Lady Belling's Secret (2 page)

“I think this room would be very interesting with an Egyptian theme. What do you think?” she asked him. Before he could process the question, she was already describing the scene as she saw it, the furniture, upholstery and bric-a-brac.

“Sure,” Thomas replied, certain that whatever harebrained scheme she came up with in regards to his home would still be a far sight better than the dry mausoleum his mother had assembled.

“Do I have a budget?” she wondered as they headed up the stairs to the family apartments.

“I hardly think it prudent to give you free rein,” he said, recalling some of the epic battles the childhood Frankie had waged with her father over her allowance. “Be reasonable is all I ask.”

At the landing, Thomas turned them to the right and into the bedrooms he and his brother used as children. Should it bother him that nothing in these rooms meant anything to him? In fact, with the exception of the window and the massive tree outside whose limbs facilitated countless nighttime escapes, nothing seemed familiar enough to claim as his own.

Frankie wandered about the rooms, silent and suddenly pensive, as if the excitement had leached out of her. Her fingers slid across the top of a bureau then across the smooth counterpane on the bed as she took in the contents of the room.

“What do you want to do with these rooms?” she asked, her tone so gentle it unnerved him.

“Gut them. Take everything out. All the family rooms.”

“Oh, Thomas, I’m so sorry.” She walked swiftly across the carpet towards him. “For everything.”

“This wasn’t your fault.”

“Still, I’m sorry your father was such a bastard and your mother was so cold. I’m sorry your brother was rotten.” Tears filled her eyes, making them impossibly green and shimmery. She choked on a sob. “But mostly, I’m so sorry about what I did. I’m so sorry I made you leave. Will you ever forgive me?” Frankie flung herself, sobbing, in his arms.

For the first time ever, Thomas didn’t feel completely alone in his house.

Chapter Two

Apologizing felt good.

Five years heavy with regret was more exhausting than one would have expected.

“I told you, there were several reasons why I left.” Thomas stroked her back in small, soothing circles. “What happened that day was only a part of it.”

Frankie made a concerted effort to get control of herself. She didn’t want him to accept her apology simply because he was terrified of a hysterical woman. The way she’d behaved that day had been truly loathsome.

She pulled away from him so they were half an arm’s length apart. “Don’t try to make this easier for me. You deserve an explanation, and I’ve had five years to try to figure out what it is.”

Thomas didn’t speak, but his arms tensed inside his jacket where her palms lay against his biceps. Frankie swallowed and forged ahead. “To this day, I’m certain I never had any real idea what I was thinking. Or not thinking, obviously. My sixteen-year-old pride was at stake.”

She glanced up and met his gaze. His face was just as she remembered, strong and angular, but with a few light creases around his eyes, proving the passage of half a decade and a war. He had pulled his black hair into a queue at the nape of his neck, but the silky waves gave the impression that, at the slightest provocation, they would break free and riot around his face in sensual curls. “I was angry when Momma wouldn’t let me attend the Easter ball. I got it in my head that you would find someone else before I was old enough.”

“Find someone? Frankie, I wasn’t looking for anyone. For God’s sake, I was twenty-four years old. All I wanted was to have fun.”

She closed her eyes to gather courage. “I understand that now. I probably even understood that then, but it didn’t matter. I was young and stupid and…” another pause for courage, “…madly in love with you.”

Thomas’s chocolate-brown eyes widened and flashed. “So you decided to trap me?”

“It was so wrong and I’m so sorry. I guess I thought that you would come to love me as much as I loved you.”

“So you set a trap.”

“I’m sorry. Truly, truly sorry.” She loosened one hand from her grip on his arm and wiped the tears from her cheek with shaking fingers. “You can’t imagine the guilt I’ve lived with. If anything had happened to you…” Despite her best intentions, another sob broke through and she was off and crying. Thomas pulled her back into his comforting embrace. How could he be so forgiving and patient? And how could it feel this good to be in his embrace? Why did it have to happen now?

“Frankie, please stop crying.” Once again, he stroked her back with his palms and rested his cheek on her forehead. “Whatever anger I felt at the time has passed.”

