Wicked and the Wallflower

by Sarah MacLean

  Aside from the fact that she quite liked the Duchess of Haven, she’d also learned a piece of critical information about the institution of marriage—that a man wildly in love made a remarkable husband.

  Not that a wildly in love husband was in Felicity’s cards. That particular ship had sailed tonight. Well. It had sailed months ago if she were honest, but tonight was really the last nail in the coffin. “I’m mixing metaphors.”

  “What?” Arthur snapped.

  “You’re what?” her mother repeated.

  “Nothing.” She waved a hand. “I was speaking aloud.”

  Arthur sighed.

  “For heaven’s sake, Felicity. That certainly won’t help land you the duke,” said the marchioness.

  “Mother, Felicity isn’t landing the duke.”

  “Not with that attitude, she won’t,” her mother retorted. “He invited us to a ball! All of London thinks he’s looking for a wife! And you are daughter to a marquess, sister to an earl, and have all your teeth!”

  Felicity closed her eyes for a moment, resisting the urge to scream, cry, laugh, or do all three. “Is that what dukes are looking for these days? Possession of teeth?”

  “It’s part of it!” the marchioness insisted, her panicked words devolving into a ragged cough. She brought a handkerchief to cover her mouth. “Drat this cold, or I could have made the introduction myself!”

  Felicity sent a quiet prayer of thanks to whichever god had delivered a cold to Bumble House two days earlier, or she would have no doubt been forced into dancing or some kind of ratafia situation with the Duke of Marwick.

  No one even liked ratafia. Why it was at every ball in Christendom was beyond Felicity’s ken.

  “You could not have made the introduction,” Felicity said. “You’ve never met Marwick. No one has. Because he’s a hermit and a madman, if the gossip is to be believed.”

  “No one believes gossip.”

  “Mother, everyone believes gossip. If they didn’t—” She paused while the marchioness sneezed. “God bless you.”

  “If God wished to bless me, he’d get you married to the Duke of Marwick.”

  Felicity rolled her eyes. “Mother, after tonight, if the Duke of Marwick were to show any interest in me, it would be a clear indication that he is indeed a madman, rattling around in that massive house of his, collecting unmarried women and dressing them in fancy dress for a private museum.”

  Arthur blinked. “That’s a bit grim.”

  “Nonsense,” her mother said. “Dukes don’t collect women.” She paused. “Wait. After tonight?”

  Felicity went silent.

  “Arthur?” her mother prodded. “How was the evening, otherwise?”

  Felicity turned her back on her mother and gave her brother a wide-eyed, pleading look. She couldn’t bear having to recount the disastrous evening to her mother. For that, she required sleep. And possibly laudanum. “Uneventful, wasn’t it, Arthur?”

  “What a pity,” the marchioness said. “Not a single additional bite?”

  “Additional?” Felicity repeated. “Arthur, are you, too, looking for a husband?”

  Arthur cleared his throat. “No.”

  Felicity’s brows rose. “No, to whom?”

  “No, to Mother.”

  “Oh,” the marchioness said from far above. “Not even Binghamton? Or the German?”

  Felicity blinked. “The German. Herr Homrighausen.”

  “He’s said to have a castle!” the marchioness said before dissolving into another coughing fit, followed by a chorus of barks.

  Felicity ignored her mother, keeping her attention on her brother, who did all he could to avoid looking at her before finally replying with irritation. “Yes.”

  The word unlocked the thought that had whispered around Felicity’s consciousness earlier. “They’re rich.”

  Arthur cut her a look. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  She looked up at her mother. “Mr. Binghamton, Herr Homrighausen, the Duke of Marwick.” She turned to Arthur. “Not one of them is a good match for me. But they’re all rich.”

  “Really, Felicity! Ladies do not discuss the finances of their suitors!” the marchioness cried, the dachshunds barking and frolicking around her like fat little cherubs.

