Page 14 of Felicity Cabot Sells Her Soul
He set the ring on nightstand, where she would no doubt see it in the morning. She wouldn’t wear it. But she wouldseeit. Though it meant far more to him than it did to her, it was hers already to do with as she wished. Even if that meant pitching it into the sea.
Felicity did not stir as he removed the rest of his clothing and laid it out to be retrieved for laundering in the morning. She didn’t twitch as he padded around the bed and slid in beside her. Her face was in shadow, the counterpane pulled up toward her chin to ward away the winter chill. Dark lashes fanned smooth cheeks, full lips pursed into a pout, dissatisfied even in sleep. Which was a damn shame, because despite his blistering headache he was the most content he’d been in a decade. Just to see her there, her face upon the pillow beside his, where she ought to have been years ago.
Under different circumstances he might have had the right to reach out to her. To pull her into the circle of his arms, and to let her warm her chilly toes upon him as she had used to. Instead there was an invisible barrier between them made of years of her resentment and his mistakes, and he hadn’t the right to ignore it. He had given her the tools to build that wall, and now—now he would have to dismantle it.
Day by day. Hour by hour.Brick by brick.
∞∞∞
Felicity woke slowly, as if she had emerged by inches from the thick of a fluffy cloud. There was no dreadful ache in her neck from the settling of the down within her ancient, battered pillow which had compressed itself through the night. She hadn’t found herself huddled up beneath the mound of threadbare quilts to conserve warmth.
Her toes were perfectly toasty.
A brief sense of disorientation assailed her as she blinked her eyes open and saw not the narrow chest of drawers tucked up against the wall of her room, but a curtain drawn around the side of the bed. For a moment, still half-trapped in the misty veil of sleep and cocooned within the warmth of the counterpane draped over her shoulders, she could only stare at it in mute confusion.
And then reality reared its ugly head once more.
She vaulted upright, chest heaving. Good lord, what was the time? No one had come to wake her. Diving across the bed, she yanked at the curtains to pull them open. Piercing light shot in; a grey winter day, but undeniably well-advanced already.
She had to have slept for hours upon hours—well beyond her usual five or six. But there had been no pain in her back to rouse her toward consciousness in plenty of time to present herself at the breakfast table, no bitter cold to prick at her toes. There had only been the feather-softness of the mattress, the warmth of the counterpane, the plush cushion of the pillows beneath her head. And she had slept like the dead as if beneath a spell.
But she had not done it alone. The bed curtains had not been closed last evening when she had retired, and the counterpane was disturbed on the opposite side of the bed, as if it had been hastily cast off. There was the faint impression of a head in the center of the pillow beside her own. Evidence, some minutes removed—or hours, if she were to judge by the coolness of the mattress—of Ian’s presence.
Of course. It was hisbed chamber, after all. He’d made it one of his conditions that she sleep within it, beside him. But she had not heard him enter. Had not heard him leave. He’d simply come in, slept, and left again come morning, with her none the wiser.
The thought made her hands ball into fists, blunt nails scraping her palms. The slow simmer of the anger that had burned in the depths of her heart for over a decade now. Sometimes just a few flickers of an ember, sometimes a raging fire—but alwaysthere, glowing beneath her breastbone. He thought he had won, and perhaps it would appear that he had.
But she would make it a pyrrhic victory. She had all the time in the world to affect it; he had seen to that.
With that thought in her head, she changed into a clean dress and crammed a handful of pins into her hair, hoping the severe, inelegant style would stand up to the mist of rain falling outside. At least her clothing had been pressed and neatly hung up, given that she had stuffed them into her trunk evening last with little care.
The house was draped in an eerie silence as she crept out the bed chamber door at last. She couldn’t quite ascertain whether it was the natural state of the house, or whether she had simply become accustomed to the usual chatter of the girls in her care as a near-constant refrain in the daylight hours that such a profound quiet felt decidedly abnormal.
As she crept past the closed door of Ian’s study—just in case he happened to be inside—and descended the stairs, she caught sight of the butler speaking in hushed tones to a maid, and for a moment she felt nearly dowdy. Though Ian clearly did not require his servants to dress in any formal livery, still they all seemed to be dressed better than she was.
“Ah, Mrs. Carlisle,” the butler said as Felicity arrived in the foyer, giving a nod to the maid, who scampered off to be about her duties. “Is there something that I may do for you?”
“Yes. I am going out this morning,” Felicity said, notching her chin higher. “And every morning hereafter.” The first real test of whatever authority she might hold within this household. Whether he had been instructed to disregard her.
“Of course,” he said, without so much as a blink. “If I may be so bold, madam, I would not advise walking. The weather is ill-suited to it this morning, even with an umbrella. It will take a quarter of an hour to ready the carriage, however. Might I suggest a bit of breakfast in the meantime?”
She had been braced for an argument, prepared to storm out the door in a snit if she had received even a hint of one. The distinct lack of one disarmed her utterly. “Mr. Carlisle has not got the carriage?” she asked.
“No, madam.” A slight twitch of his mustache. “Mr. Carlisle is out this morning attending to some business, but he chose to walk against advice. Iwas given to understand that he meant to leave the carriage for your use, since his walk was not quite so long as yours.”
“Oh,” she said. “Then—then I suppose I will take breakfast.”
“I’ll send a footman to inform you when the carriage is ready,” Butler said with a little bow. “The dining room is just down that hallway, first door on your right.”
Felicity made it perhaps five steps in the indicated direction before a thought occurred to her. She turned swiftly, squaring her shoulders. “Is there somewhere more private I might take my breakfast in the future?” she asked. “I do not enjoy company in the mornings.” Perhaps it wouldn’t be an issue today, when Ian was already out—but she did not intend to give him a second more than she had sworn to, even if it was only sitting in silence at the breakfast table.
Butler’s brows lifted. “Of course, madam,” he said. “There are several sitting rooms scattered throughout the house. You may have the use of any of them you please. But I assure you the staff is unobtrusive—”
“It isn’t the staff which concerns me.”
“Ah.” Tactfully, Butler gave only a small nod of acknowledgement. “Then you needn’t concern yourself,” he said. “Mr. Carlisle rarely takes more than coffee and toast for breakfast, and always in his office.”
“He does? But the maid—Mary—said that the breakfast service was to begin at seven.” And seven had long since passed.
