Page 2 of Felicity Cabot Sells Her Soul (Scandalous Sisters #3)

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“Mr. Carlisle? There is a Miss Cabot here to see you.” “Is there?” Finally.

Ian set down his pen and pushed away the stack of documents upon the desk before him.

He had wondered for some time, now, how long it might take.

Had watched the days crawl by, the hours roll away, the looming shadow of disaster growing with each subtle tick of the clock.

Had considered that perhaps she would not come at all.

That if the last dawn came without her arrival, then he would instead have to go to her.

It would have smacked of a certain desperation, set the balance of power far less in his favor than he would have preferred.

A hard-won power, which he was loath to surrender.

But she had arrived after all, and that—that was good.

“Show her in, if you please, Butler,” Ian said, and he lounged back in his seat, affecting a contrived pose of indolence.

Only moments later, and the door opened once again, and then— she was there.

Felicity Cabot, in the flesh. In his home.

Past midnight. The plain grey serge of her coat buttoned over the simple, almost matronly black day dress she wore beneath.

Probably she thought it made her look severe, authoritative.

Probably to her pupils, it did. In fact he’d rarely seen her out of such garments.

She had gone from the school room of the institution which she had once attended as a student to a position within it as some manner of instructress.

Deportment originally, he thought, which had always struck him as rather ill-fitting.

She might know all the rules by which young ladies were meant to abide, but she had flouted more of them than she had ever obeyed—at least in his experience, which was some ten years lacking, at this point.

The wretched plait woven tightly at the back of her neck, which he suspected had been pinned up for most of the day, had begun to fray, little frills of her dark hair coming loose.

And the vivid, poisonous green of her eyes settled upon him with no small amount of suspicion.

He said, “That will be all, Butler. Thank you.” She startled as the door closed behind her, leaving them alone within the dark, wood-paneled walls of his office.

The lamplight flickered over the veneered wood grain, creating the illusion of shifting shadows, as if some unseen audience lurked just at the periphery of the room.

She drew in a breath, her sharp, finely-arched brows slanting down.

“He has a name,” she said. “Your butler.” “He has,” he replied.

“It’s Butler.” “Your butler is called Butler?” A scoff rolled up her throat.

“And I suppose your cook is called Cook?” “My cook is called Winchell. Had I been able to find one called Cook, I might have hired him only to have one less name to recall.” Ian rested his hand upon the surface of his desk, tapped his fingernails in a sharp rhythm which suggested growing impatience.

“I suppose you have some purpose for calling so late at night.” “You know it already,” she said, her voice warbling over a note of accusation.

He did. Of course he did. “I want to hear you say it.” “I need money.” Had her face grown a trifle paler, or was it only the flicker of lamplight which created that wan complexion?

“Do you?” he asked. “For what purpose?” Her cheeks hollowed.

“For the school,” she said in a flat, stilted monotone, clearly annoyed to have been required to convey information she was certain he already knew.

“For Nellie. Did you do it? Did you—” “Fleece her of her money?” he interjected.

“Yes.” “No.” But he hadn’t stopped it, either.

He had, of course, seen the slow-moving disaster unfolding long before it had occurred.

And he had done nothing to avert it. Perhaps he had had no hand in the ill which had befallen her, but if he had had the inclination, he could have chosen to intercede.

But the fact that he had not done so had been what had brought her to his door at last. Exactly where he wanted her.

As he wanted her. Anxious, fraught, and desperate enough to bargain.

She did not appear as if she much believed his claim to innocence, but then, it didn’t really matter whether or not she did.

It wouldn’t change her situation. Or his.

“There’s a saying,” he said. “Something about a fool and his money.” “Don’t call Nellie a fool.

It isn’t her fault.” Belatedly she seemed to have recalled that she had come here to beg his assistance, and that she ought to mind the sharpness of her tongue.

Softening her tone, she continued, “She made a mistake. She doesn’t deserve to lose the school for it.

She doesn’t deserve to—to—” “Go to debtor’s prison.

” “Yes.” She licked her dry lips, her gaze shying away from his.

“I can’t let that happen.” “How much do you need?” “Twelve hundred.” Ian leaned back in his chair and gave a shrill, mocking whistle, startlingly loud in the silence of the room.

“That’s hardly a pittance,” he said. “Twelve hundred.” The slash of those sharp, winged brows once again, and her cheeks flushed a mottled red, stark against the pallor of the rest of her face.

Probably she knew, every bit as much as anyone else, that there was little that went on in Brighton of which he was unaware.

That he had known, down to the last pence, exactly what was owed, and to whom.

But that he had wanted to hear her say it.

To ask . To ask him to save her, to save her witless friend, to save the school that she loved so much.

“You understand, of course, that charity of such magnitude ill befits a businessman,” he said.

“Twelve hundred pounds is well beyond what anyone could expect as a favor or a gift. Twelve hundred pounds is an investment.” “The school will be profitable—” “I don’t care about the damned school.

I am not in the habit of giving something for nothing.

” He could feel it there, that power that she had surrendered to him only by coming this evening.

It nestled into the palm of his hand like a ball of twine, the loose end tied about her ankle like a shackle.

One tug— “What do you want?” she asked, and her hands flexed at her sides impotently.

“You know what I want,” he said. What he had always wanted.

“I want to hear you say it.” “Why?” Because she had put him through ten years of hell.

Of catching rare glimpses of her when their paths happened, by some chance, to cross.

Because he had spent these last weeks anticipating this turn, and she had kept him waiting until the last possible moment.

Because he wanted to hear her say it aloud.

To acknowledge it at last. “Call it a condition,” he said.

“You’ve come here to my house, at this hour of the night, to beg the sum of twelve hundred pounds from me.

You can say the words. So tell me, Felicity.

What do I want?” For a moment she was still, silent.

Praying, he thought, for some avenue of escape, some divine burst of inspiration that would solve her problems in one fell swoop—some other alternative to this.

Any other. There was nothing but him. He had known it weeks ago.

Had been only awaiting this moment. At long last she lifted her chin—that firm, stubborn chin which could hold a grudge within its elfin point for years upon years—squared her shoulders, narrowed her eyes into a glare of such icy frigidity that it could have frozen a lesser man in his tracks at twenty paces, and said, “Me.”