  “Except they’re not my suitors, are they?” she asked, understanding flaring as she turned an accusatory gaze on her brother. “Or if they were . . . I ruined that tonight.”

  The marchioness gasped at the words. “What did you do this time?”

  Felicity ignored the tone, as though it was expected that Felicity would have done something to cause any eligible suitors to flee. The fact that she had done precisely that was irrelevant. The relevant fact was this: her family was keeping secrets from her. “Arthur?”

  Arthur turned to look up at their mother, and Felicity recognized the frustrated plea in his eyes from their childhood, as though she’d nicked the last cherry tart or she was asking to follow him and his friends out onto the pond for the afternoon. She followed his look to where her mother stood on watch from high above, and for a moment, she wondered about all the times they’d stood in this exact position, children below and parent above, like Solomon, waiting for a solution to their infinitesimal problems.

  But this problem was not infinitesimal.

  If the helplessness on her mother’s face was any indication, this problem was larger than Felicity had imagined.

  “What’s happened?” Felicity asked before shifting to stand directly in front of her brother. “No. Not to her. I’m at the center of it, obviously, so I’d like to know what’s happened.”

  “I could ask the same thing,” her mother said from up on high.

  Felicity did not look as she called up to the marchioness. “I told all of London I was marrying the Duke of Marwick.”

  “You what?!”

  The dogs began to bark again, loud and frenzied, as their mistress succumbed to another coughing fit. Still, Felicity did not look away from her brother. “I know. It’s terrible. I’ve caused a fair bit of trouble. But I’m not the only one . . . am I?” Arthur’s guilty gaze found hers, and she repeated, “Am I?”

  He took a deep breath and exhaled, long and full of frustration. “No.”

  “Something’s happened.”

  He nodded.

  “Something to do with money.”

  And again.

  “Felicity, we don’t discuss money with men.”

  “Then by all means, Mother, you should leave, but I intend to have this conversation.” Arthur’s brown eyes met hers. “Something to do with money.”

  He looked away, toward the back of the house, where down a dark corridor a narrow staircase climbed to the servants’ quarters, two dozen others slept, not knowing their fate was in the balance. Just as Felicity had done, every night before now, when her brother, whom she loved with her full heart, nodded a final time and said, “We haven’t any.”

  She blinked, the words at once expected and shocking. “What does that mean?”

  Frustration flared and he turned away, running his fingers through his hair before turning back to her, arms wide. “What does it sound like? There’s no money.”

  She came down off the staircase, shaking her head. “How is that possible? You’re Midas.”

  He laughed, the sound utterly humorless. “Not any longer.”

  “It’s not Arthur’s fault,” the Marchioness of Bumble called down from the landing. “He didn’t know it was a bad deal. He thought the other men were to be trusted.”

  Felicity shook her head. “A bad deal?”

  “It wasn’t a bad deal,” he said, softly. “I wasn’t swindled. I simply—” She stepped toward him, reaching for him, wanting to comfort him. And then he added, “I never imagined I’d lose it.”

  She reached for him, taking his hands in hers. “It shall be fine,” she said quietly. “So you’ve lost some money.”

  “All the money.” He looked to their hands, ent
wined. “Christ, Felicity. Pru can’t know.”

  Felicity didn’t think her sister-in-law would care one bit if Arthur had made a bad investment. She offered him a smile. “Arthur. You’re heir to a marquessate. Father will help you while you restore your business and your reputation. There are lands. Houses. This shall right itself.”

  Arthur shook his head. “No, Felicity. Father invested with me. Everything is gone. Everything that wasn’t entailed.”

  Felicity blinked, finally turning up to her mother, who stood, one hand to her chest, and nodded. “Everything.”

  “When?”

  “It’s not important.”

  She spun on her brother. “As a matter of fact, I think it is. When?”

  He swallowed. “Eighteen months ago.”

