Page 38 of Felicity Cabot Sells Her Soul (Scandalous Sisters #3)

No one had come to wake them. Dusk was falling by the time Felicity opened her eyes once more. Ian was still fast asleep beside her, the even rise and fall of his chest suggesting he would be for some time still.

It would have been cruel to wake him, when he was yet sleeping so peacefully. Carefully she slid out from beneath his arm, edging toward the side of the bed until at last she could swing her legs over. In the fading light she dressed silently, slipping into a simple dress and dragging a comb through her tangled hair to wrest free the knots and bind it into a plait.

She slipped out the door into a quiet house. Rather too quiet for such an advanced hour, really, when one considered that silence had not much been an achievable aim since her family had arrived to Brighton. It was not yet the dinner hour, but surely there ought to be some noise somewhere.

She breathed a sigh of relief to catch sight of Butler in the foyer, pleased to find that the house had not been as utterly deserted as it had first appeared.

“Butler, would you happen to know—”

Butler coughed into his fist.

“In the library, madam, likely expecting you,”

he said.

“Would you care for tea? The last service has no doubt gone a bit tepid by now.”

“That would be lovely,”

she said, and grimaced as her stomach gave an audible rumble.

“And if you wouldn’t mind…”

“Tea cakes,”

he said, without so much as twitch.

“To tide you over until dinner, which will be in approximately one hour.”

Good lord, she truly had slept the entirety of the day away.

“Thank you,”

she said sheepishly as he gave a bow and headed off to give the instruction to the kitchen staff.

Faint sounds rose to meet her ears as she proceeded down the hallway toward the library, the gentle hum of conversation, the high-pitched laugh of a baby. She pulled the door open and poked her head inside.

“Ahh, she’s awake at last.”

This from the duke, who had had a prime view of the door from his position upon a couch placed against the opposite wall.

Mercy’s husband chuckled as she entered the room, closing the door behind her.

“We thought we’d have to miss you for dinner,” he said.

“Someone might have thought to wake me,”

she said, searching the tables scattered about the room for signs of the tea service—ah, there it was, just beside the duke. The plate was empty but for the crumbs of whatever food had been delivered alongside it. Drat. She’d have to wait for Butler to return with more.

“I did think to wake you,”

Grace said cheerfully from her position upon a couch, flanked on either side by Mercy and Charity. She wore one of Mercy’s dresses and a bright smile upon her face, and in her arms was little Flora, who was gleefully tugging at a lock of long blond hair which had come loose from Grace’s plait.

“But the both of you sleep like the dead.”

Charity cleared her throat.

“Yes, well,”

she said breezily as a flaming blush slid across Felicity’s cheeks.

“Needless to say, we decided it would be best to let you sleep. So we repaired instead to the library, where we have been endeavoring to ascertain what sort of education Grace has had and to give her a few small lessons on etiquette. Such as not intruding upon someone’s private bed chamber without first announcing one’s presence from outside the door and waiting to be admitted.”

Grace pulled a face.

“But it’s so much faster my way.”

Eager to turn the conversation away from what Grace had witnessed, Felicity squeaked out.

“And what have you learned of Grace’s education?”

“Well, she can’t write much more than her name. But she knows her numbers well enough,”

Thomas said dryly.

“At least well enough to gamble. And she cheats at cards like a damned—”

“You can’t prove I cheated!”

Grace crowed, tilting her chin up stubbornly.

“She’s got the most nimble fingers I’ve ever seen,”

the duke confided.

“And I can prove it, you little hoyden.”

The words were spoken in a generally fond tone, as if they might have been accompanied by a tweak of the nose if he could have reached from his position.

“You can’t!”

Grace insisted.

“I can,”

the duke said firmly.

“I can prove it because I cheated. I deliberately dealt you a two and a seven, and yet you somehow still ended up with a pair of kings in your hand. I just haven’t figured out how you managed it yet.”

“You might have warned me,”

Thomas groused.

“I lost a fair bit of coin to her.”

