The Lady’s Secret (13 page)

“For now?” she repeated.

He smiled, sensing capitulation approaching. “Yes.”

She paused, biting her lip. “So will you want more later?”

His smile widened. “Let’s negotiate that separately. For now, just a kiss will do. Let us say, in gratitude for my saving you from being caught by Lord Dunsmore.”

“And if I kiss you,” she said carefully after another pause, “will you promise not to hand me over to Lord Dunsmore?”

He almost laughed, reluctantly admiring her audacity. He suspected she had already decided to give in to his demand but was playing for better terms. Clever girl. His groin pulsed heavily as he watched her through heavy-lidded eyes.

“If you kiss me
properly
, I promise I won’t hand you to Dunsmore.”

Even as he agreed, he knew it was a stupidly rash decision, driven partly by his obsession with the womanly form beneath the masculine clothes and partly by the sheer piquancy of the situation. At this moment, he’d have promised virtually anything to have that kiss.

She considered for a moment, her plump bottom lip caught between white teeth, her fair brow frowning. She made a charmingly erotic picture:
Innocence compromised.

“Very well then,” she said at last. She took a deep breath, then closed her eyes and lifted her face to him, her expression unhappy.

He touched her cheek with one finger and she opened her eyes again.

“That will not do, I am afraid. You are not to suffer this kiss. You are to bestow it. And as I said—” he smiled before he went on, “—you have to kiss me properly. I want it to be stirring.”

She dropped her gaze, staring at his chest for a moment, and he wondered if she would do it. But when she looked up at him again, peeping at him through her silky fringe, he knew she would. She was going to kiss him; he read the determination in her face and his gut flip-flopped. There was something innocent yet knowing about her, something both winsome and provoking that reached him in ways he didn’t quite understand yet. But he would.

“Will you close your eyes?” she said.

“All right.” He did so, and then, because he couldn’t resist, he added, “And remember—stirring.”

He felt her step up against him and her hands come to rest on his upper arms. Her hair brushed his cheek and then the warmth of her breath was on his face. He couldn’t stop his lips curving upwards as he waited for her kiss.

Her first foray was just a little pluck of a kiss. Not a proper kiss at all, just the sweetest persuasive pull that caught at his lips—a moist little suckle of a kiss that was over before it had really begun. It left him yearning towards her when she pulled back. Then, just as he was about to open his eyes and demand “Is that it?” she kissed him again.

She moved right into him this time, her hands brushing up past his shoulders, her fingers twining into the hair at the back of his neck as her body came up against him and her mouth returned to his, parting this time, the tip of her tongue stroking the seam of his lips. His whole body gave. His arms came round her and his lips opened, his tongue meeting hers. He enfolded her body with his own and let her draw him into her kiss more deeply. And God, the feel of her; her scent. Now that she was kissing him, he could smell the pomade in her hair too. It slightly masked that lovely, light fragrance he’d detected earlier but not entirely, not now he had her scent. He swallowed the little noise she made in the back of her throat as she pressed closer.

He moaned, loving the feel of her fingers at his nape and her softness all around him. She kissed wonderfully—he decided she certainly
wasn’t
an innocent. He moved his hands to her hips and then to her bottom, cupping her round buttocks in his hands. She ground against him, tearing her mouth from his to press a hot kiss to his throat. He groaned with satisfaction, loving her passion.

His cock was hard and thick in his breeches, his balls tight. The brush of fabric against his sensitised flesh made him groan again.

“God, I want you,” he muttered, his hands roving over her. “Come to bed with me. Please.”

Georgy stiffened and pulled back. How had she gotten so ridiculously carried away? It wasn’t as though she’d never been kissed before! She
liked
kissing—but it had never been quite like this. Consuming. Self-stealing.

“What?” she said.

He opened eyes that had gone black, the dark brown irises eaten up by greedy pupils dilated with passion.

