Page 6 of Felicity Cabot Sells Her Soul (Scandalous Sisters #3)

As Ian scratched out yet another signature for the banker who had, as directed, come to call upon him early in the morning, the door to his office flew open and cracked against the wall.

So. Felicity had come early, then. In a strained voice, Butler announced, “Sir, Miss Cabot has—” Thwack .

A familiar folio landed upon Ian’s desk with unerring accuracy, the force of the throw that had landed it there sending a number of other papers flying.

He swallowed down a sigh. At least he had signed those already, though the ink might not have dried entirely.

Felicity had swept past Butler entirely, sailing into the office on the strength of her indignation.

The air crackled with tension, and he found he could not be certain if she owed the faint fuzziness of her hair to her escalating ire or to the particularly cold and drizzly weather.

“I thought I told you to wear something pretty,” he said, watching the arches of her brows slant down into a scowl.

“Beggars can’t be choosers,” she retorted, with a pugnacious lift of her chin.

Her voice had been clear and even, but there were dark smudges beneath her eyes attesting to a long night of little sleep.

“I think you’ll find that between the two of us, I’m not the beggar,” Ian said.

He set his pen down and straightened in his seat.

Lifting one hand to gesture to the man who stood, riveted by the scene playing out before him, he said, “Felicity, may I introduce Mr. Grantham? He manages the bank which holds Mrs. Lewis’ mortgage.

” Her stiff shoulders, which had been wrenched back proudly when she had sailed in, relaxed a fraction.

Probably she had not entirely expected him to honor his word.

Probably she had spent a not-insignificant fraction of her night fretting over it.

“Is it done, then?” she asked. “Because I won’t marry you until it is.

” “It would have been.” Had she not stormed in as though she owned the place already and sent his paperwork flying off the desk.

“Only a few more signatures. Banking is a tedious business.” By the sound Mr. Grantham made beneath his breath, Ian guessed he was on his own in his opinion.

His gaze drifted to the folio, which bore a few marks he knew had not been present evening last when he’d given it to her.

A few scratches, a few gouges. One corner looked slightly singed, as if she had gotten perilously close to tossing it in the fire as she’d suggested she might.

“Have you read it, then?” “Most of it,” she said.

“The text was quite small, and I’m allotted only two candles in the evenings.

I spent most of the night straining my eyes in reading by the light of the fire.

It’s given me the devil of a headache.” “Has it?” There was a queer sensation at the back of his neck, a prickle of awareness.

She had always been clever—cleverer than he, in a good number of ways.

She had laid a trap somewhere within those words, and she was only waiting to spring it upon him.

Though she did not betray it with so much as the tiniest sliver of a smirk, he could sense the balance of power shifting between them, as if she had wrapped the rope of it in her fist and given it a firm tug.

“It made it most difficult,” she said, “to make revisions.” “Revisions,” he echoed inanely.

“ What revisions? I don’t recall agreeing—” “But you will,” she said, and a malevolent undertone had crept into her voice.

The suggestion that he might have tossed her into the depths of the ocean with no avenue for escape—but it didn’t mean she wouldn’t drag him down beneath the waves with her.

“You will . I’ll admit I spent an hour, perhaps two, simply reading and fuming.

And then a very simple fact occurred to me.

I allowed myself to become so irate with your arrogance, with the devious foresight in which you concocted this—this farce of a proposal, that I very nearly missed the most important part of it.

” Ian’s fingers tightened around his pen.

“Which is?” “It’s fifty-four pages,” she said.

“Fifty-four. A trifle excessive, no? A trifle obsessive, even, to put so much effort, so much time into such a thing. It must be terribly important to you.” God dammit .

“Grantham,” he said. “ Out .” The man took off like a shot, heading for the door with an alacrity that suggested he had as little interest in being caught in the crossfire between them as Ian had in allowing the man such an intimate glimpse into his personal life.

The door closed. Silence descended. And Ian considered his position anew.

Felicity stood before him, her hands braced flat upon the surface of his desk, the folio laying upon it between them like a gauntlet of challenge.

He’d elected not to rise when she had entered, to convey the same manner of power he’d held in his hands evening last. That no one could make him bow, make him scrape or plead.

But she could. She always could. And now she loomed, deliberately imposing even for her middling height.

She had taken his power, seized it in her fist, and yanked it straight from his hands.

Fifty-four pages . It certainly hadn’t started out that way, but he’d seen the slow collapse of her school coming for months now.

In the bitterness of the half-life he’d lived without her, he’d had so much time to consider, to make revisions of his own, to concoct an ever-increasing list of demands.

He’d assumed she would accede to every one of them when her situation became dire enough.

And he’d been correct, of course. Every bit of his frustration, all ten years of aggravation and hopelessness he’d suffered had come out in those pages.

She hadn’t given him so much as the time of day in better than a decade—so he’d demanded it.

Claimed every day, every hour, every minute of her time.

And in the doing of it, he’d revealed his own desperation.

He hadn’t even glanced at it, this manifesto he’d laid into her hands, since his solicitor, Mr. Graves, had delivered the finished product to him.

