The Lady’s Secret by Joanna Chambers Page A

one. A harmless one.” She drew the rosewood box towards them again.
    “Your tea caddy? I was admiring it earlier.”
    “Thank you. It was a gift from my late brother-in-law to his mother.” She took hold of the right hand side of the caddy with one hand and reached underneath it with the other. “There is a little catch here,” she explained. “But it is difficult to find.”
    A moment later, she was lifting the side of the box away from the base, revealing a secret space. The side lifted two full inches. She turned the caddy so that he could see what was revealed: a little drawer, set into the base.
    Nathan grinned. “Ah, now that is charming. Very subtle.”
    “Cunning, isn’t it?” Lady Dunsmore agreed. “Of course, I’ve given this particular secret away now, but happily, I do not keep anything terribly important in here.” She opened the drawer and lifted out the contents—a single sheet of paper. She handed it to him and he opened it and read it. It was a tea recipe.
    “It is the blend we are drinking. My mother-in-law’s recipe.”
    “So it is not a secret recipe after all?”
    “Not anymore, I fear.” She put the recipe away and set the caddy aside again.
    She asked after his mother and his sister, questioning him for several minutes about his nieces and nephews, an interrogation he just about stood up to until another party arrived and Lady Dunsmore had to excuse herself.
    Perhaps he could slip upstairs now? But no, there was no getting away yet. Dunsmore bore him off to introduce Colonel and Mrs. Hadley, and then there were yet more arrivals. And so it went on, a tea party without end.
    And all the while, he thought of his valet upstairs, moving about his bedchamber and unpacking his things. He longed to be with her.

Chapter 9
    Georgy was hot and sweaty.
    It had been a troublesome business, getting everything up to the rooms allocated to Harland. The coachmen had gone to the stables to deal with the horses and the two footmen assigned to help her had grown steadily more irritable as they unpacked the luggage coach, scowling over the heavy boxes and awkward crates and arguing over the need to get the big crate down from the roof.
    “Why can’t it go in the stables?” one demanded.
    “His lordship paid a king’s ransom for what’s in there,” Georgy replied, clambering up to the roof to loosen the straps herself in the face of their intransigence. She struggled with the stiff buckles, trying to find a fraction of give in them.
    “It’ll be fine in the stables,” the other footman complained, doing nothing to help.
    “ You two will help Lord Harland’s valet get that crate down,” a sharp voice said, “and have it in his rooms within the next five minutes or I’ll dock both your wages.”
    Georgy looked down. A tall woman with iron grey hair in a tight knot on her head and a disconcertingly youthful face was standing next to the two footmen.
    “Dick,” the woman added, “you go up on the roof and unstrap that thing.”
    “Yes ma’am,” he muttered, and a minute later he was up beside Georgy, brushing her fingers aside to pull the straps away. “I’ll lower it down to you, Stan,” he told the other footman while Georgy climbed down.
    The woman gave Georgy a measuring look. “Mrs. Watt,” she said. “Housekeeper here.”
    “Pleased to meet you, ma’am. George Fellowes.”
    Mrs. Watt nodded. “Don’t let these two shirk, Mr. Fellowes. They’re born lazy.” And with that she took herself back to the house, her posture ramrod straight.
    By the time Georgy turned back, Dick and Stan were lowering the crate to the ground. She moved forward to help and Stan sent her a withering look.
    “Best leave it to us, lad,” he said.
    He was being deliberately insolent, treating her like a kitchen boy instead of a high-ranking upper servant. Georgy hid her anger and assumed a supercilious expression. “Gladly,” she said. “After all, these are your duties. I have more important