Page 42 of Felicity Cabot Sells Her Soul
“I haven’t the faintest,” Butler said weakly. “But there’s been quite a lot of shouting thus far. I suppose Mr. Carlisle believes you might be able to talk some sense into them before it becomes a veritable bloodbath.”
Felicity blinked, no more enlightened than she had been moments ago. “I beg your pardon,” she said. “I really do not understand. Talk sense into whom, exactly?”
“His in-laws,” Butler said, in a strange squeak of a voice. And then, as if Ian might have had some other in-laws of which she was previously unaware, he added, “They are your relations, after all, madam.”
Chapter Sixteen
True to Butler’s claim, the shouting made itself evident even before the carriage had come to a complete stop before the house, and Felicity tumbled out onto the pavement, her heart in her throat as she raced toward the door.
Butler had lagged behind, clearly reluctant to jump once more into the fray he had all too recently escaped, and so Felicity cast open the front door herself and cringed from the avalanche of raised voices that assaulted her ears. Any sound she had made upon entering was eclipsed by the din within the drawing room, and she steeled herself for further unpleasantness as she walked decisively toward it, her hands flexing at her sides.
Four people present, other than Ian—no,five. It was just that one was very small; a literal babe in arms, her sensitive ears shielded from the racket by her mother, who pressed the baby’s head against her chest and shielded the exposed ear with one hand.
Her family. And she recognized only one of them. That was Charity, there, in a flaming scarlet gown, seething with barely-leashed fury. Somehow she had backed Ian up against a wall, and kept him constrained with the jab of one pointed finger to his chest as she shouted into his face. And the man standing just behind her—that was surely her new husband, the duke.
The woman with the baby had to be Mercy, her half-sister. They’d never had occasion to meet in person, but they had exchanged so many letters that Felicity felt she knew her already. The bespectacled man at her side must therefore be Mercy’s husband, Thomas, and the baby, little Flora.
Her family.Here. Even the ones who had never met her, who would have been perfectly within their rights to leave her to her own problems. She was, after all, a woman well beyond the age of majority, answerable to no one save herself, and responsible for her own choices.
They had come. Weeks too late, perhaps, but they hadcome. And they were all shouting, and Ian was pinned to the wall by the pressure of the pointed finger that Charity had jabbed into his chest, and Felicity still didn’t know what Butler had expected her to do, how she was meant to defuse thescene playing out before her eyes that looked as though it had been creeping toward a potential murder for some time—
But she was just so glad to see them. To know that she had not been forgotten or abandoned. That those torturous thoughts that had plagued mind her had turned out to be unfounded. That they hadcome, all of them, when she had called.
An odd, strangled sound eked out of her throat, and she hadn’t expected it to garner much attention, given that the general volume within the small room was perhaps a hair beneath a roar.
But Ian had noticed it. His head jerked sharply toward her, his shoulders—which had been pitched rather stiffly up about his ears—sank to a relieved slope. “Thank God,” he said on a ragged breath. “Felicity.”
Felicity wasn’t certain, exactly, what she had expected his reaction to be in this situation. Anger, she supposed, would have been a credible guess. Perhaps indignation, or offense, or even resentment. She had never once mentioned even Charity to him, when they had shared nearly everything else. She had neatly sidestepped every delicate inquiry made of her past, made only the vaguest of allusions to the story Charity had concocted for the purposes of enrolling her at Nellie’s school. Perhaps she could be forgiven for not having told him about Mercy in the past, since she had not even known of Mercy’s existence until only a few years ago. But she had no such excuse for Charity.
And yet he only looked relieved to see her.
“Felicity!” Charity spun so abruptly that she missed entirely the way that Ian wilted from his stiff posture against the wall as she withdrew. She sailed across the room, neatly dodging furniture and people both to fling herself at Felicity, and then…and then for the first time in too many years, Felicity felt herself wrapped in Charity’s warm embrace, surrounded by the sweetly floral scent of her perfume. “Oh, thank God,” Charity said in her ear. “I was so worried for you. I came the moment I received your letter.”
“Charity,” Felicity said, and it came out like the plaintive wail of a child. “I’ve missed you.” And she hadn’t realized just how much until this exact moment. So many letters they’d exchanged across the years, precious, treasured words that had offered some measure of comfort from the loneliness of her life, and yet—a letter couldn’t offer a much-needed embrace. It could not contain a fond glance or hold a laugh or a smile. It couldn’t compare to the delicate fingers that smoothed over her back, the cheek pressed against her own. There was the thickness of tears in her throat and she dragged in a hoarse breath to stifle them, scrubbed at her eyes with the back of one hand. “And you’ve married,” she said, withdrawing just a few inches. “I wish I—I wish I might have been invited.” Even if her duties at the school would have precluded her from attending. Still it would have been nice to know she had entered her sister’s mind during the course of such a momentous event.
Charity’s lovely smooth brow wrinkled in confusion. “Of course you were invited,” she said. “Whyever would you not be invited? I wrote to you at once.” She clasped Felicity’s hands in hers, holding tight. “I didn’t expect you would be able to attend,” she confessed. “But of courseyou were invited.”
“I—I never received any such invitation,” Felicity said. “I thought…I assumed you’d decided it was best to go on without me.”
“Never,” Charity declared passionately. “You’re my baby sister. Of course I wanted you there.”
From his position at the rear of the room, Ian muttered, “Nightingale. Ofcourse.” And as attention fell upon him once more, he smoothed at the wrinkled fabric of his cravat and added, “I invite you to try ascertaining any particular specifics when four people are shouting at you at once.”
With a haughty sniff, Charity turned her head away from him once more in a magnificently arrogant cut. “I wasn’t in London to receive your letter when you sent it,” she said. “But I came as soon as I did.”
“I did receive your letter,” Mercy blurted out. “And I am so very sorry. Motherhood has made a whole host of things slip my mind just recently. I’m afraid it sat unopened upon my desk for far too long. But I came the very moment I found it again.” She nodded her head toward Charity. “Charity happened to spot our carriage at a coaching inn on the way.”
And again that wretched knot of tears swelled within her throat. Despite her status as a relatively new mother, despite the fact that she had never once met Felicity in person,stillMercy had come. From Kent, at this time of year, with her husband and daughter in tow.
Felicity’s fingers itched. Like a sleepwalker, she edged a step forward, her arms lifting. “Could I—would it be all right with you if I—”
“Oh!” Mercy gave a shred of a laugh, adjusting the baby in her arms to hand off to her husband. “Oh, yes, of course.” And she turned back toward Felicity, reaching for her in the same moment. “It is so lovely to meet you at last,” Mercy murmured in her ear, settling into the embrace.
Yes. Yes, it was. Perhaps it wasn’t the most perfect version of a family ever to have existed, but this one was hers.
Ian cleared his throat. “If we are quite through with the shouting, might I interest anyone in tea?”
∞∞∞
