Page 7 of Felicity Cabot Sells Her Soul (Scandalous Sisters #3)

Felicity returned to the massive grey stone building just as the rain had begun to let up at last. Even the shelter of the umbrella that Ian had insisted she take had failed to save her from the worst of the rain which had, at a few points, seemed to come down sideways.

By the time she had made it back, her teeth had been chattering so severely in the frigid cold that she couldn’t quite remember the point she had meant to make with her insistence upon walking.

It had been, in retrospect, rather shortsighted of her.

The school was quiet, as was to be expected over the Christmas holiday.

She hoped the two students remaining at the school—Dorothea White and Annabel Parker—were engaged in some sort of leisure activity within the house, since the weather would not have allowed for anything outside of it.

But it was Nellie she wished to find, and swiftly.

They’d had no chance to speak after Felicity had returned home evening last, nor even this morning.

She only hoped that Nellie had not yet done anything rash in her absence.

Such as sending the girls home. Or dashing off letters to the rest of the families to announce the closure of the school.

Or letting the remainder of the staff go.

A nameless anxiety tied a knot in her chest as she shrugged out of her cold, wet coat, hung it upon the rack, and headed for the stairs.

The steps creaked beneath her feet, and Felicity winced at the reminder that there were still too many things in want of repair, too much that had gone undone for lack of funds.

She could only hope that now that the crisis had been averted, they would have a bit of breathing room in which to recover.

Perhaps it would still take some time to scrape together the funds to make certain repairs, but at least they had escaped the threat of the bank clawing back the school building.

The murmur of voices snagged her attention as she ascended the stairs.

The door to the sitting room had been left ajar, and as Felicity paused there, debating whether or not she ought to simply proceed to her own small room to change her clothing, a man stepped into the doorway.

The fine hairs at the nape of her neck prickled.

She’d seen the same man in Ian’s office only an hour or so ago.

The bank manager. Nellie appeared in profile just through the door, clutching a stack of papers to her chest, her lower lip trembling with emotion.

“Thank you, Mr. Grantham,” she said, and the gratitude within her voice soothed a bit of Felicity’s apprehension.

So. Ian had kept his word, after all. “My pleasure, Mrs. Lewis,” Mr. Grantham said, and as he turned to leave he caught sight of Felicity standing there upon the landing.

“Mrs. Carlisle,” he added. Mrs. Carlisle.

Felicity flexed her fingers at her sides, feeling the phantom weight of the ring she had removed.

“Is all…resolved?” she asked of him delicately.

“To the bank’s complete satisfaction,” Mr. Grantham replied, with a little nod.

Felicity sighed her relief as he headed for the stairs.

“Wherever have you been, dear?” Nellie asked, her fingers crinkling the papers still cradled to her chest. “I missed you at breakfast.” Felicity winced.

She supposed she had not been particularly elucidating when she had left last evening, nor even in her note this morning.

“It’s quite a long story,” she said. “May I see the paperwork first?” “If you like,” Nellie said, as she extended the stack of papers.

“Since I can only assume I owe my salvation to you.” “I only want to make certain it is all in order,” Felicity said.

She had, after all, made a great number of sacrifices in order to gain it.

A fresh shiver rolled down her spine as the cling of her wet dress chilled her skin further.

“You’re soaked to the bone, poor thing,” Nellie clucked.

“Here, sit,” she said as she ushered Felicity into the sitting room and caught up a spare blanket to cast about Felicity’s shoulders.

“Let me make you a nice cup of tea. The pot is still warm.” It took a few minutes to parse the legalese in which the contract had been rendered, to translate the words in her head to something less arcane.

But they still didn’t quite seem to make sense.

“Nellie,” she said as she flicked through the pages, her brow furrowing further with each.

“This isn’t a discharge of the mortgage.

” Nellie’s brow wrinkled in confusion. “No, dear. Had you expected it to be?” Yes .

“But—” What, then, had she bought with her grand sacrifice?

“ It should have been. Shouldn’t it? You told me twelve hundred pounds.

” She thumbed through the pages; there had been figures upon one of them, she was certain of it.

Nellie’s brow furrowed quizzically. “Yes,” she said.