“How is that possible? You were so fiercely angry in the park that day.”

Thomas chuckled. She heard it deep in his chest, felt the rumble. “Of course I was angry. I had just thwarted your kidnapping only to discover the supposed kidnapper was some actor you’d hired. You know, I lied. I
am
still angry. Do you realize how hurt you could have been? My God, when I think about it.”

Frankie lifted her face from his jacket and smoothed his cravat. “I know, I know. I was such an idiot. Why did you never tell Mama or Christian?”

“Because brothers don’t tattle.”

That was heartbreaking. “Oh. You see, that was always the problem. I never thought of you like a brother. Not since I was six.”

“Oh.” Thomas pulled away and looked down at her again. “Oh.”

Frankie had to smile at his expression. “What did you think all that mooning around was about? I was in love with you.”

“You weren’t in love with me,” he scoffed. “You couldn’t possibly know what love was at sixteen.”

Frankie wasn’t about to argue with him about how well she knew her own mind. It would be nice to leave this conversation with some manner of dignity intact. Still, she couldn’t let that comment pass without some kind of protest. “I knew exactly what I wanted and precisely how I felt.”

Thomas opened his mouth to speak then closed it again. After another moment he said, “I didn’t know you were mooning. I’m sorry, Frankie, but how much awareness did you expect from a twenty-four-year old jackass, because that’s what I was back then. I had no inkling, and then you pulled that stunt. I was terrified for you, that you’d been kidnapped, and then enraged that you would risk both of our happiness that way.”

Any twitch of her earlier smile vanished with his anger. “I know. I was unbelievably stupid.”

“I should have told your mother.”

Frankie closed her eyes. “Believe me when I tell you that I’ve punished myself plenty.”

“What you really needed was a turn over my knee.”

Frankie’s eyes flashed open, and she gasped in indignation. “You’re not the man to do it.”

Thomas quirked a brow in challenge. If this was five years ago, Frankie had no doubt he’d give it a try. Then he turned serious again. “Why did you never write me? I received timely letters from your mother and sporadic ones from Christian, but not a single one from you.” Thomas kept his eyes riveted on hers. He actually sounded hurt, and it surprised her. She couldn’t look away and she certainly couldn’t lie to him, not that there was anything left to lie about anymore.

“After that, I was certain you wouldn’t want to hear from me. After all, you rushed out of town within hours of our row in the park.” Frankie sighed. “And I was sorely embarrassed.”

“Sweeting, I would have gone eventually whether I was dodging a bullet from you or another round with my father. It was time I grew up. I couldn’t chase light skirts, gamble, and drink myself into oblivion forever. So you forced my hand. I didn’t hate you for it. Well, not for long, anyway.”

Frankie hadn’t thought it possible that Thomas could come home even more handsome than when he left, but it was so. She didn’t know what his experiences had been in the King’s Navy, but five years of responsibility had given him the look of a man instead of a pretty youth. At the time he left, she had thought she’d memorized everything about him. Now it was apparent that his shoulders were wider, his jaw seemed sharper, his brown-eyed gaze more intense.

“Am I forgiven then?”

“If you help me put this house to rights, I will forgive you anything.”

He smiled, and she felt it all the way to her toes. Charming and beautiful, that was the man she remembered. Clearly, his ability to make her nearly swoon had not been diminished. He tugged her gently back into his arms for a hug that he certainly considered familial in nature, a hug of truce or something of the sort, an embrace between long-time friends. Only, when Frankie closed her eyes and sank into the circle of his enveloping arms, she smelled sandalwood and fresh tobacco. The strong bands of his arms pressed her flush with his body. She was lightheaded.

Thomas bent his head to buss her cheek just as Frankie turned her face ever so slightly and, instead, his lips brushed hers. He paused and she froze. Slowly his lips moved against hers and his hand pressed insistent the small of her back, drawing her in closer, if that was possible. There was a soft sigh, and Frankie realized it came from her. He angled his head and covered her mouth with his. The tip of his tongue smoothed along the inside of her bottom lip, and she opened to him.

