The Lie and the Lady (14 page)

Two short breaths. That was all she allowed herself. Then forced a yawn.

It was on that yawn that she opened the door a crack.

“M'dear, I was—oh! I was hoping to escort you down to dinner, but you're not dressed.” Sir Barty exclaimed. The sight of her in her dressing gown was enough to make the man goggle. Confirmation that she still had her figure, at least. “Is something amiss?”

“Oh, darling, I'm so sorry,” Leticia said, covering a yawn. She glanced down at her robe. “I was getting ready when I dozed off for a few moments.”

“Dozed off?” his bushy eyebrows lifted in consternation.

“I know, it's so unlike me!” She let herself get a little teary-eyed, hating to be such a bother. “But the travel of yesterday, and all the excitement of today must have caught up with me . . . I feel so very foolish . . .”

“Quite understandable.” Sir Barty nodded, looking a little relieved. Leticia remembered how pleased Sir Barty had been that morning when she had been on time for church. He did not indulge the feminine trait of tardiness, and she would have to be careful to avoid it in the future. “Do you . . . need any help getting ready?”

He looked so hopeful Leticia almost felt sorry for him. Almost . . . but it was bad game play to allow him any intimacies before vows were spoken. She knew that much, at least.

Not to mention, John Turner was currently hiding behind her dressing screen.

“Oh, darling, no—but thank you.” She smiled sweetly and laid a hand on his arm.

“I could call for a maid, I mean.” Sir Barty blushed like a schoolboy. His mustache twitched, as if chewing something over. “Come to think of it, you should have a maid . . .”

“Darling, I should adore a lady's maid, thank you!” She watched his expression go from startled to pleased. Excellent. “But we shall have to discuss who to hire later. Right now you should go down. I'll follow in a few moments. Helen is waiting.” She blinked, and then remembered where Turner was supposed to be. “Her son as well,” she added, then lowered her voice. “Probably best to not leave Margaret alone with them.”

“Yes—of course,” Sir Barty agreed, seeming to remember he had a daughter. “Don't take too long now—there's no need to stand on ceremony with the Turners, after all.”

“It won't be but a blink of your eye,” Leticia said, and with that, closed the door on Sir Barty.

The moment the door clicked into place, John Turner was out from behind the screen.

“I feel as if I should applaud,” he said. “Funny how you are not willing to forgive me for the lie, yet you lie so easily to your intended.”

“A little discretion is not a lie, so save your applause,” she replied as breezily as possible. “I need to get dressed.”

“Now, that I will most certainly applaud.”

“Meaning you must go.”

“Not until we find some solutions to our current predicament.” He leaned his shoulder up against the poster of the bed.

Her bed.

He must have had no idea he was doing it, or of its implications. And as such, Leticia would not, could not let herself be affected by it. Instead she rolled her shoulders straight and brought her chin up (the better angle by which to look down her nose at him). “Fine.” It wasn't fine. “By all means stay. But I have to get dressed.”

She swept past him and behind the screen.

She moved as quickly as possible, ignoring the smell of wood and man that had invaded this small space in the few minutes he had hidden back here.

Really, she thought, throwing the robe over the top of the screen. It was highly annoying.

“I have an idea for how to ‘deal with it,' as you say.” His gruff voice floated to her.

“Do tell,” she replied. Damn. She'd been in such a hurry to hide back here that she forgot to grab something to change into. “And while you do,” she called out, “hand me my blue gown from the wardrobe, with the gold trim?”

She heard a bit of shuffling, the creak of the wardrobe door opening. The unmistakable sound of someone manhandling fine silks making her want to cringe.

“Please be careful!” she said. The blue silk gown was flung over the top of the screen without so much as a by-your-leave. Well, that was her answer, it seemed.

“Do let me know if you need any help with the buttons.”

She could hear the smile in his voice and it made her want to pummel him. What a terribly unladylike impulse he inspired.