A sly smile nudged at the edges of Grace’s lips.

“He lost more,”

she said, with a jerk of her chin toward the duke.

“Until he wouldn’t wager anymore.”

“And why ought I have done, you impertinent little baggage? It’d just be throwing good money after bad.”

He leaned forward, rested his hands upon his knees.

“You can keep it all, if you tell me how you did it.”

By the severe slash of Grace’s brows, Felicity guessed that he wouldn’t be getting his money back regardless, and she didn’t intend to tell him anything at all.

“Anthony, you are not going to have my baby sister teach you how to cheat at cards,”

Charity scolded.

“You can keep the coin, dear,”

she said to Grace.

“We’ll call it pin money.”

“Pin money! She fleeced me!”

“You ought to have known better than to challenge a girl who grew up within taverns rather than drawing rooms,”

Charity said.

“You’ve only yourself to blame.”

Before a squabble—however good-natured it might have been—could break out, Felicity interjected.

“Grace is going to stay here. With me.”

She drew a short, sharp breath.

“With us, I mean to say. Ian and me.”

A queer silence descended over the room as Charity and Mercy exchanged speaking glances.

“We had figured as much,”

Mercy said finally, with a little lift of her shoulders.

“At least, after Grace told us—er, what she had seen when she went to wake you, we assumed.”

Oh, lord. If only the floor would open up and swallow her whole to save her from the humiliation. Somehow she pushed through the embarrassment, spreading her hands out in entreaty.

“It is the best thing for you,”

she said to Grace.

“We’ll hire a tutor for you, to teach you the sorts of things you should have learned already. And when you are ready, you’ll have a place at my school, where you can learn the sorts of things a proper lady learns, amongst girls your own age.”

Charity canted her head toward Felicity.

“Is this the best thing for you?”

she asked tactfully, and Felicity knew she was not referring to Grace.

Felicity blinked back a mist of tears, swiped at her eyes with the back of her hand. “Yes,”

she said.

“Yes, it is. It is the best thing for me.”

“That’s all that matters,”

Mercy said, stretching out her hand toward Felicity.

“We decided that straight off. So long as you’re happy.

Felicity fairly tripped across the space that separated them to let Mercy grasp her hand, a sound somewhere halfway between a laugh and a sob emerging from her throat.

“And we shall even endeavor to be pleasant to your husband,”

Charity said, though the tone of her voice suggested it would require a great deal of effort on her part.

“I’m sorry,”

Felicity said with a sniffle.

“To have pulled you away from your own lives for nothing.”

“Not nothing,”

Mercy said.

“It’s been lovely to have the excuse to come for a visit. I’d despaired of being invited. I was so pleased you asked. Honored, really.”

“She was,”

Thomas interjected.

“Set the whole household in a tizzy, insisting that they pack the carriage in no more than half an hour. And we learned that Flora tolerates carriage rides—even long ones—exceptionally well. She slept better in the carriage than she ever has in her cradle.”

“And I was glad,”

Charity confessed.

“to see you for more than a few stolen hours at a time. A letter simply can’t compare.”

No, it couldn’t. There had been times—too many of them—when she had simply needed her sister. Not fond words upon a page, but flesh and blood arms to embrace her and a comforting voice to soothe her. But until just lately, there had been no way to have her sisters near. She’d lived in a tiny, cramped room at the school, working long hours, with little opportunity for leisure. Without even the time to spare that would have allowed her to attend Charity’s wedding, had she ever received the invitation.

But now…now all of them could attend hers.

“I hope you’ll both stay a little longer,”

she said.

“It’s turned out that our marriage was something short of perfectly legal. Ian—Ian offered me a choice.”

Charity understood at once, her expression softening.

“You chose to stay,” she said.

“I did,”

Felicity said.

“I had so much resentment eating at my heart, and I didn’t know how to let go of it. I didn’t know if it was possible to do so. As it happens, I only needed the choice that had been taken from me. I needed to choose for myself.”

And he had needed that, too, she thought. To know that she had stayed out of love and not obligation.

