Page 36 of Felicity Cabot Sells Her Soul (Scandalous Sisters #3)

Ian saw the death of every dream he’d ever cherished in the roar of the flames as they consumed with a voracious appetite the pages he’d tossed into them. He’d killed them himself, but it had had to be done.

How was it right, how was it fair that he should have his happiness at the expense of hers? It wasn’t. It wasn’t at all, and he—he didn’t want the pretense of love any more than she did. And it could never be real unless those strings by which he’d bound her were cut clean through.

He said.

“Graves, being now apprised of our situation, has raised some concerns.”

“Concerns?”

The word was spoken lightly, inquisitively. But her hands had fallen into her lap, where her fingers twisted themselves into knots.

“In that contract and upon our marriage license, you are Felicity Cabot,”

he said.

“But in point of fact, there is no Felicity Cabot.”

“It’s not against the law to change one’s name.”

“No,”

he said.

“But it does throw our marriage into a—we’ll say questionable light. I assume there was nothing done in the changing of your name which might lend it legitimacy? No deed poll, no notice in any papers?”

“No, I—I didn’t know any of that was necessary.”

Strictly speaking, it wasn’t. It was perfectly legal for an ordinary person to informally change their name for any reason, provided they weren’t doing so to evade justice or to hide from creditors. For an ordinary person, simply going by a new name would be sufficient.

“It’s not,”

he said.

“But Graves advised another ceremony regardless. For safety’s sake. I have quite a lot of money, and likely will have quite a lot more still when I reach the end of my life. The very last thing I’d want is schemers crawling out of the woodwork, looking for reasons to cast doubt upon our marriage.”

With every chance that they’d find them, upon thorough inspection, and leave open the possibility to strip from her those things to which she would be entitled as his widow. To cast doubt upon the legitimacy of any children they might have.

“The best way to refute such claims is to make certain that everything is legitimate down to the smallest detail.”

She gave a restless little wiggle. “Ian,”

she said.

“What are you suggesting?”

“I’m not suggesting anything. I’m telling you that if you please, you may consider our marriage null and void, any and all conditions upon it satisfied in full, and go on with your life. Now, if you like.”

There was mockery in those flickering flames, now, little licks and curls of fire that looked like laughter. When it had killed him to speak the words that would put paid to their time together.

“I see,”

she said as she rose to her feet.

“And will Nellie get her school back?”

“No,”

he said.

“I’m not convinced she wouldn’t be fleeced of it again somehow, and I don’t want you dependent upon someone else—anyone else—for your security. I will make you a gift of it, instead.”

And whatever money was required to keep it running smoothly in perpetuity, whether or not it ever again turned a profit.

The firelight glowed across her skin as she turned, limning her in gold light.

“And what are we to tell those people who already know us to be married?”

“There’s few enough that know.”

It had only been a month and a half or so.

“My staff will not speak out of turn. Neither will your family. Graves knows better, now, than to speak of anything he knows.”

“Mr. Jennings and Louisa?”

she asked.

“The reverend?”

“Jennings will hold his tongue provided I make it contingent upon investing in his railway venture,”

Ian said.

“His daughter liked you too much to slander you. Besides, they both owe you a debt for salvaging Dorothea’s reputation before it could be thoroughly besmirched. And the reverend, as it happens, owes his plumb position in Brighton to me. He enjoys the comforts of the city too much to risk speaking out, when it would mean a sternly-worded letter to the bishop, which could result in his removal from his present parish. He’ll remove any evidence of our marriage from the register if I ask it of him.”

She paced in contemplation; he could practically see the thoughts racing through her brain.

“The school,”

she said.

“The students. They’ve been calling me Mrs. Carlisle for well over a month, now. They know I’ve not been residing at the school.”

Ian waved a dismissive hand.

“We’ll come up with some sort of excuse as to why the pretense of marriage was necessary. It will likely involve your brother-in-law, the duke. People tend to ask fewer questions when dukes are involved.”

“But if there are questions?”

she asked, with a quick about-face that would have done a military man proud.

“We’ll say that such subterfuge was necessary to protect you and your reputation while we waited upon the duke’s arrival—and that my staff will attest to the fact that you were never unchaperoned. The duke’s presence in my house ought to be enough to quell any rumors which might circulate, but I wouldn’t expect them to do so. If you can manage to act as though you have got nothing to hide, people will naturally assume that you don’t.”

