Becca St.John (24 page)

“Well then.” Felicity headed toward the study, “If I stayed neat and tidy, you would have very different answers for all those questions.”

Having made her point, she started down the hall when the faithful retainer said the one thing that could stop her.

“Lord Redmond’s friend…”

Oh, Lord.
“Yes, of course, Thomas’s friends are visiting.”
How could she have been so thoughtless. Her brother had guests.

She made a point to avoid them when she worked in the stillroom or the greenhouses. It would be beyond embarrassing to run into them now. “I’ll slip into the study and out,” she whispered. “I’ll be quick as a cricket. No one will see me.”

Quieter, less she attract attention, she hurried to the study, turned into the doorway and stopped, teetering on her hesitation.

He stood at the far end of the room, his back to her, absently massaging a limb she knew should hurt like the devil. Despite his injury, this man was not a patient.

Afraid to breathe, to give him reason to turn around, she stepped back, spun out of the room, pressed against the wall, like one of those targets portrayed in flyers about the wild west of the Americas.

Ridiculous, she was being ridiculous.

There was nothing to be afraid of.

She took a deep breath, stood tall, straightened her skirts, adjusted her favorite blue shawl and lifted her chin. No reason to be miss-ish. She was a grown woman of twenty with responsibilities far beyond her age, a capable adult.

She peeked around the door frame for one more glimpse.

A hand landed on her shoulder followed by a conspiratorial whisper. “Cis?”

Felicity jerked back, knocking her younger sister Caro against the wall. Without apology or explanation, she shushed her as she propelled them both further down the hall.

“Who’s in there?” Caro hissed. “Who are you hiding from?”

“Oh, Caro.” Felicity fought against her own foolishness. “You startled me.”

Caro raised an eyebrow.

“Really, Caro, I’m not hiding. You merely caught me off-guard.” Felicity brushed her skirts rather than meet her sister’s eye. “Father told me someone waited to speak with me.”

A gentleman, he had said, and she thought ‘gentleman’ in the broadest of senses. A man looking for a tonic or a salve or some such. Only this was not one of ‘those’ gentlemen and she was too unsettled, too flustered for being unsettled, to discuss it with Caro.

“Bit strong, your reaction,” Caro argued, though she relaxed. “What is the matter with this one? A putrid boil you don’t want to face?”

“Nothing like that.” Felicity twined arms with Caro. “Certainly not as interesting as you in your new travelling frock. Does this mean you are going? I thought you weren’t leaving until afternoon.” She led them further away from the study.

“I’m traveling with the Downings. Beth sent a note around this morning, she wants to get back to Easton early. Last term and all.”

“Ah, yes, our beloved Easton Academy for Young Women,” Felicity mocked with gravity. “Some do love it there.”

“Some of us do,” Caro teased. “Just not you.”

“Now, now,” Felicity objected. “I did my penance, no squirming out of it, though I can’t say it made a vast difference to my life.”

“That’s because you aren’t like the rest of us who abhor edifying literature and actually enjoy the niceties of the finishing process.”

“I’m finished!”

Caro laughed, her gaze prompting Felicity to look down at her simple, practical muslin dress, rumpled from working in the stillroom.

“There is that.” Felicity bit her lip.

Caro bumped her side, hip to hip. “What?”

Felicity hesitated, only to be bumped again. “What?” Caro pried.

It was just too embarrassing to admit to Caro who, not even out in society yet, understood matters of the heart, knew what reciprocated love felt like. Caro would never understand unrequited soul-destroying adoration.

Caro crossed her arms, tapped her foot. Loudly. Loud enough someone could hear from another room.

Finger to her lips, Felicity unwound the arm twined with Caro’s and pointed back toward the study door. Delightfully intrigued, Caro skipped to the opening, peered into the room. A breath later, she pulled back with a jerk, eyes wide, and mouthed, “Is that who is waiting for you?”

Forlorn, another glance at her dress, Felicity nodded. Caro rolled her eyes.

“Is he ill?” Caro asked. “He’s been limping. Perhaps what you prescribed isn’t working.”

Felicity shook her head. “I didn’t prescribe anything.”

“Nothing?”

