Page 31 of Felicity Cabot Sells Her Soul (Scandalous Sisters #3)

Is that a new pelisse?”

Felicity jerked out of her daze at the unexpected intrusion of Charity’s voice, her fingers closing around the ring she held in her hand. She hadn’t expected company for breakfast—most especially not Charity’s, since Charity had never been a particularly early riser. But she had, however briefly, crossed paths with Mercy’s husband, Thomas, who was an early riser, and who had brought little Flora down with him in an effort to spare the ears of those who had still been sleeping upstairs, since Flora had been bound and determined to test the limits of her little lungs with ear-piercing shrieks.

“Yes,”

Felicity said, with a little shrug of her shoulders within the warm folds of the soft blue wool that encased her; worlds finer than her own aged coat which had been perhaps a month or two from falling to rags.

“And the dress as well.”

She hadn’t asked for them, and Ian had made no mention of them. They had simply been hanging in the dressing room this morning when she’d risen, right beside her own worn things. She’d noticed a few more extravagant gowns as well, tucked away toward the back—the sort a woman of means might wear to an evening event. But the vast majority were of a simpler fashion, exactly the kind of dresses a headmistress could be expected to wear.

“Well, you look quite nice.”

Charity settled into the seat besides hers, muffling a yawn in her fingers.

“Is there tea?”

she asked.

“I’m not myself before I’ve had tea.”

“Butler’s on his way with a fresh pot,”

Felicity said.

“The last one went tepid.”

“Thank God,”

Charity said, and wilted back against the chair.

“I slept rather poorly. Or, rather, I slept quite well up until Flora decided to treat the lot of us to an early morning serenade. She’s got quite a set of lungs.”

Felicity swallowed a laugh.

“She does, at that.”

Butler reappeared bearing a fresh teapot, and Charity murmured her thanks as he poured her a cup. She inclined her head in the direction of Felicity’s closed hand as she busied herself in sugaring her tea.

“What have you got there?”

she asked.

“My wedding ring.”

Felicity uncurled her fingers to reveal the gold band within.

“I don’t know what to make of it.”

Charity glanced at it briefly over the rim of her tea cup, one brow arching in silent judgment.

“Not much,”

she said dismissively.

“Hardly more than a trinket. The stones aren’t precious.”

“I was hoping you could tell me about them,”

Felicity said.

“Doesn’t it strike you as…odd?”

“Certainly,”

Charity sniffed.

“But there is no accounting for taste. One would have thought a man of Mr. Carlisle’s fortunes could afford better. Here, let me have a closer look, then.”

She held out her hand, and Felicity laid the band into it.

Charity’s lips pursed in concentration as she squinted at the small stones, turning the band to catch the light pouring in through the window. And then— “Oh,”

she said, in an odd little voice as her brows arched toward her hairline.

“Oh, I see.”

“What?”

What did she see?

“It’s—well—”

Charity scooted her chair closer to Felicity’s, turning in her seat to face her, holding up the ring between them.

“It’s an acrostic ring.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“An acrostic ring,”

Charity repeated.

“You see, the first letter of each stone spells out a word when you string them all together. I received one from an admirer once, which spelled out regard. I was quite touched by it, even if I found the arrangement of stones a trifle jarring to the eye. These stones aren’t of particularly good quality, I’m afraid.”

Felicity knew that already. But what did they say?

“Here,”

Charity said, touching the first stone.

“That’s lapis. And then there’s onyx, vermeille—a yellow garnet, likely the most costly if I were to judge on quality alone—and then this occluded green one here—”

Felicity squeaked, “Emerald?”

“Yes, though it’s a dismal specimen. Why, it’s so rife with inclusions and so opaque that I nearly took it for agate. There’s no shine to it at all, and a good emerald should shine, dearest.”

But it couldn’t have done, because the man he’d been when he’d bought it could never have afforded an emerald that shined. But he had still purchased the finest ring within his means to acquire, even if the stones he’d chosen were so inferior as to be laughable now.

And he’d done it only to tell her he loved her.

Solemnly Charity handed the ring back, her lips pressed into a firm line.

“Oh, Felicity,”

she said softly.

“Something tells me that there’s a bit more to your story than you’ve let on. Hm?”

“Perhaps a bit,”

Felicity said weakly as she tucked the ring back into her pocket.

“It’s just that I—I—”

With trembling fingers she reached for her cup, draining the last bit of cold tea to wet her suddenly-parched throat.

“I don’t know what to say. I don’t know what to think, what to—to—”

To tell the sisters who had come all this way to rescue her. How to explain herself. How to explain to them that she didn’t think she needed to be rescued any longer.

That there existed the possibility, however remote, that she didn’t even want to be rescued any longer.

“I suppose,”

Charity ventured mildly, in an even tone which suggested the withholding of judgment.

“that the day we arrived was a little…fraught.”

Despite herself, a hysterical gurgle of laughter trickled up Felicity’s throat. An understatement if she’d ever heard one, there.

“That is to say,”

Charity continued.

