Adored In Autumn

by Jess Michaels

  “No,” Asher said. “Even as a boy, I had the impression he wasn’t happy in his position, but he was doing it for me and he always told me he was looking for a new place where I could join him.”

  “And then what happened?” Rosalinde pressed, her eyes wide as she looked at him. He could see both she and Celia searching his face, looking for shared features, just as he did when he looked at them. And he was finding them, just as he was certain they were.

  He cleared his throat. “Suddenly he left the position. His letters grew further between, odd. He kept saying we would soon be a family, that he had news to share. I was excited, but when I asked my aunt about it, she seemed grim. She said I couldn’t join my father because he was in danger.”

  “Danger,” Celia said softly. “Did she say what kind?”

  “No, my uncle admonished her and that was the end of the conversation. I didn’t know anything else and a very long time went by. Suddenly my father resurfaced and he took the position with the last Earl of Stenfax.”

  “Did he ever talk about his time away?” Dane asked. Asher flinched. In the weeks he’d become friends with Dane, he’d learned his tone of voice when the man was gathering evidence, creating a timeline in his mind. It was the same tone he had now.

  Asher shook his head. “No. In fact, he avoided talking about those years when I asked. He would only tell me that he’d lost a great deal. Lost everything. He was…changed.”

  Rosalinde and Celia exchanged a look. “It is…compelling,” Celia said, looking at Dane. “But it could be coincidental.”

  “It could,” he conceded. “I did some tracking, though. Once I had a name, it was easier. Seyton left Fitzgilbert’s employ at almost the same time your mother did. He was the only servant I could find who did so. And he returned to Asher at almost the same time that your mother died and you two were taken away by your grandfather.”

  Rosalinde squeezed her eyes shut. “Even more compelling.”

  “It’s more than compelling,” Asher said as he stared at the two women, warmth filling him. And understanding of the connection he’d felt from the first moment he met them. “It’s…true.”

  Celia stepped forward, her eyes bright with tears. “Yes, I feel the same way.”

  “The moment we met you, it was like…meeting someone you’d known your whole life,” Rosalinde said. “Like…like…”

  “Coming home,” Asher finished.

  The women exchanged a look and then they moved forward together. Felicity squeezed Asher’s hand once more and then released him as he was embraced by his sisters.

  His sisters. He let out a sobbing breath as he gathered them both close and they stood together, trembling as one unit, one being, whole when they had never fully known they were missing pieces.

  Gray’s voice was rough as he said, “There is only one way to be certain, of course.”

  “Go to my father,” Asher said, drawing away from Celia and Rosalinde. “His home is two days’ ride from London. We could leave tonight.”

  “Yes,” Celia said, moving to stand beside Dane.

  “As soon as possible,” Rosalinde agreed.

  Dane turned Celia gently. “I can make you no promises,” he said, his voice focused and intense. “As much as I believe this to be true, I…I’m not certain. I don’t want to let you down.”

  “You never could,” Celia said, touching his face. “But I think we all know this is very likely where our road ends. Finally.”

  Gray nodded. “Then let us prepare.”

  “Yes,” Asher said, staring around the room at the faces of his old friends, now joined by the faces of two women he knew in his heart were family, blood. It was a startling thing. One that would take some getting used to.

  But only once they’d confronted his father. Only then could the future be seen and planned. For Celia and Rosalinde. But also for himself.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Felicity sat in Stenfax’s carriage, staring across at Lucien and Elise. It had been two days of hard travel, but they were nearly to the seaside village where Niall Seyton had made his home once he left their family’s employ.

  Her heart raced at the thought of it. At the thought of what this day could bring for Celia and Rosalinde and especially Asher.

  “You look worried,” Elise said.

  “How could she not be?” Stenfax said, shifting in his seat. “We have no idea what is about to happen. What could come of it. Who could be hurt.”

  Felicity reached out to her older brother. “You want to fix this. To control it. But you can’t.”