“Close your mouth, Caro, it’s not becoming.” Felicity pulled her sister away from the door again, worried he might hear them. “He wouldn’t discuss his limbs with me, declined any conversation of a healing nature.”

“But everyone talks to you about their aches and pains.”

“Actually, his conversation has been quite singular in that respect. Delightful, really.” They talked about books, they played chess, they laughed at the family’s antics. Like she was a normal, everyday young lady. Perfectly mundane. Far too wonderful. He terrified her.

“A welcome respite, no doubt.”

“Yes, I rather think so.” She swallowed her fear, headed back toward the study.

Caro stopped her. “You should change.”

“No,” Felicity shook her head, “I’ve been too long already.” It wouldn’t matter. He was not the one adoring.

Hand trembling, she gripped the doorframe, peeped one more time as if something could have changed. It hadn’t. The Marquis of Andover, her brother’s friend and houseguest, a gentleman in the strictest top of the tree sort of way, waited.

Alone.

Definitely alone. No one else there, just the Marquis at the window, facing the gardens, hands clasped behind his back. The spring sun, so elusive of late, casting a golden halo about him. A trick of light. He was no pious saint. Not at all. He was a heathen god carved from granite, all sharp cheek bones and dark slash of brow. Intimidating, even for a young lady not prone to intimidation—and that was before he smiled.

She pulled back, slumped against the hall wall, hand to heart and fought for calm; breathe in…breathe out…he is just a man…he is just a man…he is…

Caro sidled up beside her. “You look beautiful and the dress isn’t bad, it’s just worn.”

Sisters were good to have. “I never think about such things.”

“I know.” Caro agreed. “You are too busy with your medicines. It’s rather good to see you wake up to it now.”

“Caro, what am I going to do? I’m not a bit like you and Mama. You both know…well, you just know about things, people.” She gestured at the length of her sister in her pretty spring outfit and new bonnet. “And you always look just right, so fashionable, slim and tall, both fair and fiery.”

“Fiery?” Caro screwed up her face. “What, because we have red hair?”

“Look at me,” Felicity groused. “Ordinary brown hair, brown eyes. Not even the tiniest hint of curl for redemption. All I can do is pull it back. And my skin?” She cringed. “A moment in the sun and I’m as brown as a nut.”

“A moment in the sun and I’m as burnt as a hot coal,” Caro argued.

“What about my eyes? They’re too large.”

Caro stepped back. “What has come over you? I am calming Lady Calm herself? I’ve never seen you like this. People from five parishes chose you over a physician or apothecary. I swear the vicar is praying for your very soul over the idolatry you provoke and you are worried about what you look like?

“Obviously, you never needed to notice before, so I will tell you what you have failed to see. You are beautiful, like a doe, gentle and quiet.”

Felicity picked at her dress, wide enough to accommodate hips decidedly wider than her waist. “These current styles don’t suit me.”

Caro threw up her hands. “That’s because you have a figure. Mother has always said some women look better undressed.”

“Undressed?”

Caro snickered wickedly.

Felicity gave her a shove and moaned. “That doesn’t help. It only makes me more nervous.”

“Delicious. Felicity as a mortal and a wet-behind-the ears fledgling mortal at that,” Caro chuckled.

Too distracted to listen, Felicity merely agreed. “Perhaps.” Then she frowned as she realized what she just said.

They stood, quietly, in the hallway.

“Is he proposing?”

Felicity’s head snapped up as she tamped down girlish notions. “No.” It was impossible, a foolish dream. “Of course not. He is committed to Lady Jane.” She shook her head as if words weren’t enough. “I’m sure of it.” She shook her head again, feeling a bit woozy. “No,” she repeated.

He sought her company because she was the only quiet one in a boisterous family and on this, his first step out of mourning, he needed peace. The Westhaven household was not a gentle first step.

Caro was right, she just had to go in there and see what he wanted. It didn’t matter what she wore. No one would call her a goddess, nor did he expect to see her as one. Hesitating in a doorway would not change that.

With a deep breath, she stepped into the room, off a veritable cliff, her stomach roiling as self-assurance plummeted, her confident self swept away in the fall, revealing an unfamiliar shy, vulnerable girl she never thought to be.

“Lord Andover?”

