Adored In Autumn

by Jess Michaels

  Dane tugged Beckford up and none too gently shoved him into the hall. But as Asher followed, he had no doubt what they would do next. Go back to Felicity. And pray that her secrets were still in this book. That all wasn’t lost.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Felicity looked up from her book as Celia Dane entered Stenfax’s parlor. She smiled at her friend, but the expression quickly fell as she saw fear and worry on Celia’s face. She placed a marker between the pages and got up.

  “What is it?” she asked. “Did you find out where John and Asher went?”

  They had arrived after their lunch with her mother to find the men gone with no explanation. Now Celia’s expression made her heart throb.

  “Yes,” Celia said. “It appears Asher’s contact in my grandfather’s home has come through. There was a missive from him left on Stenfax’s desk with a quick note in John’s hand saying they were going to follow the courier.”

  Felicity sat back down in her chair, hard enough that her teeth clacked together. “So they are off to see if they can find Beckford. Find the book.”

  Celia drew in a ragged breath. “The others wanted to come in with me to tell you, but I thought it would be better just from me.”

  Felicity nodded slowly. “Yes. They mean well, but they would circle me and question me and three different people would keep bringing me tea and it would be overwhelming.”

  Celia laughed a little. “That is exactly what they would do for both of us. So let’s hide here together a bit, shall we? Avoid the well-meant but overbearing attention of those who love us most.”

  She sat down in the chair opposite Felicity and the two women looked at each other evenly. Felicity could see Celia’s worry on her face, just as she knew her own was apparent. Only Celia seemed a little more at peace with it all.

  “You must be accustomed to this,” she said.

  Celia shook her head. “Not at all. Oh, when we first met, John was in the service of the king, but I didn’t know that, nor did I know how much danger he was in. And once that case was over, once the truth came out and we married, he left the War Department. So this is new territory for me, too.”

  “And yet you seem so calm,” Felicity said, getting to her feet and beginning to pace the room restlessly. “I feel like I’ll jump out of my skin.”

  Celia got up and moved a step toward her. “If I seem calm, it is merely on the surface, I assure you. I’m worried. But I have great faith in my husband’s abilities. And he’ll take good care of Asher, as well.”

  “I’m certain he will,” Felicity said with a sigh.

  “It’s hard,” Celia said, her voice softer now. “When you love them.”

  Felicity jerked her gaze to her friend’s face. “Love them? Love Asher?”

  Celia leaned back, incredulity replacing concern in that moment. “Please don’t bother to deny it. Of course you love Asher. It is in your eyes, on your face, in your voice.”

  Every denial Celia said she shouldn’t make rose up in Felicity and then was replaced by the dull fear that Asher might be injured or killed trying to help her. Denying she loved him seemed like a crime heaped on a crime.

  “I imagine your feelings are difficult for you, considering what you went through in your marriage,” Celia continued when she was silent.

  Felicity pondered that. “Yes,” she admitted at last. “It is difficult. Of course I don’t think Asher is anything like Barbridge. But…but trusting anyone is hard. Asher especially.”

  “Why especially?” Celia pressed.

  Felicity took a breath. “I-I don’t—”

  “Think of it as a way to keep my mind from fearful thoughts,” Celia said.

  Felicity smiled despite herself. “You are cruel. You know I won’t deny you if you say that.”

  “Of course you won’t,” Celia said.

  Felicity bent her head. “Very well. I loved Asher from the time I was a girl. I hardly remember a time when I didn’t love him. But when he had a chance to…to love me back…he just left. He walked away from me and never looked back. That is why I don’t trust him, trust myself. It’s nothing to do with the abuse in my marriage.”

  Celia pressed her lips together and she seemed to be pondering what Felicity had said. She found herself hoping Celia didn’t judge Asher too harshly for leaving. Even though she did, herself.

  At last Celia paced to the window and stared out into the garden. “Asher reminds me of John, you know. It’s why they’ve become such fast friends, I think.”