  “I know, that’s why I feel like I’m coming out of my skin,” Stenfax ground out.

  Elise took his arm and instantly his fidgeting slowed. He took a deep breath and it was like he found some calm center again.

  “If Seyton is indeed Celia and Rosalinde’s father, then this is a very happy day,” Elise said softly. “And if not, well, I know it will be heartbreaking. But they have lived a long time not knowing the truth. They are both strong enough to recover. Especially with their husbands to support them.”

  “It is Asher I worry about,” Felicity whispered. She looked out the window and leaned to see just the back of the other carriage ahead of them.

  Asher had been riding in it the entire journey, spending time with Rosalinde and Celia, telling them about his father, learning more about them. She wanted to be part of that, but she knew she needed to allow him this time.

  “Of course it’s Asher you worry about,” Elise said with a sly smile for her. “But you know he isn’t alone, either.”

  Felicity looked at the couple again. “We’ve made no promises. If this turns out to be false, he’ll be devastated. And what can I do?”

  “Be there for him,” Stenfax said.

  Felicity considered that. “He’s certainly shown me how in the past few weeks. How to offer strength without expecting anything in return.”

  “And that’s what you’ll do,” Elise said, then straightened up as the carriage turned and a cottage came into view. It overlooked the bluffs and the sea.

  “We’re here,” Felicity said, her voice beginning to shake. “What if I can’t help him? What if I can’t be enough? What if—”

  Elise touched her hand. “You are. You always have been. You know that.”

  Felicity took a long breath as the carriage door was opened, and stepped out just in time to see Asher get down from the first carriage, helping down Celia and Rosalinde, then handing them off to Gray and Dane, who had been riding alongside on horseback during the journey.

  She moved to him, sliding her fingers into his, looking up at him with what she hoped was a smile of strength. And he returned the expression, though his own smile was shaky at best. She only hoped she could help him as he had helped her.

  The door to the cottage opened and Asher tensed as his father appeared in the doorway. He knew he looked like the man, although his father was lined and wrinkled by age and loss. His hair was gray. But they shared the same dark eyes and the same jaw. In his father’s face, he saw Rosalinde’s nose. Celia’s smile.

  And he knew, even more than ever, what he was about to do. For himself, for his sisters, for his father.

  He was bringing his family home. And he was terrified at what would happen. Especially when his father looked startled by the great gaggle of people who had been deposited on his drive.

  Felicity squeezed Asher’s hand. “I’m here,” she whispered.

  He looked down into her upturned face. She was so lovely and focused on him. He felt her strength pulsing into him and he took it all. He needed it as he finally released her and made his way to the door, where he embraced his father.

  “Good afternoon, Father,” he said.

  “Asher,” Seyton said, smiling, though he kept looking at the others. “And you’ve brought…well, the entire Danford clan, it seems.”

  “I have,” Asher said gently. “Are you unhappy?”

  He saw a flash of dis
pleasure on his father’s face. A flash of the defiance when confronted with those who were titled, which Asher had often noticed in his childhood. He hadn’t understood it, especially when his father always preached so strongly about their “place” as servants.

  Now he did understand it.

  “Of course not.” Seyton stepped forward and Stenfax met him, hand outstretched in greeting.

  “Mr. Seyton, such a long time, and we’ve missed you,” Stenfax said. “Perhaps we could go inside and we’ll…we’ll make the other introductions there.”

  Seyton shifted, sending his son another look. “Well, it’s nothing fine, my lord. Just a small home.”

  “It’s lovely,” Felicity said, moving forward. “Seyton, how wonderful to see you.”

  “Lady Fel—er, Lady Barbridge,” Seyton said, taking the hand she offered. He sent another side glance toward Asher. “You look lovely.”

  “Come,” Asher said, ushering him inside. “We have much to discuss.”

  It took a few moments to situate everyone. His father kept no servants, but Elise rushed off to pour tea and Felicity went to help. The others gathered in his father’s small parlor. Asher watched Celia and Rosalinde as everyone found their places. They had not yet greeted his father and simply stared at this man they had been looking for so long.

