Felicity jumped at Nellie’s voice, letting the curtain fall back into place as she dropped the corner she’d peeled up to peer out into the night. “Nothing,” she said, and heard the faintly guilty inflection of her voice. “I was just making certain the carriage had arrived for me.”
Nellie’s head canted in confusion. “Hasn’t it always, by this hour?”
Of course it had. But it hadn’t really been Ian’s carriage she had been searching for. Instead she had been hunting for whatever else might be lurking in the darkness, for any sign of movement, any small indication that the man who had once pursued her had resumed his menacing activities.
That anxiety, which had been strangely absent the week she’d been ill, had come roaring back with a vengeance. There had been no letters at all in the last week, but she was not so foolish as to believe that the threat had passed. That demand would come—sooner or later.
Nellie paused beside Felicity’s desk to straighten a stack of papers; the letters Felicity had left unanswered, given that her hand had cramped up viciously halfway through the stack of them. “Do you know,” Nellie said softly, as she dragged her salt-and-pepper plait over her shoulder, “you’ve run this school more capably from your sickbed than I have done these last few years.”
“That’s not true,” Felicity said, staunchly loyal. “Nellie—”
“Itistrue,” Nellie interrupted. “Now that the danger has passed, I find it an easier thing to admit to. It’s grown rather wearying, you know, the management of such an enterprise. Oh, I love the school, never doubt that,” she hastened to add as Felicity blanched. “And I don’t want to leave it. But I find myself grateful to have turned over the management of it to you. I know it is in the best of hands.”
Butwasit? A gnawing ache settled in the pit of Felicity’s stomach. Even the barest suggestion of impropriety could ruin the school, taint its goodname. And a woman living beneath an assumed name would give rise to all manner of questions. How many parents would be willing to entrust the care and education of their daughters to a woman whose past was suspect, whose relations were something less than proper?
Would Nellie stand beside her, if the worst should come to pass? Or would she find herself abandoned even by the one person in her life who had stayed? Could Felicity fault her for it, if she did? At a time when she had been badly in need of a home, Nellie had given one to her. So that she might never have to leave the school she had come to love. An institution whose reputation she might now have thrust into danger merely by existing within it.
An odd, strangled little sound eked from her throat, and she swiped at her burning eyes.
“Oh, my dear,” Nellie said softly, and her thin arm curled about Felicity’s back in a fond embrace. “What has brought this on?”
Felicity managed a little shrug. “I don’t know,” she lied. “I’m in a maudlin sort of mood, I suppose.”
Nellie made one of those lovely comforting sounds, the sort that had always soothed her. “You’ve been the closest thing to a daughter to me, you know. I could not have hoped for better.”
And Nellie had been the closest thing to a mother that Felicity could remember. She’d been only three years old when her own mother had abandoned her family, and her clearest memory of the woman was her beautiful face wrenched into a scowl as Felicity had tugged at her skirt with her tiny hands, pleading with her to stay.Don’t go, Mama.Please don’t go.
She had no memories at all of hugs, or kisses, or even smiles. Only that last dismissive look her mother had given as her dark, indifferent gaze had slid over the two daughters she’d borne, as if they had been of no value to her whatsoever. That flat expression had seared itself into her young mind, burned into it an image that was still bright and vivid even so many years later. A coldness, a callous disregard that provoked a shiver whenever she recalled it.
But Nellie—Nellie had always been warm and caring. Felicity had been just fifteen when she had arrived at the school, so alone and frightened and anxious. And Nellie had found a place for her, settled her into a routine and a stability that she had sorely lacked. She had become more a mother to Felicity than her own had ever been.
“I’ve always been so glad you stayed. So very glad,” Nellie said, and her cheek pressed against Felicity’s. “Let’s take tea tomorrow, just the two of us. It’s likely to be the last opportunity for a while, since the rest of the girls areexpected back shortly.” A knowing smile plumped her wrinkled cheeks. “And then it shall be all chaos again, hm?”
“Yes. Chaos.” Felicity sighed.
“You’ve kept the coachman waiting long enough, dear,” Nellie said, with a last squeeze.
“I suppose I have,” Felicity said. “Good night, Nellie. I’ll see you in the morning.”
Better the chaos of the school than the chaos that had been made of her mind just lately, she thought as she reached for her coat and slung it over her shoulders. Best to keep herself occupied. It was a bit less time she’d spend peering out of windows into the unrelenting darkness, imagining some shadowy figure observing her from a discreet distance.
Less time still that she would spend agonizing over the ache of arousal that had become a perplexingly constant companion. From the instant she awoke each morning, having migrated across the bed in her sleep to avail herself of Ian’s warmth, to the time she fell into an uneasy sleep at night, his words of a few nights past resonating in her brain as if they’d grown roots within it.
I would give my right arm to watch you again. I’ll bargain with you for it.
A violent surge of arousal pebbled her nipples, stoked a lambent heat between her thighs.Enough of that. She was not so weak-willed as this. She was not going to dwell upon such things, to give them any more credence than they deserved.
Shredding a curse between her teeth, she seized the key to the front door from the depths of her pocket, strode through the door, and locked it behind her. For once, the chill of the winter air was a welcome balm to her suddenly overheated skin.
Again, that strange prickle of awareness—the feeling of being observed—slid over her, dousing her inconvenient arousal with the same effectiveness of a bucket of icy water. A shiver slipped down her spine as she froze for a moment, her gaze darting about the empty street.
Or at least a street that appearedempty.
In a burst of anxious energy she dashed for the waiting carriage, her breath burning in her lungs until she had made it safely within.
∞∞∞
Ian watched Felicity crawl across her seat and noted the distinct tremble of her fingers as she reached for the curtains shielding the window of the carriage. She hadn’t noticed him as she’d scrambled in, had slammed the door closed practically the moment she’d cast herself within. What scant light had followed her inside had been smothered immediately, throwing the both of them into pitch darkness. “Who are you watching for?” he asked.
