The Lady’s Secret (29 page)

“Of course
I
won’t mind!” she exclaimed, almost aggrieved. “I don’t know any of them, so what do I care for their approval? But I care for you. You have lived amongst these people your whole life. How can you bear to be cut by them? What about your political career? And what will your family think of it?”

“My family will understand,” he said, with perfect unconcern. “Everyone else can go hang. I don’t care, Georgy.” He registered her doubtful expression and moved close again, caging his arms on either side of her body to keep any weight from her bandaged arm.

“I don’t,” he insisted. “I want to be happy and you make me happy. I want something—someone—of my own. Not a woman who fancies being Lady Harland, but the woman I love and who loves me in return. Now—” he smiled tentatively, “—will you marry me, you aggravating tomboy?”

She lifted her eyes and looked at him, serious for a moment. And then she smiled, a bright and dazzling smile. He actually blinked in the face of that smile. It was like purest sunshine.

“Yes,” she said. “I’ll marry you, Nathan.”

Georgy refused to leave until she was satisfied that Max was comfortable. She hovered while Nathan and Will lifted him into bed, then made Will repeat her instructions for his care back to her.

While she was fussing, Nathan went to speak with Sir Percy, the magistrate, who was sitting with Dunsmore, Osborne and Harry Knight in Eddington’s dining room. Lady Dunsmore had already been taken home by a mixed contingent of her own footmen and two constables. Davy and Goudge had been dispatched to fetch a carriage to take Georgy, Harry and Nathan back to Bloomsbury.

“It’s a bad business,” Sir Percy said, handing the packet of letters back to Harry after reading the topmost one. He glanced at Dunsmore. “What say you, Dunsmore?”

Dunsmore still looked stunned from the events of the last two hours. He glanced at Harry and gestured at the letters. “I’m told your mother was killed the day it was sent.”

Harry merely nodded, animosity coming off him in waves.

Dunsmore glanced at Sir Percy again. “The man referred to in the letter—Monk—was a servant of my father’s. My father entrusted him with a number of somewhat…delicate matters.”

Sir Percy was not a subtle man. “Such as what?” he asked, frowning.

Dunsmore opened his mouth to answer, but nothing emerged. He looked at Osborne, who stepped in.

“Monk undertook the last Lord Dunsmore’s dirty work,” Osborne said. “Peter, you must tell them.”

“I cannot,” he whispered, dropping his head into his hands. “You do it.”

Osborne sighed heavily. “In our first year at university, Peter was blackmailed.” He glanced at Sir Percy. “Someone found out he was—well, someone found out something about Peter he would not have wanted anyone to know. The blackmailer wrote to Peter’s father, demanding money.”

“Who blackmailed him?” Nathan said, frowning. He struggled to think back all those years ago, when they were at Cambridge together.

“Do you remember Archie Frain?”

Archie—it was the name Dunsmore had uttered earlier.

“Archie Frain? He was the chap who—” Nathan broke off, stunned. “The chap who
drowned
.”

“He didn’t drown,” Dunsmore said through his hands, his voice muffled. “He was killed.” At last he looked up, his gaze tortured. “My father summoned me to his study to tell me—Monk was there, smiling through it all. Archie was a stupid, greedy boy, but I would never have wished that on him.” He looked over at Harry and gave a bitter laugh. “I didn’t even want the title. I wanted to go into the army.”

Sir Percy watched him with a disapproving expression. He had undoubtedly worked out what the nature of the blackmail secret was. And he was the sort of man who bracketed homosexuals with murderers.

“Well,” he said shortly, “whatever the truth of the matter, you can’t just give the title away to this young fellow.” He gestured at Harry. “There is no proof of anything here. Just an ambiguous letter written on the same day a woman died. In the absence of marriage lines, I could not conclude this young man to be the legitimate Earl of Dunsmore, even if you want me to.”

There was a brief silence.

“What is to be done with regard to my mother?” Dunsmore asked quietly.

“I don’t see there’s much that can be done,” Sir Percy replied. “She received a letter fifteen years ago that may or may not have been a confession of something—that’s no crime. And while she came in here today and waved a gun around—well, no one was harmed.”

“She was going to kill us,” Harry said in a driven tone. “My sister was assaulted. Our friend was beaten.”

“The men responsible will be dealt with. As to whether Lady Dunsmore intended to do anything more than frighten you, we can prove nothing,” Sir Percy said. “And as matters stand, she remains a peeress. Your complaints, I am afraid to say, are very unlikely to be acted upon.”

“This is a
disgrace
,” Harry said in a disgusted voice.

Dunsmore lifted his head. He looked Harry straight in the eye. “I promise you this. I will send her away. She will be kept secure but away from society.”

Harry returned his cousin’s bleak gaze and his own softened fractionally.

“Thank you,” he said gravely.

Georgy was pleasantly surprised when Nathan suggested that Harry come back to the Bloomsbury house with them. Harry wanted to stop off at their old lodgings first, to pick up some clothes, and when Georgy said she wanted to go in too, Nathan shrugged and announced that he’d better accompany them, given the state of the pair of them.

As soon as they walked in the front door it was plain that someone had broken in at some point. The place had been all but turned upside down. The floor was strewn with contents of the drawers and cupboards, everything upended—cutlery and linens, underwear and ribbons, the entire contents of Harry’s writing desk. A spilt pot of ink had dried to flaky blackness on the wooden floorboards.

Georgy felt sick looking at it all, at the grubbiness of this intimate intrusion. The thought that someone—Monk?—had been through her things made her feel violated.

