“Aye,” said the steward’s third son, rising from his bow and looking even pinker about the cheeks. “Newlyweds they are—and celebrating here in Haddon Grange!”
Lady de Younge’s smile went practically incandescent. “Lady Strathrannoch! Oh, Arthur! Where have you been keeping her? A new countess!”
“Ah,” Arthur said again. “I—”
Lady de Younge pressed her hands to her bosom. “Your mother—oh, your mother would be so happy! Come here, child, let me have a look at you!”
And then she plucked Lydia from her place at Arthur’s side and wrapped her in an embrace.
The carriage in his mind hit a rock, launched into the air, and sailed over the precipice.
The moon had barely risen by the time Huw halted the coach-and-four at the entrance to the de Younges’ manor. The couple had, naturally, invited them to stay the night and celebrate their nuptials.
Bloody bollocking hell.
“This is a disaster,” Arthur hissed.
“Not at all,” said Georgiana. Her face was set with purpose and ever so slightly terrifying. “This is an opportunity!”
On the brief ride from Haddon Grange to the de Younges’ residence, Kilbride House, he and Lydia had shown her Davis’s papers, as well as the invitations from Lady de Younge to Davis that they’dstolen from Davis’s chamber. She’d appeared absolutely delighted, muttering beneath her breath aboutcryptographyandinvestigative research.
“Huw can go back to Strathrannoch Castle in the morning and gather your things,” Georgiana went on gleefully. “If you can persuade them to host you for several days, I can pretend to be Lydia’s lady’s maid and sleep belowstairs with the servants, while you pry information from the de Younges themselves. Imagine what we can discover! You could not have planned this better if you’d tried.”
“Except for the part where we have to pretend we aremarried!” said Lydia. Her voice was somewhere between a whisper and a despairing moan.
Despair. That was how she felt about the idea of being his wife.Despair.He might remind himself of that the next time he felt compelled to lick her collarbone.
Unfortunately, he also suspected that Georgiana was right. “’Tis not as though we’d be making it worse, I suppose, by keeping up the pretense—the de Younges already think we’re wed. We can invent a story—tell them we met in Edinburgh, perhaps. There’s no reason anyone need learn your true identity. No one from London knows you’re here.”
Lydia looked up at him, eyes an even darker blue in the moonlight. She reached out and grazed his knee with her fingers, then pulled her hand back as though she’d been burned. “Arthur—Lord Strathrannoch—I’m so sorry for saying that we were married. It was the first thing that came to mind when that fellow stumbled upon us—I never dreamed he would come back!”
“’Tis not your fault.”
“Of course it is!” Her cheeks had gone pink again, and what he really wanted to do was put his mouth there and feel the heat of her skin.
Which was theworst possible thing to be thinking about. Christ, the woman addled him. One taste of her and he’d gone straight out of his head. She ought to be bottled and sold as a mind-altering substance.
Georgiana cocked her head. “And what exactly were you two doing that made the man think you were newlyweds?”
“Nothing,” Arthur said, at the precise moment that Lydia burst out, “Kissing!”
Georgiana’s eyebrows shot toward her hairline.
“Not—not really—that is, we were pretending to kiss—to hide Arthur’s identity!”
“Naturally,” Georgiana said.
Lydia buried her face in her hands and made another one of those despairing sounds.
“Dinna fash,” he said, because the sight of her with her face hidden did something uncomfortable to his insides. “Perhaps we can, er, have the marriage annulled.”
“We are not actually married!”
“Ah, no. I meant that’s what we can tell people. When you disappear from Scotland, never to be seen or heard from again.”
The words sent a queer, sharp pang through him, like a bell chiming in his bones.
Lydia emerged from her hands. “Surely that will be an embarrassment to you. Truly, I am so sorry.”
