by Erica Monroe
“I would have asked you to come to London for the holidays, but then the wedding happened.” His friend getting married had provided a convenient excuse to leave Town after the failure of his first bill.
“I wouldn’t have wanted to leave here.” Not only did she narrow her eyes, but she dropped her hand to her hip—a very shapely hip, he was dismayed to admit. That didn’t seem fair at all.
At thirteen, she’d been all long limbs and too-thin body, like a baby deer who hadn’t quite grasped how to be graceful yet. He remembered her wild red locks: frizzy waves back then, not the defined curls she boasted now. Some errant crimson wisps had escaped from underneath her bonnet, caressing her heart-shaped face gently in contrast to her bellicose way of sizing him up.
Her eyes took on a softer light, a small smile pulling at her all-too-full lips as she turned, facing the grayish-green waters of the Atlantic Ocean. He wondered, as he had so many times during his youth, what made her like the waves so much. He saw nothing special—Tetbery’s shoreline had always felt too unkempt, too fierce. He preferred the smoke and soot of London with its tall buildings, heralding a new era of trade and prosperity.
She let out a deep, contemplative sigh. “I am exactly where I want to be.”
That made one of them. He hadn’t been at home in his own skin since his days at Eton, surrounded by the same friends he was due to meet in a few days’ time.
He’d agreed to attend Lord Blackwater’s wedding because he’d felt he needed to, as if by seeing his friends again he’d be reminded of the optimistic lad he’d once been, convinced the world was at his feet.
And if nothing else, it beat spending the holidays alone.
“Sometimes in life, we do not get what we want.” Sadness slipped into his words, catching him by surprise. He must be out of sorts, if he had forgotten how to pretend that everything was fine.
She spun on her heel so jerkily, yet with such speed, it was as if an unknown hand had pulled her strings. He was used to those quick, shaky movements; struggling to make sense of her, his juvenile mind had often compared her to a marionette. Yet he was not used to what came next—the flash of ire in her eyes, the angry flaring of her nostrils. He could not remember when he had seen Felicity impassioned.
“What would you, Duke, know about not getting what you want?” Each word hit him like an arrow to the chest, so absolute was her aim.
She’d always been able to cut him to the quick, she who always told the brutal, unflinching truth—the words he did not want to hear, because they revealed just how little he truly knew about himself.
When they’d been younger, he’d been able to feign amusement. She hated being laughed at, above all other things, and so he did it often because it was the swiftest way to make her hurt the way he did. He was not proud of that, but he’d been a boy, unable to fathom why this flat, unemotional girl affected him so.
He still did not know.
He stood up straighter, peering down his nose autocratically at her, but he could not summon up the energy to laugh. He was too tired—from the journey, he told himself, and not from pretending all of his bloody life to be someone he was not.
After all, as Felicity had reminded him, he was Duke.
That should be enough. It had to be enough.
“I know enough about the world to understand that you desperately need someone to curb your wild ways.” He managed not to wince at how much he sounded like his father, delivering one of his famous diatribes on conduct. Nicholas had never matched up to his father’s standards.
But hadn’t that made him stronger? He knew how the world worked now: money and power granted him certain privileges, gave him a chance at success.
He only wanted the same for Felicity. She ought to be taking her proper place in society, not wasting away on this backwater estate. If he didn’t help her, she’d end up as the strange spinster children told stories about and pointed at when they passed her in the market. Hell, she already had the gothic estate to fuel their tales.
“As though you are the one to teach me. You, who is an irresponsible rogue.” Felicity let out a caustic laugh. “What makes you so uniquely qualified, Nicholas? It is not as if you are smarter than me.”
He knew that was true—hell, he couldn’t think of a single person more learned than Felicity—but it stung to have it pointed out so bluntly. “This is precisely what I’m talking about. You cannot go on informing people that you are smarter than them.”
Her nose wrinkled. “But I am.”
“It’s not polite.”
“The truth rarely is.” She shrugged. “This is why I do not concern myself with what’s polite, only what is factual. If you asked me, you could stand to learn that too.”
He had forgotten that talking to Felicity was akin to beating one’s head against the wall repeatedly. “No one asked you. No one ever asks you. You simply give your opinion whether or not it’s wanted.”
Instead of looking defeated, Felicity’s eyes took on a calculating gleam he found highly troubling, because it usually indicated he was about to be thoroughly intellectually trounced. “Which is precisely what you are doing. It’s not fun, is it? Having someone appear suddenly, disrupting all your plans, and then they have the audacity to demand you should change who you are?”
He ignored the last part of her statement. “What do you mean, suddenly? I sent word I was coming.”
“No one told me.” Her eyes narrowed as her lips pursed into a thin red line.
His stomach tumbled. That was her going-to-war face. Oh, his staff was rightly and truly buggered. He should probably go warn them, but for the moment he was relieved her ire would be directed at someone else for a while.
“I’m sure that was just an oversight.”
