Unlacing Lady Thea

‘Go and get warm bricks for your mistress’s bed,’ Rhys ordered. He prised Thea’s arms from around the maid’s neck and marched her towards the steps down to the front of the inn. ‘Hurry up, girl.’

‘Hell’s teeth, that was a near miss,’ Rhys said as Polly ran off to obey. He tipped Thea’s face up and studied it in the light of the lantern he held. ‘Are you all right?’

‘Yes, of course. You know I don’t cry.’

‘That isn’t what I meant,’ Rhys murmured as they walked down the steps.

‘I feel... I haven’t the words for it, but it isn’t comfortable.’ Her skin was sensitive, she was unnaturally aware of Rhys’s hand on her bare arm, her breasts ached and an insistent pulse beat intimately. She wanted to tear off all her clothes, all his clothes, and wrap herself around him.

‘No,’ he agreed sombrely. ‘I think we scraped through without anyone suspecting, but my nerves may never be the same again. That is not the experience I wanted you to have, Thea, my sweet.’

‘I know. And you had better stay angry with me tomorrow.’

‘I’ll try.’ He stopped and pulled her into the shadow of the log store. ‘This will probably only make things worse for both of us, but I can’t leave you without at least a kiss.’

He was right, it would only make the aching longing worse, but how could she resist? Thea went into his arms and his mouth moved over hers, tender and yet a little rough from frustrated desire. She opened to him and his tongue took possession, its rhythms mimicking the act they had been denied, his hands holding her as though he would never let her go.

It could only have lasted a bare minute. Sixty precious seconds for the kiss she had waited all her life for. Thea stroked the back of her hand down Rhys’s cheek. ‘I wish...’

‘This is where I start shouting at you again,’ he said as he caught her fingers in his and kissed the tips before pulling her towards the front door. ‘Come on, Thea! If you catch a cold and we are held up here for days, I am not going to be at all pleased.’

* * *

The next day Rhys managed to inflict his bad mood on her, their servants and the inn staff until he flung himself into the saddle and cantered off ahead of their little cavalcade.

‘Phew.’ Giles collapsed back into his corner of the chaise. ‘Is Denham’s temper always that bad?’

‘I don’t know,’ Thea confessed. ‘I have never seen him lose it like that before.’ She pondered a moment. ‘At least, not since he got into fights when he was a lad, and that was usually because someone was being bullied, or was cruel to animals or something.’ She suspected that it went against the grain for Rhys to shout at servants, but it was probably all part of the act.

‘Are you well this morning?’ Giles regarded her, frowning. ‘You do not look as though you slept well.’ She grimaced and he hastened to apologise. ‘I am sorry. I realise that a gentleman never notices that a lady is looking anything other than ravishing.’

‘You are quite correct. I hardly slept a wink.’ She had wrapped herself tightly around a bolster and tried to imagine it was Rhys and his arms held her, but it had done nothing to calm the ache of longing or the shock of their near discovery.

‘It is doubtless my fault that you could not sleep in the first place,’ Giles said penitently. ‘If I had not made that gauche declaration, you would probably have dropped off to sleep easily and none of this would have happened.’

Thea snatched gratefully at the offered explanation for her behaviour. ‘I confess, I felt very badly about refusing you, but please do not think I found your proposal gauche, simply unexpected.’

‘And unwelcome.’

‘Never that,’ she protested. ‘What lady would not be flattered and charmed by a proposal from a gentleman such as yourself? But we would not suit, you know.’

‘I would have said we would suit very well,’ Giles observed. ‘I suspect the problem is more that you know another gentleman who would suit you even better. One who has already secured your heart.’

It was not fair to lie to him and the knowledge that she loved another man must surely be a salve to his pride. ‘Yes,’ Thea agreed. ‘There is someone.’

‘And he does not feel the same way?’

She nodded.

‘A man who has known you so long that he fails to see you as you are now, I suspect,’ Giles continued. ‘Someone who has hurt you by the way he has changed, perhaps. He does not understand your need to be loved, so he tried to arrange a suitable marriage for you. His temper is not as you remember it, either—’

‘Stop!’ Thea regarded him with something like horror running through her. ‘You think... You suspect I am in love with Rhys?’

