Page 38 of Daring with a Duke (The Jennings Family #2)

38

Felicity

A knock came on Felicity’s door for the second time that night. A bloody knock. What people were supposed to do before they entered.

“Come in,” she called.

Pray, look at that; they waited for confirmation. That was how it was done. One didn’t just barge in like her brother had. She winced. Granted, she had done the same to him and look how that had ended up. Apparently, everyone was getting on their knees tonight.

A maid stepped in and curtsied. “My lady, His Lordship, Lord Bentley has requested your presence in his chambers for dinner. Two trays have been set up.”

“Thank you,” Felicity said and pushed her lips into what she hoped was a smile.

She blew out a breath as the maid left the room. Time to face her brother in truth this time. No heated embraces with valets getting in the way and acting as an excuse to delay.

She made her way to her brother’s chambers. Dear bloody heaven, this day… It had to be the longest day there ever was. She swore the fates were playing games at Devonford Castle and extended time to fit in as much madness as possible. She paused before his door and knocked—like one was supposed to do—and entered after Felix’s confirmation.

“Brother,” she said stiffly.

“Flick.” He eyed her from where he sat at the table the servants had set up in his chambers. “I had trays sent up. We have much to discuss, and it appears you are avoiding me.”

Felicity snorted. “I’m not avoiding you, Fifi. I came to your room to speak with you, only to stumble across you with a certain valet on his knees.”

Felix’s eyebrows shot up, his cheeks growing scarlet. “P-Pardon?”

Ha! That blush might just best Fitzy’s. She settled in her seat across from Felix. She smiled wanly. “Yes, dear brother. Hypocrisy looks lovely on you. You throw a fit and go on a rampage for finding me sucking the Duke’s—”

Felix cut her off with a strangled, gurgling sound, his eyes white with alarm. She sighed, annoyance as heavy as a sack full of flour expelling from her. She speared a potato and pointed it at him.

“I am just highlighting that you cannot go all marauding Viking when you’re coming back here”— Now that’s a pun— “and shoving your cock down Thorne’s throat.”

Felix choked in earnest that time. He pounded his chest and chugged the rest of his wine. “Lord, bloody save me,” he said under his breath.

She chewed her potato, holding back a grin at her brother’s discomfort. Served him right.

He glared at her. “You are enjoying this altogether too much.”

She shrugged. “I have no idea what is going on between you and Thorne. Whatever hate-sex-affair”—she wiggled her fingers at Felix—“but there are genuine feelings between me and Ash.” She paused and took a sip of her wine. “I’m in love with him, Fifi.”

Felix’s jaw went slack. He took a steadying breath and set down his fork and knife. “You’re in what now?”

“Love,” she said simply. “And I plan on marrying him. With or without your blessing. I am of an age where I do not need your approval.” She added quietly, “Though I would very much like it.”

“Of course you have my approval,” Felix rushed out. “If he is not taking advantage of you, and what I stumbled upon”—he shuddered—“was fully consensual and wanted by both parties, then I suppose I don’t have any qualms with the Duke. It is just…” Felix’s mouth flattened, and his nostrils flared. “He is much older than you, Felicity. And with him breaking off the betrothal… You can see why this does not look well upon him. It looks like he saw a beautiful young woman and wanted her for himself. It looks like he is preying on you.”

She reached out and squeezed Felix’s hand. “Fifi, I promise you that is not the case. I have been the one preying on the Duke. I came here with the sole purpose of seducing him—”

“I beg your fucking pardon!”

She growled, pressing her finger into her ear. Blast it. Her brother was going to cause her to go deaf. “Hush, Fifi. Let me finish.” She shot her brother a look only a sister could, and his mouth snapped shut. “Ash has fought me at every turn and somehow, we fell in love along the way. He is still fighting it.”

Felix snorted. “Yes, he appeared to be fighting it quite hard,” he muttered. “And Ash?” He raised a brow.

She rolled her eyes. “First, yes Ash . Fairly certain we’re past formalities. And second, you heard him in his study. He was trying to do everything in his power to set me up for another successful match—with someone other than him . He thinks that is best for me. He doesn’t think he is best for me.” A sigh wracked her frame. “But he is Felix. I thought I was close to convincing him—”

Felix scoffed, and she shot him a glare.

“You barging in probably ruined all the progress I made.”

Felix ran a hand down his face as he shook it, clearly exasperated and amused with her. “I swear this day feels like it must be a dream or nightmare or just anything but real.”

“I couldn’t agree more,” she murmured and cut into her pheasant.

Even though she studied her plate, Felix’s gaze practically burned a hole in her head. She ignored it for three bites before it became too much. She met his gaze and arched a brow.