  Felicity’s jaw dropped. Eighteen months. They’d lied to her for a year and a half. They’d worked to wed her to a collection of less-than-ideal men, then sent her off to a ridiculous country house party to throw her lot in with four other women who were attempting to woo the Duke of Haven into accepting one of them as his second wife. She should have known then, of course, the moment her mother, who cared for propriety, her dogs, and her children (in that order), had presented the idea of Felicity competing for the hand of the duke as a sound concept.

  She should have known when her father allowed it.

  When her brother allowed it.

  She looked to him. “The duke was rich.”

  He blinked. “Which one?”

  “Both of them. Last summer’s. Tonight’s.”

  He nodded.

  “And all the others.”

  “They were rich enough.”

  Blood rushed through her ears. “I was to marry one of them.”

  He nodded.

  “And that marriage was to have filled the coffers.”

  “That was the idea.”

  They’d been using her for a year and a half. Making plans without her knowing. For a year and a half. She’d been a pawn in this game. She shook her head. “How could you not have told me the goal was marriage at any cost?”

  “Because it wasn’t. I wouldn’t marry you to just anyone . . .”

  She heard the hesitation at the end of the statement. “However?”

  He sighed and waved a hand. “However.” She heard the unspoken words that followed. We needed the match.

  No money. “What of the servants?”

  He shook his head. “We’ve cut the staff everywhere but here.”

  She shook her head and turned to her mother. “All those excuses—the myriad reasons we did not take to the country.”

  “We did not wish to worry you,” her mother replied. “You were already so—”

  Forlorn. Finished. Forgotten.

  Felicity shook her head. “And the tenants?” The hardworking people who worked the land in the country. Who relied upon the title to provide. To protect.

  “They keep what they make, now,” Arthur replied. “They trade for their own livestock. They mend their own homes.” Protected now, but not by the title to which the land was tethered.

  No money. Nothing that would protect the land for future generations—for the tenants’ children. For Arthur’s young son and the second on the way. For her own future, if she did not marry.

  We cannot afford another scandal.

  Arthur’s words echoed through her again, unbidden. With new, literal meaning.

  It was the nineteenth century, and bearing a title did not ensure the lifestyle it once did; there were impoverished aristocrats everywhere in London, and soon, the Faircloth family would be added to their ranks.

  It was not Felicity’s fault, but, somehow, it felt entirely so. “And now, they shan’t have me.”

  Arthur looked away, ashamed. “Now, they shan’t have you.”

  “Because I lied.”

  “What would possess you to tell such a stunning lie?” her mother called down, breathless with panic.

  “I imagine the same thing that would possess you both to keep such a stunning secret,” Felicity said, frustration coursing through her. “Desperation.”

  Anger. Loneliness. A desire to shape the future without thought of what might come next.

  Her twin met her eyes, his gaze clear and honest. “It was a mistake.”

  She lifted her chin, hot rage and terror flooding her. “Mine, as well.”

  “I should have told you.”

  “There are many things we both should have done.”

  “I thought I could spare you—” he began, and Felicity held up a hand to stop his words.

  “You thought you could spare you. You thought you could save yourself from having to tell your wife, whom you are supposed to love and cherish, the truth of your reality. You thought you could save yourself the embarrassment.”

  “Not just embarrassment. Worry. I am her husband. I am to care for her. For them all.” A wife. A child. Another on the way.

  A pang of sorrow thrummed through Felicity. A thread of empathy, tinged with her own disappointment. Her own fear. Her own guilt at behaving too rashly, at speaking too loudly, at making too much of a mistake.

  In the silence that followed, Arthur added, “I should not have thought to use you.”

  “No,” she said, angry enough not to let him off the hook. “You shouldn’t have.”

  He gave another humorless laugh. “I suppose I’ve gotten what’s coming. After all, you’re not going to marry a rich duke. Or anyone rich for that matter. And you shouldn’t have to lower your expectations.”

