Miss Felicity's Dilemma

by Eileen Dreyer

  Flint nodded. “I appreciate your missing.”

  The gun was beginning to droop. Flint balanced on the balls of his feet so he could move fast.

  “This is a coward’s way out, Francis,” he urged. “And you are no coward. I served with you, remember? I know you. And I know that you don’t want John Harvester’s memory to be tainted by poisonous accusations. But John is gone. He doesn’t care anymore. He died a hero trying to relieve my men. That is what we’ll remember. I’ll make sure of it.”

  The tears came fast now. “I…I loved him.”

  It was Flint’s turn to nod, the fresh pain of still-new grief welling in his own chest. “He was a good man.”

  Reed’s hand shook all the more, and Flint knew he was running out of time.

  “Francis,” he snapped, his voice sharp with well-remembered command. “We will protect you and yours. Drop. The. Gun.”

  It seemed to be working. The gun drooped. Francis lowered his hand.

  Now! Flint jumped at him and grabbed it before Francis could change his mind.

  But all the fight had gone out of the man. He merely dropped his head and closed his eyes as Flint secured the weapon and unloaded it for good measure before setting it on a table far away from Reed.

  “Francis,” he said, laying a hand on the man’s shoulder. “I did not drag you out of that burning chapel to see you end like this.”

  The man sobbed. Felicity reached forward again and took a tight hold on one of Reed’s hands.

  Flint held onto Francis’s shoulder. “The names on the list,” he said.

  Francis nodded. “All ripe for blackmail. Coercion into treason.”

  “We shall try to protect them as well. Do you have names of the people who have pressured you?”

  Francis nodded, his head down.

  Flint turned back to see that Felicity’s complexion had paled considerably, even as she continued to smile at that sad man. Miss Chase had her arm wrapped around Aunt Winnie’s shoulder, still holding the old woman’s hand. There were tears streaming down Winnie’s cheeks as well. Flint wasn’t quite sure what question to ask first.

  “Are you all right, Felicity?”

  She briefly looked at him, her eyes also awash in tears, and smiled for him. “Of course.”

  He nodded back, wondering at her immeasurable courage. “I know someone is going to tell me how this all came about.”

  Hegot vague nods.

  “Francis wished to talk to me,” Aunt Winnie said, suddenly looking her age. “He wanted to share some last words about John before he left. He has come for some time so I could hear of John and now, share...memories.”

  Flint stared at her and then Reed. “John Harvester? Why?”

  It seemed they hadn’t run out of surprises. Winnie straightened, still holding Miss Chase’s hand as if it were a lifeline. “Because John Harvester was my son.”

  Flint found himself dropping into the settee next to Felicity. “I beg your pardon?”

  For the first time in his life, he saw real despair in the old woman’s eyes.

  “Your grandmother protected me. Gave me a place when it became apparent that I...that...” She shook her head and gulped down a sob. “After John was sent away to be raised by the vicar and his family, I just...stayed.” The tears were coming much faster now. “He never knew, of course. But Francis here did. He kept me apprised of John’s doings. He has been so very kind to me.”

  Flint felt as if he’d been bludgeoned. John Harvester. Laughing, brash, madly courageous John who had died in that fiery hell that was Hougoumont.

  “Francis said that John died from a gunshot wound to the head,” Aunt Winnie said, her eyes pleading. “Quickly, before he knew it.”

  Screaming, screams Flint would hear until the day he died. He swore his arm started burning all over again.

  “Yes,” he lied without blinking, because lies were the only comfort left. “He did.”

  And suddenly, Felicity was holding his hand. Not a gentle touch, a fierce grasp, as if she were holding him up away from that fire. As if she knew all of it. He looked over at her and saw the truth in her eyes. He wanted to feel ashamed. He had lost them all in that holocaust. His men. And yet reflected in her eyes was certainty, sympathy, sorrow.

  She should have accused him. They all should have. And yet, somehow, she gave absolution. For the first time since June, the bands of suffocating guilt began to loosen, just a little.