“If I refused my fiancé's help, you can rest assured that I will refuse yours.” She threw the dress over her head and pulled it on.

Over the course of the past three years, since the loss of Konrad and her fortunes, she'd had to become creative in her practicalities. One of which was discreetly altering all her clothes so they could be put on without the assistance of an expensive maid. (Ooh . . . she would have to discreetly alter the clothes back before Sir Barty hired a new maid—she didn't want anyone gossiping about her strange aversion to buttons up the back.)

“Ah yes. And that brings me back to the subject at hand. My idea for ‘dealing with it,' ” he said. She could hear the creak of his weight settling into the little chair of the escritoire.

At least, she hoped he was sitting on the chair. The other option was far more disconcerting.

Once she did up the hidden buttons on the front of her gown, she straightened her skirts as she stepped out from behind the screen.

He was sitting in the chair. Thank goodness.

“You could leave.”

He said it so simply. As if it was a direction in a recipe for baking bread.

“Leave,” she repeated. “Just up and disappear?”

“It's not as if you haven't done it before.” He started to smile, then seeing the look on her face, stifled it. “If you leave now, it will save Sir Barty a great deal of heartache—”

“I have no intention of causing Sir Barty any heartache.”

“I can't imagine he would not be heartbroken if he learned of our . . . past.”

She froze in the middle of the room. Let the cold, oily feeling slide down into her belly. And she was actually glad about it. Because whatever effect he'd been having on her—his very presence, the way he'd leaned on the bed—slipped away when he played what he thought was his trump card. She could hate him now, even as she played one card better.

“He was heartbroken—for me.” Triumph danced along her skin as she watched his face shutter. “I've been lied to in marriage before, I know it is no way to build a life together. So I told him. Oh, not about you specifically. But he knows some underhanded man lied about who he was, and made a fool of me in a very public way,” she said simply. “It was easier. If the last year taught me anything, it is that I cannot outrun the Lie.”

He heaved himself out of the chair and paced, seeming to ponder what she said. Opened his mouth to say something then closed it again.

“Still, if you feel it necessary to inform him of your involvement in the scheme, go ahead, by all means. But I have a feeling that it would do you more harm than good, especially concerning your interest in Margaret.”

“I'm not interested in Margaret,” he said bluntly. It must have just popped out, because he certainly didn't look like he intended to give that card away. Of course he wasn't interested in Margaret. He didn't even like her, not in the way needed for marriage. Of course everything he had done today—kissing Margaret's hand, touching her waist—had simply been to provoke Leticia. But still, relief flooded through her. She could not help but be glad to know it.

“Really?” she asked, relieved her voice came out steady. “I imagine Sir Barty might be more willing to give his grain business over to you if you were his daughter's intended.”

“You figured that out too?” he replied, closing the distance between them with little more than a lean. His voice was a whispered growl. “Don't worry. Despite my mother's best intentions, I'm not so mercenary that I would toy with someone's affections for material gain.”

She flinched back, as if struck. “Oh, I see. You think I am.”

“Can you deny that you are marrying for reasons other than love?”

“No. And what on earth is wrong with that?” she asked. “Just because Sir Barty can offer me security does not make me a bad person. In return I will be a good wife to him and a friend to Margaret. You seem to think I will stand up in church one morning and by the following week spend through Sir Barty's fortune while I take a string of lovers.”

“A string of lovers?” he repeated, his eyes narrow slivers of heat. “Not even I think you would have a string.”

Just one. The words hung unspoken in the air. One man, one temptation living just in the village, with the memory of how his hands felt on her skin looming at every moment.

She would be damned before she let that happen.

“I am making vows, Mr. Turner. I fully intend to honor them. Sir Barty will never lie to me, and I will never lie to him. Certainly not on our wedding day.”

He turned and paced the room, as if trying to reconcile her words to what he thought he knew of her. Perhaps they weren't so attuned to each other as they thought. Or rather, perhaps he did believe it, but just didn't want to.