He turned to her, fit and handsome in buff trousers and a superfine jacket a rich shade of cobalt. His neatly knotted cravat secured with a sapphire pin complemented the coat. A glint of sun highlighted the ebony dark of his hair, a perfect foil to cerulean eyes. Not that she could see those eyes with the sun at his back. But she knew them.

“Lady Felicity.” He reached out both hands, naked of gloves, as were hers.

Did he mean for her to take them? To touch, flesh to flesh? So casually? Heat blossomed in her cheeks as she crossed the room, hands clutched at her waist, uncertain of his intention in reaching for her like that. Jarred by that uncertainty.

“Allow me this liberty.” He eased open her hands, pressed them against his chest and spoke in that deep, comforting voice of his. It poured over her, a warm waterfall of sound, as she stared, enthralled by the sight of her hands caught between the warmth of his body and the hardness of his palms.

A thrilling, foreign intimacy, the steady thump of his heart, the vibration of his baritone. A language of the senses.

Earthy heat radiated through his shirt, carried the scent of his cologne. She inhaled the spicy exotic fragrance and swallowed, afraid she might melt, right there, in a puddle at his feet. Grappling for security, she reminded herself she was a pragmatic, intelligent young lady, vastly more mature than most women her age and far beyond being carried away by bare skin.

Silence.

Startled, she looked up. He finished whatever he was saying, watched her with a small smile.

Oh, Lord, she should have paid attention.

“Will you?” He finally asked again, for she was certain he had already asked her once. “Will you do me the honor of marrying me?”

She blinked, stunned. “Me?”

His chuckle washed over her, as he freed one hand to brush a finger across her cheek. “Yes, you.”

She swallowed again, just to be certain she could, as she tried to rein in the tumult of thoughts his words provoked.

“Is this a prank?” She looked about for her siblings. Thomas, for certain, possibly Edward, even Annabel, though a bit young, would be up to this sort of game. Caro had vanished from the hall. No one popped out from behind a settee. No suspicious lumps or toes peeked from where the curtains were gathered.

“A prank?” He bent enough to look in her eyes. “This is no jest. Your father and I have been discussing the details all week.”

And no one told her? As if she were some silly school girl?

“You are not here to visit Thomas?”

Still clasped, Andover let their hands fall down between them, his thumb absently caressing her knuckles. It rippled through her into dark private places.

“I arrived for a small house party with no particular aim other than friendly amusement.” He looked out toward the window before returning to her gaze. “Then I found you. Did you not notice my attention?”

“You’ve been kind and polite.” And attentive.

She never dared presume it meant anything to him, other than friendly camaraderie. He was to marry Lady Jane Townsend. Lady Jane herself had assured the whole of Easton Academy for Young Women that one day she would be Lady Andover. With Caro still at Easton, surely they would have heard the high drama if those expectations failed to reach fruition.

Then again, there had been no mention of Lady Jane in the whole of Andover’s visit. Not even from Lord Upton, Andover’s closest friend, and Lady Jane’s brother. He was visiting as well and one would expect him to say something if a betrothal was on the boards.

“Would you like time to think about it?” he offered, his smile replaced with a knotted brow.

No, she didn’t need time, not that she would tell him that. “You have taken me by surprise.”

Marriage. To Lord Andover.

Oh Lord, oh Lord, oh Lord.

She fought for a serene smile while her insides rioted. He proposed to her, Felicity, not some vivacious other girl. Not to some terribly regal miss. He saw beyond her reticence, accepted her unfashionably educated mind, and chose her rather than a social bully like Lady Jane.

The flurry of excitement stalled. Lady Jane’s infamous temper was a very real obstacle. Felicity had been the brunt of it far too often to dismiss it easily.

“Have I surprised you in a bad way?”

“No, not at all I’m just beyond words.”

“I see.”

Did he? This was no surprise to him, or to her father or to, well, how many others? Did everybody know and if so how could that be without her the least bit aware?

Yet here he stood, near enough she felt the starch of his shirt, smelled the intoxicating hint of cologne. As close as in her dreams.

Baldly, she burst out. “Are you quite certain?”

Relief billowed on his laugh, reigniting her excitement. “Yes, Lady Felicity. I am certain. What about you? Could you see to marrying this poor soul?”