  Felicity nodded and her smile came swiftly. She had noticed how close John and Asher had become. She liked that he fit so easily with all her family, all her friends.

  “Yes,” she said when it was clear Celia was waiting for an answer.

  “John came from far humbler beginnings,” Celia continued. “When you start on the outside, I now understand it feels impossible to get inside.”

  Now it was Felicity who pursed her lips, for that was exactly what Asher kept saying to her and it felt like such a silly argument.

  “But he was inside!” she protested. “He was a friend to our family and he was treated as such by both my brothers, by Elise, by me!”

  “His father served,” Celia said evenly. “He served.”

  “Y-yes,” she admitted, for there was no denying it.

  “Then he was never fully inside, no matter how kindly you all treated him. In his mind, he was separate. And I would wager in his father’s mind, as well.”

  Felicity thought back to those happy days when they’d played together. And how often Seyton would come to their circle, smiling apologetically, taking Asher away. She remembering overhearing him once telling the boy she loved to “recall his place”. She remembered Asher winking at her when he was wearing his footman’s livery and then dashing his gaze to his father to make certain Seyton hadn’t seen.

  “He was drawn away,” she whispered. “By duty. By his father. I never saw him as less or wanted more than he was. And he still walked away from me.”

  Celia reached out and took her hand. Her expression was filled with understanding and care. “I know how much that hurts. But he may have felt he had no choice. John nearly walked away from me, you know.”

  Felicity caught her breath. Celia and John were so perfectly matched and so utterly happy that it was hard to remember sometimes that their start had been so rough and painful.

  “Why did he?” she asked. “The danger?”

  Celia shrugged. “I’m sure that didn’t help. But I think it was more that he couldn’t believe that a man like him deserved a woman like me.”

  “And didn’t it hurt you that he made that decision for you? Didn’t it anger you that he’d walk away?”

  “No, it hurt and angered me that he didn’t believe in himself,” Celia said. “I refused to let him throw away what I knew we could…what we do…have together.”

  Felicity blinked, wishing the hot tears that filled her eyes were easier to pretend away. But Celia saw them, there was no fighting that truth. She saw them and she leaned in, refusing to let Felicity escape.

  “Felicity, do you want what you could have?” she whispered.

  “I don’t know,” she burst out on a short, gasping breath. “It is so hard to have faith in that unknown future.”

  “That fact that it’s unknown is why they call it faith,” Celia said as she wiped a tear from Felicity’s cheek.

  She opened her mouth to respond but before she could, the door to the parlor opened and John and Asher entered, Stenfax, Elise, Gray and Rosalinde right on their heels.

  And Asher was bleeding.

  The moment Asher and Dane entered the room, Celia gasped and rushed to her husband. She wrapped her arms around his neck before she placed a deeply passionate kiss on his lips that made everyone in the room turn their heads to give the couple a bit of privacy.

  Asher couldn’t help it. His gaze turned directly to Felicity.

  He expected her to be watching the pair alon
g with the rest, but she didn’t even seem to notice their display. Instead she stared at him, a hand to her lips and her eyes wide.

  “You’re bleeding,” she finally gasped as she moved over to him, lifting up on her tiptoes to brush her fingertips over the cut below his eye.

  “It’s nothing,” he reassured her, but she ignored him, still smoothing her hands over his face as she searched out any other injury.

  He realized that she wasn’t asking about their duty, she wasn’t asking about the book. In that moment, his well-being was more important to her than saving her own life. His heart swelled with impossible love for her. Impossible desires for a future that didn’t exist, couldn’t exist.

  “Felicity,” he said, catching her hands. “We need to tell you what happened.”

  Those words seemed to draw her from her worried focus and she looked at the others with a blush before she moved aside.

  Dane drew back from Celia and she, too, blushed before she stepped away and took his hand. Asher wished he could do the same for Felicity, but didn’t.

