The Lie and the Lady (8 page)

“Good?” he asked, his head swiveling back to look at her.

“It's high time you started taking notice of young, marriageable women.” The stress she put on the word
marriageable
made his jaw clench, a force of habit. “Once the mill is open and running properly, you will need someone—”

“I have no need of ‘someone,' I have you.” Turner replied automatically, if not a little syrupy. He needed to distract her. Needed her to leave off this line of inquiry and leave him to his thoughts in peace.

What is she doing here?

But Helen Braithwaite Turner was never one to succumb to flattery.

“I won't be around forever.” She snorted. “Besides, who says I want the job? I would like to take some time for myself in my old age.”

“You're hardly decrepit.”

“And yet, I've never been sea-bathing . . .” His mother let that thought drift off as he shook his head, a rueful smile appearing. His mother had a will of steel. She'd single-handedly kept the Turner Grain Mill alive while he was at war. When he returned to find that his father had passed and the grand windmill at the entrance to Helmsley was a proud tower of soot-stained stones, she was the one who kept the vultures at bay while he went to London to earn the money necessary to rebuild.

It had taken years longer than anticipated, and several other minor catastrophes delayed the mill's reopening, but all the while Helen Turner had persevered.

And now that she had decided it was time for her son to marry, she would persevere again.

“I'm just saying that if Miss Babcock has caught your eye, it would be a fine thing to pursue. After all, I have an inkling that the girl is keen on you . . .”

Turner did everything in his power to contain a laugh. It wouldn't do to laugh in the middle of the churchyard. But if his mother knew that the last woman he proposed to happened to be standing next to Margaret Babcock, she would perhaps dissolve into hysterics as well.

What is she doing here?

“Do you have any objection to Miss Babcock?”

His mother was not about to let this one go.

“I have no objection to her,” Turner replied. He'd known Miss Babcock the whole of the girl's life. And while in her youth she had been an awkward, shy thing, she had in the past few years while he was in London become an awkward, tall thing. But that was nothing compared to her status in society as Sir Barty's daughter, and her general harmlessness. “But I do not think that interest should be given simply because of a lack of objection.”

His mother snorted. “Well, then perhaps a better reason is because Sir Barty's estate produces over half of the grain in the area.”

His mind was frazzled enough trying not to stare at Leticia—his Letty—and thus had no patience for games.

“What's your point, Mother?”

“My point is, even once the mill is open and running, it can still fail if we haven't any customers.”

His mind swung wildly back to what she was saying, barely able to comprehend. Leave it to his mother to suggest what he thought she was suggesting. “That is terribly mercenary of you.”

“I prefer to think of it as practical,” she replied. “All the work . . . for all those years . . .”

Yes, all the work, for all the years that they had both done, to keep their livelihood, well, alive . . . they could have sold the burned-out husk of a windmill ages ago. They would have gotten a fraction of its worth, but it would have been enough to keep his mother comfortable for the rest of her days. And he could have earned his living elsewhere.

But he hadn't wanted to.

He'd wanted to work the mill. Own the mill. As his father had before him.

And it was about to happen for him. He was about to finally have the mill up and running again.

And now, the Countess of Churzy was standing in his churchyard, threatening to . . .

To what, precisely?

What is she doing here?

Then a thought—thrilling and desperate—bloomed in his mind.

Was she here for him?

“We should pay our respects to Sir Barty,” his mother was saying. “Back from his tour of the Continent—he thought he would be gone much longer. But I knew it was foolishness—I told Barty he was going to end up lost in the first city he arrived in and spend three weeks turned around. Then he'd come home because the ship he sailed on was the only thing he knew how to find. I bet he gave Mrs. Dillon and Jameson a heart attack each.”

Turner nodded absentmindedly. He was trying to keep his eyes on Leticia, trying to see if his Letty would give him some clue as to the reason that she was here . . . other than the pale face and still expression.

If she was here for him . . . that would change everything.

“Of course I didn't expect him to come home toting some lady bride, but Barty has always managed to surprise me, even when we were young.”

“What?” Turner asked, his mother's voice finally breaking into his thoughts.

“His fiancée. A countess of some kind. It was all over town yesterday.” His mother eyed him. “And you've been staring at her for the past few minutes.”

Turner felt something odd hit his chest.

If he didn't know better, he would have likened it to a cannonball.

“Shall we go in? It seems the vicar is finally going to start the service.” His mother pulled him gently toward the church doors. “We'll greet Sir Barty and Miss Babcock after—and meet Sir Barty's bride.”

“I PUBLISH THE
banns of marriage between Sir Bartholomew Babcock of Helmsley and Lady Churzy, the Countess of Churzy,” the vicar droned. “This is the first time of asking. If any of you know cause or just impediment why these two persons should not be joined together in holy matrimony, ye are to declare it.”

Turner could have ripped the bushy red sideburns off the vicar's head. The way he said it, as if there was nothing to it at all! I publish the banns of marriage . . .

As if there was no thought of objection from anyone! How could there possibly be? Sir Barty was a landed gentleman, the most landed in the area in point of fact. Who he took as his bride would not warrant a peep in the church. Not even from the ladies in town who were staring daggers into the back of Leticia's head. (Why were they staring daggers? Oh hell, had she already managed to offend them somehow? The ladies of Helmsley were a notoriously closed circle, and anything outside of the town was treated as suspect. He remembered when Harold Emory left to join the navy. It was feared he would come back with flippers. Hell, Turner himself was still treated with distance since he had become so “citified” in London, and his mother since the mill stopped working . . . But this digressive train of thought was neither productive nor on point, so Turner shook it off and returned his mind to the cause of his seething rage.)