That was the wrong thing to say, because her eyes narrowed even more, until she was basically looking at him through tiny slits. The brisk wind picked up around them, ripping through his thick wool coat as though it was nothing. It was always colder by the seashore—one of the many reasons he loathed Tetbery. He shoved his hands into his pockets, hunching his shoulders to keep the wind out.
If he’d been speaking with anyone else, he would have long ago insisted they move indoors. But because it was Felicity, he simply stood there like an imbecile, as if remaining out in the fearsome cold would abate the fire of her temper.
It did not work.
Unlike him, she did not hunch. She was properly prepared for this weather, with her long black wool coat atop her long-sleeved black walking gown, and an enormous black bonnet draped with black crepe. She still wore full mourning, even though it’d been six months and custom indicated she should move to half.
She’d never been one for half-measures.
He told himself her fearsome appearance was why he felt intimidated. Her ivory skin was a stark contrast against the inky darkness swallowing her whole. Were it not for the fiery red of her hair, or the hint of pink upon her cheeks from the December air, he might have thought her a ghost, so otherworldly did she look.
And for a moment she was silent—maybe he’d get a reprieve.
But then she notched up her chin, looking him dead in the eye, and he knew this was battle was far from over.
“Interesting.” Felicity still had the startling ability to make one-word answers as destructive as a black powder bomb.
He had the unsettling sensation he was going to regret this, yet he asked, “What’s interesting?”
“I find it interesting—” Those four words sounded like the basest of insults “—that you can show up for a wedding, but not for the funeral of your supposedly beloved aunt.”
“I sent word about that too.” He had, hadn’t he? The last six months had been a blur, with constant debates in the House of Lords about the Night Watch Bill he’d written—the first bill he’d taken the lead on. “I couldn’t leave London. The bill would have failed.”
He’d had so many hopes for that bill. The logic was sound: London neede
d a policing force that worked as an efficient machine, with accountability and communication between all the different subsections of the city.
His bill would have made that possible. Brought justice to the seven people who had brutally lost their lives on Ratcliffe Highway—for seemingly no reason at all. Months later, the only tie the Runners could find between the victims and the murderer was that they all lived in the impoverished East End.
Felicity coughed pointedly, bringing him back to the present.
“And did it pass, your beloved bill?” Given how arch she looked, she already knew the answer.
“No.” It had, in fact, failed so spectacularly that one of the most prominent lords had actually lit the bill on fire in front of him, while ranting about government-run police forces being the very devil.
So much for being important.
So much for changing the world.
His stomach sloshed, remembering the sickening descriptions of the murders in the penny press. Two families, gone. A young apprentice with so much to live for. A mother, her skull bashed in with a maul. An infant, dead in his cradle.
Senseless, gruesome violence perpetuated upon society’s most vulnerable.
And he’d wanted so badly to stop it from ever happening again.
Felicity let out an undignified snort of derision. That was the proverbial last feather to break the horse’s back, for he felt his frustration spill over, until he no longer cared if he angered her further. He was trying to help her, devil take it, and she’d done nothing but point out his shortcomings with a truly frightening exactness.
“Look, I’m here now.” He threw up his hands, already starting to regret coming back to Bocka Morrow. “And whether you approve or not, Tetbery Estate belongs to me. So you can stay out here in the bitter cold as long as you want, but I’m going back inside to my library, where I shall have my butler serve me a hot cup of tea.”
She opened her mouth to retort, but he didn’t give her a chance to finish. He turned on his heel and stalked off. She called his name, but he didn’t stop.
Felicity Fields might be the smartest person alive, but he’d be damned before he let her have the last word.
Chapter Three
How dare he!
For a minute, Felicity stood there, glaring daggers at Nicholas’s retreating back. How dare he, she thought again, and again, as she had so many times before when dealing with him. He made her want to shake her fist, stomp her foot, and spit on him. Perhaps she’d do all three, with him here now.
Which no one had told her to anticipate.
If she’d had time to prepare, she could have had a strategy. Now she was caught at a disadvantage. Why hadn’t anyone informed her? After so many years living at Tetbery, the servants knew she didn’t cope well with the unexpected.
And now, she had too much at stake—if Nicholas learned about the true nature of her experiments, he’d stop her from bringing back Margaret.
Gathering her skirts in one hand, Felicity broke into a jog. The wind smacked against her cheeks, the harshness somehow fitting. The morning had started out sunny, but despite the clearness of the sky, the sun simply wasn’t strong enough to abate the chill.
All the sun did was make Nicholas look like golden god.
Fitting, too, that even the weather was against her.
“Curb her wild ways,” he’d said, as if he was the one to do that.
When they’d been children, she’d always been the one to point out possible dangers. He’d never listened. Not when she’d given him directions in her laboratory, and not when he’d sprained his ankle jumping off the manor’s second story balcony to get away from her lecture on the pollination processes of honey bees.
Served him right, really. Honey bees were fascinating creatures, and he should have been thanking her for enlightening him, not running away.
She sighed. If only he’d find a balcony to jump off now, and leave her alone.
No one ever did as she wished them to.
Stepping off the beach, she opened the gate to the back garden of the estate. Once inside, she cut through the gap in the hedge like she always did, then took another shortcut through the roses. This brought her to the door just as Nicholas was entering the atrium.