“Once I had that choice in my hands, it was so easy to make.”

“That’s as it should be,”

Charity said, with a genuine smile.

“I’m happy for you, dearest. Truly. So there’s to be another ceremony?”

“Yes; there must be. And I hope—I hope you will all stay to attend.”

“Naturally we’ll stay,”

the duke said.

“Love a wedding.”

“He’s in earnest,”

Charity confided wryly.

“Hopeless romantic, that one.”

“I wouldn’t miss it for the world,”

Mercy said.

“Could…could I come, too?”

Grace asked, bouncing Flora gently in her arms, hope gleaming in her sharp green eyes.

“Of course you can come,”

Felicity said, reaching out to touch her shoulder gently.

“You’re our sister. You belong with us.”

The girl’s lips trembled, but those green eyes were filled with gratitude. It wrenched something soft and fragile within Felicity’s heart to see it, to know that Grace had lived a life of so little faith in even the tiniest hint of affection that even so simple an assurance created that gratefulness within her.

God willing, they would create a place of safety for her here, where she would never need doubt her welcome. Where she would never again be neglected and used.

The door opened, and a maid carried in a fresh tea tray, accompanied by a plate of little tea cakes and sugar biscuits. The tea tray had hardly made it to the surface of the table before Felicity filched a few biscuits, eager to satisfy the hunger that clawed at her stomach.

“We’ll have to determine the menu for your wedding breakfast. And your gown, of course,”

Mercy said, wedging herself up against Grace’s side and patting the cushion next to her.

“Here. Come sit.”

“Oh, I couldn’t,”

Felicity said around a mouthful of crumbs.

“I doubt the couch was designed for four.”

Five with little Flora, but she was so small she hardly counted just yet.

“We’ll make it work,”

Charity said, with a little jerk of her head.

“And if it should collapse beneath us, then your husband will simply have to purchase a sturdier one. For future visits, you understand.”

Future visits. Of course there would be future visits. They were all settled, now, in their own little lives. And Grace—Grace would need the company of all her sisters from time to time, the security she had missed these long years that could only be provided by a loving family of her own. The one she ought always to have had. The one they all ought always to have had; the one they had fought to make for themselves, clinging to one another across the miles and circumstances that had separated them.

She found her place there amongst them, all wedged together on a couch too small to comfortably accommodate them and no less happy for it.

“You’ll have to come again in the spring,”

she said, and passed the plate of tea cakes down their merry row.

“The garden is going to be lovely.”

∞∞∞

“Stop fussing with your cravat, man,”

Anthony sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose in irritation.

Ian fluffed the fall of white linen once more, utterly unconcerned with Anthony’s annoyance.

“It needs to look perfect.”

“It looked perfect about ten minutes ago,”

Thomas said.

“Now it looks a mess.”

It didn’t—did it? Ah, hell. It did. Ian forced his fingers to release the fabric and shoved his hand instead into his pocket, searching for his watch. Came up empty.

“She must be dreadfully late by now,”

he said, patting at his pockets.

“She’s not late. You were terrifyingly early.”

Anthony cast himself down in the pew at the front of the church, rubbing at his temples.

“I’m certain she’s late,”

Ian said.

“Where the hell is my damned watch?”

The reverend, waiting in the wings for Felicity to arrive, narrowed his eyes and glowered. Ian made a mental note to send on a generous donation to the church to account for his language.

“I had Grace nick it off you ten minutes ago,”

Thomas said, his tone exasperated.

“Couldn’t stand watching you glance at it every few minutes. Damned embarrassing.”

And as he, too, caught the sharp end of the reverend’s glare, he mumbled a contrite.

“I beg your pardon, Father.”

“Grace?”

Ian turned.

“Grace is here? Then Felicity—”

“Will arrive shortly. Grace was sent on ahead to bring this.”

Thomas opened his hand, revealing Felicity’s ring cradled in his palm.

“Apparently, you forgot to retrieve it this morning. When you decided to arrive at an utterly insane hour.”