  And then something Winnie said struck him.

  “John didn’t know?” he asked her as gently as he could.

  She lowered the handkerchief she had been using on her eyes. “Only your grandmother and the vicar knew.”

  Flint turned to Francis. “If John didn’t know,” he said, “how did you?”

  He hadn’t thought Francis could look worse. But one glance at Winnie had the man all but collapsing.

  “They told you about John, didn’t they?” Flint asked. “To get you inside the house.”

  Francis closed his eyes again. “They wanted to know about the various people the duke ran through here. Especially the girls.”

  Those vulnerable, frightened girls who had thought they were going on to safety. Oh, sweet God. “What did you tell them?”

  Francis’s smile was tragic. “The truth. That I saw no girls at all. I came to visit Winnie, and I made sure never to see any but regular staff.” He shrugged. “It was an excuse to come. And I hurt no one.”

  That brought a bark of laughter from Aunt Winnie. “You mean those girls they traipsed through here they didn’t want me to know about?” she demanded. “Fah! Of course, I knew. They were frightened enough without having to meet me. You’ve straightened that out with that pompous father of yours, I assume?”

  Flint was fast losing what equanimity he had left. “I did. You never mentioned them to Francis here?”

  She glared at him. “Why should I? Not his business, was it?”

  Flint almost smiled at that. Leave it to his Aunt Winnie to recover at double speed.

  “You have the list, Flint,” Felicity said. “And Mr. Reed didn’t do anything else. You can help him, can’t you?”

  Flint squeezed her hand. “If I can’t, the duke will.”

  “He will not,” Flint heard from the open door and sighed. He should have known.

  “He will,” Flint said, not facing his father.

  “And why should he, when you are attempting to cover up treason? Will there ever be a time you don’t disappoint me?”

  Flint was about to correct him when he lost hold of Felicity. Suddenly she was on her feet, bristling like a cat.

  “Why, you vile old man,” she snapped, her head back to meet the duke eye-to-eye, her hands clenched on her hips. “How dare you threaten him?”

  The duke actually looked a bit taken aback. Flint was trying not to smile. Winnie looked like she had a box for a circus.

  “And who are you to talk to me that way?” his father demanded of the woman who barely came up to his breastbone.

  “I’m nobody,” she assured him with a sharp tap to the chest. “But this nobody can see that you don’t deserve a son like Flint. What have you done after all, to match his sacrifices? Or even, come to think of it, deserve them?”

  Flint was on his feet now. She was about to get into trouble.

  His father was pulling himself up to his formidable height and staring all the way down the ducal nose.

  “You are speaking to a duke,” he growled. “You have no idea what responsibilities I have.”

  She waved a hand in his face. “Bah! Have you risked your life on a battlefield? Walked right into the killing fields of cannon fire or held for hours a walled enclosure that has been described as a holocaust? Do you even care that he bears scars from pushing his way into a blazing building to try to save his men from that hell? Have you lived every moment of your life since carrying the weight of the men you couldn’t save? Have you ever once even asked what your son has sacrificed not only
for his country and his men, but for you? How dare you belittle him, when I doubt you have so much as sacrificed your dinner to protect those you love.”

  Flint was absolutely frozen. She was punctuating each accusation with a finger jab into the ducal chest.

  “He lied to you,” the duke sneered down at her. “He was never to marry you. Why on earth would you defend him?’

  She pointed in Flint’s direction. “I would defend him for those scars he bears. I just cannot imagine why you do not.”

  “You don’t think he should do his duty and marry you?”

  Everybody in the room turned on her. She flushed.

  “I am quite finished being anyone’s duty,” she said, and turned for the door. “There is a position waiting for me in Derbyshire.”

  Flint almost waited too long to catch hold of her. “Yes, there is. But it’s not in that paltry school. Now, come.”

  “You’re going nowhere,” the duke barked, “Or I will not help this friend of yours.”

