An Independent Miss

by Becca St. John

  Nerves held close, she stepped into the room and realized, once again, when told a gentleman waited, she should ask which gentleman.

  “Robbie.”

  Jack’s brother stopped pacing, bowed, all crumpled clothing and wary eyes. He swiped his unruly hair back off his forehead as she approached. “Has something happened to your brother?”

  “No.” He stepped forward, to meet her halfway. “No, at least, no more than you requested.” He looked away, jaw clenched, turned back, eyes angry, fierce. “You are going out?”

  Confused by his anger, she glanced down at her best dress, the one her mother insisted she wear, wondered why he would take offense. “No. I’m expecting company, but none as important as you,” she soothed, as his wariness transformed into a deep, worried furrow.

  “I did not mean to intrude.” He bowed, as though to leave, his anger palpable.

  “You are no intrusion. So tell me, you have come for something important. I know that.” She touched his arm, hesitant. “You would not leave Jack otherwise.”

  “I have no right,” he said, “my family will never be able to repay your kindness, your attention to him. The nurses speak of all you do, not just with your…your medicines, but your search to find ladies to write letters, to read. They don’t know, but I do, the risk you take in going there. The risk of ruin.”

  “Oh, Robbie, that’s the least of my worries.”

  He pressed his lips, as though fighting what he wanted to say. He looked away, his skin dulled by sitting indoors, heavy, puffy circles under red-rimmed eyes. A bit crazed by the pain and suffering he endured to be with his brother so many hours of each day.

  “Shall we sit?”

  “Yes.” He nodded, then shook his head. “No, not yet, I…” He gripped her hands so tightly she was hard-pressed not to pull free, but didn’t dare. “Please forgive me, but after you have done more than anyone could ask, I am here to request another favor of you…only…” His words flew out in a rush. “I’m thinking it may be a favor for you, as well. I think we can help each other.”

  “Of course.” She raised their clasped hands, the desperation in his eyes gleamed. “If it is in my power, I will do anything you ask.”

  “Yes, it is…it is unforgivable of me to appeal to you, but…”

  “Perhaps, then,” Andover said from the doorway. “You should not ask it.”

  Robbie jumped back.

  “My lord.” Desperate to ease Robbie’s agitation, she glared at Andover. “If I may introduce Robbie Marshall, neighbor and friend from Homslee Hall. I believe you met his parents, on a visit with my father. Robbie, this is Lord Andover.”

  Robbie glared at him as well, his jaw working, his breathing in short pants, as though he’d been in a fight or was ready to start one. “Is this the man who ruined you, Lady Felicity?”

  “Robbie! No!” she countered. “Andover did no such thing.”

  “I am her betrothed.” The man in question stepped into the room, long and lithe while Robbie reeked of the hospital, his clothes rumpled from sleeping in a chair. “And have no intention of seeing her character besmirched.” Andover slapped his gloves against his open palm. “I believe I interrupted a request. Something that would aid both of you?”

  Robbie stood rigid, color rising, reddening cheeks grey from days in a convalescent ward. He turned on Felicity, accusing her, challenging Andover’s word, or both. “You never once said you were to be married.”

  No, she hadn’t, because she was not at all sure it would come to that. “I haven’t told anyone, Robbie,” she explained. “No one knows. It hasn’t been…” she daren’t look at Andover, “…completely decided.”

  Andover raised his eyebrows, lips tight, his own challenge ready. “I rather thought we were in agreement.”

  Lady Westhaven swept into the room, saving Felicity from responding.

  “My goodness, Robbie! And Lord Andover! Has Felicity failed to offer you refreshments?” She went to the bell pull and gave it a tug. “Robbie, do tell us, how is your brother? We have been so worried about him.” She moved as she chatted, indicated for everyone to take a seat while they waited for Humphrey, who cleared his throat to let her mother know he was standing in the doorway.

  “I won’t be staying, Lady Westhaven,” Robbie told her. “I just came to speak with Lady Felicity about my brother.”