“I must be insane,” he muttered. He lifted a hand and pulled her loose cravat from her neck, dropping it to the floor. “I want you so much it hurts. Come to bed with me. Let me see you properly.” He pressed his lips to her jawline, his mouth travelling up towards her ear, his warm breath sending prickles of sensation all the way down her neck and side. She hunched her shoulder helplessly against the pleasure, but fear was beginning to win over desire. She couldn’t let him see her!

She began to extricate herself from his grasp. “You said you only wanted a kiss.”

“That was before you kissed me,” he murmured against her ear, giving her gooseflesh. “You kiss amazingly well, you know. You’ve made me want more and I’ve a fair idea you feel the same.”

“Oh, and you can tell this from one kiss?” She tried to make her voice disbelieving, but there was a tremor in it and she knew he heard it. He laughed.

“Yes, easily. Come. Take these clothes off. Come to bed. Let me see your skin. Let me see those pretty breasts.”

Breasts?

She stiffened and pulled roughly out of his grasp. “What did you say?”

And in that one moment, her desire ebbed away and was replaced by panicky disbelief.

For an instant, his face showed total surprise, as though he genuinely hadn’t realised what he’d said, then he laughed softly. “Oh you know,
Fellowes.
Those lovely breasts you’ve got bound up under your shirt?”

Georgy’s mouth fell open in shock, and the wretch laughed.

He knew what she was.

“How long have you known?” she asked faintly.

“That you weren’t a man? Not long. A week or so.”

“And you didn’t say anything.” She lifted one hand to her throat. Beneath the skin, she could feel her pulse hammering.

Harland stepped closer, regaining the space she had put between them when she’d pulled out of his embrace. She tried to move farther away but the wall was behind her and Harland was everywhere else. He smiled dangerously.

“I was fascinated, of course. Why would a woman masquerade as a male valet in my household?”

They stared at one another in silence. She did not intend to answer his question.

“Well,” she said at last, forcing herself to appear calm, “I gave you your kiss.” A kiss she was seeing quite differently now.

“Yes.” He placed a hand on the wall next to her head and leaned in close, his body brushing against hers. “And you managed to stir me.”

She wondered for a moment if he was going to kiss her again, but he didn’t. He just gazed into her eyes for a long moment, and then added, “So I’ll keep my promise. I won’t hand you over to Dunsmore.”

She watched him, suspicious.

“But I want you to tell me who you are, and why you entered my employ.”

He was calm, genial even—though with a hint of danger that put her on edge. He smiled at her as he caged her against the wall, waiting for his order to be obeyed.

“I can’t,” she whispered.

The humour left his face, the dark eyes growing cold, the faint hitch of his mouth falling away.

“Why not?”

She stared at him with wide eyes. “It’s a secret. And not just mine.”

The only movement on Harland’s face came from the flickering light of the candles. Everything else about him was perfectly still. He was a cold, angry man, a man holding the advantage of his power over her. Georgy shivered and the silence stretched.

“Am I going to have to take you to Dunsmore after all?”

“You can’t,” she pointed out in a small voice. “You promised you wouldn’t if I kissed you, if I stirred you. And you’ve admitted I did.”

He laughed without mirth and pushed away from the wall, putting a clear yard between them. Finally she could take a deep, shaky breath. Not that Harland seemed to notice. He was frowning at the floor, his jaw clenched.

When he lifted his head again, his expression was accusing. “You entered my employ on false pretences. You owe me some sort of explanation.”

They stared at one another in silence for a few moments. Georgy was the first to look away.

“I’m sorry to have deceived you,” she said. “Truly. My pretending to be a man—it has nothing to do with you, I swear. And I apologise. You must be mortified to have had a woman for a valet all this time.” She glanced at him nervously. “The best thing would be for me to remove myself at first light. There must be an inn near here where I can catch a stage back to London.”

He made a rough sound of disbelief. “That will not be happening. You’re not going anywhere.”

She tried to banish the fear that was rising in her again. “But you said you wouldn’t hand me over. You promised.”