“Sit down,” Nathan said gently, guiding her to a small armchair. “Let me clear this up.” She sat, legs trembling, while Nathan calmly set the furniture to rights and began to clear the detritus from the floor. Harry helped him, working more slowly.

“What’s this?” Nathan asked after a few minutes. She looked at him. He was crouching on the floor beside Mama’s tea caddy. It lay on its side on the floor, the crystal mixing bowl in shards.

“Oh no!” she cried, vexed out of all proportion. “Look Harry—the bowl is broken.”

The compartment lids had all come off and there were tea leaves all over the ground, sage green and black and brown, like a mound of dried earth.

“I’ve seen this before,” Nathan said, frowning. “Or one like it.”

“Papa brought it from his travels for Mama,” Georgy said. “I used to love playing with it. She sometimes played tea parties with me when I was small. I’d be surprised if there was another the same.”

“There is,” he insisted, as he put the compartment lids back on and righted it. “And I know where—I’ve seen one exactly the same at Dunsmore Manor. It has a secret drawer, doesn’t it?” He lifted the box up, and began to look underneath. Georgy stared at him, then looked at Harry, who was frowning.

“What secret drawer?” they said in unison.

Nathan was already fiddling underneath the box. He slid his hand around the bottom of it, feeling for something, then lifted it, putting his head to one side to peer beneath. He seemed to find what he was looking for, held whatever it was in place, and fiddled with the sides. With a rasping sound, one of the sides lifted half an inch, then another half inch.

And there it was. A secret drawer. Just as he’d said. The wood was bright and shiny, the colour untouched, its surface pristine.

They all looked at one another.

Nathan set the caddy down on a table and stepped back.

“You should open it,” he said.

Georgy rose from her chair and walked over. Harry did too. They glanced at one another, then Georgy pulled the drawer open. It was full of papers.

Harry reached inside and pulled out a small sheaf of them.

He unfolded the topmost one.

It was a marriage certificate.

Two months later

“I’m tired of London,” Nathan told Georgy. They were lying in bed, the spring dawn light spilling over them.

“We said we’d stay until May,” Georgy pointed out, idly tracing his nipple with her fingertip.

“Harry doesn’t need us. He’s fitted into society much more easily than I’d have thought possible. He’s invited everywhere. All the mamas are pushing their daughters at him and the young bucks are tripping over themselves to be his friend.”

“Well, it’s irresistible, isn’t it?” Georgy smiled. “The handsome prince, swindled out of his inheritance and now restored. The perfect fairy tale.”

“Well, since he’s got his happy ending now, may we go back to Camberley and enjoy ours?”

Georgy didn’t answer. Her hair was growing fast. Nathan played with the silky strands, admiring the way they glinted in the sunlight.

“Peter will be gone now,” she said. “His boat was leaving at first tide.”

“Hmm.”

“Do you think he’ll be all right?” Her voice was light but she was staring at the ceiling in a fixed way.

Nathan turned on his side to gaze at her serious profile. “He’ll be fine. Osborne’s with him.”

“It’s silly of me,” she said. “But I feel awful for him, losing the estate and title like that. I think I always will.”

It
was
silly. And kind, and human. And very Georgy. Nathan lifted her hand and pressed a kiss to her palm.

“Don’t feel bad,” he said. “You needn’t.”

She turned and smiled.
What a smile
. Its curve, its shape, its unique sweetness, the fact that she gave it to him every day.

“Let’s go to Camberley,” he said again. “It’s time I took its new mistress home.”

“All right. You can teach me how to use your telescope. I like the idea of stargazing with you.”

“I like the idea of doing anything with you,” he replied.

She turned over, folding her arms over his chest and resting her chin on them. “Do you? What else shall we do, then?”

“Lots of things. I’ll teach you to ride, for one thing.”

She wrinkled her nose. “I’m not wild about learning to ride.”

“You’ll enjoy it,” he assured her. “Especially if I teach you to ride properly—like a man, I mean. Sidesaddles are such a fiddle-faddle.”

She looked dubious at that. “What else?”

“I’ll take you out on my river, fishing.”

She frowned. “Fishing? Isn’t that rather a masculine pastime?”

“Mm. And maybe we could…climb some trees?”

“Climb some—?” She laughed, eyes bright, and sat up. He admired the bounce of her pretty breasts, and raised one thumb to graze a perky nipple.

“What
are
you talking about it, Nathan?”

He pretended reluctance to answer. “It’s just that…much as I love you in your gowns, I do have the occasional urge to see you in breeches again.”

“Ah, now we’re getting to truth, I see.” She smiled even more widely, happy and trustful. His wife. His love. He smiled back, helpless to do otherwise and not wishing to, just giving himself up to the marvellous silly joy of it. Happiness, he was discovering, was better than fine wines, excellent tailoring and the very best horseflesh. And happiness was easy with Georgy.

“You have found me out,” he said, sitting up to bring his naked chest against hers, wrapping his arms around her body and leaning forward until their noses touched. “I am nothing but a lecher. Lusting after your perfect …bottom.”

Their laughter-breath mingled as their mouths came together in a soft, soft kiss.

“I think I know how we shall be spending our time at Camberley,” she said when she broke away. “And it won’t be riding. Or fishing. Or even climbing trees.”

“Maybe not,” he murmured, bearing her back down to the mattress. “But make sure you pack your breeches, just the same. There’s a good chap.”

Where no great story goes untold.
The variety you want to read, the stories authors have always wanted to write.
With new releases every week, your next great read is just a download away!

Keep in touch with Carina Press:

Read our blog: www.CarinaPress.com/blog

Follow us on Twitter: www.twitter.com/CarinaPress

Become a fan on Facebook: www.facebook.com/CarinaPress