  “We are so sorry to hear he is doing poorly.”

  “Thank you, Lady Westhaven. I will let him know you are thinking of him. And now, if you will excuse me, I will return to his side.”

  “Of course, Robbie.” Lady Westhaven braved Andover’s scowl and signaled for Felicity to take Robbie to the door.

  As they walked into the hall, she asked, “What is it you want, Robbie?”

  He shook his head. “Not now.”

  “Please…” She stopped him, but Humphrey came out from the back hall. Robbie shook his head, took his leave.

  She returned to the salon to find her mother and Andover seated across a small table. Her mother was complaining to Lord Andover. “We have no idea what happened to the announcement, or why it hasn’t been published.”

  Andover stood with Felicity’s arrival, raised his eyebrows as he looked to her.

  “Please, sit,” she offered as she took her own place, but as she sat her mother stood, forcing Andover to remain as he was.

  “You have yours, Cissy,” Lady Westhaven said.

  “My what, Mama?”

  “Your shawl. Lord Andover says it is a bit chilly. I will go fetch mine. As you have yours, perhaps you and the marquis would like to stroll in the garden?”

  Andover bowed, and Felicity took his arm, as they crossed to the French doors leading to a terrace. They stood for a moment, the fresh night air before them like a cleansing breeze, washing away potential argument.

  She felt Andover’s tension ease as they stepped over onto the stone of the terrace and into the quiet evening.

  “You are close to this Robbie?” he asked.

  Felicity sighed as they stepped down the stairs to the path. “He is like a brother.”

  “Odd. I’ve never noticed Thomas leaping away when caught speaking with you.”

  Felicity stopped them on the pebbled path, the cool damp air with its musty scent, more reminiscent of autumn than spring. “What are you asking? For there was a question in your words.”

  “He wasn’t feeling brotherly, Felicity.”

  “Of course he was!” she argued. “He’s just in a tumult with his brother dying. It’s awful,” she said, nearly revealing an awareness of Jack’s convalescing that could only be known had she been there. No one must know of that. “He feels guilty.”

  “Guilty? Why should he feel guilty?” He guided her toward the center of the garden.

  “Because Robbie always wanted to be a soldier. It was his dream, while Jack loved the land.”

  “So why didn’t he buy a commission?”

  “Jack is the younger of the two, and would not inherit. Their father forbade Robbie a commission, wanted him to learn more about the land. Something that never would have happened with Jack jumping in to take care of matters, and so…”

  “Robbie was sent to battle.”

  “Yes.”

  “You can’t tell me Robbie would rather have been wounded?”

  She let that sit between them before whispering, “Don’t you feel that way sometimes? That you would have traded places with your brother, your father?”

  Again, she could feel the tension in his arm, but he did not shy from honesty. “Touché.”

  Felicity hugged his arm to her. A quick, simple gesture, drawing in the scent of him as she did. “You know that feeling, that guilt, is a natural part of mourning. I don’t know why we must cross that bridge, and yet so many do. Cross it, that is, not stand on it and think of jumping.”

  She sighed, reluctantly eased the close hold. “In this case, I think Robbie believed he would have survived, because he would have been go
od at it. He’s ashamed he didn’t fight harder to be the one to go.”

  His scowl softened, as he urged her forward. “You’ve a soft heart, and I don’t doubt there’s a grain of truth in what you say, Lady Felicity, but trust me, as a man, that particular guilt is not what made him jump away from you. That was something else.”

  They stepped away from the lights of the salon, though still within sight of the doors, heading toward the fountain at the center of the garden. “Why would he feel guilty with me? What reason would he have?”

  “Something to do with his request, perhaps.”

  “I can’t think of anything he would ask that would not be appropriate.”

  “Something to help you, as well as him. What could that be?”

  “No, you are wrong there.” She stopped that train of thought. “He was not asking for himself, but something for Jack and poor Jack, I’m afraid, is on the threshold of death.”

  “Is he the reason you were climbing trees?”