He looked at her for a long moment, his gaze resentful. He was plainly regretting his hasty promise now, but she could tell he couldn’t see an honourable way out. It seemed, as she’d hoped, that for Harland a promise was a promise.

“I won’t hand you over. But I’m not letting you go yet either.”

“You can’t keep me here!”

He opened his mouth, looking as though he was about to contradict her, but in the end he closed it again without speaking and turned away from her.

Georgy watched his back for a minute, throbbing with frustration and fear and unable to think what to do. She should have agreed to his demand to go to bed with him then taken the chance of running off afterward. It wasn’t as if it would’ve been a hardship.

She scowled at her traitorous thoughts.

At length he turned back to her, and his face was calm, the anger banished. “You’ll stay with me until we return to London. Then you can leave and go back to whatever life it is you have there.”

“But I don’t—I mean, why would you want me to stay with you?”

He glared. “It’s not the easiest time or place in which to be finding myself a new valet. What do you expect me to do?”

She reddened, embarrassed by her own presumption. “You mean you just want me to continue working?”

He shrugged. “You are an excellent valet. It’s actually rather inconvenient that you’ve turned out to be a woman. Staying with me for another week or two is the very least you can do given I’m not handing you over to Dunsmore.”

She flushed. She wasn’t sure she entirely believed in his claim to want her only as a valet. Whatever her reservations, though, she had no choice but to accept what he was saying. She was stuck in the rural depths of Bedfordshire at Christmas. Walking home was impossible and she had no idea where the nearest posting inn might be. All she could do was wait to see if the option of running away might present itself at some stage.

“All right,” she said at last. He nodded. It seemed they had reached an agreement of sorts.

“What’s your real name?” he asked suddenly. “I refuse to call you Fellowes for a moment longer.”

“Georgy.”

“Your real name,” he said impatiently.

“It
is
Georgy. Georgiana, to be precise.”

“Georgiana what?”

“I am not going to tell you that.”

She thought he might insist, but he merely inclined his head. “Very well, Georgiana.”

“Everyone calls me Georgy,” she corrected automatically.

“Georgiana is much nicer.”

And it sounded nice, the way he said it, drawing out the four syllables of her name with those long, languid vowels.

“It’s Georgy,” she insisted.

He shrugged again. “All right. Let’s go to bed.” She startled and he raised a wry brow. “I mean you to yours and I to mine,” he clarified. “I don’t know about you, but I’m ready to drop.”

Absurd to be stung by his lack of interest.

“Oh yes, of course. Good night, then.”

“Before you go, Georgy—”

She stopped, shivering to hear her name, so intimate, on his lips. “Yes?”

“No running away. Promise me.”

She hesitated. She should just agree—it wasn’t as though she needed to honour a vow given under semi-duress. But somehow she knew he would keep his promise to her and that meant she would have to do the same.

He noticed her indecision—she saw it in his eyes—and he pressed his advantage.

“You owe me that at least.”

She nodded then. “All right. I promise I won’t run away. I’ll stay with you till we get back to London.”

“There is one last thing.” He leaned forward and slid his hand inside her waistcoat. She gasped as she felt his long fingers brush against her bound left breast.

“What—”

His hand emerged again. With the lock picks.

He shoved them into his own pocket and gave her a long stern look. “There will be no more skulking around trying to get into any room other than this one while we are here.”

She pressed her lips together, then she turned away and walked into the dressing room, relieved he didn’t say anything else. He hadn’t made her give her promise to that last demand.

Thankfully.

Christmas Day, 1810

After the upheavals of the early hours, the rest of Christmas Day was remarkably uneventful.

Nathan spent much of it checking on Georgy. He was not prepared to allow a repeat of the previous evening’s events. He had his own plans for her, which would be quite ruined by her being arrested by the local magistrate.

