Page 44 of Felicity Cabot Sells Her Soul
There had been so much shouting from the very moment they had arrived. He’d found himself in the unenviable position of being utterly unable to get so much as a word—much less a shout—in edgewise. But now, he supposed—now, at least one of them was wondering why he’d not much defended himself in the face of so much spite.
Felicity took a deep, shuddering breath as her gaze dropped to her lap. “Brighton is my home,” she said at last. “Theschoolis my home. It has been these last sixteen years. I can’t leave it.”
And there it was. What the rest of them had somehow forgotten. That while their lives had been playing out in parts unknown, so had Felicity’s here in Brighton. Wherever it was she had come from, here she had remained—and the whole of her life was here, too. Everything she had workedfor, everything for which she had sacrificed. It was allright here. It wasn’t so simple as shucking off the old and slipping into the new, and no amount of money or power could make it so.
But that, he was certain, was going to be a conversation all of its own, and one in which he would not find himself particularly welcome. And with that, he set down his cup upon the table and rose to his feet. “Well,” Ian said. “I’d like to say that it’s been lovely, but as my ears are still ringing, I think I’ll forego the pleasantries.”
Before he could take his leave, Felicity popped to her feet, her cup rattling upon its saucer. “Not yet,” she said, her breath hitching in her chest. “It’s been so long. And they’ve come all this way.”
“I’m not ejecting them,” Ian said. “This is your home. They can stay as long as you like.”
Another wild hitch of her chest; further evidence of a discomfiture she struggled to mask. A few resolute blinks, probably to stem the sting of tears. She asked, “Really?”
“You don’t require my permission for your family to visit.” He just wished he’dknownof them. “Neither do you require my supervision. I have business of my own to which to attend, which has gone wanting in light of today’s events. I meant only to leave you to visit in private.” He resisted the urge to scratch the back of his head, where he could practically feel the baron’s gaze boring into his scalp.
No. Not just the baron. The duke as well. Hard, assessing gazes. Suspicious and no doubt doubly on guard against anything that might cause their wives further distress. Which was Ian, presently.
“We’ll stay as long as you like,” Mercy said to Felicity.
And damned if it hadn’t rasped across Ian’s ears like a threat.
Chapter Seventeen
It’s a lovely house,” Charity said almost begrudgingly as she slid one fingertip along the nearest bookshelf in the library, examining it for any hint of dust. “Tasteful. Elegant. What is it that Mr. Carlisle does, exactly?”
“I don’t know,” Felicity said as she sank onto a couch. “I’ve never asked. Some sort of speculative endeavors, I think. He alluded to some sort of investment in a railway scheme a few days past.” But he hadn’t mentioned it since, probably owing to the wretched turn of the evening after their visit to the theatre.
“Ah,” Mercy said as she browsed the books upon their shelves. “Not a tradesman, then. A financier. Probably—if this house is anything to judge by—he makes money hand over fist. Oh!” She tipped one book off its shelf into her hands. “This one is recent,” she said by way of explanation. “Do you mind if I—”
“Not at all.” Felicity gave a careless wave of her hand. But her brow furrowed as she watched Mercy’s fingers curl around the book. In the month of their marriage, she’d never once seen Ian with a book in his hand. Newspapers, nearly constantly. They stacked upon his desk, ended up discarded upon chairs and tables, and wreathed his plate at dinner.
“Difficult to find books so deep in the countryside,” Mercy said with a sigh as she dropped onto the sofa beside Felicity. “At least newer offerings. One has generally got to go to a city of some size to acquire them.”
“Which is it?” Felicity inquired.
“The Queen’s Page: A Romance,” Mercy said, as she extended the book to Felicity. “How did you like it?”
“I haven’t read it,” Felicity said. “That is—I didn’t purchase it.” But it was here nonetheless. One she likely would have purchased, had she ever had the money for such expensive indulgences as books. Once, years and years ago, she had had a subscription to a lending library, which she had often used to share classic, edifying books with Ian. But he hadn’t had much interest in the dramatic romances she had enjoyed.
He hadn’t purchased this book that Mercy now held in her hands for himself. He’d purchased it forher. Because shehad once enjoyed them. Restive and fidgety, Felicity shoved herself to her feet once more, making for the shelf from which Mercy had taken the book.
“Felicity, is something wrong?” Charity asked, a thread of worry in her voice.
“No, no,” she said, though the words had come out far too high, far too shrill to provide any comfort. Not wrong, exactly. But notright, either. She hadn’t spent much time within the library. No—she’d not spentanytime within the library. Not since that night that Ian had first shown it to her. She hadn’t wanted to; hadn’t wanted to develop any sort of fondness for the house that she had felt was more prison than home. She’d spent as little time within the house as was possible; an aim that was aided significantly by the fact that she had a career, one which kept her out of the house for the best portion of each day.
So she hadn’t ever really looked. Hadn’t ever really just wandered and explored. She’d felt no need to test the bounds of her cage, to examine the gilding painted over the bars. And now she did, her eyes scanning the titles printed upon the bindings with a sense of—of—
She didn’t know. She didn’t knowanymore, and that was the problem. This dreadful, wretched miasma of nebulous, confusing emotions swirling in her gut, in her head…it could so easily infect her heart if she let it.
Every damned book. They were all hers. Every one of them. She had hoped to summon forth some sort of anger, like she had with the garden, but it wouldn’t come. She could feel it twisting in her chest behind her heart, andstillit wouldn’t come to the fore. Like those embers she’d spent a decade steadfastly tending to had begun to starve themselves out.
Like that viciousI hate youshe had cast into his face only days ago had become a little less truethe moment she’d spoken it aloud. Like the very fact that shehadspoken it, finally, to his face, had allowed her to begin to sort through those things she’d packed so deeply away, and which he had sent spilling out of her into an undignified, inelegant mess.
“Felicity,” Mercy said delicately, her fingers picking at the fringe upon the border of a decorative pillow. “I have got a feeling that there is so much we’ve missed. Is it safe to assume that you have got something of a history with Mr. Carlisle?”
“Something like that,” Felicity admitted in a small voice. “We were…we were nearly engaged ten years ago.” But they hadn’t been. Because Ian had never asked. And eventually it had become clear enough that he never would. That he intended to leave her behind—just as everyone else had.
“Engaged!” Charity said on a gasp. “And you never told me?”
