Please enjoy this scene from THE LIE AND THE
LADY, coming from Pocket Books December 29th, 2015!
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.”
“We’ll
never know the answer to that, will we?” Her voice made his heart crack.
“We are
meant for each other.”
The last
time they had stood this close together—in public—he had used it to stake his
claim. To declare to the world that the Countess of Churzy was his. Now he
would renew that claim, the only way he knew how.
“Come
with me. Put this foolish running to an end. Where can you go that you think I
will not follow?”
“I did
not run to be chased, you idiot. I run because it is the only choice I have
left!” She pulled away from him, but his hand was still on her elbow and he
caught her, pulled her back. Her body slammed into his.
“Not the
only choice,” he said, and his mouth crushed against hers.
As cold
as it was outside, as cool and reserved as she pretended to be, the warmth of
her lips shocked him. Heat volleyed between them with every breath, every
shiver. His hand snaked around her back, folding her against him. She gasped
for air and burrowed closer. The small moan that escaped from the back of her
throat sent a thrill down his spine.
And he
knew he had her.
All he
had to do now was get her to agree.
“Tell me
to go and I will.” He pressed his forehead against hers. “Tell me now and I’ll
go away forever, you’ll never see me again. We’ll be nothing more than a
bittersweet memory to each other.”
Her
dazed eyes met his.
“But”—his
voice came out a gravelly rumble—“if you want me to stay, if you want me at all
. . . you don’t have to say anything.”
His
thumb brushed over her cheek. His heart beat faster than he knew it could go.
And he watched those dark eyes as she debated. As she argued against herself.
As she .
. . remembered the rest of the world. And where she stood in it. Not on a dock
in Dover. No, she stood wearing the title of countess, lifting her well out of
his reach.
It
happened in a blink. Her face shifted back from flushed and open to icy and
shuttered. “You think you can stir my blood and make me forget myself?”
“I think
I can stir your blood, that’s for damn certain.” He felt himself getting angry
. . . No, it was worse. Not anger—desperation. Because she was slipping away
from him.
“That .
. . is nothing,” she said. “Something left over—a residue of when I could trust
you. But I will never again put myself in the care of someone who lies to me.”
“Letty,
you can trust me—”
“No, Mr.
Turner. I cannot.”
Something
broke over him, made his breath hitch. Because watching her in that moment, he
saw the truth. The very truth at the core of his Letty.
What she
said was real.
She
would never let herself be with him. No amount of cajoling, no kisses or
touches or heated looks was ever going to change that. And he had been the
world’s biggest fool to think that she would.
“Excuse
me, milady?” a voice came from behind them, forcing them back outside of
themselves.
A boy
stood behind them, and judging by his thick oilskin coat and lack of shivering
against the cold, his age belied his experience at sea. “Your trunk’s been
loaded, milady. Beg pardon, but Captain says we can’t miss this tide.”
“Thank
you, I’m coming,” Letty had replied before turning back to face Turner.
He held
his breath.
“Go,”
she’d said. “I never want to see you again.”
Tell me to go and I will. He’d spent the
past six months ruing those words.