He considered locking her into his chambers during the day, but that was impractical and would have drawn unwanted attention. Instead, he confiscated her belongings, as he had confiscated her lock picks the night before, and assured her he would be checking on her regularly. He made sure to appear in his rooms frequently and at odd intervals, making it plain to her that she should not try to predict his movements. When he wasn’t with Georgy, he was playing billiards with the older set of gentlemen. He wasn’t especially fond of billiards, but it enabled him to avoid Dunsmore and Osborne and it ensured his own comings and goings were not much noticed by the other guests.

Dinner was once again served at the hopelessly countrified hour of five o’clock, to allow the servants an early evening. He exchanged a few inconsequential words with Dunsmore over drinks before they sat down, and later with Osborne as the gentlemen took port. All three of them acted as though nothing untoward had happened, but to Nathan’s eyes, Dunsmore had a grim cast to his features and it was impossible not to notice that Osborne kept glancing at Nathan with barely veiled curiosity.

Dinner was followed by the most tedious evening of the party yet. Lady Dunsmore informed her guests that Christmas evening would be spent
together
. And so they were forced to play parlour games. Given the youth of the ladies and the presence of their parents, the games were very tame indeed. Charades, Wit, Snapdragon. There was a degree of amusement to be derived from watching Ross almost set his eyebrows on fire playing Snapdragon to impress Miss Howard, but still…

The trouble, of course, was that Nathan wanted to be somewhere else. He was entirely preoccupied by thoughts of Georgy.

When he had woken this morning, he had lain in bed watching her prepare his clothes. He liked her quiet, deft movements. When she was finished, he had asked her to shave him and had enjoyed far too much the feel of those light-fingered hands on his skin. True to his word, he said nothing when she excused herself while he bathed and had found himself donning his underclothes to spare her blushes before calling for her again. But otherwise he had made sure to make her very aware of him, lingering over his toilette, openly watching her and using her given name often. He enjoyed the way she reacted to his attention, particularly those surprising blushes of hers, ebbing and flowing in rosy washes across her pale skin.

He wanted to be back in his bedchamber now. He wanted to continue what had started last night. He wanted to get to the bottom of this clever, intriguing, not-so-innocent woman. He kept thinking about what he would say when he went up to bed and she had to help him undress, how he would draw her into conversation and begin the process of coaxing her secrets out of her. It would take some time, but once he had her at Camberley, away from the danger of discovery, it would be so much easier. It would not be long till they left now. He could be patient for another day or two.

Once the parlour games were over, the assembled company was herded into chairs to listen to the young ladies sing and play the pianoforte. Nathan was wedged between the hefty Toby Marchmont and the equally large Mrs. Hanley. Lady Dunsmore was always careful to keep him away from the young ladies and he was grateful to her for it, though it was not done out of kindness.

It was eleven o’clock before he was able to escape. He pleaded fatigue to Lady Dunsmore—a very real fatigue by this time—and bowed over her heavily ringed hand. Dunsmore was standing at his mother’s side, his expression wary. He said a cool good-night and Nathan nodded affably back before wandering off.

Dunsmore was a strange one, Nathan reflected as he made his way to the stairs. The biggest surprise wasn’t the truth of Dunsmore’s inclinations, but the fact that he had acted upon them, and with Osborne of all people, a gorgeous butterfly of a man, lusted over by half the men and women in society. Even more astonishing to Nathan, though, was Osborne’s interest in Dunsmore. He’d always laughed at Dunsmore’s conventional ways, openly deriding his pomposity.

Nathan was privy to a scandalous secret now. Of course he would never speak of what he’d seen. But he understood Dunsmore’s wary look. He only hoped that Dunsmore and Osborne would be similarly restrained about what they thought they’d observed him doing.

Nathan forced himself to walk slowly up the stairs to his bedchamber despite wanting to run. The room was dim when he unlocked the door. A fire burned low in the grate; no candles were lit. He kept hold of his own candle and crossed the chamber to the dressing room door. He knocked lightly and pushed the door gently when there was no reply. Georgy lay on the bed, fast asleep.