Ian cleared his throat.

“I wanted to be certain to arrive on time,”

he said.

“And women have got so much more to do to prepare. I thought it would be best to give Felicity the run of our bed chamber in privacy.”

“You arrived before the reverend,”

Anthony cast out.

“And nobody knew you’d gone. Set the whole of the household staff looking for you until I thought to track down the coachman and ask if you’d gone out.”

So he’d been a bit too anxious to simply bide his time within the house, counting down the minutes until the appointed hour had at last arrived. So he’d waited on the steps of the church until the reverend had himself arrived. It was his damned wedding day. A man was entitled to certain feelings about it. And…he’d wanted Felicity to come herself. Not escorted to her wedding like the reluctant bride she’d once been, but to come to it of her own free will, under her own power.

“Don’t,”

Thomas commanded, and Ian realized he was once again fussing with his cravat, which now hung rather limply.

“Good God,”

Anthony said.

“You’d think you were a nervous bride. I promise you, she’s coming. There was quite a lot of giggling and shrieking going on when Thomas and I left.”

Ian’s brow pleated in concern.

“Shrieking?”

That hardly boded well.

“Women shriek, from time to time, when they are in particularly pleasant moods. One does grow accustomed to it.”

At Ian’s befuddled gaze, Thomas added.

“I have got two sisters. Between them and Mercy, there is always someone shrieking.”

“Don’t forget Flora,”

Anthony said.

“She shrieks because she’s a baby,”

Thomas said, pushing his spectacles up the bridge of his nose.

“Bit of a difference, there.”

“Not to my ears.”

Grace arrived at Ian’s side as if by magic, appearing, it seemed, out of nowhere. “Father,”

she said sweetly to the reverend, with a widening of her eyes that was altogether too innocent for a girl who had recently stolen Ian’s pocket watch.

“Your collar is a bit askew. Perhaps you’d like to repair it in the vestry?”

It was askew. But Ian would have sworn it wasn’t only moments ago.

“Oh, dear,”

the man said, touching his collar.

“Yes, quite. Thank you, my dear.”

The smile he bestowed upon her was doting, as if she were the only person present to have met with his approval this morning.

As the reverend turned to go, Grace shoved her hand into the pocket of the new gown which had been made for her for the occasion and withdrew a silver flask, which she shoved into Ian’s hand.

“Go on, then,”

she said.

“You look like you need it.”

Ian removed the cap and took a deep drink of the brandy contained therein. It wasn’t until he’d replaced the cap that a thought occurred.

“Where the devil did you get this?”

he asked, staring down at the flask in his hand.

“From the vestry,”

Grace said lightly.

“It was amongst the reverend’s things. I’ll have it back, now. Got to put it back in its place before he notices it’s gone.”

Ian choked on a startled laugh.

“You can’t go around stealing from clergymen,”

he said as he placed the flask back in her hand. But it was hardly the time or place for a lecture.

“Please, for the love of God—don’t get caught.”

“I’ll be especially careful.”

She gave an impish grin as she sauntered off, positioning herself carefully to nip back into the vestry once more when the reverend returned.

She hadn’t returned his watch. Ian flexed his fingers at his sides in a desperate attempt to keep himself from fiddling again with his cravat. And now there was nothing left for him to occupy himself with other than to stare at the church doors and wonder if Felicity intended to arrive at all. If, perhaps, she had reconsidered.

“What do you suppose her gown looks like?”

Anthony inquired, in a rather transparent attempt to drag Ian’s attention away from the church doors.

“I asked Charity, but she wouldn’t tell me. Said Felicity wanted it to be a surprise.”

“Nor Mercy,”

Thomas said.

“But I’m given to understand it was rather expensive to produce in so short a time.”

“I know,”

Grace sang out, her voice humming with satisfaction.

“She let me pick the lace. I’ve seen it; it’s lovely.”

“It’s green,” Ian said.

“She showed you?”

Anthony lifted his head from where it had been pillowed upon one arm.

Ian shook his head.

