“He’s already dead,” she said in hoarse croak. “He died in October. Charity gave him a macabre parody of a funeral. She got me away from him,” she said. “She got herself away, too, but I was just fifteen and she had no income that would allow her to care for me. The surgeon—Mr. Bell—kindly arranged for me to come here to Brighton beneath an assumed name, so that Father wouldn’t find me.” By the reedy tone of her voice, Ian suspected that she had never stopped fearing he would somehow find her anyway. “And Charity went to work beneath Mr. Bell in recompense for what he had done for us. For me, in particular.”
“So you stayed behind in Brighton. As Felicity Cabot.”
“I’ve been Felicity Cabot longer than I was ever Felicity Nightingale,”she said. “Charity saved my life. Being Felicity Cabot saved my life. The last time—the last time I saw Father, he nearly killed me. I think we both knew he would, eventually. Charity and I, I mean to say.”
“And Mercy, I assume.”
Her fingers linked in her lap, flexing uncomfortably. “No, not Mercy,” she said. “We didn’t…know about Mercy, then. Mercy didn’t know about us.”
What? “But she’s your sister.”
“Half-sister. Through our mother.” She drew a sharp breath, unnaturally loud in the quiet of the office. “Our mother left us,” she said in a rush, “when I was still very small. She married Mercy’s father, but it wasn’t…the marriage wasn’t a legal one, if you take my meaning. And she abandoned Mercy, too, eventually, just as she had abandoned us. Charity and I—we have no idea, no way of knowing, whether her marriage to our father was her first, whether it was even legal. We have no way of knowing how many other half-siblings we might have, whether our mother might have married again. And I think somehow—somehow, someone has found it out.”
Christ. A scandal not of her own making, but one that had been brewing around her for decades. One which might have begun before she had even been born. And her sisters…they were more or less insulated from it by the positions they had married into, by the independence they had acquired and the wealth they had accrued.
Felicity was the only one to have been left so vulnerable. A baroness and a duchess could shake off a scandal like that. But Felicity ran a school, one that had been for some years in a precarious position. Even if this scandal had not been of her making, still the taint of it would cling to her. A bigamist for a mother, an illegitimate half-sister, another sister who had once been a renowned courtesan—and Felicity herself who had been only a lost, wounded girl who had lived half her life beneath an assumed name for her own protection. The reasons for it wouldn’t matter half so much as the gossip surrounding it; there would be just as many ready to paint her a woman of suspect morality simply for the fact that she had gone into hiding. For what had been done by others too closely connected to her. She had become a calculated target, no doubt chosen for the vulnerability her sisters lacked.
“None of this is your fault,” he said. And in truth, it wasn’t even her responsibility. But that did not mean she wouldn’t be held accountable for it regardless. “I know you are worried, but I promise you—I am going to find whoever is responsible.” He wanted so badly to reach for her hand, the one that plucked nervously at the cuff of her sleeve. “Probably there will be another letter. There were no instructions for delivery in the last. No time, no date, no location.”
“They always come to the school,” she blurted out. “Not with the regular mail; not postmarked. Someone has been putting them through the mail slot.”
“I have men watching the school at all hours, and have ever since that last note.” If he had known it had been necessary, he’d have posted them earlier.
“I never noticed.”
“You weren’t meant to. They’re discreet and unobtrusive; they’d hardlybe useful otherwise. They work in shifts and alternate days. Suffice it to say that they ought not to present as suspicious or dangerous to anyone with a vested interest in remaining unobserved.” Ian hesitated. “I intend to meet with my solicitor, if you would care to join me.”
“For what purpose?” There was a fearful tightness about her eyes, a reticence at the thought. That she might be called to explain herself, he supposed, to someone less sympathetic.
“Whoever is attempting to extort you may well follow through on their threat,” he said. “If they cannot extort money from us, then there is the possibility that they will attempt to profit however they can. Most likely by selling what they know to any publication willing to purchase the right to print it.”
“Sell?” Her voice shrilled high, and her brows winged upward with it. “You don’t mean—”
“Felicity. It’sall right.” His restraint snapped; he stretched his hand across the desk, offering it to her. And to his surprise, she untangled the knot she’d made of her own fingers to set one hand in his. “It’s all right,” he said again. “It’s unlikely that any publication will be willing to print such a thing, and they are even less likely to pay for the privilege of it. I only need my solicitor to make it plain that I would be exceptionally displeased were anyone to do so.”
Her cold fingers gripped his like a lifeline. “And you can do that?”
As easily as he could have ruined the Marchants had they proved obdurate. “I never have before; I’ve not much cared what anyone has said of me. Which is why I must make it exceedingly clear that Idocare what is said ofyou. I won’t have you slandered for ancient bits of gossip that aren’t remotely your responsibility. I’ll buy the damned publications if I must.”
Her free hand shook as she lifted it to her face, swiping at her eyes. “I don’t—I don’t want to lose the school,” she said in such a fragile little voice that it fairly splintered his heart. A bit of vulnerability given over to him. Just the tiniest fragment of trust.
“I know.” It had been her home for so many years. More of a home than she’d ever had, in all likelihood. “You won’t. I’ll see to it that you don’t.”
When she let her hand fall from her face, her lashes were left spiky with the last traces of tears she had managed to scrub away. She gave a fierce sniffle and set her shoulders. “I don’t hate you,” she admitted finally.
“I know that, too.” But still it warmed him to hear her say it. Even if he had already known it, he suspected it had taken no small amount of courage to admit it to herself—much less to him. “Felicity, it doesn’t matter what your name is or was. It doesn’t matter where you come from or who your parents were or what scandals they might have caused. I already know what matters. I know who you truly are.” A small squeeze of her cold fingers, which he hoped she would find reassuring. “Now go to bed,” he said at last. “I’ve still got some documents to look over, and I’ve the devil of a headache, besides.”
“Oh.” With an odd little sound, she extracted her fingers from his. “I’m sorry to have intruded upon you.”
“Don’t be. You’re welcome whenever you please. It’s just been a difficult day all around.” As she rose from her chair, he bent his head over the paperwork he’d abandoned, attempting to sort out where, exactly, he’d left off before she’d come in. “I expect I’ll be quite late—”
The scent of lavender wafted to his nose. She hadn’t headed for the door as he’d expected—she’d rounded the desk instead. He froze as her warm lips touched his cheek, and for a moment he fancied they’d lingered a fraction of a second longer than he had any right at all to expect of her.
“Good night,” she said softly as she turned to leave.
Ian watched her go, lifting one hand to touch that spot high on his cheek where he could still feel the pressure of her lips, wishing he’d never made that bargain with her to begin with. Because now, when it felt most important, it was impossible to know for certain whether it had been obligation or some small sliver of affection.
∞∞∞