Nathan looked down at her. Evidently she’d not intended to fall asleep—she was still in her clothes. She lay on her front on the truckle bed on top of the bedcovers, her head turned to the side. That extraordinary hair was like a bright halo on the pillow, making the pristine white linen look almost dull. He felt covetous, looking down at that gold.

He leaned his shoulder on the door frame and just watched her for a while. His first impression of her when she’d come for her interview had been of peaceful serenity. She was good at being quiet. She had tiptoed round him for weeks, hiding herself from him in plain sight. And yet, something about her had alerted his senses; he had noticed her despite her precautions. He had
known
there was something about her even before he’d discovered she was woman. And then last night he’d discovered something else again—a glimpse this time of the passion that lay beneath the composed surface.

Her kisses had kindled the same passion in him. He’d wanted to topple her onto the bed and take her there and then. Oh, what a fascinating mix! That coolness and that heat together. He was tempted to wake her now, take her in his arms and pick up where they had left off.

Instead, he levered himself away from the doorway and fetched a blanket, settling it over her sleeping form. She barely stirred.

The next morning, Georgy woke early, still in her clothes. Damn. She’d fallen asleep before getting undressed and now her clothes were horribly creased.

Today promised to be much like the day before. They were not leaving for Camberley till tomorrow and she had no doubt that Harland would once again be checking up on her endlessly to ensure she didn’t go a-wandering.

It was so frustrating! She couldn’t stop thinking about Dunsmore’s study. It was a mere twenty yards of corridor from Harland’s bedchamber but as inaccessible as the moon to her right now. She could have cried—this was the last chance she was ever going to get to find evidence. Yesterday she had been on the verge on leaving Harland’s rooms a dozen times and on each occasion he had turned up just as she was screwing up her courage. The sensible, rational part of her brain pointed out that it was unlikely there was any record of her parents’ marriage in Dunsmore’s study anyway. Lily was right. If her grandfather had been so determined to hush it all up, there was a good chance he’d have destroyed every shred of any evidence he unearthed. She’d known before she’d even come here it was a chance in a thousand she’d find anything. And then there was the danger. Breaking into a locked room was a crime and who knew what Dunsmore would do to her if she was caught in an act of burglary?

She had half convinced herself that it was no bad thing that she wasn’t going to get the chance to the take the risk, when she discovered there might be one last opportunity after all. She was in the kitchen having breakfast and the other servants were talking about what the guests would be doing that day. Dunsmore would be leading the younger set on a walk through the extensive grounds while Lady Dunsmore and the older ladies took tea and gossiped in the morning room. The older gentlemen had planned yet another billiards competition. If Harland joined Dunsmore’s group on the walk, as he would be expected to do, there would be a short period of time when she could be sure of his—and everyone else’s—absence.

She began planning even as she ate her breakfast. There were three other guests on their floor—Colonel and Mrs. Hadley, and Mr. Howard. As part of the younger set, they should all be on the walk. The only other occupants of that floor were Lady Dunsmore and Dunsmore himself, and their rooms—including Dunsmore’s study—were on the stretch of corridor around the corner from Harland’s and the other guests’ bedchambers. Even if the Hadleys or Mr. Howard came back suddenly, they shouldn’t go anywhere near the study. The only real risk of discovery would be from Dunsmore himself, his mother, or one of the other servants.

The maidservants would have finished their upstairs cleaning by then and Dunsmore himself would be out with the others on the walk. That left only Lady Dunsmore—and surely she would have no reason to venture into the study?

The more she thought of it, the more her excitement and fear grew. All these months in Harland’s household, passing herself off as a man had come to this: her last chance. The opportunity was slim, the risks vast. It was a horrible gamble.

And she had to play.

Nathan sighed, adjusted his cravat minutely and descended the main staircase.

He had not disclosed to Georgy that he was about to depart on a walk. Better to keep her on her toes, expecting him back in his chamber any moment. He’d left her sewing a button on one of his coats. She had presented a piquant picture performing the domestic task in her male disguise, the sunlight gilding her bent head.

