Page 66 of Matters of a Duke's Heart
“I said the wrong thing,” he admitted quietly. “You have to know that. Please just speak with me. Let us go to the drawing room, I am certain we can slip away.”
But Felicity was already shaking her head. She moved backwards, spinning around with whoever was at her back and took their place, if only to further lose herself behind morebodies, more dresses and men who were tall enough to provide her cover as she avoided Spencer.
“Felicity!” he called out, but she pretended not to hear him. Her main focus had to remain on her sister and Lord Radcliffe. There was no way she could stomach the thought of him cornering her sister alone.
His threats at the dreaded Farriers’ ball were enough to unsettle her, and unless Lord Wexley was truly out there, then Daphne could very well be left to defend herself.
Felicity hastened her pace, knowing Spencer would have been lost to the ground due to how popular her mother was and her love for endless guest lists. As soon as she burst out onto the balcony, she stopped short.
“Let her go!” Felicity shouted, finding Lord Radcliffe pressing her sister into the curve of the rail, one hand clenched around Daphne’s small arm. Her sister’s face was white, her eyes wide and fearful as she looked toward Felicity.
“He—he came at me! I did not… I did not want—” Her gasps were ragged, and she tugged, but Lord Radcliffe held onto her fast. Hurried footsteps sounded from the garden, perhaps Lord Wexley, but Felicity wasted no time. She bolted for Lord Radcliffe, fear propelling her. She had sworn her sister would be protected against him.
Pushing against the viscount, Felicity grunted, finding herself knocked aside, but she surged back up, trying to tug on Daphne to release Lord Radcliffe’s grip. His eyes were unfocused, and there was a terrible broadness to his grin that bordered on lunacy.
“I told you I would have her as my bride, Duchess,” he spat.
“Let her go, Lord Radcliffe,” Felicity demanded, trying to shove her way between them, but she was too weak, and Lord Radcliffe too strong. Her sister whimpered, turning her face away.
She shoved all her force against Lord Radcliffe’s wrist, trying to jolt him hard enough to dislodge his steel grip, but he gripped her with his other arm, shoving her back so hard she stumbled. Her ankle twisted hard as she staggered into the railing, and she lost her balance.
Before Felicity could truly process that she had tipped over the railing completely, she was falling.
As she fell, her head knocked against something that immediately had her seeing stars, and the last thing she saw was Spencer’s face contorted as he cried out her name moments before she blacked out.
***
Darkness swirled through Felicity, dragging her down into a heavy, weighted depth she could not pull herself out of.
Voices swam in and out of focus, slipping away as quickly as they appeared, and she couldn’t discern any of them. She heard shouts, and thuds, and cries, and orders, but they all blurred together until silence enveloped her.
And then Spencer’s voice broke through that storm of unconsciousness. Felicity tried to use it as a tether. Some part of her knew that his voice could bring her back from any edge, but her heart knew to still beat in a way that hurt, for that voice had spoken too many painful things.
“I have warred with myself all day,” she swore she heard him speak. She still floated on that raft of heartbreak and darkness, moving through the currents that calmly swept her back and forth, in and out of awareness. “Alexander misses you and it has been less than a day. Heavens, I miss you. The thing is that when you have lived in Bluebell Manor, and suddenly you are gone, the hallways ring with silence. In that silence I have found myself… thinking. Thinking hard and extensively. You are right, of course. I was a cowardly fool…”
His words trailed off, and she tried to cling onto them. Sometimes they rang familiar. Felicity vaguely recalled calling her husband a fool, but she couldn’t hold onto her consciousness long enough to open her eyes, to speak. Her head hurt, spinningwith pain. She felt as though that was all she was pieced together by: hurt.
“I want you to know that I came here tonight to tell you that I love you.”
The confession came with terrible clarity, and before Felicity could claw her way through the dark sea of unconsciousness to answer I love you too, she was dragged even deeper down. There, she was in a dream where she stood in the hallway, peering into the music room. Lady Helena sat at the pianoforte, a pretty, youthful smile on her face as she played.
“I have always wanted somebody around who could play music better than I could.” Felicity’s eyes lifted to Spencer. “The house can get so quiet. Sophia—she never had the patience for it, but she would always sit in here and read sheet music. In truth, that was why I asked you to stay away from the music room during your renovations. But I no longer care, for I can see it is time to let my past go. I have gripped it too tightly, and I have let it stop me from loving you with my entire being.”
Felicity let out a broken noise, listening as Spencer spoke such beautiful things to Lady Helena.
I wanted to hear all of these things, she thought. A terrible, jagged pain lanced through her chest. I wanted that to be me.
But as she watched, Lady Helena’s face morphed into the one of Lady Sophia’s, the two of them overlapping, looking so different from Felicity. He wanted women like them, and she still didn’t know if she believed that he had ended his courtship with Lady Helena as long ago as he had claimed.
She had no reason not to trust him, but not reason to believe it, either. Why else would he have not told her?
Lingering in the hallway, somehow knowing in this space she was married to Spencer while he confessed his heart’s desires to Lady Helena, Felicity broke all over again.
Was this not how Sophia made you feel when she sought the love of other men?
Her voice wasn’t working, and she could only helplessly stand and watch as the two of them moved closer, their heads bent toward one another.
“I love you, Spencer,” Lady Helena whispered, so casual, so intimate.