  There it was, the question she’d known would be asked. She sat on the high sill of the fountain, head bowed, as she fought for any one of the explanations she’d dreamed up. But none fit with so apt a confrontation unless she lied. Boldly.

  “Yes, in a manner of speaking.”

  “Which was why your maid fetched ribbons for you? Which is, so I am told, a most important task.”

  Wearily, she looked up. “Lady Jane, I presume.” He nodded, proving Lady Jane had not lied. They were close enough for her to tell him such things within hours of them happening.

  Felicity wondered why he chose her to be his bride, if he were so close to that other woman, but she would not ask him. Instead, she fingered a blossom that would never open. “All this cold rain. Is not a fit environment for blooms.” A miserable spring, cold and overly damp, mirroring her spirits. Still, there was no running from it any more. “Or for any of the plants I gather.”

  “Is that what you were doing? Foraging in the city?” He held her back, his horror apparent.

  She rose. “Yes and no. I did not set out to gather anything, but saw something…”

  “So you climbed a tree, in broad daylight, where anyone would see you? Is that how you want to spend your life? Like a gypsy in town, as well as in the country?”

  “Not as a gypsy, or if it is, then good for them, because I do good things. I help people.”

  “And that dead woman at Ashley Park?” He loomed over her, had crossed the space to stand over her, tall and strong and forbidding, with a gravity she couldn’t bear. She did not back away.

  “There was an inquest…” He did not let her finish, slashing the air with his hand.

  “There could be a thousand inquests, it makes no difference. You put together a concoction that killed a woman. These plants…” His hand swept out, encompassing all plants everywhere, “…are dangerous. Do you hear me? Dangerous!”

  “Not if used properly.” Her voice shook, but she kept it low, calm.

  It worked. He ran his hands through his hair, shook his head. “I cannot abide such a thing. Not in my household, on my lands.” He looked away, as though she were a painful sight.

  “Then we will not suit,” she told him, crumbling inside, though she had been fearing this truth for days. Her hands trembled as she smoothed her skirts.

  Finally, he looked straight at her, nostrils flared, eyes wild with his thoughts. “We will, in some ways.” It sounded a threat. “Though not in all,” and reached for her, that mesmerizing force of his, like his voice, keeping her there when she knew she should flee.

  “We won’t,” she cleared her throat. “We don’t suit in the most basic ways.”

  He laughed, dark and cynical. Not a merry sound at all. “Oh, but that is where you are wrong.” He cupped her head. “We do suit in the most basic and fundamental of ways. The rest…” His face lowered toward hers, “…we will have to fight our way through. But in this, Felicity, we are one.”

  His kiss, deep and powerful, swept resistance away, as her senses dissolved. She’d been warned against this path to happiness. Kisses, caresses and loving words easily said, short lived and fickle. To open herself to this longing, to hope for love in desire. Like fire, too close, you burn.

  And she did burn with the carnal pleasure of the press of bodies, his to hers. She felt his heart beating a far different tattoo from the day he proposed. Now it near pumped from his skin, against her breast, making her ache in ways she never knew she could even feel.

  The searing torture of his hands stroking the length of her back, to cup her buttocks, lift her harder, firmer, against him.

  “Oh,” she whimpered when he abandoned her lips to trail kisses along her jaw, her neck, his hands framing the soft swell of her bosom. Bliss, torture. He eased her to her feet, smoothed the side of her torso, loosening his hold.

  “Your mother is on the terrace,” he murmured, as he stepped back.

  Stunned, Felicity tilted her head, watching her mother hesitate and turn to go back into the salon.

  “Oh, dear Lord,” she whispered, beyond proper speech.

  “I don’t think the good Lord is involved just yet.” His voice was grave and deep.

  He chuckled. This was no laughing matter. Her senses were pouring in, their fingers wagging at her, reprimanding all the chaos that kiss produced. She shoved him away.

  “What? There is nothing wrong for a betrothed couple to kiss.” His smile a dark thing that sparked in his eyes.

  “We will not suit.” She wrapped her shawl tight, swaddling to comfort herself, as one would comfort a babe.