“You’ve put rather a lot of thought into this.”

He’d had to. He’d made such a damned muddle of her life that it would hardly have been fair to turn her loose to weather the consequences on her own.

“I thought it best to be prepared for any eventuality,”

he said as he stared into the fire.

“I can’t fix everything.”

Though not for lack of trying.

“But I can, at least, give you what you want of me.”

Which was her freedom. And he owed it to her.

For a long moment she was silent, and there was only the faint crackle of the fire, the whisk of the bitter winter wind outside the windows. And then at last she asked.

“What do you want?”

“Hm?”

He lifted his head, the spell the flames had entranced him with briefly broken.

“What do you want?”

she asked again.

“Is it—this?”

she said with a subtle lift of her wrist to indicate the pile of ashes smoldering still in the fireplace.

“God, no. I want you to stay.”

The words tore themselves from his lungs with a force of their own, as if they’d wrenched themselves up from his very soul.

“I want you to want to stay. And with that contract, I could never be certain of that.”

She could never be certain of that.

“No,”

she said.

“I suppose not.”

He’d polluted love with compulsion. So desperate to be close to her for even a few moments that he’d stopped caring how it had been achieved. And even if they had managed to cobble together some sort of burgeoning new relationship despite that, it couldn’t be trusted. It had been built upon a house of cards of his own construction, the foundation as flimsy as the conditions he’d demanded.

So it had had to go. Even if it would kill his heart to let her go along with it. It hadn’t been of much use to him these last ten years, anyway. A small sacrifice to make, when it would ensure her happiness.

“I told you once,”

he said.

“that I love you enough for both of us. But as it turns out—as it turns out, I love you so much more than that. I love you enough to let you go.”

Her hands flexed at her sides, almost as if she could already feel her freedom set within her grasp.

“And what will you do?”

she asked, straying toward the windows, the gilding of the firelight fading to the silvering of the cold winter sunshine.

“When I’ve gone, what will you do?”

“I don’t know,”

he said.

“I hadn’t considered it.”

“You’ve considered everything else.”

Because she was important, and nothing that would come after her held any promise for him. He didn’t know what he would do because he simply didn’t care. The days would just be a long march stretching out until his inevitable death, each one singularly inconsequential.

“Perhaps I’ll travel,”

he said.

“You’ll forgive me, I’m certain, if I tell you that you will haunt me if I stay.”

Whether or not she meant to. He might never be able to exorcise her from his mind, but it would certainly be an easier task when there was no chance of them encountering one another.

“But your home is here.”

An odd, stray hoarse note quivered in her voice as she turned to face the windows.

“No. It’s just a house.”

He had tried to turn it into a home, but it hadn’t taken. It could never be one without her. When she left, it would be robbed of the potential he had once seen in it, its beauty and grandeur diminished.

Her dark hair was a wretched tangle down her back, and she bent her head like a lily as she busked her arms, chasing away the chill that must’ve set in as she’d moved away from the warmth of the fire.

“You would simply…walk away from all of this? Everything you dreamed of?”

she asked.

“This was never my dream. You were my dream. I’ve never wanted anyone but you.”

He lifted one hand, scrubbed at his jaw.

“You were the only one who ever believed in me,”

he said.

“You saw me when I was no one, when I was poor and dirty and ignorant, with no hope of bettering myself.”

Nor even the desire to do so. He’d known his place, stayed within it. She had given him the first taste of hope for better. Perhaps his first taste of hope at all.

But some dreams weren’t meant to be realized. He had hoarded every bit of wealth and power of which he was capable, and still he couldn’t buy his, nor force it to fruition. And if he couldn’t have his own, then at least he could give hers back to her.

He said.

“I would give everything to go back. But I can only go forward, and this—this is all I have to give you. The staff is at your disposal, whenever you choose to begin packing. I’ll use an unoccupied room until you’ve found your way home.”

Because the school had been that for her for so many years.

The French doors leading to the balcony flew open, and a chilly gust of wind blew inside. Ian lifted his gaze from the fire to see Felicity striding out onto the balcony in nothing but her nightgown.

“Christ.”

He vaulted up from his chair, snatching up her coat where it lay abandoned upon the neighboring chair.

“You’ll catch your death,”

he chided as he strode for the balcony.