Chapter Thirteen

‘I mention no name and I would never do so. Nor would I give anyone the slightest hint that is what I conjecture,’ Giles said calmly.

‘Thank you.’ Thea turned from him and stared out of the window, struggling to find some composure. If Giles was so clear-sighted, who else might suspect her feelings? Please, not Rhys, she prayed. She thought she had convinced him that what she felt was simple desire. What would he do if he believed her to be in love with him? Shun her company? Insist she marry him out of duty after last night? Tell Godmama? He would be kind, of course, and pitying. That would be worst of all.

‘Has he...has he asked you whether you have made me a declaration?’

‘No, we have hardly had a chance for private speech.’ Giles leaned across and patted her hand. ‘He may be in such a temper because he thinks you might have accepted me. It sounds irrational, but if, having done what he thought was best for you, he then discovered he was jealous, it reveals he has deeper feelings for you than you suspect.’

He sounded so pleased to have discovered a possibility for hope that it hurt to disabuse him of the notion. ‘I told him last night,’ Thea said baldly. ‘I am sure he will have recovered his temper by luncheon. He is...fond of me, of course, and feels responsible. That is all.’

‘If you do not mind me mentioning it, I find it strange that, given your shared interest in social reform, he is so reluctant to discuss it.’

‘Rhys? Social reform? He has no interest in that, I am sure. Certainly, he is no High Tory and, despite his spending so much time in town, I believe he is an excellent landlord, but beyond that—’

‘You do not know how important he is to the reformers’ cause? Why, Lord Palgrave always supports every vote and speaks with passion and clarity of all those subjects you and I have discussed.’ Thea simply goggled at him. ‘And beyond that, he is the man that the party leaders send to, shall we say, persuade the doubters and the troublemakers. He has, I understand, the knack of getting his own way. They call him Hermes.’

‘The messenger of the gods?’ Yes, Rhys would be very good at persuasion and, when that did not work, even better at domination. And he had discouraged Giles from discussing it with him in her presence. Thea frowned. She recalled Rhys’s jeering remarks when she confessed she had not thought through her plans for charitable works. She had skimmed over the Parliamentary reports in the papers too often, or she would have seen his name. It made her ashamed to think she had dismissed him as simply a pleasure-loving aristocrat. She should have known the adult Rhys would care as much for the underdog as the boy ever had.

This conversation, with its layers of deceit, was becoming too complex for either safety or her peace of mind. ‘You have the road book—tell me, which is the next town of note we will encounter?’

* * *

Rhys dismounted at their luncheon halt and watched Giles Benton assist Thea from the chaise. They seemed to be on perfectly good terms, despite her refusal of his suit. It had been a mistake to try to matchmake, and Thea had been hurt by his lack of understanding, that was obvious now he was sober. The fire of unsatisfied desire had finally left him with nothing but an edgy awareness of her and a dull ache he was trying to ignore, which was probably a suitable penance for his meddling, he reflected as he studied Thea from a distance.

She looked unwell this morning. Her face was pale and there were smudges under her eyes, which were heavy with lack of sleep. He just hoped it was frustration that had kept her awake and not regret.

He should be repenting last night’s actions, but he could not find it in himself to be sorry that he had discovered this passionate, sensual Thea. His childhood friend was still there, he thought, recalling the way she had launched herself into space from the window, trusting him to hold her safe as he always had during their ramshackle adventures.

She was independent, caring, reckless—and she knew herself too well. Thea recognised she was unsuited for the tight boundaries of marriage. To force her into them with the wrong man would be to kill that spirit.

What a contradiction she was, he thought, as she followed Benton into the shade of an arbour outside the inn, laughing at something he said. The reckless child somehow coexisted with the elegant young lady. The plain child was still plain, yet transformed into tantalising femininity. He had been stupidly unimaginative, assuming only conventional good looks gave a woman true beauty. For the first time since she had thrown his coat back at him in his room, Rhys smiled.