She didn’t think, she just let him kiss her, and she kissed him back. Her hands traveled up his arms, felt his muscles, tensed and strong, over his shoulders and twined her fingers through his hair, then behind his neck. Most of her life she had fantasized about kissing this man and having him want to kiss her. It lived up to all her expectations. Oh, how her sixteen-year-old self would have squealed.

It ended as gently as it began. Thomas pressed his forehead to hers, and they breathed in unison, short, panting breaths.

“Well,” he said, but didn’t finish his thought.

“Mmm-hmmmm.” Frankie didn’t know what to say either. The kiss had been decidedly wrong, but she couldn’t make herself feel sorry for it.

Thomas pulled himself away from her by removing his hands from her back and stepping away ever so slightly. The space gave her a moment to breathe, which she desperately needed to clear her head. What did one say in this situation? How dare you? More, please? She knew what she should say, or at least what would be expected of her to say, yet that was highly unlikely to occur. Still…

“Perhaps we should continue our tour?” she suggested.

Thomas grinned at her, and his eyes twinkled in amusement. That was Thomas’s gift—to make light of awkward situations. He clasped her hand in his and led her from his childhood bedroom. They visited the entire floor of sitting rooms and guest bedrooms. She made every effort to concentrate on the task at hand, but Thomas was making it impossible. Not that he seemed to be doing anything on purpose to throw her off, it was just that he was always touching her. She tried to focus on toile for the settee upholstery, and he brushed a loose curl of hair around her ear. She described the options for throw pillows on a window seat, and he ran his fingers down the inside of her arm. He brushed by her so closely his legs rustled the fabric of her skirt. Through every room they moved, he held her hand and stroked her palm with his thumb.

All that physical attention kept her off kilter and constantly thinking about her body. She had to know no good could come from entering the master bedroom. It was the only room left they hadn’t toured and discussed plans for remodeling. It had to be done. Certainly, Thomas had no wish to sleep in the same room as the man who had maligned him his entire life.

“What this room needs is a good brightening up,” Frankie announced in an overly cheerful voice she hoped indicated she wasn’t at all nervous.

“Agreed. I hate all this dark, brooding nonsense.”

She surveyed the draperies and wallpaper. The room was impeccably clean. It was simply dreary. She pulled back hunter-green curtains, and once the velvet parted, floor-to-ceiling windows revealed a lovely view of the garden.

“How would you feel about blue in here?” she asked, thinking a royal blue would be masculine enough and still allow some light into the room.

“I like red better.” He brushed the irritating curl from her cheek again and wound it around his finger before settling it back behind her ear once more.

Frankie could feel her cheeks redden from the suggestion. “Red could work.” She took a step backward and wandered over to another doorway. “Where does this go? The sitting room between this room and the countess’s?”

Thomas nodded. He still had a boyish grin on his face, and she looked away quickly. That grin was devastating, and she didn’t need it working its magic on her. Not now, after so many years. It wasn’t fair.

Thomas had turned towards the bed and stared up at the canopy. “I felt like this was suffocating me last night, all this heavy, gloomy…oppression.” A sound like a forced laugh came from his throat. “I want a new bed in here. One with none of this.” He waved in the direction of the velvet curtains meant to be drawn around the bed for warmth.

She found herself standing at the corner of the enormous bed. “The carving is pretty and the wood is a beautiful color. What if we just pulled down the curtains and left it open instead?”

He wrinkled his nose but didn’t dismiss the suggestion out of hand. “I don’t know.”

“See, look.” Frankie grasped the fabric in both fists and yanked it towards the floor. A vicious ripping noise came seconds before yards of green velvet puddled at her feet. “Better right? It’s like he’s gone already.”

Thomas raised his eyebrows and tilted his head from side to side. “Better,” he agreed. He went to the opposite side and ripped down another corner of material.

Frankie laughed and shifted to the next corner and tried the same move, but this set didn’t come down as easily. She leaned more weight and then tried raising her arms higher, closer to the top of the huge canopy frame. She jumped up and down, but still nothing.

“Need help?” His arms came around the back of her on either side, and his hands grabbed the material as well. Still it didn’t come loose, even when she made strenuous grunting noises to accompany their tugging.