He’d had no idea how far past reasonable the simple agreement he’d begun with had ballooned into a testament to his own obsession.

Fifty-four pages built into a weapon he himself had given her.

And she knew it. “You would have been better served,” Ian said slowly, “if you had waited until I’d finished with Mr. Grantham.

I’ve three pages left to sign. Our deal falls apart if I don’t.

” A muscle twitched beneath her right eye.

“I’ve already burned the page I signed,” she said.

“And I’ve no intention of signing my name to it again now that I know what is in this.

” Her jaw tightened; Ian fancied he could hear the grind of her teeth.

“I have no intention of surrendering my career, or acting as your hostess for dinner parties, or managing your household, or requesting your permission for a damned thing.” All right, so a few of his requirements had been a bit of a stretch from the beginning.

But she had hated him for years already; what was a little more of it added to the pile?

He’d never really wanted her under his thumb.

But he had wanted her in his life. He’d surrendered more than a few principles and moral standards to which he had always held himself in order to effect it.

Each of those obnoxious conditions he had placed in that contract had become liabilities.

She would walk and damn the consequences; he could see it there in the vibrant, toxic green of her eyes.

His thumb rifled over the corners of the three remaining pages.

It wasn’t much. Just three signatures. But it was all he had.

He said, “Marriage is non-negotiable.” She lifted one hand from the surface of his desk to place it upon the leather folio, pressing down so hard her fingers whitened.

“I won’t agree to this.” “Not in whole,” he said.

He had bungled any hope of that. “But those last three signatures—how much are they worth to you?” Those bitter, vengeful eyes narrowed in rank suspicion.

“What are you suggesting?” “A concession each,” he said.

“Three things from you in total, of my choosing.” “And the rest of this?” she asked.

“You may feed it to the fire with my blessing.” Her lips pursed in consideration.

Gradually she relaxed, straightening once more and lifting her free hand to tuck a tiny, frizzy curl that had escaped its pins back behind her ear.

“I will not surrender my career,” she said.

Ian hadn’t planned on asking that concession of her, but it suited his purposes to have her state it so plainly and open herself up to further bargaining.

“I’ll agree to that,” he said, “in return for an additional concession of you.” And his brain was already whirling through its paces, considering those most important, most necessary.

“It’s not so very much when weighed against what I might have asked.

” “What you did ask,” she said with resentful sibilance.

It would have served no purpose to remind her that her opinion of him could hardly have sunk any lower than already it had been.

He’d become the villain of her story years ago.

She could not blame him for acting the role she’d assigned to him.

“Is that a yes or a no?” he asked. “There’s twenty minutes before we are due at the church.

I’d suggest you decide quickly.” “Four concessions,” she said almost to herself as she glanced down at the folio pressed beneath her palm, and he knew she was thinking of how many of them he was surrendering the right to, how many hours she had spent evening last poring over the documents he’d given her, how much fury they had incited.

“ Just four?” “Just four.” “And you will never try to—to exercise what authority the law might bestow upon you?” “No.” “And what binds you to that, then?” “My honor. And yours. I don’t doubt that you’ll find new and inventive ways to make me suffer should I fail to hold up my end of our bargain.

” He flicked his gaze to the clock. “There’s not time enough to draw up another contract presently,” he said, and extended his hand to her.

“A handshake will do for the moment. At least until I can have my solicitor draw up a revised document, which will prove considerably shorter.” Another long moment, and finally she lifted her hand from where it was planted atop the folio, and extended it toward him.

Her fingers brushed his—stopped. Curled into a fist. “Are you having me followed?” she asked.

“Followed?” Ian felt his brows knit. “What do you mean?” “I noticed a great hulking behemoth of a man following me,” she said, in tones of faint exasperation, as if she suspected he only pretended ignorance.

“Did you set him upon me?” “I haven’t set anyone upon you.

Someone is following you? Have you any idea why?

” A muscle jumped in her cheek. “No,” she said, but the word was offered tightly, her voice strained.

She’d lied to him, and she wasn’t even any good at it.

But her fingers uncurled and her hand slid into his, clasping his own, and he decided it would be best to let the matter pass for now.

Now, when her hand was in his. When she’d touched him of her own accord for the first time in a decade.

When she’d agreed to marry him. Reluctantly he released her hand to take up his pen once again.

As he dipped the nib in the inkwell, he said, “First, you will reside in my house.” It hadn’t been a given; he knew of more than a few married couples who lived apart by choice or otherwise.

He’d sacrificed a concession for it, but he would not have put it past her to take herself straight back off to her school if he hadn’t.

“Second,” he said, scrawling out his name upon the page before him, “you will sleep in my bed.” Felicity rolled her eyes, folding her arms over her chest. She had to have expected it, though—it had been written into those fifty-four pages.

And still, above all other things, she had chosen to safeguard her career first. Ian flipped a page, scrawled another signature.

“Third. I want one hour of your time every evening,” he said.

Her eyes narrowed once again to slits. “For what purpose?” Just to be near her, but she would not welcome that comment.