  “Tell us,” Stenfax said, his voice shaking.

  “We found Beckford,” Dane said. “And the book.”

  Felicity weaved slightly and Asher reached out to catch her arm, to steady her. She leaned into him, her warmth curling through him, and then she straightened and said, “So—so is it over?”

  “I hope so,” Asher said softly. “But before he was taken way, Beckford told us he had sold some of the secrets in the book already.”

  “Mine?” she asked, holding his gaze steadily, her voice somehow calm when her eyes screamed in terror.

  “We don’t know,” Dane said. “But we know the code is book code and we know the book it comes from. I assume you have a Bible on the premises?” he asked Stenfax.

  “I’ll show you where,” Elise said, motioning for Dane to follow.

  Before he did, Dane looked back at Felicity. “I will do the best I can.”

  “Thank you,” she said softly.

  “Come,” Stenfax said, holding out a hand to Felicity. “Let’s sit while we wait.”

  She cast one more long look at Asher, then took her brother’s offering and a seat between him and Gray on the settee. Rosalinde took a chair across and motioned to another for Asher, but he shook his head slightly. He couldn’t sit. He couldn’t pretend like this was tea with friends when he knew Dane was picking apart the book, trying to break the code.

  Until he knew Felicity was safe, there would be no sitting. No resting.

  “Why didn’t the War Department keep the book?” Felicity whispered, her voice broken.

  Asher jerked his gaze to her. “What do you mean?”

  “You took Beckford to them, I assume, as he was under arrest. And we all know that the book must contain some kind of secrets of the nation or the department wouldn’t be so interested. So why didn’t they keep it?”

  “Dane’s former superior, Stalwood, arranged it. After much discussion, some of it very loud, I’m afraid, he said your family is a friend to the country and he would allow Dane twelve hours to get what he needed from the book before he expected it back for further investigation.”

  Rosalinde exchanged a look with Gray. “I’ve always liked that man.”

  He smiled slightly. “Have you? I recall when everything happened with Celia you called Stalwood a cruel bastard who could—”

  She held up a hand. “All right, all right. Enough of that.”

  Asher drew in a long breath. He saw what Gray was doing, trying to make Rosalinde smile in the midst of this chaos and pain. And he wanted to do the same for Felicity.

  Only that wasn’t his place. Was it?

  The door to the parlor opened and Dane stepped back inside. His face was drawn down in a long frown, and both Elise and Celia looked upset behind him.

  “I’ve flipped through the book from beginning to end,” he said. “The only things that weren’t encoded by Elise’s husband were the names of those he blackmailed. And Felicity…”

  She stood slowly. “My name isn’t in the book?”

  Dane shook his head. “There are two sections of pages missing. I assume one is Fitzgilbert’s, as Beckford admitted to selling those. The other is likely yours.”

  “Fitzgilbert bought her secrets,” Asher said, grabbing the back of the chair hard enough that he felt the wood strain beneath his hands. “That was what Beckford meant when he said Fitzgilbert bought other secrets. But why? Why would he take Felicity’s pages?”

  Gray pushed to his feet and cursed loud and long and creatively before he shook his head. “Because of me. Because he lost Rosalinde and Celia because of our family. Because he’s a petty fool who would revel in destroying what he could not control.”

  Rosalinde covered her face with her hands. “Gray isn’t wrong,” she said in a muffled and pained tone.

  “No,” Celia admitted, wiping at a tear. “He isn’t.”

  Dane straightened his shoulders. “We suspect this and I’m sure it’s true. But I want to hear it from Beckford’s mouth. I’m going back to Stalwood and I’m going to find out the truth.”

  “Do you want one of us to go with you?” Stenfax asked.

  “No,” Dane said, his tone low and dangerous. He faced Celia. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

  She took his hand, and Asher flinched at the raw pain on her face. “Be careful.”