  Once Felicity and Elise had returned, Asher cleared his throat. “Father, I know I’ve sprung guests on you, and for that I apologize. But I wasn’t certain how you would react if I told you I was about to bring down so many people into your house. Or who they were.”

  Seyton’s eyes went wide. “Asher, you needn’t imply that I wouldn’t welcome—”

  “But you don’t welcome,” Asher interrupted. “I never understood why until now. I never understood…”

  He trailed off as his voice caught, for he stared at his father and saw the depth of pain in his eyes. He’d never recognized it before, but it was grief, never lost and never tempered. Grief that could only come from having almost everything you loved torn away from you. At being impotent against the forces of evil.

  He had such respect for his father now, but he needed to do more than guess the truth. He needed to know.

  “Celia, Rosalinde,” he said, motioning them forward.

  At those names, his father caught his breath and his grip tightened on his cup.

  “Father, I want to present to you Celia Dane and Rosalinde Danford,” Asher said. He swallowed. “I think you might already know them, though. You see, their name before they married Gray and Mr. Dane respectively was…was Fitzgilbert.”

  The cup in Seyton’s hand slipped away and shattered on the floor, but he didn’t seem to notice or care. He stared at the two women, just stared at them with wide and disbelieving eyes.

  Any doubt that Asher might have carried with him into this house was dashed away. The truth was clear. The truth was real.

  “Rosalinde,” Seyton whispered, his voice shaking. “And Celia Fitzgilbert.”

  “Yes,” Rosalinde said, her voice thick. “We are the granddaughters of Gregory Fitzgilbert, we are the daughters of Agatha Fitzgilbert. And…and…”

  “And of…” Celia’s voice caught. “You. It’s you, isn’t it? You are our father?”

  To his surprise, Asher’s father spun away, lifting the back of his hand to his mouth as he began to make great heaving cries that shook his body from head to toe. Asher stared at him, felt all the pain that bled out of this man he had loved all his life. And his own tears fell.

  “Father, please look at us,” he said, slipping up to stand with his sisters. “Please.”

  It took a moment for Seyton to turn, but when he did, Asher was stunned. His father was smiling as he wept. He was smiling as he stepped forward and fell into the arms of all his children, crying out, “My girls! My beautiful girls.”

  It took some time for the crying and the hugging to subside. It seemed the moment they gathered themselves, one of them would start to cry again, and that brought the entire circle back together. And once that was all finished, there were introductions and reintroductions to be made of husbands and friends and family. And a lengthy explanation of how they had come to discover Seyton’s identity as the mysterious servant who had sired the girls.

  An hour later, Asher sat in his father’s parlor, Felicity sitting quietly by his side, his sisters gathered close to the old man.

  “There are so many questions,” Rosalinde said as Celia rested a head on her shoulder, a permanently wide smile on her pretty face.

  “From all sides,” Seyton said with a sigh. “But yours are the most important. What do you want to know?”

  Celia lifted her head and met his gaze evenly. “Did you love our mother?”

  “With all my heart,” Seyton answered without hesitation. He sent an apologetic look toward Asher. “I have had two great loves in my life. I lost both. Asher’s mother and I married so very young and we had so little. When she died, I was heartbroken and with a child to take care of. I needed a new position and Fitzgilbert took me. I should have known what a bastard he was when he wouldn’t allow my son to come to the household, but there was little choice.”

  “I never blamed you for that, Father,” Asher said. He felt Felicity gently rest a hand on his back as he said the words, her quiet comfort more meaningful than even she likely realized.

  “I blamed myself,” Seyton said with a shake of his head. “Especially once I fell in love with Agatha and we were forced to run.”

  Rosalinde shivered. “I can only imagine how angry our grandfather was. He could be…” She lifted a hand to her throat, and across the room Gray shifted and his face grew hard with anger. “He could be cruel.”

  Seyton shut his eyes with a pain breath. “To you?”