“No; she wouldn’t say a word, nor show me.”

“Green,”

Thomas mused.

“I’d have guessed blue.”

No; it had to be green. To match her eyes. She had asked his opinion after a fashion, since she’d wanted to have a new gown made up for the occasion. Something he’d not seen before; something she’d chosen herself. And he’d told her he thought green suited her. She’d neither agreed nor argued.

But she had smiled. So it had to be green.

“Blue’s a bit overdone, wouldn’t you say?”

Anthony asked.

“Of course you’d think so,”

Thomas replied.

“Charity wore red to your wedding.”

The reverend, who had since reappeared from the vestry, lifted his brows in scandalized horror.

“Red? To her wedding?”

Anthony lifted his head, shot the reverend a quelling glance, made doubly ominous for the fact that he had but one eye from which to issue it.

“And she looked lovely,”

he said, in a darkling tone that suggested that the reverend ought to consider the matter beyond further discussion.

The church doors opened, and all conversation ceased. Charity and Mercy appeared first, haloed in the early morning light, arm in arm as they entered. And then, on their heels, Felicity appeared at last, her arm wound through Mrs. Nellie Lewis’.

The folds of the voluminous cloak Felicity wore to guard against the winter chill all but obscured the gown beneath it. But as she stepped fully inside the church, and turned to her sisters to aid her in removing it, little hints of seafoam-colored silk trimmed with lace emerged from beneath.

The cloak came free. Ian sucked in a breath, braced one hand upon the arm of the nearest pew.

Anthony drawled.

“Well. I had planned a properly menacing caution over what Mr. Carlisle might expect of us should he prove himself a poor husband. But even a fool could see that such a speech will not be necessary.”

“Oh, no,”

Charity said brightly.

“You should caution him still. Perhaps it is not necessary, but it is appreciated.”

Ian hardly heard.

When he’d recovered himself enough that he could be certain his knees would not collapse beneath him, he strode straight down the aisle for Felicity.

She looked soft and lovely in her seafoam green silk with its delicate lace trim.

The capped sleeves clung to her shoulders, the neckline not quite low enough to be considered daring, but far less modest than the high-necked dresses in which he’d most often seen her.

The full skirts swished with each step.

Her hair had been artfully styled, curls tamed into shining, silky submission, a few left to drape down the back of her neck and to frame her face.

Her eyes sparkled, glinting with mischief.

There was a bounce in her step, a lightness that buoyed her as she turned to meet him.

He reached for her with no other thought in his head but that he had to kiss her. Immediately. And he did, thrilling to the way she settled right into the crook of his arm and tipped her head back to meet his lips.

“Mr. Carlisle!”

the reverend protested sharply, shocked.

Oops.

“You look beautiful,”

Ian said as he withdrew, and a silly grin played about his mouth as a blush climbed into her cheeks.

“You always look beautiful to me,”

he clarified.

“But today—today, especially so.”

That blush burned brighter still.

“I’m sorry I’m late,”

she said.

“It took just ages to fix my hair. And then we had to stop at the school for Nellie.”

She had come. She had come, and she was glowing and bright and effervescent. All joy, not the tiniest iota of hesitance. He didn’t care what had kept her. She’d come.

“Of course. Are you ready?”

he asked, clasping her hand in his.

“Yes—oh.”

Her fingers squeezed his as she turned to Nellie.

“Would you give me away?”

she asked.

Nellie’s face crinkled in a broad smile, her eyes gleaming with a sudden sheen of tears.

“My dear girl,”

she said.

“I’d be delighted. And so very honored.”

“Thank you.”

Felicity let slip his fingers to embrace the older woman, tucking her head against Nellie’s shoulder.

“Just—thank you. For everything. I do love you.”

She dashed a few stray tears from her eyes as she lifted her head once more. “There,”

she said as she grasped Ian’s hand once more, without the least hesitance or apprehension.

“I’m ready,”

she said, and the conviction in her voice stripped away the last of his nerves.

And they walked forward together, toward the end of the aisle and into the future.