Lady Lyte's Little Secret. Deborah Hale

door.

      “Thorn, are you there?”

      A moment’s hesitation. “Yes.”

      He had such a pleasant voice. Not too high in pitch, not too low. A fine rich resonance. She would miss it.

      “Did you hear what I said?”

      “Yes.”

      She needed to get dressed but somehow she could not bring herself to remove her clothes with Thorn so near at hand. Not even with a good stout door locked between them.

      “Goodbye, then. I promise I’ll fetch Ivy back to you safe and sound as soon as I can.”

      “If you’re so intent on going, Felicity, will you at least take me with you?”

      Thankfully, there was a locked door between them. If she’d been obliged to look into his eyes, her traitorous lips might have given him a different answer. “No, Thorn.”

      “I realize it could be awkward under the circumstances, but you and I are civilized adults. Surely we could travel together for a day or two without…”

      Felicity grasped the bell pull and jerked it vigorously.

      “What you propose is out of the question, Mr. Greenwood. Now, please, please go.”

      She heard rapidly approaching footsteps out in the corridor, then Thorn’s voice. “Very well. I’ll leave.”

      Whether those words were addressed to the servants or to her, Felicity could not be sure.

      While she waited for the commotion in the corridor to subside, she took a seat at her dressing table and began to do her hair. Beneath her hairbrush, folded in a neat, prim rectangle lay a length of starched white lawn.

      Thorn’s neck linen.

      Felicity’s fingers trembled as she fondled the cloth. One of her maids must have come across it while tidying the bedroom.

      This was the first time Thorn had left so much as a collar button or a watch fob behind to betray his presence. In the early days of their liaison, he’d been fastidious about undressing. With far fewer garments to shed herself, Felicity had taken pleasure in watching and admiring him as he removed his clothes.

      As time had passed, they’d become increasingly eager. Helping one another out of their clothes had become a tantalizing prelude to lovemaking.

      Stroking her cheek with Thorn’s cravat, Felicity detected no cloying whiff of sweetwater, only the bracing scent of plain soap and the subtle musk of a man. As vexing moisture rose in her eyes, she dropped Thorn’s cravat and swiped the sleeve of her dressing gown across her face. All the while, she chided herself for turning into a sentimental fool.

      This was no time to mope and moon over Thorn Greenwood. If she must surrender to such nonsense she would wait until later, when it would not be so bothersome. At the moment necessity demanded she act decisively and keep her wits about her.

      A tentative tap sounded on the door.

      Felicity started, her heart hammering.

      “Mr. Greenwood,” she cried, “must I have my butler summon the constables and swear out a complaint against you?”

      “The gentleman’s gone, ma’am,” came an apologetic squeak from Hetty, her lady’s maid. “He left real peaceable like. I saw the light under your door and wondered if you might be needing me, ma’am?”

      Shaking her head over her mistake, Felicity rose from the dressing table and unlatched the door.

      “Thank you, Hetty, I could use your help. I expect this disturbance has already roused the entire household. Will you kindly advise Ned and Mr. Hixon to ready the big carriage and make their personal preparations for a journey north? I mean to leave within the hour.”

      The girl regarded her mistress with bulging eyes. “Will you be gone long, ma’am? Do you need me to pack your bags? Should I make ready to come with you?”

      Felicity considered the idea. “I…think not.”

      If it had been Alice, her former lady’s maid of over eight years service, she would have accepted the offer of company in a trice. Since Alice had left her employ to marry a prosperous young butcher, Felicity had made do with Hetty, a willing little creature, though inclined to prattle.

      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.

      Chapter Three

      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