The Lady’s Secret (21 page)

Suddenly she remembered the gunshot yesterday in the grounds of Camberley. A poacher, Nathan had suggested, and she’d accepted that explanation readily. But had that bullet been meant for her? Dunsmore might have discovered that the letters were missing…and if he had, perhaps Georgy had been seen loitering around the study at some point?

How desperate would Dunsmore be to find that letter again? On its own, the letter was nothing. Her mother was not identified, nor was the act that the man called Monk had been sent to perform. But it might be enough to make a scandal. And if other evidence came to light, well, who knew?

And Harry had been attacked too. That couldn’t be a coincidence.

Harry’s attack. The shooting. And now this carriage accident that was no accident at all. Yes, Dunsmore
must
have realised they were on the hunt. And he had responded with brutal swiftness.

“Are you in danger, Georgy?” Nathan asked, his dark eyes intent on her.

Was she? Suddenly it seemed more than merely plausible. And had she now put Nathan in danger too? He could have been shot yesterday. Because of her? The thought made her feel sick. Sick at heart and sick in body. Her head reeled and ached, and her limbs still trembled with shock. She dropped her forehead to her knees again.

A moment later, she felt Nathan’s weight settle at the end of the bed. “I think it’s time you told me what’s going on,” he said. “I haven’t the faintest idea who you are or why anyone might want to kill you.” He paused, adding gently, “How can I protect you without knowing the truth?”

“I didn’t ask you to protect me,” she said, her voice muffled against her breeches.

“No,” he agreed. “But I’m taking the duty upon myself. You could have died in that accident. In fact, I thought you had. I—” He broke off abruptly. “Let me help you, Georgy.”

She didn’t bother to lift her head to answer him. It hurt too much. “It’s best if I disappear. You aren’t responsible for me—I didn’t intend to drag you into this.”

“Into what? Tell me—I want to help you. You can trust me.”

She believed he meant it, and weak as she was, she found the offer comforting. It would be such a relief to spill her troubles to him. But she mustn’t. She had made her plans and she would stick to them—go home, leave Fellowes behind, persuade Harry to give up the quest.

She was resolved.

Until he touched her.

He reached out and placed his hand on her shoulder, a warm and comforting weight that made her eyes prickle with weak tears.

“Tell me, Georgy,” he said softly. She heard him move nearer, felt his thigh against her hip. The warm trail of a tear slid down the side of her nose and made a damp spot on the knee of her breeches. She ached to feel his arms around her.

Forcing her head up, she looked at him with wet eyes. He was frowning, his dark gaze troubled. He did look worried now.

Somehow his concerned expression eased her fear and sorrow, even though it changed nothing.

And that was when it came out, the words blurting from her lips before she could think better of it.

“My brother is the real Earl of Dunsmore.”

His mouth fell open.

“
What
did you say?” he asked after a long pause.

She sniffed hard and rubbed her tears away with the heel of her hand. “My father was the middle brother—older than the present Earl’s father—so the title should have gone to my brother eight years ago. But our parents’ marriage was hushed up. We only learned the truth of it ourselves two years ago. My mother was an actress, you see. Harry and I thought we were bastards.” She saw him flinch and quickly added, “It didn’t bother us. We grew up in the theatre. Illegitimacy means very little there.”

“Go on,” he said gently, when she fell silent.

“My father died when we were nine, my mother when we were fifteen. We didn’t learn they had been married until years after her death.”

“And how did you learn of it?”

“My mother had confided in a friend. He told us when we reached our majority. It was then we realised that Harry is the true earl, and that the present earl is a pretender.”

Nathan said nothing but he looked troubled. His brows were drawn together, his gaze inward as he considered her words. When he looked directly at her again, she wanted to weep. His scepticism was unmistakable. He didn’t believe her.

“Were there papers to evidence this?” he asked.

She shook her head and the pitying expression that came over his face then made her feel like an idiot.

“And your mother was an actress,” he said at last. She could see what he was thinking—and she didn’t even blame him. It was very unlikely that an aristocrat would marry an actress.

“Yes,” she said in small voice. He probably thought she was a madwoman; a fantasist.

“And you only found out that she had apparently been married to your father after she died?”

“That’s right.”

She was beginning to feel exceedingly foolish. Foolish and weak with a head that throbbed so hard she had to close her eyes.

There was a brief silence and then he said, “What were you looking for in Dunsmore’s study?”

“Evidence of the marriage.”

“And did you find it?”

“No. But I did find a letter.” She fell silent, swallowing against a lump that had risen in her throat. She hated that she was trying to justify her actions now.