  Flint stopped, a struggling Felicity in his grasp, and bestowed a cold smile on his sire. “I wasn’t speaking of you. I was speaking of Wellington. He values heroism and loyalty. Especially the kind of heroism that saved his own life. Besides, the House of Lords likes Francis better than you, too.”

  “You will not—”

  “Enough!” Winnie suddenly barked. “I might enjoy a good dust-up on occasion, but this is beginning to bear all the hallmarks of a French farce. And since it is my room, I can toss the lot of you out. Except for Francis. Now, go. I need to talk with him.”

  “This is not your house, madame,” the duke snapped.

  “No,” Flint agreed. “It is my house. Unless you want to take back your promise in front of witnesses.”

  Giving his father a gentle shove towards the door, Flint took better hold of Felicity’s arm before she could protest.

  “Now, Felicity,” he said, meeting his fiancée’s blazing glare, “you and I have a discussion to finish.”

  Flint gathered up the gun, handed it to the slack-jawed duke, and guided Felicity out the door. He had the most disconcerting feeling that he spotted a glint of humor in his father’s eyes.

  Chapter 15

  Well, Felicity thought sourly, at least this time she wasn’t under the bed. She had been plopped on top of it like an unwanted package.

  “Now then,” Flint snapped, slamming the door shut.

  Felicity drew a shaky breath and pushed a hand against her stomach. “Do you have a chamber pot?” she asked.

  He stopped and stared. “A what?”

  She pressed her other hand against her mouth. “A chamber pot. A vase. Anything.”

  Flint’s eyes widened, but he dropped to the floor and reached under the same bed she’d been crouched under not what, four days ago? He got the thankfully empty chamber pot to her just in time.

  She didn’t have much to lose, since she hadn’t had her breakfast yet, but what little she did have ended up in the chamber pot, her stomach heaving relentlessly for far too long.

  By the time she could chance straightening, Flint was seated alongside her, his arm around her shoulder.

  “Here,” he said, offering his handkerchief. “Start here.”

  Felicity accepted it and wiped her mouth with badly trembling hands. “Thank you. Sorry. I believe I have had one too many surprises today.”

  “You?” Flint echoed on a wry laugh. “I’ll thank you not to pull a stunt like that again as long as I live.”

  She looked up. “I wasn’t the one with the gun. He was waiting in my room.”

  Flint nodded. His left arm still around her, he reached over to brush the damp hair back from her face. His hand was shaking as badly as hers.

  Before she could think better of it, Felicity caught hold of it and pressed it against her chest. “We’re all safe,” she said. “Breathe.”

  His chuckle was dust-dry. “I am here to comfort you, you little nodcock. Not the other way around.”

  “There is no rule that says we may not comfort each other.”

  Reaching for the chamber pot, he cast a wry look at her. “Are we finished here?”

  She gratefully handed it over. “Your reflexes are excellent.”

  “Too much practice.”

  Setting the pan on the end table, he reached back around and gathered her into his arms. Felicity wanted to sob. She had never felt so warm, comforted or safe in her life. It wouldn’t last, though. It had never been meant to last.

  At least for this moment she could savor it. She could pretend that when she was frightened or sad or frustrated, she would always have Flint’s arms to walk into, his chest to rest against, the steady thrum of his heart to beat against her ear.

  “I cannot believe you did that,” he whispered over her head, resting his cheek against her crown.

  “Did what? I told you. Mr. Reed was waiting for me. Not the other way around.”

  “I’m talking about someone far more dangerous.”

  “Oh, the duke?” she huffed in outrage all over again. “He does not deserve you.”

  There was a pause, and then the returned rumble of his voice against her ear. “How did you know about Hougoumont?”

  “If you remember, I mentioned that we followed all your exploits at school.”

  “Hougoumont happened in June. You’ve been out of school for three years.”

  “Anyone who followed news of the battle of Waterloo knows what a heroic stand the soldiers made there. Besides, one of my girls’ brothers is in the Coldstream Guards.”

  “What is his name?”

  “Fletcher. Lieutenant Harvey Fletcher.”