“There was the quarterly payment due the bank, in addition to a particularly weighty penalty applied to the prior payments missed. That, with what was still owed for the repair of the roof and the cellar stairs, coupled with our remaining balance with the butcher, the baker, the chandler, and such. Twelve hundred pounds, all told.” Felicity swallowed hard.

“I had thought…” But she hadn’t asked ; not really.

The moment had been so tense, so fraught—she had never truly clarified what Nellie’s debt comprised.

Whether than twelve hundred pounds had included the whole of the mortgage.

“I thought I had saved the school,” she said, as she found the page at last. The remaining balance owed upon the mortgage over the life of the loan.

Another sixteen hundred pounds. And Felicity would have wagered every last farthing of her meager savings that Ian had known it.

She ought to have bargained for more. At the very least to have had a better sense of what, exactly, she had been bargaining for before she had charged off to Ian’s house evening last. “But you did,” Nellie said as she handed over a cup of tea.

“My dear, you’ve been a godsend. Mr. Grantham came to tell me that the outstanding balance has been paid along with all the rest of my debts.

” But she hadn’t saved the house. She hadn’t saved the school .

“There’s still such a large balance left,” Felicity said inanely.

“How will we—” Nellie reached out to squeeze her hand.

“Not to worry, my dear,” she said, almost conspiratorially.

“We have got an investor.” Oh, no. Oh, no .

Felicity’s fingers clenched upon the paperwork in her hands.

“Nellie,” she breathed. “What have you done?” Another squeeze, though it was hardly reassuring.

“Don’t fuss, dear,” Nellie said. “The profits of the school will be ours alone. And we’ll still have the use of the building,” she added.

“In perpetuity, I am assured. We simply won’t be responsible for the maintenance of the building or the mortgage upon it any longer.

It’s all in the paperwork.” And so it was.

In black and white. “You sold the school,” Felicity said in a shaken murmur.

“Not the school , dear. Only the building. But there will be a stipend for wages and expenses, and the repairs, you know—” “You sold the school to Ian Carlisle .” Felicity’s eyes closed on a wave of hopelessness.

He had planned this, all along. And it felt rather like cheating, like he had baited her into a game she couldn’t ever have hoped to have won.

One in which he had stacked the deck, meticulously arranged the pieces to his advantage in advance.

“I thought you had arranged it,” Nellie said.

“It was quite sudden, naturally, but I was assured that I could remain on in an advisory capacity, while you took over the role of headmistress. And that—that is what I wished most.” She gave a flustered little laugh.

“I had expected another year, perhaps two, before I handed the reins over to you. But I’ll admit I have bungled the financial aspects of this business, and it will be something of a relief to leave them in more capable hands.

” Yes. Ian’s. Felicity took a deep, steadying breath through her nose.

She had been set up. A plot contrived around her, her reactions measured and weighed and balanced.

How many contingencies had he had, precisely?

Would he truly have let her walk out of his office this morning if she had simply thrown his whole ultimatum into his face?

Now there would be no walking away at all.

The offer that Nellie had received from Ian which she had thought so very generous was, in point of fact, exactly that.

The best she could hope to receive, even if it came with consequences Nellie could by no means have foreseen.

A home for the remainder of her life, a guaranteed salary, and what promised to be the revival of the school she had built in a property with no mortgage and no bills.

An angel of an investor who would pay all expenses, asking nothing in return—except ownership of the property that had once belonged only to Nellie.

And Felicity was not so foolish as to believe that Nellie could secure a mortgage on a different property.

Nor could she, now a married woman, attain one without Ian’s approval.

Nellie drew in a sharp little breath. “Felicity,” she said, as if the thought had only just occurred to her.

“Mr. Carlisle . Is he—” “My husband,” Felicity admitted reluctantly.

“As of half an hour ago.” “Your husband!” Nellie gasped.

“I wasn’t aware that you had had a suitor.

” That was hardly surprising; Nellie hadn’t been aware of her association with Ian even years ago when first they had become involved.

It was why Felicity had kept such a careful eye upon the girls in her care.

She had learned from experience all the best ways to sneak from the safety of the house.

To meet with a lover in secret. “It’s a very long story,” she reiterated wearily.

And not one she could tell until she could figure out how to do so without hurting Nellie’s tender feelings.

Without casting blame upon her. Nellie might have gotten them into the frying pan—but she had cast them straight into the fire.