Epilogue
May, 1832
Brighton, England
You’ll never guess what arrived today,” Ian said as he came down the stairs.
“What?” Felicity asked absently as she pawed through one of Grace’s trunks, which were laid out upon the floor of the foyer, waiting to be taken to the carriage.
A folded letter waved before her eyes, dangled in the pinch of Ian’s fingers. One which bore Charity’s elegant handwriting across the front. “A letter?” she asked as she reached for it. “But she only just sent one.”
“This one,” Ian said, “is several months old. It was only recently discovered at the post office, where it had been lost for some time. The postmaster himself came to deliver it and to apologize in person for its lateness. He would have delivered it to the school as it was addressed, but—”
But all of Brighton knew, now, that Felicity Cabot had become Felicity Carlisle, and nobody wished to end up in Ian’s poor graces. Felicity snatched the letter from the clasp of his fingers, and picked at the wax seal to get at the letter.
A wedding invitation. Now months too late to be answered, of course. But it had been sent all the same, with love. “How lovely,” she said, her voice quavering over the words as she carefully folded the letter and tucked it into her pocket for safekeeping. A bit of maudlin sentimentality made her eyes sting—but she’d been maudlin rather a lot just lately.
“Don’t cry,” Ian pleaded, his voice tinged with desperation. “I really don’t know what to do with myself when you do.” His fingers stroked her cheek and he asked, for what had to be the twentieth time today, “You’re certain you’re well enough?”
Felicity laughed lightly as she closed the lid on the last of Grace’s trunks. “Yes,” she said, dashing at her eyes. “Quite well, but for the obvious.”
“Well, you soundedwretched earlier this morning.”
Of course she had sounded wretched earlier; she had had her head bent over a chamber pot casting up her accounts until at last the dry toast and tea she’d consumed had settled her queasy stomach. Too many things produced that effect, now. Eggs. Marmalade. Any sort of fish. And worse still, her beloved beef pasties, which was truly a pity. “Ian,” she said. “I’m well. I promise.”
“If you’re not—”
“IfI’m not, rest assured that I shall come home at once.” She latched the trunk with decisive clicks and rose to her feet. “But I want to be there for Grace today. It’s important.”
Grace’s first day as a pupil at the school. In the past few months, beneath the instruction of a competent tutor and a wonderful governess both, she had come such a long way. Though her penmanship still left something to be desired, her reading had progressed at an incredible speed. Within a month, she’d run through every grammar primer her tutor had provided and had moved on to practically inhaling the books contained within Ian’s impressive library, devouring full volumes in mere hours.
“All right.” Ian’s hand found the small of Felicity’s back. “But if you change your mind, just send for the carriage. Otherwise, I’ll be there to retrieve you at four.”
“Four?” Felicity turned, brows lifted. “So early? Ian—”
“Four,” he insisted. “The daffodils are ready to be planted. I thought we’d do it this afternoon.”
Felicity wasn’t fooled. Though the daffodils—which had been cultivated over the winter within the small greenhouse that Ian had had built, owing to the fact that the ground had been far too cold to plant the bulbs directly—were no doubt ready to be planted at last, there was no particularly pressing need to do sotoday.
But she’d been fretting rather a lot lately over Grace’s enrolment at the school beginning in the Trinity term. Tonight would be Grace’s first night spent elsewhere since she’d arrived. And though she would only be residing a few minutes away by carriage, Felicity was going to miss her.
Probably Ian would miss her, too, but then he bore it a little better than she did. Enough, at least, to do his damnedest to ensure she did not linger overly in her melancholia, to pull her mind away from such things and endeavor to distract her with pleasant diversions when he thought she might be tempted toward moping.
“Four,” she agreed with a sigh, turning her cheek against his shoulder. “Though I had thought to stay for dinner.”
“Darling,” he chided gently, sliding his fingers into her hair. “You have got to give Grace time to settle in on her own. She’ll find her footing, but she’ll do it much better without you looming over her shoulder.”
“What! I’ve never loomed in my life,” Felicity protested.
“Youdoloom,” he accused. “Had I not pried you from the doorway of the library the first day her tutor arrived, you’d have stood there all day.”
Perhaps she had been a little…apprehensive. “Well, notallday, surely,” she said.
“I had to pry your hand from the door frame,” he reminded her. “I caught you there the first time just after breakfast. And you’d not moved by the time I next looked in on you at ten. By noon, I was starting to become concerned for you, since you seemed to have made something of a statute of yourself—”
“All right, all right. I loomed a little.” She sighed as his fingers kneaded the tight muscles at the nape of her neck. “Can you blame me, truly?”
“I wouldn’t sayblame, exactly. But you have a tendency to worry where none is needed.” He pressed a kiss to her temple. “Grace will be fine. She’s intelligent, capable, and well-mannered. Generally.”