“Conversation,” he said. “Or perhaps dinner, or the occasional event for which I am engaged. Nothing you would find untoward or unsavory, I promise you.” Another flip of the page.

The last line there awaiting his signature.

His pen hovered over it. She was going to balk; he knew she was.

But he’d been forced to cede so much already that he needed to make those four concessions count.

“Fourth,” he said. “I will require a kiss from you—just one—every day. Beginning now, before I make my mark upon this last page.” “A kiss!” she seethed, exactly as he had expected.

“Why?” Because he could not stomach the thought that the last time she would ever touch him would be some minutes from now when the reverend called her to set her hand in his.

“Because it is what I require of you,” he said.

And then to needle her into action, he added, “I’ve surrendered a great many things.

Surely you can manage only this.” With a muted sound of fury, she reached across his desk, seized his cravat in her fist, and dragged him closer.

It could hardly have been called anything close to affectionate, but she mashed her lips against his cheek in a bizarre mockery of a kiss.

“I trust that will satisfy your condition,” she said acidly as she released his cravat, now hopelessly wrinkled.

“It does,” he said as she blinked in surprise.

And he scrawled his name to the last line, set down his pen, and pushed himself out of his chair.

“Butler will collect the pages and deliver them to Mr. Grantham,” he said as he rounded the desk.

“And we have got an appointment with the reverend.”

∞∞∞

Five minutes ago, she had been Felicity Cabot.

Now she was Felicity Carlisle. And so she would be—forever, quite possibly.

Or at least until Charity and Mercy received the letters she had sent off this morning on her way to meet with Ian.

Unless they came, quickly, to rescue her.

She had known even last evening that there would be no way out of marriage; not without sacrificing Nellie and the school they had both worked so hard for.

But at least she had managed to change the terms. Something not quite to her favor, but not nearly as much to Ian’s, either, and that felt…

important. Significant. A small upset in the balance of power, which he had tried so hard to skew in his own direction, and which she had wrested back from such an uneven slant.

And he had allowed it. Bargained, when he might have insisted.

As his carriage clattered across the cobblestone road away from the church, Felicity flexed her knuckles, squeezing the thin gold band between the vise of the fingers on either side.

It had surprised her, somehow, that Ian had had one to hand when the reverend had called for one.

Probably it shouldn’t have—she ought to have known that he would leave little to chance.

He had planned for this, after all, and it stood to reason that he would have had a ring.

But the simplicity of it had been unexpected.

Just a plain gold band with a few tiny stones set into the surface, which could probably have been had at any jeweler’s shop in town.

Not the sort of band well-suited to the sort of man he was at present.

A man with a massive house and a houseful of servants to go with it.

A man who had clawed his way into the position in the world he now occupied, and seemed to have developed a taste for the finer things in life.

Had she expected a ring of any variety, it would have been something far more ostentatious, far more gaudy and valuable.

Which hardly mattered, as she didn’t intend to wear it.

“Stop the carriage, please,” she said as she tugged the ring off of her finger.

“I’ll walk back to the school.” On the opposite seat, Ian’s head swiveled toward her, expression incredulous.

“It’s at least a quarter of an hour away,” he said.

“I’m aware.” “In the rain.” “All of my clothes are there. I shall simply change when I arrive.” She held the ring out to him in cup of her palm.

He made no move to take it, though his jaw tensed.

She sensed him running through a succession of responses in his mind, almost as if she could hear the click of cogs and gears spinning within.

A muscle flexed in his cheek, and he swallowed—a great number of arguments, she hoped, given that if he made them, he’d be renouncing any claim to honor he had so recently made.

With one hand he reached up and knocked upon the roof of the carriage, which swiftly began to slow.

“There’s an umbrella beneath your seat,” he said tightly.

“Take it.” It was in her head to refuse only to be contrary and disobliging, but as she cast open the carriage door once it had come to a stop, the pound of the rain on the pavement stilled her tongue.

“I will,” she said as she reached beneath the seat to retrieve it.

And then she uttered a begrudging, “Thank you.” “I’ll send the carriage for you this evening.

” And then, as she bristled anew at the autocratic tone he had adopted, he added, “You said someone had followed you. It was not at my instruction.” “Oh.” She hadn’t let it slip her mind, exactly.

It was just that she had more pressing concerns at present.

She wasn’t certain she believed him entirely.

But she wasn’t certain she didn’t, and that would have to mean— “I will take the carriage, then.” She gave a little gesture of her hand.

“The ring—” “You don’t have to wear it,” he said.

“Of course I don’t.” It had not been amongst the concessions she had made.

Still he made no move to take the ring, and she heaved an exasperated sigh and tucked it into her coat pocket instead.

“I’ll send footmen to accompany the carriage,” he said as she opened the umbrella to shelter her as she exited the carriage.

“If you haven’t found the time to pack your things before they arrive, they’ll assist you.

And, Felicity.” His hand curled around her wrist with carefully measured strength.

“Don’t dawdle this evening. You owe me an hour. ”