“A letter?”

She nodded. “A letter between the present earl’s parents. It sounded as though my mother had gone to see her brother-in-law when Harry should have inherited instead of him. It seems it was the last thing she ever did.”

Nathan’s eyes flashed alarm. “Do you realise what you are saying?”

“Yes,” she said flatly. “I’m saying he had her murdered.”

She wasn’t sure what to make of his appalled reaction. For the first time, it occurred to her that perhaps she was talking more than was wise. Did she really want Nathan to have possession of all her secrets? He was still Dunsmore’s friend after all.

She rubbed a palm over her face. Her head hurt like the very devil. “Excuse me,” she said. “I really think I ought to lie down.”

She didn’t wait for his agreement, just closed her eyes and sank back down onto the mattress, throwing an arm across her closed eyes to keep out the daylight. The worst of the pain was behind her left eye now. It throbbed so hard she felt like throwing up, the queasiness in her stomach an unpleasant counterpoint to the sharper, more localised agony in her head.

“How do you feel?” she heard Nathan ask softly. He sounded very far away.

“Terrible.”

“Then lie there and close your eyes while I have this tisane made for you. We can talk more later.”

She did as he said, succumbing to the lure of the shadows behind her eyes. Soothed, first by that soft darkness, then by the tisane, she fell into a dreamless sleep, watched over by Nathan.

They reached London just before dark the following afternoon. Snow had fallen in the city while they had been away, but it had long since been churned to a dirty grey slush that made the roads difficult to negotiate and the carriage prone to sliding.

John drove slowly, and despite being anxious to get home, Nathan didn’t urge him on. Georgy was sleeping again, not the light drowsing of their earlier journey but an eerily still repose that made him nervous. They had stayed at the Star Inn last night—a mistake it turned out. It was on a popular route and was full of guests. There had been a great deal of activity and not a little carousing. Nathan had barely slept a wink and by the look of her at breakfast, Georgy hadn’t either. The massive, livid bruise that had bloomed on her forehead overnight was matched by dark smudges under her eyes.

He hadn’t raised the subject of her claims to nobility during the day’s long carriage journey. She still didn’t look well and he didn’t want to badger her. He’d hoped she would bring up the subject herself, but she remained quiet and withdrawn the whole day, barely speaking to him.

Nathan had been unable to think of anything else. His common sense told him to be sceptical about the supposed marriage between her parents, but he found himself turning it over in his mind endlessly, remembering the picture Georgy had painted of these two people so deeply in love. But really, didn’t that make her story all the more suspect? Love didn’t generally have much to do with marriage amongst his own class. Marriage was for dynasty-building and political allegiances. Every young aristocratic male learned that in his cradle and Georgy’s father would have been no different. He may have been in love with Georgy’s mother, but that didn’t mean he’d married her. And if there had truly been a marriage, surely Georgy’s mother would have told her children of it? It didn’t add up.

Then again, why would Dunsmore be trying to kill Georgy if there was no truth in the tale? If it was indeed Dunsmore who was behind the intruder at Camberley and the carriage accident…

There were too many questions, too many unknowns. Nathan’s mind busied over the tangled threads of the tale all day, trying to make sense of it. He had known Dunsmore for two decades. They had never been the closest friends, but he knew the man reasonably well and wouldn’t have thought him capable of plotting the death of a young woman, least of all his own cousin. Well, he wouldn’t have thought him capable of such an act a week ago. Since then, he’d seen a different and surprising side to Dunsmore, a determined man with secrets to hide.

That new insight gave him real pause. He remembered Dunsmore’s expression as he’d assessed the tableau Nathan and Georgy had presented in the corridor at Dunsmore Manor that night. Had he known even then who she was? Had he thought Nathan her accomplice? Had the carriage accident been as much for him as for her? His gut told him not, but there had also been the shooting incident at Camberley. It seemed too coincidental that a poacher had taken a shot at him on the same day an intruder had been sighted in his stables.

Unless he was reading too much into a series of unrelated incidents?

He would have to speak to Dunsmore.

Nathan ran his palm over his face and looked out of the carriage window at the dirty street. Melting slush was banked up at the sides of the road. Slow-moving carriages clogged the thoroughfare and all around them pedestrians, workers and ragged beggars thronged the streets. A crowd of boys tormented a wild-looking dog.