“However, that leads me to my counter to your suggestion on how to ‘deal with it,' as you said.”

He continued pacing, but cocked his head, listening.

“You leave.”

“You want me to leave my hometown? My mill?”

“It's not as if you haven't done it before,” she replied. His cheeks burned at the retort, a sight she enjoyed just a little too much.

“And it's precisely why I cannot leave now. The next harvest will be here in a mere month. The Turner Grain Mill is for the first time in nearly six years operational.” His gaze dropped from hers, and his eyes sought the window. “I spent too long away.”

She moved forward, stood toe to toe with him. Went in for the kill.

“And you need my darling fiancé's business.”

“Yes,” he replied, blunt.

“Then you have a choice to make. Either you leave town, or you apologize for your actions and we can go back to pretending to not know each other. Very soon that will be the case anyway.”

“You wish me to apologize?” he asked. “For what?”

She just looked at him like he was stupid, because in that moment he had to be to ask such a question.

“Why the hell should I?” he asked.

“Because this whole thing is your doing!” She rounded on him, exasperated at his stubborn, male obtuseness. “If you hadn't lied, I would not have fallen for you, and I would not have had to run when the truth came out. I would not have met Sir Barty and I would not be engaged to him now. This entire situation—which you seem so eager to blame on me—is actually all your fault.”

John blinked twice, struck by her speech. “Well,” he said after a moment. “I . . . ah . . . I do owe you an apology then. Hell, I owe us all one.”

He caught her hand and held it still with a firm, soft grasp.

“If it means anything—anything at all—I am sorry. For your situation. For the lie itself.”

“Six months ago you said you could not be sorry for lying.”

“That was before I spent six months knowing you would never trust me again.”

Now it was Letty's turn to blink and reel. She could handle Turner angry. She could understand him shocked and upset. But this resigned man before her, allowing a peek at his vulnerability . . .

It made the space around her heart feel queer—like a void slowly filling with a painful warmth.

No. No, stop it, Letty, she told herself. Such feelings are not allowed. Not with this man, and certainly not with the good man you are engaged to marry awaiting you downstairs.

“Thank you,” she said, clearing her throat and extracting her hand. “But don't fret. Everything turned out better for me than I could have possibly hoped. It always does.”

He sighed deeply and rolled his shoulders, one catching in a twinge of pain—a wound healed, but never entirely. “You won't go,” he stated finally.

“And neither will you,” she replied.

It hung in the air between them, echoing off the fading wallpaper. Her eyes met his, and for the first time since he'd blackmailed his way into her room, she saw something other than anger or defiance there. Something had opened in him, without him knowing it. She saw regret. She saw resignation.

She saw the question that had no answer:

What if . . . ?

Leticia was not one to contemplate the what-ifs of life. To reflect on the past wondering what could have been was an utter waste of time—and women in general did not have as much time as men to begin with. So she rushed ahead, dealing with what life threw her way, and not bothering with the road not taken.

But now, there were so many what-ifs, each one flashing across the dark brown of his eyes, it overwhelmed her.

It made her forget where she was.

Luckily, time refused to forget for her, and the little mantel clock struck the time, jumping them both back into her bedchamber.

“We are due downstairs,” she said, forcing her eyes away from his.

“We still don't have a solution,” he said after a moment.

“Do you honestly think we'll find one?”

He swore under his breath. “No. We will simply have to do our best to avoid each other.”

“Meaning you will not interfere in my marriage to Sir Barty?” she asked, arching a brow.

“As long as you do not interfere in my business,” he said. “Even if that business involves Sir Barty.”

“Somehow I cannot imagine that Sir Barty will consult his bride on grain futures. But”—she held up her hand, stopping him from interrupting—“I will not influence him either way. I won't even mention your name.”

He smiled. Even though she could tell he was angry, and exhausted, and a million other emotions moving over his face faster than she could count, he still managed to send a zip of feeling straight through her.