Free The Lie and the Lady by Kate Noble

since he’d seen her. Since he’d kissed her. Lifetimes happen in six months.
    Turner felt like he had loved and died every day for the last six months. When he woke in the mornings, he had a blissful few seconds of memory, still in a dream fraught with warm, soft hands and whispers in the dark. Then, the stark light of day would reach him and with it, reality. The only thing to do was to put his head down and work himself so hard that there was no room for her. To exhaust himself to dreamless sleep.
    But the dream always came anyway.
    If any of you know of any cause or impediment . . .
    Hell yes, he knew of an impediment. The impediment was he had finally stopped dying!
    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.
    â€œLetty,” 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.
    â€œHello.” 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.
    â€œHello,” 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.
    â€œWhat are you doing in Dover?” she asked, as casual as if they had just been introduced.
    â€œI was waiting.”
    â€œFor a ship?” she asked.
    â€œFor 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.
    â€œOf course,” she’d replied. “You force me here, and are lying in wait when I arrive.”
    â€œDon’t be foolish. I didn’t chase you here.”
    â€œNo.” 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.
    â€œLetty—”
    â€œDon’t call me that.” She held his gaze—and her ground.
    â€œMy apologies. Leticia, then?”
    â€œIf you are to address me at all, it should be as Countess.”
    â€œNot long ago you let me call you many other things. Darling. Love.”
    â€œNot 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.”
    â€œI did not—”
    â€œAnd 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.”
    â€œThey