“Probably,”

she said, and snuggled into the folds of the coat he draped over her shoulders, her bare toes curling from the cold of the stone floor.

“But I can smell the salt in the air. Isn’t it lovely?”

This far from the sea, yes. Up close it often smelled like overripe fish. Sour and stale.

“Come back inside,”

he urged as she sidled closer to the banister, peering over it down into the garden below.

“Hush,”

she said.

“I’m imagining.”

Imagining.

“You can do that inside, where it’s not bloody freezing.”

He watched as a shiver chased down her spine, flexed his hands at his sides impotently. What had brought her out here now, when she had never cared in the least for the garden before?

Her shoulders hunched, drawing up toward her ears.

“It’s almost perfect,”

she said, and gave a little jerk of her chin toward a portion of the garden.

“The delphiniums there. What color are they when they bloom?”

“Blue,”

he said inanely, jamming his hands into his pockets.

“The ones…the ones on the other side, near the kitchen—they bloom pink.”

“Lovely,”

she said again on a little sigh.

“I never had a garden for the pleasure of it alone. Only a kitchen garden, one fashioned to be useful.”

She slanted him a sidelong glance.

“I would have been satisfied with only that,”

she said.

“Perhaps I’d have kept flowers in pots instead. They do brighten up a room.”

“In summer, when they bloom, the house is lousy with them,”

he said wearily.

“There’s so many blossoms that the staff could cut a new bouquet every day and never run out of them.”

There was a time he’d considered sending them to her. But he’d learned by then that she hadn’t wanted even his letters.

“The wisteria is somehow worse. When it drops its petals, the wind sends them scurrying about, and the whole garden is blanketed in purple. Like snow.”

A soft little approving sound deep in her throat.

“I like the hydrangeas where they are,”

she said.

“Are they also blue?”

He gave a nod.

“Ah, well,”

she said on a gusty sigh, which sounded vaguely disappointed to his ears.

“They’ll give the garden some depth when they bloom again, at least. But the columbines beside them…they will have to go.”

He managed a wry smile.

“I don’t see why. I placed them exactly according to your design.”

Though he hadn’t the means to prove it any longer, since all that remained of that long-ago sketch she had done was a single shred bearing a hydrangea blossom.

“My mistake,”

she said.

“I hadn’t thought of it when I did the sketch, but now that I can see it, there’s entirely too much blue and purple in the garden.”

Was there? He’d thought it quite pretty. Feminine, tranquil. Exactly the sort of garden a lady of leisure would have. The ultimate expression of the life he’d hoped to give her. One of luxury and ease, with a private bower of her own, cultivated to her tastes.

“Daffodils,” she said.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Daffodils,”

she repeated.

“In the spring, when the ground is soft enough to plant them. I want daffodils. Right there where the columbines are. Yellow is such a pleasant, cheerful color, don’t you think?”

∞∞∞

Felicity watched, from the corner of her eye, as the words settled over him like a cape. He didn’t know what to make of them, what he was meant to do with them. What he was meant to think. At last, tentatively, he eased up on her side at the banister, taking the brunt of the biting wind.

“Will you be here in spring, then?”

he asked, so softly that the only reason the words reached her ears was because the wind carried them in her direction.

“I think I would like to be,”

she said. She chafed her hands together, rubbing away the chill that had settled, stinging, into the tips of her fingers.

“I don’t want a ready-made dream,”

she said.

“I don’t want to be kept in a cage purpose-built for me. Do you understand?”

“I do.”

He slid his fingers through his dark, wind-tousled hair.

“I stopped listening to you,”

he said.

“All those years ago.”

Yes. And then he had been so intent upon garnering her attention, making himself understood at last, that he’d still not heard her. Perhaps she had been entirely too stubborn, too formed by the ghosts of her past to grant him a grace she had long learned had no use. Perhaps he had gone about what approximated a courtship entirely the wrong way. But now, at last, she thought they understood one another.

He’d found a way to give her the choice he’d denied her. Without agenda, without manipulation or coercion or expectation. Regardless of the cost to himself. And once she had had it, there, laid neatly into her hands—it had been such a simple one to make.

She had only needed to make it for herself. And now she could smell in the air beneath the tang of sea salt the long-awaited spring waiting to bloom after a decade of deepest winter.

“I love you,”

she said, tipping her head against his shoulder.