  Dane nodded and left the room. The moment he did, all eyes turned to Felicity. Asher saw her wince, saw her beginning to buckle, and he strode forward, propriety gone, protecting himself gone. All he wanted to do was help her.

  And he couldn’t, not truly. But he could at least get her away from the pity she often said she feared.

  “Come,” he said, holding out a hand.

  She stared at it, then back to his face. “What?”

  “You and I are going for a ride,” he said, looking toward her brothers and daring them to refuse him.

  Neither of them did, and Felicity didn’t recoil as he took her from the room. In fact, she said nothing at all as he took her to the foyer, as he called for the carriage, as he helped her into the vehicle that came and as he ordered the driver to take them anywhere he pleased, just not to bother them for an hour.

  She said nothing, but watched him as he got into the carriage, closed himself in and they began to move.

  And in that moment, he wanted her emotion, her anguish, her response more than anything. That he could live with. This blank terror, this hollow pain…that was worse than anything he had ever lived with.

  And there was nothing he could do about it.

  Chapter Sixteen

  “Please say something,” Asher whispered after what felt like an eternity had passed since the carriage began to meander aimlessly, just as Asher had ordered it to do.

  Felicity blinked as she looked at him, confused by the broken tone of his voice. “What would you have me say, Asher?” She caught her breath. “There is nothing to say now, is there?”

  “Because the secret is gone,” he said, not a question, just a statement, and one that put icy cold fear in the center of her already broken heart.

  She shivered at the chill of it, spreading through her blood, her bones, her everything until she was nearly frozen in fear and panic and loss and grief.

  “Yes,” she whispered.

  “Say that you hate me for not protecting you sooner,” he suggested. “Say that you blame me.”

  His face was filled with guilt and pain, regret and anger. He truly blamed himself for this turn of events.

  “You think that would help?”

  “I deserve it,” he whispered.

  She shook her head slowly. “Listen to me, Asher. There are many things I’ve blamed you for over the years we’ve been apart. For right or for wrong, I’ve blamed you. But I do not blame you for this. You and John and Celia and the rest of my family worked hard to keep me safe. If the secret is truly gone now, if it is truly out in the world and irretrie
vable, then it is no one’s fault. No one’s but…”

  She trailed off as her voice caught, choked on unshed tears and regrets. The same ones that kept her up nights and had for so very long.

  “Whose?” he pressed, his gaze locked on hers, not giving her quarter.

  She swallowed hard. “Mine.”

  He let out a soft sound of incredulity and pain, and suddenly he was moving. The beautiful, manly body unfolding from the seat across from her, darting to her side of the carriage. Arms folded around her, warmth that could only come from this man.

  She looked up into his face, his tormented, beautiful, perfect face, and saw how much he…he loved her. The sight of it took her breath away. And broke her heart further. Somehow seeing it, and knowing he would deny it regardless, that hurt even more than if she looked and didn’t see it there at all.

  “You asked me to hear you, Felicity, and I did. And now you must hear me,” he whispered, his voice so soft and rough and low that it hardly carried in the slim space between them. “You are not to blame for this.”

  “I killed a man,” she said, her voice cracking. “I put a gun between us and I pulled the trigger and I watched him bleed his life out on my floor.”

  “Because you had to.” He pressed a palm to her back, arching her into his chest.

  “Some wouldn’t care,” she insisted against his shoulder. “Many would call me a murderer, wouldn’t they?”

  He flinched slightly, but enough that she felt the physical reaction. “No one who matters would dare say that. And you shouldn’t say it either. I don’t doubt that what you had to do that night meant something to you. I have never taken a life, so I would never presume to imply that I know what you felt in that moment. Or in any moment since where you’ve been forced to relive what you did.”

  She drew back and looked up at him. Since the story had come out, no one had acknowledged those particular feelings. She had been forgiven by those she loved, told she was in the right, told she should not feel guilt. But not one had ever acknowledged those deeper feelings.