  Except now Felicity had told an enormous lie and ruined any chance of her expectations being met. And, in the balance, ruined any chance of her family’s future being secure. No one would have her now—not only was she stained by her past behavior, she had lied. Publicly. About marriage to a duke.

  No man in his right mind would find that a forgivable offense.

  Farewell, expectations.

  “Expectations aren’t worth the thoughts wasted on them if we haven’t a roof over our heads.” The marchioness sighed, as though she could read Felicity’s thoughts from above. “Good heavens, Felicity, what would actually possess you?”

  “It doesn’t matter, Mother,” Arthur interjected before Felicity could speak.

  Arthur—always protecting her. Always trying to protect everyone, the idiot man.

  “You’re right.” The marchioness sighed. “I suppose he’s disabused the entire ton of the notion at this point, and we are returned to our rightful place of scandal.”

  “Likely so,” Felicity said, guilt and fury and frustration at confusing war in her gut. After all, as a female, she had a singular purpose at times like this . . . to marry for money and return honor and wealth to her family.

  Except no one would marry her after tonight.

  At least, no one in his right mind.

  Arthur sensed her distaste for the direction of the conversation, and he set his hands on her shoulders, leaning in to press a chaste, fraternal kiss to her forehead. “We shall be fine,” he said, firmly. “I shall find another way.”

  She nodded, ignoring the prick of tears threatening. Knowing that eighteen months had gone by, and the best solution Arthur had had was her marriage. “Go home to your wife.”

  He swallowed at the words—at the reminder of his pretty, loving wife, who knew nothing of the mess into which they’d all landed. Lucky Prudence. When Arthur was able to find his voice, he whispered, “She can’t know.”

  The fear in his words was palpable. Horrible.

  What a mess they were in.

  Felicity nodded. “The secret is ours.”

  When the door closed behind him, Felicity lifted her skirts—skirts on a gown from last season, altered to accommodate changes in fashion rather than given away and replaced with something fresh. How had she not realized? She climbed the stairs, the dogs weaving back and forth in front of her.

  When she reached the landing, she faced her mother. “Your dogs are trying to
kill me.”

  The marchioness nodded, allowing the change of topic. “It’s possible. They’re very clever.”

  Felicity forced a smile. “The best of your children.”

  “Less trouble than all the rest,” her mother replied, leaning down and collecting one long, furry animal in her arms. “Was the duke very handsome?”

  “I barely saw him in the crush, but it seemed so.” Without warning, Felicity found herself thinking of the other man. The one in the darkness. The one she only wished she’d seen. He’d seemed magical, like an invisible flame.

  But if tonight had taught her anything, it was that magic was not real.

  What was real was trouble.

  “All we wanted was a proper match.” Her mother’s words cut into her thoughts.

  Felicity’s lips twisted. “I know.”

  “Was it as bad as it sounds?”

  You didn’t escape us; we exited you.

  Finished Felicity. Forgotten Felicity. Forlorn Felicity.

  You are too late for the duke; I’ve already landed him.

  Felicity nodded. “It was worse.”

  She made her way through the dark hallways to her bedchamber. Entering the dimly lit room, she tossed her gloves and reticule on the small table just inside the door, closing it and pressing against it, finally releasing the breath she’d been holding since she’d dressed for the Marwick ball hours earlier.

  She crossed to the bed in darkness, tossing herself back on the mattress. She stared at the canopy above for a long moment, replaying the horrifying events of the evening.

  “What a disaster.”

  For a fleeting moment, she imagined what she would do if she weren’t herself—too tall, too plain, too old and outspoken, a proper wallflower with no hope of wooing an eligible bachelor. She imagined sneaking from the house, returning to the scene of her devastating crime.

  Winning a fortune for her family, and the wide world for herself.

  Wanting more than she could have.

  If she weren’t herself, she could do it. She could find the duke and woo him. She could bring him to his knees. If she were beautiful and witty and sparkling. If she were at the center and not the edge of the world. If she were inside the room, and not peering through the keyhole.