisance of himself all spring. You’re not my first guests to have been molested by him.”

      “I hope we may be the last.” Thorn nodded toward the door. “We fetched the bounder along with us to give an account of himself before the magistrate. Whereabouts should I dispose of him?”

      “I’d fetch him over to Berkeley, Mr. Greenwood.” The innkeeper cocked his thumb in a direction Thorn took to be northeast. “They can deal with him there and be obliged to you for the taking of him, I should think.”

      As the innkeeper bustled off, Thorn turned back to Felicity, who had sunk down onto a nearby chair. He knew better than to comment on how she looked, but a qualm of guilt rolled low in his belly. She might have slept better stretched out on the carriage seat opposite him than awkwardly nestled on his lap.

      He knelt before her and took one of her hands in his. It had warmed a little since he’d touched it a few moments earlier, but not much.

      “The innkeeper tells me they can deal with our highwayman over in Berkeley. Will you be all right until I get back?”

      “Of course I will.” Felicity sat up straighter. “I’m neither a child nor a tottering old dowager, Mr. Greenwood. I do not need a keeper. You’re quite welcome to cart that awful creature off to London for all I care. I can manage quite well on my own.”

      The gall of the woman! Dismissing his concern for her as if he held no higher standing in her life than her driver or her footman.

      The notion sent Thorn leaping to his feet again. “As well as you managed last night on the heath?”

      Felicity shot him a withering look. “Ah! Here is the lecture you’ve been saving since last night. I doubt it will taste any less bitter, warmed over for breakfast.”

      He had never seen this unpleasant side of her character during their time together. Thorn cursed himself. He’d been a fool to let himself fall under the spell of her wit, her spirit and her passion. Any man of sense might have guessed that such a vibrant rose could not lack for thorns.

      Well, he was feeling the sting of them now.

      “Last night you as good as owned you deserved a reprimand.” Thorn struggled to suppress the memory of Felicity burrowing into his embrace, sweetly repentant. “I tried to show a little forbearance, believing you’d already learned your lesson in more forceful terms than any words of mine could match.”

      Felicity surged to her feet, a welcome color returning to her face. “Why, you pompous…How dare you scold me as if I was one of your flighty little sisters?”

      “My sisters have more sense than—” Thorn choked back the rest of his words as another party of inn guests descended into the posting hall.

      He forced