Page 20 of Felicity Cabot Sells Her Soul
“Thank you,” she muttered, half-resentfully, as she bit into it. “But I could have found something cold in the kitchen. If there’s sickness passing through the staff, they ought not to be sent out in this weather for such things.”
“I went myself,” Ian said. “Took a hack, since you had the carriage. Been taking quite a few of them lately.” A shrug pulled at his shoulders. “Besides,” he said. “I know which shop you prefer, which pasties you like best. Can’t entrust such a thing to someone else, when they might make a hash of it.”
“Tastes often change,” she muttered. “It’s been ten years.”
“Yours haven’t.” The corner of his mouth had lifted in the barest hint of a smile. Crooked, uncertain. As if he’d not had much to smile about in a good long while.
Blast. It had been so many hours since last she’d eaten, she’d somehow consumed half the pasty in only a few moments. “I missed luncheon,” she said defensively. “Acting as headmistress demands much of my time.”Time. In her haste to consume her dinner, she’d forgotten it. “What time is it?”
“Just past eight.” Ian fished out his pocket watch and glanced down at the face. “I’ve fifty-seven minutes left.” He eased away from the door, and for a moment Felicity could only be irritated that even at such an hour he looked remarkably put-together still, while she felt as though she’d been run through a box mangle. Limp as wilted lettuce, and still with that headache pressing atthe inside of her skull, burning her eyes.
At least the pasty had relieved her of a touch of her nausea.
“You were late today,” Ian said, and Felicity bit back a sigh. Following the usual pattern, then, of casual comments that elicited not much of a response. He always wanted to talk, often chattering on without her when she refused to engage, never seeming to take offense—even when she had meant to offend, which Felicity found rather infuriating.
“I don’t owe you an accounting of my time,” Felicity said as she finished the last of her pasty. “That was never part of our bargain.”
“It isn’t,” he said, “and you don’t. But youdolook like hell.”
“I have a headache,” Felicity snapped, tucking the paper wrapper in the pocket of her coat. “I have had, most of the day.You—”
“I was only wondering if you merely had a difficult day, or if you might be falling ill. You do look a bit flushed, but that’s not particularly unusual. You’re angry a great deal, and your complexion is fair enough to show it rather vividly.”
Felicity bristled anew. “I have every right to be angry!”
“I don’t recall implying you didn’t. It was an observation, not a criticism. I don’t begrudge you your anger. I would rather your hatred than your indifference.” But his brows furrowed as he scrutinized her face, and she wondered if he could read the pain upon it, in the pinch of her lips and the tightness of her jaw and the squint of her eyes against the light that seemed glaringly bright. He glanced once more at the face of his watch and heaved a sigh. “Pity,” he said. “And I had fifty-four minutes left.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“I’m not a monster,” he said. “You’re clearly unwell, even if it is only a headache. You should be in bed.”
Bed. It sounded lovely, really. And she couldn’t quite cull the hopeful lilt from her voice when she asked, “You’re letting me go for the evening? On account of a headache?”
“It would seem that I am—from time to time, when necessary—capable of generosity. On the condition that you go immediately to bed, I will surrender my remaining time this evening.”
For once since their marriage, Felicity supposed she felt something akin to gratitude. Or at the very least, she did not feel particularly inclined to argue only for the sake of being contrary and disagreeable. “Thank you,” she said, for the second time that evening. Likely more than she’d said it to him in the last two weeks combined. She turned to go, making for the stairs.
“I will, however, take my kiss.”
Felicity paused. Turned round again. “I might be ill,” she said.
“I’ll risk it.”
Ah, well. This particular evening it was a small price to pay in return for what he had already surrendered of his own volition. Felicity crossed the floor, stretched onto her toes to plant the same brief kiss as always upon his chin and turned to go once more. One night of peace. It wasn’t much, but it was more than she had expected of him. More than that for which she had bargained.
It wasn’t until she arrived in the bed chamber that she realized that in order for Ian to have opened the door for her this evening, he had to have been lying in wait for her to return, taking Butler’s position there at the door. But why? She’d kept her end of their bargain thus far, given him no reason to think she would violate it. Even if Butler had not been present to conduct her to him—
The paper wrapping she’d shoved within her pocket crinkled as she tugged her coat off of her shoulders and hung it over the back of a chair. An odd little skirl of some nebulous emotion tweaked the very edges of her mind. He’d too easily surrendered the fifty-four minutes she had owed to him for his presence there in the foyer to have been motivated by suspicion, by the desire to ensure she held up her end of their bargain.
But he had waited there for her anyway, for—well, for God alone knew how long, given that he could not possibly have known when she would return. Only to ensure that, in the unexpected absence of the kitchen staff due to the illness that had ravaged the household, she would still have a meal waiting for her upon her return. Her favorite beef pasty, purchased from her favorite shop, wrapped up and kept warm in the pocket of his coat, waiting for her just on the chance that she had not already eaten.
∞∞∞
Felicity woke with the same damned headache burning behind her eyes and she muffled a groan against a hard shoulder as the pain of it penetrated the shroud of sleep that hung heavily over her still. Like fighting through cotton batting for consciousness, she—
A hard shoulder.
“Get off of me, you oaf,” she slurred as she wedged a hand between her cheek and Ian’s shoulder and shoved.
