Page 60 of Felicity Cabot Sells Her Soul
“Itwillbe all right,” he corrected, meeting that grim look Felicity’s sister gave him with one of his own. “It will be. I promise you that.”
Chapter Twenty Three
Ian watched unobtrusively through the bed chamber door as the three women huddled together in the small sitting area near the hearth. They’d been at this rather long talk of theirs all evening, by turns crying and comforting one another—but Felicity was the one who had needed it most.
It was nearing ten, past the time when Felicity would ordinarily have been asleep, and even from this distance he could see the dark circles that wreathed her eyes, the exhaustion that sloped her shoulders. He was going to have to call a halt some point soon, if only to ensure that she did, in fact, sleep.
“You ought to have told us well before now.” The words, tinged with displeasure, came from somewhere over his left shoulder. One of Felicity’s brothers-in-law—the bespectacled baron. And beside him, the duke. It wasn’t a surprise to find them here now; they’d all been in and out more or less constantly, catching snippets of conversation, ensuring that the ladies had eaten, had had their tea refreshed before it had got the chance to go cold.
Ian stepped away from the open door, retreating into the hall to keep his voice from carrying back into the room. “I did advise that she ought to have a conversation with her sisters,” he said. “But what Felicity chooses to share is her business alone. It wasn’t my decision to make for her.”
“One wonders why, when you’ve made others of more consequence for her.” The duke this time, his arms folded across his chest, his tone utterly scathing.
He wasn’t wrong. But Ian had come to the same conclusion himself already, and so it was just one more prick of guilt amongst the hundreds of slices of it that had practically flayed the flesh from his bones already. “Suffice it to say that I’m well aware of my mistakes,” he said. “I can’t repair them while making more.”
“That’s a piss poor explanation,” the duke groused.
“I don’t owe you an explanation.” But hedidowe Felicity one. Several, most likely. And he thought—he thought she might just be ready to listen. “Collect your wives, if you please. Felicity is exhausted.”
The baron gave an exasperated sigh. “First, we must discuss how we intend to handle this situation.”
“There is nothing more we can do at present other than what is already being done.” An unfortunate fact, but a fact nonetheless. “How much have you learned?”
“Bits and pieces here and there,” the duke said. “How much was demanded?”
“Five thousand. We’re not going to pay it.” Ian risked a peek back through the door, saw Felicity huddled between her sisters, her head pillowed upon Mercy’s shoulder. “Felicity’s been receiving threatening letters at the school for some time. The amount was made clear—likely to give adequate time to gather the funds—but the date and location were not specified. My suspicion is that they don’t wish us to have information we might use against them in advance. To keep us unprepared, make certain we are unable to plan ahead.”
“So they’ve got to leave another note,” the baron said.
“If they expect to receive payment? Yes. But the school is being watched. So is the house. It doesn’t matter where they deliver the note; the moment they do, they’re done for.”
“What do you intend to do with her, then? Their—” The duke hesitated just briefly. “Their mother, I mean to say.”
“That’s up to Felicity and her sisters,” Ian said. “But if they cannot abide hanging, I’ll press for transportation. Whatever will make certain she is never a threat to any of them again.” But it wasn’t his decision. He hadn’t been harmed by the woman—theyhad. They all had, one way or another, even if Felicity now bore the brunt of it.
“I can scarcely credit it,” the baron mused to himself, with a rueful shake of his head. “What sort of woman—what sort ofmother—would ever think to extort her own children?”
“The sort of mother who abandoned them in the first place,” Ian said. And now, he thought, he understood Felicity at last. Understood how deeply he’d hurt her all those years ago.
He’d left her, too. By inches, by hours. With his neglect, with his condescension. He’d left her long before she’d left him, and he hadn’t even had toleaveto do it. He’d starved her of his attention, even of his presence, until he’d killed off the last of the trust she’d had in him.
Only in retrospect had he been able to truly see how many times he hadbrushed off her concerns, how many chances she had offered to him despite them. Was it too much to hope for only one more?
∞∞∞
“In bed with you. You’re dead on your feet.”
At Ian’s urging, Felicity teetered on unsteady legs toward the bed, half-collapsing across it as she tried to gather the strength to crawl toward her side. Just now, in the fatigue following hours and hours of explanations and confessions and so damned many tears, it seemed an insurmountable task. She didn’t even know how she was going to summon the will to change out of her day dress when there wasn’t the least energy left in her.
The thick of the silence that followed was broken only by the sound of the coal scuttle being lifted from its place, the dull clatter of coals replenishing those which had burned away in the hours she’d sat before the hearth with her sisters.
Such a small thing. Done just so she’d stay warm through the night, even if the cold had never bothered him the same way it had bothered her. She’d thought she’d exhausted herself of every last bit of emotion, but her heart wrung itself once more in a vicious squeeze, and a few last tears slipped free, sliding down her cheeks to blot upon the soft velvet counterpane beneath her.
A soft rustle of fabric as something white and light and airy landed upon the bed beside her. Ian’s fingers plucked at the laces of her dress. “Hold still,” he said, though she was hardly inclined to struggle at the moment. “We’ve got to get you changed for bed.”
We. As if she were capable of any effort toward the task. As if it were a problem they tackled together, rather than one he accomplished despite her, fighting her limp, pliant limbs to pull the sleeves from her arms and to slide the dress off over her legs. The laces of her stays loosened, and for the first time that evening she felt she could draw a full breath at last. She turned her head to stare at the frill of linen that he’d dropped beside her. She said, “That’s not my nightgown.”
“No. It’s new.” The stays fell away from her back, remaining trapped beneath her. “I didn’t think you’d mind.” The chill of the air hit her legs as he stripped off her petticoat, and she shivered in only the thin fabric of herchemise. “I need you to sit up for a moment,” he said as he gingerly rolled her to her back, pulled at her shoulders to help her sit upright. “Only for a moment. I promise.”