Nathan glanced at Georgy again. She lay still and pale, unmoving. She could have been killed yesterday. He saw her again as he’d seen her in the overturned coach, buried under boxes, and the thought filled him with the strangest mixture of anger and fear. He might not be able to fathom her story out yet but there was one thing he knew very well—he had to make her safe until he got to the bottom of it all. He had lain in bed awake all last night thinking it through while horses and carriages clattered in and out of the inn’s courtyard, while ostlers shouted and men’s voices rang out from the taproom in a drunken sing-song.

He wouldn’t keep her at the townhouse. If Dunsmore was after her, that’s exactly where he would look for her. Besides, the townhouse staff already knew Georgy as Mr. Fellowes. No, he would take her to his house in Bloomsbury, a small discreet establishment where he’d kept a few favoured mistresses over the years. It had a trustworthy overseer in the person of Mr. Goudge, an ex-army man who served as a butler-cum-housekeeper-cum-general-factotum and who ruled over the small staff with a velvet-shod rod of iron. Georgy could give up her male disguise and live there—at least until she was better.

Nathan’s gaze flickered out of the window again. They were getting close to Mayfair. He leaned over and shook Georgy’s shoulder gently. “Georgy. We’re home.”

She stirred and opened her eyes, staring at him unseeingly for a moment before coming to herself again. She leaned forward to look out the window.

“How long have I been asleep?”

“A good few hours.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t know—”

He waved her apology aside. “It doesn’t matter. Listen, I’ve been thinking. I don’t think you should stay at the townhouse.”

She blinked with surprise, and for an instant looked lost. It gave him the oddest pang, but before he could speak, her expression was calm again.

“I see,” she said. “Well, I’m glad we’re agreed now. I can be packed and off to Lily’s within the hour.”

He sighed. “You misunderstand me. I can’t allow that. Not when you may be in danger, and not when you’re still unwell. I have another house in Bloomsbury. I’m going to take you there once you’ve collected all your things.”

She frowned. “I beg your pardon?”

“You need to recuperate. I want you to be treated as my guest while you get better. And it will be easier for you to get better if you don’t have to keep up the pretence of being a man.”

Her eyes narrowed. “I think I know the house we’re talking about,” she said, her voice dry. “The one on Stephen Street?”

Now it was Nathan’s turn to frown. “What do you know about it?”

“It’s where you keep your fancy women.”

“I don’t have any fancy women,” he retorted before he could stop himself. He was mortified to feel heat creep into his cheeks. “There will be no one there but you.”

She greeted that assurance with silence, although her expression said that was what she was afraid of.

“You’ll be perfectly safe,” he added stiffly.

“All the same,” she said, “I think it’s best if I simply leave.”

He ground his teeth in frustration, unable to understand why she wouldn’t trust him to keep her safe. Maybe he should let her go if that was what she wanted.

As soon as the thought occurred, he thrust it aside. He couldn’t shake the conviction that something awful might happen to her. He wouldn’t feel easy till he had her somewhere secure with locks on the doors and windows and a permanent sentry, day and night.

The carriage slowed. They were at the townhouse.

“For god’s sake, Georgy, I’m worried about you,” he said, embarrassed by the roughness in his voice. When she didn’t speak he added, “Say you’ll come for one night.”

She stared at him, chewing her bottom lip, her eyes troubled. They both heard John jump down from the box.

She glanced away from him. “All right,” she muttered. And then the door swung open.

Georgy had no intention of going to the house in Bloomsbury. She’d had ample time to think about things during the day’s interminable journey and she deeply regretted telling Nathan the truth yesterday. Lord, he’d known Dunsmore for years! It had been downright stupid to trust him with her secret.

And anyway, he hadn’t believed her. She’d read it in his eyes. Oh, it was perfectly understandable, she supposed. Yet when she’d seen his expression—concerned, sceptical,
pitying
—she’d wanted to crawl under a stone.

But really, what had she expected? That he’d say
Oh, of course, I see it now! You are a princess beneath your rags!
as though they were in some absurd pantomime in which everything came right in the end?

Of course she hadn’t thought that.

So why did she feel so disappointed?

It was just that she needed to go home, to be around people who loved her. Her valet masquerade weighed on her now. She wanted to go back to being Georgiana Knight again. She wanted to see Max and Lily, and most of all, Harry. She wanted to straighten up the house before Harry got back, get the place warm and cosy and lay in provisions. He needed rest and recuperation and she intended to look after him while he recovered. They would need to talk about their future at some point. The quest was over and Harry would have to accept that.

The trouble was, she suspected Nathan would argue with her plans. She had seen the determined look he wore as he’d told her she should move into the Bloomsbury house. He was a man used to being obeyed and he would beat down her resolve with his arguments. And her head hurt too much for that. Especially when the weak part of her that wanted to stay with him—the part that apparently harboured foolish pantomime-heroine fantasies—would
want
to be persuaded.

