Page 64 of Felicity Cabot Sells Her Soul
Felicity struggled upward through heavy veils of sleep, startling awake with a jerk. “What?” she asked groggily, squinting through the darkness, disoriented. “What time is it?”
“Late. Past two. But you’ve got to get up.” Ian sat at the very edge of the bed, only the faintest traces of his outline visible in the dark. “My men arrived not five minutes ago,” he said grimly. “I came to wake you immediately. They’ve caught her.”
“They—they have?” She jolted awake immediately, her stiff muscles aching. A remnant, she supposed, of the tight, uncomfortable little ball she had curled into while asleep. She’d heard nothing. Had she been so deeply asleep as to have missed it? She cast off the counterpane, and—her toes were cold. The fire had not yet been replenished with fresh coals. “You’ve not yet been to bed,” she said. She’d fallen asleep waiting for him. But he hadn’t come.
“No.” he said. “I’ve been in my office with Graves most of the evening, putting him through his paces.”
“So late?”
“He’s not through atoning.” It struck her as an oddly evasive reply, meant to avoid further inquiry. There was the rustle of his clothing, and the mattress shifted as he stood once more. “My men brought her here,” he said.
“Here?” Felicity swallowed as she swung her legs over the edge of the bed, casting off the last vestiges of sleep as she wobbled upon her feet. “For what purpose?”
“Interrogation,” Ian said. “And to decide what’s to be done with her. Here, now.” He slung a wrapper over her shoulders, and helped her to shove her arms into the sleeves. “I’ve sent the staff to wake your sisters,” he said. “You all deserve the opportunity to confront her. To make your own determination of what ought to be done about her.”
Her heart lurched into a frantic race, her stomach churning. “Will you…stay with me?”
“Yes, of course. You don’t have to do this alone. You don’t have to do anything alone.” He brushed her tangled hair back from her face. “It’s toolate to take her before a magistrate at the moment,” he said. “But she’ll be closely-guarded until we have got the answers we desire of her, and I’ll make certain she is held until her trial.”
“That could be weeks,” she said dully. “Months.”
“A great deal of money produces a great deal of haste.” He paused, set his hands upon her shoulders. “This is not for you to worry over,” he said firmly. “If you never spare another thought for her after today, it is only what she deserves. You need never concern yourself with her again.”
Because he would do it for her, she knew. She took a breath, let it out slowly. Her churning stomach settled. The pounding of her heart slowed and steadied. “Yes,” she said and reached for his hand, which he gave to her immediately. “I’m ready.”
“Good. You can leave at any time,” he said as he led her toward the door. “But just know—thistime, she cannot walk away from you. She is well and truly caught.”
“Where?” Ian had turned toward the servants’ stairs, but further down the hall, Felicity heard the telltale sounds of movement, some faint grumbling. Her sisters, she supposed, less than pleased to have been woken at such an hour.
“I gave instructions that she should be taken downstairs,” he said. “To the basement. There are a few rooms meant for storage that are presently empty. I thought it best to have her kept in a room without windows.”
“You think she’d try to escape?” Felicity asked as she grabbed for the banister, carefully navigating the narrow staircase in the darkness.
“I think she’d be a fool not to have considered it. And,” he added, “it is best if we do not give her the opportunity to attract undue attention. Sound will not carry so far from the basement.”
The basement was colder than she had expected, the chill of the air sliding straight through her wrapper as they descended the last set of stairs into the depths of the house. There were voices below, and light—much more than she had expected.
At least half a dozen men, in addition to a number of the staff. Butler was present, in a serviceable dark banyan robe rather than his crisp uniform attire, overseeing the staff in offering refreshments to the men present.
“Several were once Runners,” Ian said, with an inclination of his head toward the men gathered about. “But all are proficient thief-takers in their own right, under private commission. They’ll stay through the night and remove her to stand before the magistrate in the morning.”
At last Butler wended his way toward them, tray in hand. “Do forgive my dress,” he said apologetically. “I thought it best not to waste time when I might put my services to use with all haste.” He lifted the tray in Felicity’s direction. “Cider, madam? It’s dreadfully cold down here.”
Ian plucked a mug from the tray and shoved it into her hand before she could reply. “And some brandy, too, Butler, if you don’t mind. We’re all a bit tense this evening. Which room?”
“That one.” Butler gave a jerk of his chin toward a door in the distance. “The gentleman closest to the door there has got the key. You’ll want a lamp; I’m given to understand the men thought it best that she wasn’t provided any sort of flame, not even for light.”
“Thank you. Send Mrs. Carlisle’s family in when they arrive, won’t you?”
“Of course.” He gave a nod. “I’ll have that brandy for you in a trice.”
Ian snatched up a lamp from a nearby table, and the light flickered in dizzying patterns across the walls. As he paused to collect the key from the man standing in stalwart silence beside the indicated door, Felicity lifted her mug to her lips and took a long drink of her cider, easing a bit of the chill—and a throat that had gone rather too parched in only the few seconds in which Ian had released her hand.
And then he caught it up again, and she relaxed once more, even as he fitted the key to the lock and swung the door open.
The lamplight spilled into the room, filling the small space and illuminating the figure huddled in the far corner. Too small, too young, too blond to be the woman they had both thought she must have been. Just a girl, shaking with fear, doing her damnedest to make herself small.
Felicity let the mug fall from her fingers, the last of her cider spilling across the floor as she stifled a disappointed little sound. Ian uttered a foul word, turning his head to snarl at the closest of his men, “You told me that you had apprehended a woman! This is achild!”