“Will you tell me what happened with Lord Wessex?”

She put her silverware down and paused as she gathered the best way to relate what happened.

“Honestly? He acted like he always did. He was half-way to foxed and stumbled across me. He didn’t even ask why I was here. He just saw me and my tits and decided”—She adopted a low, gruff voice—“I think I’ll tup that.”

She shook her head. The insolence of Colborn never ceased to amaze her. “And I told him in no uncertain terms that, no, he most certainly was not going to touch me, let alone tup me. He was pushy, but naturally he was no match for me.” She waggled her eyebrows. “I wasn’t opposed to putting him in a headlock.”

But her brother didn’t smile, his lips only flattened further.

“Regardless, he got angry, petulant, as he does whenever I deny him. He shoved me, and I collided with a piece of furniture and ended up on the floor.”

Felix’s face was turning red again. No. No more raging.

“It was really not all that bad,” she said hastily. “I just got lucky, and of course, collided with the corner of the dratted thing, so it hurt like the bloody devil.” That didn’t seem to appease Felix. “Ash almost choked him to death, if that makes you feel any better.”

“It actually does. I think I like the man a little more now.”

Felicity let out an airy snort. “Anyhow, Ash ended the betrothal right then and there.”

Her brother was quiet, and Felicity glanced at him. Emotions battled over his face, anger for certain, and perhaps sadness?

“That would have been my future,” she said softly. “I tried to tell you numerous times, Fifi, and it always went unheard. My words were ineffective, so I took action. I am done letting anyone else have control over my life.”

“I see that.” His face was drawn, definitely sadness now. “I’m sorry I refused to listen to you, treated your concerns as though they weren’t valid.”

Which brought her back to the question she always asked herself when it came to his denying her wishes. “Why? Why did you not listen, not inquire, not do something to see if they were valid?”

He grimaced. “I-I was trying to please Father. Father had always wanted a grand match for you, Flick. His daughter—a duchess. The kind of beauty you had could not be wasted on anything less.”

She made a disgruntled noise deep in her throat. She’d loved her papa, but God, she was over that way of thinking. Did everyone forget how many dukes were, in fact, balding, toothless, and suffering from the pox? Why was that her future just because she was beautiful? That didn’t seem like much of a grand destiny.

Not to mention that she was more than her outward appearance. There was this thing, mushy and pink, that resided in her skull. A brain . Dear Lord, here she was going all Wollstonecraft in her thoughts.

“I held onto this match because it made me feel like I was granting Father his last wish,” Felix said quietly. “And I thought… Well, Wessex is a very handsome man. Has all his teeth. Though, with how much he sleeps around, he probably has the pox…”

Felicity’s lips twitched. She and her brother apparently shared like minds.

“Papa would have never wanted the match if it was at the expense of my happiness, Fifi,” she pointed out. Though a part of her wasn’t sure about that fact. Papa had been gone a long time, and could Felicity truly know how he would have acted in this situation? Like Felix, all she knew of was his dream of her to be a duchess.

A heavy sigh exploded from Felix. She was fairly certain there was more to that sigh than regret about his sister’s match.

“I’m sorry, Flick.” His gaze met hers, tortured and broken. “I think it was me holding on to the last piece of Father, and it wasn’t fair of me to do to that to you. I feel as though I have failed him in so many ways. And I just wanted him to be proud of me—in some way.” His gaze dropped to his plate, and he toyed with his potatoes. “Make up for the burden I brought him, for everything he had to go through covering up—”

“Don’t. You. Dare . Don’t you dare think for one moment that what happened to you is your fault. Or that it in any way was a burden. Because every one of us, our gentle mother included, would slit that man’s throat if we ever found him. And I would relish it.”

The tight-lipped smile he shot her was pained, just like his amber eyes. A painful past that would forever haunt her beloved brother. “My bloodthirsty little brat of a sister,” he said affectionately. He blew out a sigh and stared out over her shoulder. “But it doesn’t change that no father in his right mind wants a son who favors men to inherit.”

“Fifi, you know that isn’t true,” she rushed to assure him. “Mama and Papa have always accepted and loved you. A rarity in the world we live in.”

“Did he, though? He didn’t disown me—or worse. And for that I am grateful, truly. But he still expected me to marry, sire an heir and a spare, put on the front of a happily wedded couple. He told me of his and Mother’s arrangement, compared it to them.” Felix laughed. “I could find my love on the side. It’s no different, he said.”

His eyes met hers, piercing in their intensity. “But it is different. They didn’t love each other, but there was still attraction between them. At the end of the day, they were a man who wanted a woman and a woman who wanted a man. I can’t bed a woman—”

His voice broke, and so did her heart. Her poor, poor brother. She truly couldn’t imagine what he was going through.