  “Gangly blond who laughs like a horse?”

  She pulled her head back and grinned at him. “That is Lieutenant Fletcher to the life. You pulled him out of that barn, didn’t you? He didn’t talk about it much, but he had burns, too, and he thought you walked on water.”

  She saw Flint close his eyes and knew she had pushed him back into that nightmare. Lifting her free hand, she laid it against his cheek.

  “If you had gone back in yet again, we would have lost you, too, and the men would have lost their leader. And then who knows what would have happened to the rest? You all saved the battle by holding Hougoumont.”

  And I would have never had the chance to know the man I love, she thought.

  She knew better than to say it. Flint Bracken didn’t need one more responsibility. It wouldn’t hurt to lay her head against his chest for just a few more minutes, though, would it?

  “I’m sorry,” he said, surprising her right back to a position of staring up at him.

  She couldn’t help it. She brushed her hand against that stubbly cheek. “What in heaven’s name for?”

  He possessed quite an impressive scowl. If she hadn’t been hurting so much, she would have been forced to grin at him.

  “I’m sorry you had to hear that conversation in the library.”

  “Oh,” she said with a wave of her hand, her head back down so he wouldn’t see the truth in her eyes. “It wasn’t a surprise. Not really. And I did get my job back.”

  “No, you didn’t.”

  Her head shot up again, her stomach plummeting. “You mean you’re about to break that promise as well?”

  His smile was gentle. She tried to pull away, but he held on inexorably, with utmost care. “I never made that promise, if you’ll remember. The duke did. I promised to marry you.”

  She huffed. “If you wish to be truthful, you didn’t do that either. You simply said you wanted to. It’s all right. I forgive you. You were caught in a vise by your father, your honor and your loyalty. After all, I very well could have been a spy, and I would do just about anything to stop someone who threatened my country—”

  “Felicity.”

  “—and besides, there is this lovely house he was holding over your head, the beast—”

  “Felicity.”

  She couldn’t so much as look at him. She nee
ded to get away before he shattered her into irreparable shards.

  “—but I’m feeling so much better now, and if I could just get a rinse of water—”

  Before she could say another word, he had a glass in his hand and was holding it out to her, along with the much-abused chamber pot.

  Because she figured she couldn’t humiliate herself any more than she had, she rinsed her mouth and spit. As he accepted everything back, she tried to slide off the bed.

  He was quicker than she was.

  “You need to listen to me,” he said, his eyes deadly serious, his hands empty of encumbrance.

  She shook her head. “If you dare try to make up for what your father said—”

  He sighed. “I’m not making up for anything. I’m…Oh, blast, it seems there is only one way to get through to you.”

  And before Felicity could so much as move, he had her in his arms again and was kissing her. Not a sweet kiss, not a kind kiss, not a kiss goodbye. A fierce, shattering, consuming kiss that robbed her of every ounce of strength so that she had to hold on as tightly as he held on to her. She lost track of time and place and self, somehow disappearing into the heat of him, of arms that held her up away from every hurt and sorrow, all the loneliness and struggle that surely waited beyond his arms. For now, though, for now she would sink into his embrace like a drowning soul and gladly give up all just for the exquisite heat of his mouth against hers, the comfort of his arms enclosing her, the music of his groan as he lifted a hand to the back of her head and held on even more tightly.

  And then, from one moment to the next, he had her cheek pressed against his shoulder, and he was trembling as badly as she.

  For a long while the two of them just breathed, silent and trembling. Inevitably, though, she felt him smile. “She doesn’t have a grave,” he said.

  That brought her head back so she could face him. “Pardon?”

  It didn’t help. She was already lost again in the sweet green of his laughing eyes, the hard-cut planes of his dear face. The scent of the outdoors and the night that was particularly his.

  His smile broadened as he brushed that loose lock of hair back from her temple again. “Your grandmother. You swore on her grave. She doesn’t have one. At least Uncle Andy’s mother doesn’t. Would you like to meet her?”