And so she resolved to sneak off like a thief in the night. It was cowardly, yes. Craven. But she was going to do it anyway.

She went straight up to her attic bedchamber when they finally arrived at the townhouse. It was freezing inside. Over the last few weeks she’d become used to sleeping in the same set of chambers as Nathan whose fires were continually lit in winter. Well, that luxury was over.

Nathan had told her to meet him in the library once she had collected her things. He planned to take her straight to the house at Stephen Street. Her plan was rather different. She was going to take the servants’ stairs down to the back door and simply walk away. Guiltily she remembered that he had said he was worried about her in the carriage. She would let him know she was all right as soon as she was able. Woefully inadequate, but it would have to do.

She set her valise on the bed and opened the wardrobe to remove the few clothes she’d left behind when they’d gone to Dunsmore Manor. She shoved them into the valise and a moment later she was tripping downstairs.

She had to go through the kitchen. Mrs. Sims was in there along with a couple of the maids and Jed, one of the footmen. She smiled and greeted them, wishing she could slip away without delay. Nathan would be in the library now, possibly becoming impatient. He wouldn’t wait long, she thought, before he came looking for her.

“Good God in heaven, what happened to you, lad?” Mrs. Sims cried, bustling over and grabbing Georgy’s head between her plump hands. She brought her face close to examine the bruise.

“Haven’t you heard? I thought John or Arthur would’ve been down by now.”

“No! What’s happened?” Mrs. Sims was agog.

“We had a carriage accident yesterday on the way back from Camberley—the luggage coach overturned with me in it. His lordship’s fine but I got this lump on my head.”

“You poor lovey!” Mrs. Sims exclaimed with horror. “I’ll do you a poultice for that that’ll lift that bruise right out. Now sit down, and let me get you summit to eat.”

“I can’t,” Georgy said, extracting herself neatly and lifting the valise. “I’ve got to take this out round back. His lordship wants to be off again shortly and I’ve got to go with him.”

“What, already?” Mrs. Sims was too loyal to criticise Nathan but her mouth tightened with disapproval.

“I’m afraid so,” Georgy said, sighing. “I’d better be off.”

Before the cook could detain her any longer, and with a wave to Jed, Georgy walked to the back door, opened it, and went out.

She paused once the door was closed behind her. It was several miles to the Camelot and it was almost fully dark now. She didn’t relish the thought of such a walk in the dark, but there was nothing else for it.

She crammed her hat on her head and headed off. The cobbles beneath her feet were slippy with half-melted snow, the walls of the mews on either side of her so narrow she could almost touch both sides with her outstretched arms. It was cold too. She shivered and turned up the collar of her coat, hunching her shoulders against the chill. God, but the thought of walking all the way to Covent Garden with her head still aching wasn’t to be borne. Once she got to the main road she would get a hack, and bugger the expense.

She had scarcely walked twenty yards when a man emerged from the shadows up ahead. He was tall and wiry, his face shadowed by a deep-brimmed hat. Something about him, the way he had loomed out of the shadows, was threatening. Georgy slowed her pace, wary now. Was he a cut-purse? Worse? She was debating whether to betray her fear by turning around and going back to the house, when he spoke.

“Now then,” he said. “Here you are. The lady I’ve been waitin’ so patient for.”

Lady
.

He knew.
 

Georgy struggled to take in air as she staggered backwards, her arm hitting the wall as she executed a clumsy turn.
Scream,
she thought, but she couldn’t seem to get any noise out. She started to run.

She heard him erupt into a run behind her and she knew without doubt he was going to catch her. She wasn’t going to be fast enough to get away from him. She dropped the valise and kept going. One foot slid on a patch of slush as she ran across the slimy cobbles, almost sending her sprawling. A half-strangled scream emerged from her paralysed throat, and she heard him grunting behind her, felt his hand grabbing at her coat. And then, amazingly, from close to the house, came a new voice.

“
Georgy!
”

Nathan!

She saw him running towards her just before she hit the cold hard ground. Her attacker’s wiry body landed on top of her and the breath flew out of her mouth, leaving her gasping for air.

“
Jed!
” Nathan shouted, pounding towards her. She wanted to cry with relief even as the fear froze her. The man on top of her scrambled to his feet, fisting her cravat in his hand to yank her up too. She gasped and choked, one hand clawing at the tightened fabric. An instant later that stranglehold loosened, only to be replaced by the cold edge of a knife at her neck. Nathan skidded to a halt, Jed behind him.