“I just can’t do it, Flick.” He released a shuddering breath.

“Then you shouldn’t. Fitzy can inherit. He’s already married, and I’m sure he and Georgiana are well on their way to breeding a whole litter of children. I would have been worried Fitzy didn’t know where to stick his prick if I didn’t know what a little wanton Georgiana is.”

He nodded, but her jest had no effect on bettering his mood.

“Sometimes,” he said softly, “it makes me feel obsolete. Father never said anything of the like, but sometimes… sometimes I feel as though it would have been preferable if I didn’t exist at all.”

“Rubbish. Absolute bloody rubbish. Felix, look at me.” She waited, and he eventually met her gaze. “I. Love. You.”

So bloody much. People spoke of once-in-a-lifetime love in the romantic sense, but no one ever mentioned the other types of love out there. Like the unique bond she had with Felix that she would never have with anyone else, not even her other brother.

“I don’t know what I would do without you, Fifi. Fitzy cannot replace you.” She prayed he could hear the sincerity in her words. But his gaze was back on his plate. She took a swig of her wine and traced the rim, studying her troubled brother.

“Fifi,” she said softly. “This family needs you. There is no one better suited to lead the Jennings. The way you dealt with Miss Browning with Fitzy, and even coming to my aid here, regardless of if it has been a bit of a hindrance… You are our protector. Do you know how happy that would have made Papa if he were still alive? To see you champion and defend our family without fail?

“And while I love Fitzy dearly, there has always been something that connects me and you in a different way. You’re my best friend, Fifi. And I know you always have my best interests at heart, even when you’re being a mite overbearing and priggish. Even if you need to walk in on me sucking a man’s c—”

Felix’s alarmed squeak drowned out her words.

“—to wake you up and get your head out of your arse.”

He stared at her, head shaking slowly back and forth, mouth hanging open. Perfect. Endeavor accomplished. Felix was no longer sad but struck dumb.

“Dear Lord, I don’t envy the Duke if he is to be your husband. You are trouble, Flick. Sometimes it baffles me what you can transform yourself into in front of society.”

She sent a cheeky stare his way. “Would you believe it if I said it gives me the most delicious thrill, knowing that all of society underestimates me because of the facade I portray to them? They are all idiots .”

“You are scary, sister. And I love you, too, by the way.” He reached forward and squeezed her hand. “Thank you.”

Their gaze met and held, wordless understanding passing between them, and then Felix sat back and cleared his throat. “So, what is your plan with the Duke, then?”

Her body sagged, the weight of constantly battling Ash like a yoke on her shoulders.

“Fuck if I have the faintest idea,” she said, and Felix let out a low laugh. “I need to speak with him, but not until tomorrow. I think everyone would benefit from some time to…cool down, reset, before tackling everything again. I’m a bit peeved at him anyhow. I’ll let him sweat a bit longer.”

“What’d he do?”

“He tried to offer for me.”

Felix blinked at her. She remained silent. He blinked exaggeratedly again.

She thrust her wineglass in his direction. “Stop that. I know that blink. That’s the you’re being a nonsensical nitwit blink.”

Felix’s eyebrows lifted and his eyes screamed obviously. “Um, yes, obviously.”

Exactly what she thought.

She let out a sigh. “He was offering out of honor, Fifi. Not because he wanted to marry me. A part of me wants to say dash it all to hell and accept it, because isn’t marrying him, regardless of the reason, better than the alternative?”

She dropped her face in her hands. “But the thought of him marrying me against his better judgement—because that is exactly how this feels… God, it flays my heart alive like this poor roast pheasant on my plate.” Perhaps that wasn’t an apt metaphor. Because her heart felt more like it was being used against a cheese grater.

“I’m too much of an outsider to this whole whirlwind romance between you two, so I cannot give you any insightful advice, Flick. But just know I’m here for you, no matter what you decide, no matter what happens. Even if I haven’t always been the best brother. I promise to do better going forward.”

He leaned forward and chucked her under the chin. She blinked back the burning building behind her eyes. Bloody Felix. She loved her stupid brother.

“Oh, and he’s dumber than a drunk on the East End docks if he doesn’t want to marry you for you.”

She blew out a breath and shot her brother a weak smile. Could Ash want to marry her, want a future together for him ? Because she really wanted there to be one. Not just a marriage based on honor, but a future between the two of them, with barriers broken down. She shoved the thoughts aside. Tomorrow’s problem.

She caught her brother’s gaze and arched a brow before popping a piece of pheasant in her mouth. “So, Fifi, what on earth is going on between you and Thorne?”

He let out a huff. “Fuck if I have the faintest idea.”

They shared a small smile.