Page 75 of Felicity Cabot Sells Her Soul
“You ought to have known better than to challenge a girl who grew up within taverns rather than drawing rooms,” Charity said. “You’ve only yourself to blame.”
Before a squabble—however good-natured it might have been—could break out, Felicity interjected, “Grace is going to stay here. With me.” She drew a short, sharp breath. “With us, I mean to say. Ian and me.”
A queer silence descended over the room as Charity and Mercy exchanged speaking glances. “We had figured as much,” Mercy said finally, with a little lift of her shoulders. “At least, after Grace told us—er, what she had seen when she went to wake you, we assumed.”
Oh, lord.If only the floor would open up and swallow her whole to save her from the humiliation. Somehow she pushed through the embarrassment, spreading her hands out in entreaty. “It is the best thing for you,” she said to Grace. “We’ll hire a tutor for you, to teach you the sorts of things you should have learned already. And when you are ready, you’ll have a place at my school, where you can learn the sorts of things a proper lady learns, amongst girls your own age.”
Charity canted her head toward Felicity. “Is this the best thing for you?” she asked tactfully, and Felicity knew she was not referring to Grace.
Felicity blinked back a mist of tears, swiped at her eyes with the back of her hand. “Yes,” she said. “Yes, it is. It is the best thing for me.”
“That’s all that matters,” Mercy said, stretching out her hand toward Felicity. “We decided that straight off. So long as you’re happy.
Felicity fairly tripped across the space that separated them to let Mercy grasp her hand, a sound somewhere halfway between a laugh and a sob emerging from herthroat.
“And we shall even endeavor to be pleasant to your husband,” Charity said, though the tone of her voice suggested it would require a great deal of effort on her part.
“I’m sorry,” Felicity said with a sniffle. “To have pulled you away from your own lives for nothing.”
“Notnothing,” Mercy said. “It’s been lovely to have the excuse to come for a visit. I’d despaired of being invited. I was so pleased you asked. Honored, really.”
“She was,” Thomas interjected. “Set the whole household in a tizzy, insisting that they pack the carriage in no more than half an hour. And we learned that Flora tolerates carriage rides—even long ones—exceptionally well. She slept better in the carriage than she ever has in her cradle.”
“And I was glad,” Charity confessed, “to see you for more than a few stolen hours at a time. A letter simply can’t compare.”
No, it couldn’t. There had been times—too many of them—when she had simply needed her sister. Not fond words upon a page, but flesh and blood arms to embrace her and a comforting voice to soothe her. But until just lately, there had been no way to have her sisters near. She’d lived in a tiny, cramped room at the school, working long hours, with little opportunity for leisure. Without even the time to spare that would have allowed her to attend Charity’s wedding, had she ever received the invitation.
But now…now all of them could attendhers. “I hope you’ll both stay a little longer,” she said. “It’s turned out that our marriage was something short of perfectly legal. Ian—Ian offered me a choice.”
Charity understood at once, her expression softening. “You chose to stay,” she said.
“I did,” Felicity said. “I had so much resentment eating at my heart, and I didn’t know how to let go of it. I didn’t know if it was possible to do so. As it happens, I only needed the choice that had been taken from me. I needed to choose for myself.” And he had needed that, too, she thought. To know that she had stayed out of love and not obligation. “Once I had that choice in my hands, it was so easy to make.”
“That’s as it should be,” Charity said, with a genuine smile. “I’m happy for you, dearest. Truly. So there’s to be another ceremony?”
“Yes; there must be. And I hope—I hope you will all stay to attend.”
“Naturally we’ll stay,” the duke said. “Love a wedding.”
“He’s in earnest,” Charity confided wryly. “Hopeless romantic, that one.”
“I wouldn’t miss it for the world,” Mercy said.
“Could…could I come, too?” Grace asked, bouncing Flora gently in her arms, hope gleaming in her sharp green eyes.
“Of course you can come,” Felicity said, reaching out to touch her shoulder gently. “You’re our sister. You belong with us.”
The girl’s lips trembled, but those green eyes were filled with gratitude. It wrenched something soft and fragile within Felicity’s heart to see it, to know that Grace had lived a life of so little faith in even the tiniest hint of affection that even so simple an assurance created that gratefulness within her.
God willing, they would create a place of safety for her here, where she would never need doubt her welcome. Where she would never again be neglected and used.
The door opened, and a maid carried in a fresh tea tray, accompanied by a plate of little tea cakes and sugar biscuits. The tea tray had hardly made it to the surface of the table before Felicity filched a few biscuits, eager to satisfy the hunger that clawed at her stomach.
“We’ll have to determine the menu for your wedding breakfast. And your gown, of course,” Mercy said, wedging herself up against Grace’s side and patting the cushion next to her. “Here. Come sit.”
“Oh, I couldn’t,” Felicity said around a mouthful of crumbs. “I doubt the couch was designed for four.” Five with little Flora, but she was so small she hardly counted just yet.
“We’ll make it work,” Charity said, with a little jerk of her head. “And if it should collapse beneath us, then your husband will simply have to purchase a sturdier one. For future visits, you understand.”
