Felicity swallowed. “Did he?” Why did the thought provoke such an unsettled feeling in the pit of her stomach?
“Oh, yes. He’s been trying to marry me off for years, now.” A light squeeze to Felicity’s right shoulder as she began to wind Felicity’s hair up once again. “Not to worry; I never had designs upon your husband. I’d just as soon not marry at all.”
“I’m not worried. We don’t have that sort of marriage,” Felicity said.
“Hmm.” The doubtful inflection scored Felicity’s swiftly-fraying nerves. “Are you certain of that?”
Another strange flicker of apprehension. “Why—why do you ask?”
“Because it’s plain enough that your husband doesn’t share that opinion,” Louisa said flatly as she eased a pin in. “A man doesn’t glare like that in the absence of love; I was surprised only that Papa did not expire on the spot. Your husband knew at once what Papa had intended, and he was not at all pleased.” Another pin. “I was, however,” she said. “It grows wearying, being trotted about like a prize mare. So I was quite glad, you see, that Mr. Carlisle turned up to the theatre with a wife.”
Somehow, Louisa had constructed a rather elegant style with only the comb of her fingers and having left a few curls artfully free to dangle about Felicity’s neck. “He doesn’t love me,” Felicity said, shifting restlessly. He hadn’t loved her in years; notreally. He just always had to win, and she—she represented a rare failure. One he’d never managed to let go of.
“Hold still, if you please,” Louisa instructed. “I’m nearly finished, but it wants a few more pins.” She shoved another pin into Felicity’s hair. “I really don’t think I’m mistaken,” she said. “You watched the play, but Mr. Carlisle watched you.”
Felicity’s heart squeezed within the cage of her ribs. “How could you know that? You were asleep!”
“For perhaps five minutes,” Louisa said dryly. “I do thank you, however, for the nudge. Once, I snored straight through two full acts and a gossip columnist made sport of me for it in the paper. Papa was furious. Ah, there you are,” she said as she placed the last pin. “Isn’t that better?”
It was better. She looked very nearly pretty, the sharpness of her face rendered softer by the few curls that had been left to dangle. Her usual severe style was practical, but unbecoming. She’d always known it. But she hadn’t expected such a simple change to manage such a flattering effect.
You look beautiful. You always look beautiful.
But she didn’t. Charity was beautiful; Felicity could not have held a candle to her on her best day, and she had always known it. And today was not amongst her best. She had looked wretched. Precisely like the run-ragged school teacher she was after a particularly difficult day. She’d been near to exhausted, her dress wrinkled to hell and back, her coat worn nearly threadbare, her hair faintly frizzy with the moisture in the air, and still he’d looked at her like—
Like she wasbeautiful to him, even when, by any objective measure, she wasn’t. Like he’d have been proud to have her at his side even had she been in only rags.
“Besotted,” Louisa said, twitching one last curl from the pins to dangle over Felicity’s shoulder.
A jittery feeling swelled up from Felicity’s stomach, slid throughout her limbs. Her fingers plucked at the limp collar of her coat in a surfeit of nervous energy. “I—I beg your pardon?”
“That’s how he looks at you. He’s besotted,” Louisa repeated. “When you’re not looking, anyway. You could probably catch him at it, if you were clever enough. Or quick enough.”
She didn’t want to catchhim at it. She didn’t want to be burdened with the revelation that there might be some sort of lingering emotionbetween them. That what she had taken for obsession, for the need towinwhich he had evinced so often in the past, might be something else altogether. Not now, when herfeelings were so twisted up around that deadly sharp spike he’d driven into her too-tender heart ten years ago. All that pain and anger and grief—still every bit as deep, every bit as agonizing. A poison that festered still in her veins.
“We ought to make our way back,” Louisa said lightly. “Papa fusses if I’m gone for too long.”
Felicity swallowed down the strange, shuddery breath that lodged in her throat and flexed her fingers, digging her nails into her palms. “I need just another moment, if you don’t mind,” she said, striving to keep her voice calm and even. “But there is no need to wait upon me. I remember the way.”
“Oh. Well, then. If you’re quite sure…”
“I am.” Felicity pasted on a smile. “But before you go—do you happen to know the time?”
∞∞∞
Louisa had returned to the box alone. It had been curious enough for Ian to have made note of it even while half-listening to Mr. Jennings prattle on about the other potential investors in his railway venture and his rather optimistic—in Ian’s opinion—prediction of expected returns.
But when the theatre patrons had begun once again to find their seats and the curtain had opened for the beginning of the next act, the truth had become impossible to ignore. Felicity did not intend to return.
Louisa flashed him a baffled glance. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I can’t imaginewhat might be keeping your wife. Shall I go fetch her from the retiring room?”
With her absence, Felicity had left the responsibility of making excuses in his hands. “Best I go instead,” he said. “My wife made mention of a touch of a headache earlier in the evening.”
“A headache?” A quizzical frown pleated Louisa’s brow. “She seemed well enough. I fixed her hair for her, and we chatted about—” She caught herself, pressing her lips together as a tinge of a blush spread across her cheeks. “Well. She seemed well enough,” she repeated. “She asked for the time. I assumed she meant to ensure she made it back before the interlude had concluded.”
The time. Of course. Ian suppressed a wince. If his hour had elapsed, then it was likely that Felicity had taken her leave. As was her right, according to the terms they’d made of their marriage.
“I’ll see to her,” Ian said. “It’s possible she’ll require an escort home. In the event we don’t return, I’m certain she would want me to extend to you her thanks for the invitation this evening.”