“that we all might have comported ourselves better. If we had, perhaps you might have found it a sight easier to speak freely.”

“It’s not that,”

Felicity said, although it would have been more honest to say that it wasn’t only that.

“It’s that—well—I’ve learned things lately.”

About herself.

About Ian.

And it hadn’t all been comfortable or pleasant, but it had been…healing, she thought.

Like an old wound had at last stopped bleeding and had finally started to scab over.

A process which, in itself, was painful and uncomfortable at times. But one which had begun to feel necessary.

“I beg you,”

Charity said on a good-natured—if faintly exasperated—sigh.

“do not tell me I shall have to be nice to your husband, for I will tell you I have already prepared several perfectly cutting remarks and I shall be just devastated to be denied the opportunity to use them.”

The tone of her voice and the merry glint in her eye suggested more jest than malice, and she paused to take a sip of tea.

“His abysmal taste in jewelry may or may not enter in.”

“It’s not abysmal,”

Felicity said, and managed a little laugh as she closed her fingers once more around the ring. Knowing what she now knew, it might be…something close to perfect.

∞∞∞

Felicity settled back against the seat of the carriage and peered through the window out into the late afternoon sunlight.

The day had been a blessedly quiet one, with no major disturbances or issues which had required her personal attention, and so she had, for once, taken her leave of the school early.

But before she returned home, she had an errand to which to attend.

Pressing one palm against the wall of the carriage, she braced herself as the vehicle turned toward the city center.

Ian was fond of roasted chestnuts.

She had never much liked them herself, but they had once been a favored treat of his.

This time of year they abounded, offered piping hot and wrapped up in brown paper.

She wasn’t certain, exactly, what had come over her to think of it.

And to more than think of it, but to direct the coachman to take her to buy them.

Perhaps it was because Ian had remembered her favorite beef pasty from her favored merchant.

Perhaps it was because he had welcomed her family into his home despite the fact that they had no doubt plagued him unmercifully.

Perhaps it was because roasted chestnuts were so small a thing, so trifling that they could hardly be construed as anything more than consideration.

Perhaps she had only wanted to do something kind.

To make some small overture of her own, when he’d made so very many without mention or expectation that she had simply disregarded.

I do want you to be happy, Felicity.

She wasn’t.

But she thought, for the first time in altogether too many years, that perhaps she could be.

It wasn’t something that Ian could purchase from a shop and lay into her hands.

It wasn’t something he could give to her at all.

But perhaps he could help her to find it.

Perhaps he had already started.

The carriage began to slow as it approached the city center, the rumble of voices from the street outside growing louder with each inch gained.

Probably the coachman would have a difficult time navigating the traffic of a particularly busy afternoon, and so Felicity reached up and rapped upon the roof to signal to the coachman to stop.

A few moments later, she felt the subtle shift in the carriage as the coachman jumped down from his seat to open the door for her.

“Take a few minutes, but I can get closer,”

he said as he doffed his hat to her.

“Thank you, but we’re plenty close enough.”

Felicity allowed him to help her down from the carriage and alighted onto the pavement. “You see?”

she said with a nod just a little ways down the street, to a cart positioned upon the pavement from which rose little curls of steam, and before which a number of people had queued up to order.

“Roasted chestnuts just there.”

And there were plenty of people milling about, with the sun still firmly above the horizon. Not a drop of danger to be found.

“Don’t worry. I won’t be a minute.”

Still the coachman looked uncertain, worrying the brim of his hat in both hands.

“If you’re certain, madam, of course I’ll wait here for you.”

Felicity headed in the direction of the cart, slipping her hand into her pocket for a coin. Her reticule might have been lost to that wretched little thief that night at the theatre, but luckily it had contained only the few coins she’d had on her at the time.

The queue had diminished somewhat as she approached, and the woman at the front who held out a coin to the vendor and received a packet of chestnuts in return had a familiar profile; a lovely mocking mouth and such dark curling hair.

Charity. Surprised, delighted, Felicity hastened her steps, opened her mouth to call out to her sister—

But the words died in her throat a moment later. Closer, now, she knew that she had been mistaken. The woman’s hair had once been a lustrous sable, perhaps, but now it was run through with thin streaks of grey. The face, still just as beautiful as Felicity recalled, had acquired a number of fine lines. A woman of great beauty in her own right even through her advancing years. Not Charity at all—but a woman who might have been her twin in her younger days.

And Felicity couldn’t stop her feet from drawing nearer. Couldn’t slow the frantic, pounding beat of her heart. Couldn’t even correct the queer, childlike warble in her voice as she paused only a few feet away and asked, at last, “Mama?”

The woman turned her head, and her dark eyes—they were Charity’s eyes, but so, so damned cold—raked Felicity from head to toe as a sneer curled her cupid’s bow lips. That same careless disinterest Felicity last remembered descended over her face, and it struck Felicity like a slap.

The woman gave an exasperated sigh, impatience scrawled across every line of her lovely face. And she asked at last.

“Which one are you?”