Lady Lyte's Little Secret Read Free Page A

Hawthorn Greenwood. Felicity knew, for she had weighed all those somewhat tiresome virtues in his favor before selecting him to become her convenient paramour. She hadn’t wanted a more romantic or fanciful fellow, apt to imagine himself in love with her. Whatever that meant.
    Thorn did not look as pleased with her tribute to his equanimity as a sensible man ought. His full dark brows drew together and the line of his wide, generous mouth stretched taut. Felicity shrank from the shadow of distress in his too-candid eyes.
    “I bore you.”
    “Don’t be silly!” Her denial rang a trifle hollow even in Felicity’s own ears.
    He didn’t bore her, she insisted to herself. He’d only failed to surprise her.
    Until tonight.
    Now she couldn’t make up her mind whether or not she liked such surprises.
    “I’m incapable of being silly.” He made the remark in such dire earnest, it might have been amusing.
    But Felicity was not inclined to laugh.
    “You make it sound like a crime,” she chided him. “It isn’t. There are far too many silly people in this world, and they cause no end of trouble for us sensible folk. These two youngsters of ours, for instance. The way you barged in here tonight leads me to believeyou’re no more in favor of this ridiculous elopement than I am.”
    “Of course I’m not.” Thorn looked offended that she might believe otherwise. “My sister is much too young to know her own mind when it comes to an important matter like marriage.”
    Ivy Greenwood could be no more than eighteen, Felicity reckoned. The same age at which she’d embarked on her own misadventure in matrimony.
    Thorn shook his head. “And, as you’ve said, they are a vastly ill-suited couple.” He glanced heaven-ward. “My sister—the wife of a scientist. Ivy is sweet-tempered and goodhearted,” he amended, “but rather…”
    “Impulsive?” suggested Felicity. “Fickle?”
    Thorn looked ready to contradict her, then he shrugged. “You’re probably right. I imagine Ivy has got it in her head that an elopement is terribly romantic. But she’s seen so little of the world. How can she know young Armitage is the man she’ll want to spend the next fortnight with, let alone the rest of her life?”
    “How, indeed?” Felicity expelled a sigh of relief. She and Thorn were in agreement about this situation, at least. They had all the same reasons for wanting to stop her nephew from marrying his sister.
    Almost all.
    She had an additional one that Thorn must not know about on any account. The same reason she had ended their affair prematurely when she would much rather have lingered to the very last second of the Season then perhaps made plans to take up where they had left off again next year.
    Now, that could never be, just as her nephew marrying into the Greenwood family must never be.

    “We’re in agreement, then?” Thorn cursed himself for having let that remark about boring her slip out. What could be more tiresome than a cast-off lover who refused to take his leave quietly? “They must be intercepted, made to see sense and brought home.”
    A look of dismay clouded Felicity’s luminous tawny eyes. Then she gulped a deep breath and squared her slender shoulders. “Very well. I’ll toss a few clothes into a portmanteau and leave tonight. They can’t have more than twelve hours’ head start. I’ll probably catch up to them before they reach Gloucester.”
    She started for the door. In her virginal white dressing gown with her rich dark hair falling over her shoulders, she looked little older than Ivy.
    “Don’t be ridiculous.” Thorn reached out and caught her wrist. It felt so fragile beneath his fingers. “You can’t go tearing off the length of England—a woman alone.”
    Shaking her hand free of his, Felicity glared at him. “I’ll hardly be alone . I plan to take my traveling carriage, of course, with a good experienced driver and at least one footman.”
    As if that settled the matter, she