Page 10 of Felicity Cabot Sells Her Soul (Scandalous Sisters #3)

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A headache burned behind Ian’s eyes as he eased open the door to his bed chamber at last. It wasn’t an unusual occurrence; they tended to plague him whenever he’d worked too long into the night, straining his eyes.

They had been worse years ago when he’d crowded himself within the light of a single tallow candle in the service of reading weighty texts which Felicity had lent to him.

Once, she would have offered to rub his head for him to soothe away the ache.

Even if he could have summoned up the audacity to ask her now, he couldn’t imagine it ending well for him.

Midnight had come and gone. The fire was in its last dying throes, red embers glowing like baleful eyes in the darkness.

Ian tugged his cravat free of his neck and considered the ebbing flames speculatively.

Had it just been him, he’d have let it die out rather than go to the bother of shoveling on fresh coal.

But Felicity’s feet were always cold. Even now as he squinted through the darkness, he could see her bundled up in the bed.

Naturally he’d told the servants to warm the bed prior to her arrival, but that had been some hours ago, and that heat had since dissipated.

The fire was dying, and she’d drawn her knees up toward her chest. Sound asleep—but cold.

Christ . She was never going to know it, and still he shrugged out of his coat and bent to retrieve the coal scuttle, laying down fresh fuel upon the dying fire.

It would keep through the remainder of the night, he thought, at least until the maids came in the morning.

If the sounds he’d made stoking the fire had disturbed her sleep, she’d given no indication of it.

Her back was still toward him, and she was mostly buried beneath the thick, downy counterpane.

The spill of her dark hair in a tangle across the pillow suggested her sleep had not been particularly peaceful.

She’d abandoned her clothing upon a chair, and beneath the jumble of garments there he saw the dark grey coat she’d not let Butler take from her upon her arrival.

Hell . It had been so dreary lately that it was likely still damp.

He dug it out from beneath the pile to hang it upon the back of a chair.

Possibly it would sufficiently dry before morning with the heat of the fire.

Probably she did not have a coat other than this one; this old, grey, shapeless thing that looked inches from falling apart at its very seams. Probably she’d skewer him in his sleep if he tried to get rid of it, even if it was hardly even fit for the rag heap.

The ring. She’d not been wearing it this evening when she’d returned home.

Was it still in her coat pocket, where she’d placed it when she’d been in the carriage with him this morning?

Or had she disposed of it already? Ian slipped his fingers into the pocket of her coat, digging, hoping—and there it was, tucked into the very bottom corner.

His breath escaped on a sigh of relief as he pulled it free.

He would not have found himself particularly surprised if she had cast it straight into the sea…

but it would have hurt. Wounded him in a way he hadn’t any right to be, in a way he could never have shown her, because in her present humor, she would want that.

He closed his fingers around it. It would be such a simple thing to tuck it away in one of his drawers, to preserve it, and to hope that there would come a time when she could be trusted with it.

She would likely never notice. She hadn’t wanted it, besides.

But he would be a coward take it back, and the sort of marriage he wanted for them—it would require vulnerability of him.

She had bared her heart to him enough already, and paid for it in so much hurt.

Now he would have to bare his own, even if she would slice it to pieces.

He set the ring on nightstand, where she would no doubt see it in the morning.

She wouldn’t wear it. But she would see it.

Though it meant far more to him than it did to her, it was hers already to do with as she wished.

Even if that meant pitching it into the sea.

Felicity did not stir as he removed the rest of his clothing and laid it out to be retrieved for laundering in the morning.

She didn’t twitch as he padded around the bed and slid in beside her.

Her face was in shadow, the counterpane pulled up toward her chin to ward away the winter chill.

Dark lashes fanned smooth cheeks, full lips pursed into a pout, dissatisfied even in sleep.

Which was a damn shame, because despite his blistering headache he was the most content he’d been in a decade.

Just to see her there, her face upon the pillow beside his, where she ought to have been years ago.

Under different circumstances he might have had the right to reach out to her.

To pull her into the circle of his arms, and to let her warm her chilly toes upon him as she had used to.

Instead there was an invisible barrier between them made of years of her resentment and his mistakes, and he hadn’t the right to ignore it.

He had given her the tools to build that wall, and now—now he would have to dismantle it.

Day by day. Hour by hour. Brick by brick.

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