Page 56 of Felicity Cabot Sells Her Soul
“Here,” Charity said, touching the first stone. “That’s lapis. And then there’s onyx, vermeille—a yellow garnet, likely the most costly if I were to judge on quality alone—and then this occluded green one here—”
Felicity squeaked, “Emerald?”
“Yes, though it’s a dismal specimen. Why, it’s so rife with inclusions and so opaque that I nearly took it for agate. There’s no shine to it at all, and a good emeraldshouldshine, dearest.”
But it couldn’t have done, because the man he’d been when he’d bought it could never have afforded an emerald that shined. But he had still purchased the finest ring within his means to acquire, even if the stones he’d chosen were so inferioras to be laughable now.
And he’d done it only to tell her he loved her.
Solemnly Charity handed the ring back, her lips pressed into a firm line. “Oh, Felicity,” she said softly. “Something tells me that there’s a bit more to your story than you’ve let on. Hm?”
“Perhaps a bit,” Felicity said weakly as she tucked the ring back into her pocket. “It’s just that I—I—” With trembling fingers she reached for her cup, draining the last bit of cold tea to wet her suddenly-parched throat. “I don’t know what to say. I don’t know what to think, what to—to—” To tell the sisters who had come all this way to rescue her. How to explain herself. How to explain to them that she didn’t think she needed to be rescued any longer.
That there existed the possibility, however remote, that she didn’t evenwantto be rescued any longer.
“I suppose,” Charity ventured mildly, in an even tone which suggested the withholding of judgment, “that the day we arrived was a little…fraught.”
Despite herself, a hysterical gurgle of laughter trickled up Felicity’s throat. An understatement if she’d ever heard one, there.
“That is to say,” Charity continued, “that we all might have comported ourselves better. If we had, perhaps you might have found it a sight easier to speak freely.”
“It’s not that,” Felicity said, although it would have been more honest to say that it wasn’tonlythat. “It’s that—well—I’ve learned things lately.” About herself. About Ian. And it hadn’t all been comfortable or pleasant, but ithadbeen…healing, she thought. Like an old wound had at last stopped bleeding and had finally started to scab over. A process which, in itself, was painful and uncomfortable at times. But one which had begun to feel necessary.
“I beg you,” Charity said on a good-natured—if faintly exasperated—sigh, “donottell me I shall have to beniceto your husband, for I will tell you I have already prepared several perfectly cutting remarks and I shall be just devastated to be denied the opportunity to use them.” The tone of her voice and the merry glint in her eye suggested more jest than malice, and she paused to take a sip of tea. “His abysmal taste in jewelry may or may not enter in.”
“It’s not abysmal,” Felicity said, and managed a little laugh as she closed her fingers once more around the ring. Knowing what she now knew, it might be…something close to perfect.
∞∞∞
Felicity settled back against the seat of the carriage and peered through the window out into the late afternoon sunlight. The day had been a blessedly quiet one, with no major disturbances or issues which had required her personal attention, and so she had, for once, taken her leave of the school early. But before she returned home, she had an errand to which to attend.
Pressing one palm against the wall of the carriage, she braced herself as the vehicle turned toward the city center. Ian was fond of roasted chestnuts. She had never much liked them herself, but they had once been a favored treat of his. This time of year they abounded, offered piping hot and wrapped up in brown paper. She wasn’t certain, exactly, what had come over her to think of it. And tomorethan think of it, but to direct the coachman to take her to buy them. Perhaps it was because Ian had remembered her favorite beef pasty from her favored merchant. Perhaps it was because he had welcomed her family into his home despite the fact that they had no doubt plagued him unmercifully. Perhaps it was because roasted chestnuts were so small a thing, so trifling that they could hardly be construed as anything more than consideration.
Perhaps she had only wanted to do something kind. To make some small overture of her own, when he’d made so very many without mention or expectation that she had simply disregarded.
I do want you to be happy, Felicity.
She wasn’t. But she thought, for the first time in altogether too many years, that perhaps shecouldbe. It wasn’t something that Ian could purchase from a shop and lay into her hands. It wasn’t something he could give to her at all. But perhaps he could help her to find it. Perhaps he had already started.
The carriage began to slow as it approached the city center, the rumble of voices from the street outside growing louder with each inch gained. Probably the coachman would have a difficult time navigating the traffic of a particularly busy afternoon, and so Felicity reached up and rapped upon the roof to signal to the coachman to stop.
A few moments later, she felt the subtle shift in the carriage as the coachman jumped down from his seat to open the door for her. “Take a few minutes, but I can get closer,” he said as he doffed his hat to her.
“Thank you, but we’re plenty close enough.” Felicity allowed him to help her down from the carriage and alighted onto the pavement. “You see?” she said with a nod just a little ways down the street, to a cart positioned upon the pavement from which rose little curls of steam, and before which a number of people had queued up to order. “Roasted chestnuts just there.” And there were plenty of people milling about, with the sun still firmly above the horizon. Not a drop of danger to be found. “Don’t worry. I won’t be a minute.”
Still the coachman looked uncertain, worrying the brim of his hat in both hands. “If you’re certain, madam, of course I’ll wait here for you.”
Felicity headed in the direction of the cart, slipping her hand into her pocket for a coin. Her reticule might have been lost to that wretched little thief that night at the theatre, but luckily it had contained only the few coins she’d had on her at the time.
The queue had diminished somewhat as she approached, and the woman at the front who held out a coin to the vendor and received a packet of chestnuts in return had a familiar profile; a lovely mocking mouth and such dark curling hair.
Charity. Surprised, delighted, Felicity hastened her steps, opened her mouth to call out to her sister—
But the words died in her throat a moment later. Closer, now, she knew that she had been mistaken. The woman’s hair had once been a lustrous sable, perhaps, but now it was run through with thin streaks of grey. The face, still just as beautiful as Felicity recalled, had acquired a number of fine lines. A woman of great beauty in her own right even through her advancing years. Not Charity at all—but a woman who might have been her twin in her younger days.
And Felicity couldn’t stop her feet from drawing nearer. Couldn’t slow the frantic, pounding beat of her heart. Couldn’t even correct the queer, childlike warble in her voice as she paused only a few feet away and asked, at last, “Mama?”
The woman turned her head, and her dark eyes—they wereCharity’seyes, but so, so damned cold—raked Felicity from head to toe as a sneer curled her cupid’s bow lips. That same careless disinterest Felicity last remembered descended over her face, and it struck Felicity like a slap.