  “But we will, I’ve just proven it.” But she could see he knew exactly what she meant, and that he agreed.

  “We could go our own ways.”

  “And you would be ruined?”

  “I don’t give a wit about society!” She snapped her fingers, to show how little she cared. Rattled as she was, they did not snap, merely slid against each other.

  “I’m sorry you feel that way.” He adjusted his coat. “For I don’t care to be tarnished by that brush, nor will your sisters, brother, parents.”

  Her breath hiccupped, as she fought the onslaught of tears that had threatened all day.

  She could not be married to him, tasting the carnal pleasures he promised. She did not want a man who would hate her and, by his tamped anger now, he was close to doing just that.

  But what did he have to lose? A man had every right to expect a wife to conform to his design of a happy life. He abhorred the most important part of who she was, but had the power, in his sex, to forbid her living it.

  “If there is another, you’d best let him go tonight.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” she snapped, then smoothed her voice. “Medicine is my life. I could not bear to part with all I love.”

  “A woman died…”

  “ But would have lived if she’d taken the tonic as it was meant to be imbibed.”

  His jaw clenched. She sighed. “My own fault, I never should have gone to your room.” She’d been naïve and foolish and so much younger, just a few weeks past.

  But it had been the right thing to say, for he eased out of his darkness, softened, smoothing an escaped lock from her forehead.

  “All for a kiss,” he murmured, stunning her as he neared again, “Kisses I would have missed if you were not mine.”

  Oh, Lord, he slayed her. What power he held over her, to undo her so quickly.

  “You are mine, Felicity.” A half step away, he leaned in, drew a line of kisses along her jaw, until his words became a soft brush of air in her ear, like a butterfly touch that cascaded deep inside. “You are meant to be mine. I’ve thought of little else but your kisses, having you by my side, in my home.”

  “You will hate me,” she said, wishing it didn’t sound like a wail of sorrow. But it was such a thing. A deep, deep sorrow of longing. She wanted him, but could not have him. Impossible.

  “Never.”

  “Or you will kill m
e, by forbidding me to be me.”

  “Never,” he claimed, though he released her, stepped back. Their only connection his hands on her arms, holding her steady. “How could you say such a thing?”

  If only he could kiss away their troubles. “We won’t suit and I don’t want to be like so many couples, who barely see each other.”

  “Then we won’t be.”

  “I want love.”

  He released her, his eyes losing the warmth they’d held. “I will be good to you.”

  Which wasn’t at all what she asked for.

  “We won’t suit.”

  “Living alone, or as the spinster aunt in your brother’s home, the pariah? Not respectable enough to have sway over nieces? Not allowed near your sisters when they come out? That is preferable to the respectability I offer?”

  He spoke of nothing but bleak reality.

  She turned away.

  “Think about it, Lady Felicity. Think about our union.”

  “I will.”

  “And remember how eagerly you come into my arms.”

  She would, forever, think of that.

  “Come.” He offered his arm, “We shall go to the ball.”

  “I think not.” She told him.

  “Felicity,” he held out his arm. “You look lovely tonight, dressed for dancing. Let’s face the tongue-waggers, turn our backs on them, united. Join me in this.”

  If she did, she would be telling him, telling the world, they were to wed.

  “And if, after this evening, we decide we do not suit?”

  “We will tell the world you threw me over for some mad scientist.”

  She laughed, feeling lighter in the resurgence of friendship, a friend, someone she could always hold dear.

  “Let’s slay the gossips, shall we?”

  She took his arm.

  CHAPTER 19 ~ WEIGHTED REQUESTS

  Lady Andover sat in the small salon and waited for Mrs. Comfrey. Despite what her son thought, Mrs. Comfrey existed. She even planned to visit this very night.

  Or morning, if you looked at a clock.

  The dear woman even explained why she must visit in the wee hours, although Lady Andover couldn’t quite remember what that reason was. Everything was still so foggy, except that it had something to do with Andover’s resistance to the tonics she was being given.