  “He tried to choke Rosalinde,” Gray managed to grind out past clenched teeth.

  “That bastard,” Seyton burst out, surprising Asher with his passionate response. He’d always known his father as the dutiful servant, not the righteously angry man.

  “He is dead,” Dane said softly, reaching out to place a hand on Celia’s shoulder. She reached up to cover it without looking up at him.

  Seyton nodded slowly. “I wish I could feel sorry for that,” he said at last. “But after all he did, I do not.”

  Rosalinde bent her head. “It is complicated for us, of course. But he grew crueler as the years went by, so I cannot say I’m sorry that he’s gone. He did attack me, when I thwarted his plans for Celia to marry Stenfax.”

  “That is the thing I understand least, actually,” Stenfax said, stepping into the family drama. “Celia and Rosalinde might not have known who you were, but you must have heard that I was engaged to Celia Fitzgilbert or that Gray married Rosalinde Fitzgilbert. At that point, couldn’t you have…reached out somehow?”

  Seyton let out a long sigh. “It was more complicated. Let me try to explain. When Agatha and I ran, I hoped Fitzgilbert would eventually run out of rage at her betrayal. But he didn’t. He continued to seek us out. We were never safe. We were happy, but I was always waiting for him to burst into our home, to take Agatha and my daughters away. It was why I kept Asher with his aunt and uncle, to distance him from the consequences in a way I couldn’t with the rest of my family. But when Celia was born, Agatha was not well.”

  Celia caught her breath. “We’d always been told it was an accident that took you both. But when Grandfather revealed the truth, he took great pleasure in letting me know I killed my mother.”

  “You didn’t,” Seyton assured her, leaning forward to take both her hands. “She had been sickly before you were born, it was not your fault. And she was so pleased to have another daughter.”

  He got up and Asher watched him, watching the pain on his face. Without thinking, he reached for Felicity’s hand. She took it without comment, holding it in her lap with both her own.

  “She died,” Seyton choked out. “On a Tuesday afternoon. And by Wednesday night Fitzgilbert had found us.”<
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  “Did you…fight for us?” Rosalinde asked, almost in an apologetic tone.

  He let out a great shudder. “I wanted to. I started to, but Fitzgilbert, he…he threatened Asher. It was let him take you and raise you two with money and privilege or he would hurt my son, he would hurt me, and he would take you in the end anyway.”

  Asher gasped as he got up, pulling away from the support of Felicity’s touch and moving toward his father. “You let your children go because of me?”

  “You were all my children,” Seyton said, stepping toward Asher and placing a hand on his cheek. “And Fitzgilbert was powerful. In the end, he would have had what he wanted and destroyed us all in the process. I should have fought harder, but—”

  “No,” Celia interrupted. “We know him. I know you couldn’t have done anything more.”

  Rosalinde nodded. “So then you went to work for Stenfax’s father?”

  Seyton sighed. “I did. I was broken and I wanted my son so desperately. A friend helped me obtain a position as the last Stenfax’s valet, and off we went. We were happy with your family, of course, but I do not deny that I thought of Celia and Rosalinde every day. At first, I tried to find information about them, but it was almost impossible. I believed that Fitzgilbert would tell you both horrible things about me. About your mother. That he would raise you to hate me. In the end, I couldn’t face that. Hearing about you was so painful that I stopped trying to do so.”

  “That was why you changed so much,” Asher breathed. “You rolled into yourself, pulled away from all you once were.”

  Seyton nodded. “It was cowardly, I know.”

  Rosalinde and Celia exchanged a look. Asher could see their hurt, but it mingled with their understanding. He drew a sigh of relief at the second emotion. They would forgive his father for pulling away. They would forgive him and form bonds with him.

  They would be a family.

  “But still,” Felicity said gently, rising to her feet and putting herself in the situation for the first time. “Stenfax’s question stands. How could you avoid knowing that Celia and Rosalinde were related to our family when you’d worked for us for so long?”