She followed, closing the door behind her. Hackles raised but forcing a smile upon her lips, she slid in front of him, arms crossed over her chest to keep herself from smacking him. Margaret had always said she could catch more flies with honey than vinegar. Felicity’s tests had proved this was categorically false, but the saying might have merit on a metaphorical level.
Metaphors, again. It always came back to metaphors she did not understand. She bit back a groan.
“No one told me you were coming.” She was proud of how even her voice sounded, without any of the frustration she felt. “I don’t understand why Tolsworth or Mrs. Mitchell didn’t inform me, but that is a discussion for another time. If I’d known—”
Nicholas’s brows shot sky high as his lips curled into another one of those incorrigible smirks.
She would not let him know how much that smirk managed to irritate, and intrigue, her. “If I’d known, I would have made sure the estate was better prepared for your visit.”
That blasted smirk grew wider. “You mean you would have hidden frogs in my bed. Again.”
“That was one time,” she insisted. “I wished to test how long a frog could remain within the confines of fabric before it began to squirm its way out. Two minutes, in case you wondered. Far longer than I thought.”
“So I should forgive you, in the name of scientific progress?” He took a seat on the settee positioned in the center of the room, looking out at the garden.
Devil take him. That’d always been her favorite seat. Now she was forced to sit in the only other chair, cater-corner to him, with her back to the door. Exposed. Again caught unaware.
Unless she sat next to him.
Yes, that would do. He’d never expect that.
“Of course you should.” She dropped down beside him, the settee so cramped that the folds of her black walking dress draped over his breeches. “Science must be of the utmost importance.”
“I prefer to affect progress through legislation.” Nicholas angled his body to face her—the slightest alteration, for the settee left them little room to move, but it was enough to overwhelm her senses in ways she was not prepared for. “And while I dare not decry science and its impact, I think you are quizzing me. There was no need to place the frog in my bed.”
He was right—she’d picked his bed because he’d interfered with her experiment the day before, dropping the wrong substance into a vial and causing the mixture to boil too soon. She’d lost count of the number of casualties he’d caused in her laboratory.
She ought to tell him that. Only, the words wouldn’t form. His closeness was, frankly, unnerving. She could not concentrate, even on her favorite subject: defending science and its contributions to philistines.
He smelled too good, sandalwood and leather and horse. Probably he had ridden here from the Mermaid’s Kiss tavern in town. On anyone else, she was certain such a combination wouldn’t have worked—but on him, she found herself leaning in, wanting to take a big sniff.
Which she did, before she could stop herself.
“What are you doing?” He pulled away from her, eying her with that familiar mix of confusion and surprise.
She did not mind that. She was used to people looking at her as though she’d sprouted a second head. They usually departed quickly, and she’d be allowed to think in peace. Except Nicholas always had a habit of staying when he wasn’t wanted. “Do you know how long you’ll be staying, Your Grace?”
He pulled back even further from her, to the very edge of the settee, and his eyes were narrowed with suspicion. “You’ve never called me ‘Your Grace’ before. What’s going on in that mechanical mind of yours, Felicity?”
She blinked, her fixed smile wavering. She hated when h
e called her mechanical, as though she were not a living, breathing woman.
She twisted the mourning ring back and forth around her finger, the repetition soothing her. “I only wanted to know so that I can make sure all the preparations have been made correctly. With Margaret gone, I’m the…” She stopped her before she said “lady of the house.”
She wasn’t, not really. His future wife would be.
“I’m the longest resident,” she settled on, finally, because Nicholas looked at her expectantly. “Er, not counting the servants.”
He leaned back against the settee, scooting back into her space, his big body taking up entirely too much room. “I’ve been meaning to talk to you about your staying at Tetbery. I suppose now is as good as time as any.”
Her heart beat faster within her chest, a pitter-patter-pitter she couldn’t slow. This was it, then. When he’d tell her she had to leave, that there was no place for her here. What about her work for Margaret? They’d never be reunited.
Margaret would just be…dead, forever.
She refused to accept that.
“Hmm?” was all she managed to reply.
“I’m your guardian now, which means the responsibility of chaperoning you next Season falls to me.” He carded a hand through those soft, sun-speckled brown locks of his, making her hate both how handsome he looked, and the way every movement of his seemed effortless when she had to struggle so hard just to appear normal.
She didn’t want to go to London, and she certainly didn’t want to spend several months with him. “I’m twenty-one. I do not need a guardian. Nor do I wish to leave Tetbery. I have work to be done.”
“What work?”
“You know, normal things. Domestic things. Details would bore you.” She prayed her voice gave no hint of her lie—because according to Tressa, trying to resurrect one’s beloved guardian was definitely not normal.
He was not so easily daunted. “Try me. What kind of things, precisely?”
This was why she hated speaking with him: not only was she a terrible liar, but he asked too many questions. At best, his interrogations led to awkwardness; at worst, she made a complete arse of herself. “I have to keep the estate afloat. Make sure everything is tended to.”