It had been six months since he'd seen her. Since he'd kissed her. Lifetimes happen in six months.

Turner felt like he had loved and died every day for the last six months. When he woke in the mornings, he had a blissful few seconds of memory, still in a dream fraught with warm, soft hands and whispers in the dark. Then, the stark light of day would reach him and with it, reality. The only thing to do was to put his head down and work himself so hard that there was no room for her. To exhaust himself to dreamless sleep.

But the dream always came anyway.

If any of you know of any cause or impediment . . .

Hell yes, he knew of an impediment. The impediment was he had finally stopped dying!

The last time he had laid eyes on Leticia, she had told him she never wanted to see him again.

And he'd believed her.

They had not been on a ballroom floor, or in a bedroom, or in any of those more intimate spaces that allow for touches and whispers and persuasion. Instead, they were on a wind-whipped dock, and she was shivering against the December cold.

“Letty,” he'd said.

Her shoulders tensed at his voice, then her head whipped around, eyes searching for the source of her name.

Shock flew across her face. Then fear. Both gutted him.

“Hello.” He stepped forward, raising his gloved hand in a small wave, a gesture of peace. Still, she took a half step back before she remembered herself. She straightened. Her expression turned cool. She forced herself to stop shivering.

“Hello,” she answered in her haughtiest voice.

He almost smiled. To hell with it, he did smile. She tried to hide herself under the cloak of a countess, but it had never fooled him. Not once.

And finally—finally—he had found her.

“What are you doing in Dover?” she asked, as casual as if they had just been introduced.

“I was waiting.”

“For a ship?” she asked.

“For you.”

She blushed against the raw wind. Not out of compliment, or womanly charm. But out of awkwardness and . . . embarrassment.

He'd seen her cool, seen her clever, seen her overcome with passion. He'd even seen her shocked speechless, when she'd found out . . . But he'd never thought he'd live to see her embarrassed.

In retrospect, that should have been his first clue.

“Of course,” she'd replied. “You force me here, and are lying in wait when I arrive.”

“Don't be foolish. I didn't chase you here.”

“No.” Her eyes narrowed to slits. “You didn't chase me—your lie did.”

He'd hoped that when he found her she would see there was nothing to fear from him. That her body would ache for him the way he'd been aching for her, and she'd give up this foolishness. Because Lady Churzy was many things, but foolish was not among them.

But what she was, he was quickly realizing, was blazing mad.

“Letty—”

“Don't call me that.” She held his gaze—and her ground.

“My apologies. Leticia, then?”

“If you are to address me at all, it should be as Countess.”

“Not long ago you let me call you many other things. Darling. Love.”

“Not long ago you went by a different name entirely.” She whirled on him. Advancing like a guard dog on an intruder. “Do you have any idea how I've had to live—if you can call it living? Everywhere I go, I have maybe two weeks, often less, before the rumors reach people. London first—I thought I might have a good month there, they have enough gossip of their own. But no—a countess being tricked by a . . . a secretary is too juicy an on-dit to pass up.”

“I did not—”

“And then of course I tried Brighton. Then Manchester, York—I even went to Edinburgh, but everywhere, everywhere, I found myself shut out of polite society.”

“They are all fools.”

“They are all that is!” she'd cried. “Not even my sister, Fanny, will have me back in her house—at least not until it ‘all blows over,' she says. How is a woman without funds, friends, or reputation supposed to live?”

“With me,” he'd said immediately.

But she'd turned steely, her voice ice in the wind. “Wouldn't that work out just perfectly for you, then? You pretend to be the Earl of Ashby, pretend to be a man of substance . . . and used me as a pawn in your game with the real earl.”

“I had to—we . . . oh hell, it's tough to explain, but we made a wager and I needed money to repair my family's business, and—”

“Yes, I'm sure your cause was ever so noble,” she said, waving away his explanation. “You win your wager with him, but meanwhile you kiss me on a dance floor and make love to me—”

“That was never a lie,” he said harshly, his hand coming up to her arm without thinking.

“What does it signify?” she asked, tensing beneath his fingers. “When you lied about everything else?” Her voice was a whisper against the wind now. “You lied. And you still think you can get everything you want.”

“Yes, Letty, I lied,” he finally said. “I lied about my name. That was all. But don't pretend you weren't lying too. You wanted me to believe you had solid ground beneath your feet, and were not desperate. That you were pursuing me for myself, and not because you thought I was an earl with money.”

“I make no apologies for trying to secure my future. And a countess and an earl are natural together. A countess and a secretary”—she practically spat the word—“are not.”

“Weren't we?” He stepped forward, his hand loosening on her arm, but not letting go. He let his hand trail down that arm, coming to the elbow, his fingers lightly dancing there, almost as if there were not gloves and cloaks between them. As if there were nothing between them. “The way I remember it, together we were the most natural thing in the world.”

Suddenly, she was shaking again. He prayed it wasn't from the cold.

“Letty,” he whispered, letting his warm breath fall against her cheek. She was close enough to taste. “I can't undo what I did. Nor would I want to. Because you would have never looked twice at me if I was plain Mr. Turner.”