A large group had already congregated in the hall when he reached the bottom of the stairs. For the most part, the young ladies stood on the right, giggling together. They were clad in stylish walking gowns and bonnets, their hands thrust into warm muffs. On the left, a group of gentlemen stood. Dunsmore and Osborne were at the centre of it, Dunsmore dismal in grey and black and Osborne alluring in brown and green. Slightly apart from these two groups stood Ross and Miss Howard, conversing and laughing quietly, their heads bent together. Nathan tried to remember the last time he’d seen Ross with a respectable young lady but the best he could come up with was a foggy memory of his friend with a half-dressed whore—as opposed to a fully nude one—on his lap.

Changed days.

“Are we all ready?” Dunsmore asked the assembled party. The gentlemen stepped forward to offer their arms to the ladies. Osborne quickly snared Mrs. Marsh—the only unattached female who looked as though she might have anything interesting to say. Dunsmore offered his arm to Miss Hodge, a favourite of his mother’s. Nathan ended up extending his arm to Miss Hodge’s younger sister Lucinda. She smiled brightly at him, and he smiled back, making an effort to conceal his dismay. He’d spoken to Miss Lucinda several times over the last few days and had already exhausted her repertoire of conversation twice at least.

The grounds of Dunsmore Manor were large and well-landscaped. An extensive set of formal gardens to the rear of the house gradually became less and less manicured until they blended into a ruthlessly tamed “wilderness.” A series of small man-made waterfalls led to a hermit’s cave.

They walked slowly through the formal gardens and the cherry orchard, past trees that were sadly bare, all the way down to the wild garden, pausing for a few minutes at a Chinese-style bridge for the ladies to catch their breath. Nathan eyed Ross and Miss Howard enviously. They seemed to be enjoying themselves, smiling and talking in a concentrated way that excluded everyone else.

When they set off again, Miss Lucinda leaned on Nathan’s arm, picking over tree roots as though they were great boulders, chatting incessantly all the while about the Season she’d just enjoyed in London—her first. She could only be nineteen at the very most, but it was impossible to imagine she’d ever been a girl. Her grip tightened on his arm as the path took on a slight incline. He let her lean on him more heavily, adjusting his gait again to shorten and slow his stride.

He seemed to recall that his own sister, Louisa, had become like this when she was this age, adopting the feminine tendency to seek male assistance at every turn. But when she was younger she’d romped round Camberley with him, as rough as any boy. One minute she’d been tearing off her stockings to tickle trout with him in the river, and the next she’d been announcing that she was too old play.

When did that happen to girls, he wondered. When was the moment they became women, when they stopped running, stopped playing, started leaning on men’s arms every time so much as a pebble got in their way?

But not every woman was like that. He recalled Georgy, walking along the Serpentine with Lily, running across the path to pick a daisy, vaulting that fence to fetch her handkerchief…

He was reliving that moment when he felt a sharp pull at his arm and heard his companion cry out. Before he could do anything to stop her, Lucinda Hodge toppled over and landed on her backside.

“Ow!” she cried out.

“Miss Lucinda!” He dropped down beside her, feigning the sort of concern gentlemen were supposed to show in these situations. “What happened?”

The rest of the group began to gather around them, a ceiling of politely solicitous faces peering down at them.

“I’ve wrenched my ankle,” she wailed. “My foot turned on a stone—I don’t know how I didn’t see it.”

Nathan suppressed the urge to point out that she might try looking where she was going once in a while, rather than rabbiting on about who she danced with at her come-out ball.

“Oh my dear!” Miss Hodge pressed through the crowd of guests and dropped down to kneel beside them, her expression as alarmed as if Miss Lucinda had just been shot by Napoleon rather than merely turning her foot.

She embraced her sister tenderly, the effect of which was slightly ruined by Miss Lucinda’s request that she take care not to crush her bonnet. Nathan seized the opportunity to stand up.