“But I need you to love me in my way. And that is not in extravagance or luxury for its own sake. The things that mean the most to me are small but precious. Like—”

“Beef pasties,”

he said.

“And planting daffodils in spring. Together.”

“Yes. Exactly that.”

Relieved, she turned her face against his chest and breathed deeply of the scent of washing soda which still clung to his collar. A testament to the competence of his staff, she thought, who could keep his clothes so scrupulously clean that the scent persisted through a full day or better.

“There’s so much more love in being known like that than there is in a fine house or a vast, immaculately-tended garden.”

“I need the same from you,”

he said, pressing his lips to the top of her head.

“I need your time, your attention. I don’t begrudge you your time at the school, but I could not bear to be strangers sharing the same house. And I also need you to let me love you in my way. Not as a replacement for yours, but in addition to it.”

“What does that look like?”

she asked.

“It looks like seeing you off in the morning. And perhaps retrieving you in the carriage in the evening, to be certain you’re safe on your way home in the dark. And sometimes…”

Her coat fell off her shoulders as his hands seized her waist, lifted her straight off her feet as if she weighed no more than a sack of flour, and carried her bodily back inside. He paused only long enough to nudge the doors closed behind him, banishing the breeze.

He set her down once more at the edge of the bed, tumbled her back to tuck her legs beneath the rumpled covers.

“Sometimes,”

he said.

“it looks like taking care of you, even if you’re perfectly capable of taking care of yourself. And making certain you don’t freeze your toes clean off out of sheer stubbornness.”

“I was coming in!”

she blustered.

“You weren’t,”

he said as he settled beside her.

“And your lips were turning blue.”

“Eventually I was,”

she said as he chafed her hands between his own, rubbing some warmth back into her cold fingers. Beneath the counterpane, her toes tingled as the numbness that had afflicted them began to cede to that queer pins-and-needles sensation.

“All right,”

she allowed, half-resentfully.

“Perhaps not soon enough.”

A faint snicker fell from his lips.

“I don’t want you to fret over problems I can easily solve,”

he said, and once he had judged her hands sufficiently warmed, he laced his fingers through hers.

“As long as I’m alive, you will always have someone to turn to,”

he said.

“But I need you to do it. Sometimes, I need you to tell me what you need from me. In so many words, so that I don’t misunderstand you when it’s most important.”

She swallowed back a ragged little sound, blinking away the sudden sting of tears.

“You may find yourself sorely tested in that regard,”

she said.

“And sooner than you know.”

“How so?”

“I want Grace to stay here with us,”

she blurted out.

“She—she needs somewhere to belong.”

Just as she had. But Grace had not grown up with a sister as she had done. Grace had had no one at all to look out for her, to be on her side.

“She needs a home. A family.”

Ian sighed.

“Felicity—”

Her fingers clutched his.

“Please. I know it is an imposition, but she is my sister.”

“You misunderstand,”

he said.

“You don’t need to ask my permission for that. This is your home. Your family is mine, now, too. They’re welcome whenever you like.”

He managed a rather weak smile.

“Even if a fair few of them would prefer to take strips from my hide with the sharp sides of their tongue than engage in civil conversation.”

“They’ll come around,”

she said, stifling a sniffle. They would, she was confident, once she made it clear to them that the difficulties they had faced in their marriage had been resolved to her satisfaction. She dabbed at her eyes with her sleeve.

“What will we tell people?”

she asked.

“About Grace, I mean to say.”

“That she is your sister,”

he said.

“That is all anyone need know. People tend not to ask questions when one gives them no reason to suspect that there is something worth questioning—and Grace is just a girl, entirely unknown to society. We can tell the truth, and it will not reveal on its own any particular suggestion of impropriety. Lots of people have sisters.”

She supposed he had something of a point, there.

“Frankly, I had assumed that Grace would be staying,”

he said.

“Her social graces are lacking, as is her formal education. I thought we might hire a tutor for her—at least until she is fit to attend your school. It would be good for her, I think, to be around girls her own age.”

“Yes. Yes, that sounds perfect.”

A giddy little laugh rolled up her throat. A problem solved before she had even given voice to it—she had only had to tell him.

“I love you,”

she said, and she flexed her fingers loose of his to grasp the wrinkled fabric of his cravat lying loose still about his neck, grasping the ends to pull him closer.

“I love you,”

she murmured once more, and pressed her lips to his.