A Dangerous Proposal (Bow Street Brides Book 2) Page 20

  Blast her head! Why did it always have to draw the worst possible conclusion? The easy thing to do – the right thing to do – would be to take Felix’s arm and let him lead her into his home and into his bed. No more than ten minutes ago she’d stood before him and told him that was exactly what she wanted. But now…now she did not know what she wanted.

  Felicity closed her eyes. She was not some quivering virgin about to climb into the marriage bed for the very first time! She knew what awaited her. She knew what lovemaking entailed. She’d had a husband, hadn’t she? But it wasn’t Ezra who filled her chest with ice when she thought of laying down beside Felix. Because it wasn’t Ezra who had clawed and grabbed and pinned her to the mattress.

  And wasn’t that what – and whom – she was really afraid of?

  Felix was a good man. He’d proven that time and time again, in a myriad of ways. And when it came to it – if it came to it – he would be a good husband and a good father. He wouldn’t cast her aside as Ezra had done. He wouldn’t hurt her like Rodger. That she believed with every beat of her heart. It wasn’t Felix who was preventing her from taking a step forward.

  It was herself.

  It was her own doubts and her insecurities and her fears. What if she tried to make love to Felix…and she couldn’t? What if she froze, and her breathing quickened and black dots danced in front of her vision and she had one of her horrible attacks? Or even worse yet, what if they did make love…and Felix found her wanting?

  Ezra always had. Not before Rodger, but after…after, when she could do nothing else but lay there and stare up at the ceiling, he’d rolled off her in disgust and left the room without a word. For four long years, before he stopped visiting her completely, it had been the same thing over and over and over again. And no matter how hard she willed her body to respond, she never could.

  Was it any wonder, then, that he’d had sought comfort in the arms of a mistress? For what sort of woman could not please her own husband?

  “Felicity.” Felix’s gentle voice coaxed her from the dark depths of her own mind, and it wasn’t until he brushed his finger against her cheek that she realized she’d begun to cry. “Ye can tell me, love. Whatever it is. Ye can tell me.”

  She blinked back her tears and shook her head. “What if it changes your mind? About me. About us. About any future we might have together.”

  Felix simply wrapped his arms around her trembling frame and pulled her into his protective embrace. For a few moments they both just breathed, their chests rising and falling in tandem before he rested his chin on top of her head and said, “There is nothing ye could say that would make me love ye any less. Nothing.”

  She sucked in a quick, surprised breath. “You – you love me?”

  “Did ye think I’ve been courtin’ ye for me own health?” His hold tightened. “Of course I bloody well love ye. And ye love me too, ye daft, stubborn female.”

  It took a bit of effort, but Felicity managed to wrench herself free of his grasp. “Perhaps you should not call the woman you just pledged to love daft or stubborn,” she said stiffly.

  “And why not?” Felix demanded, his eyes flashing a hot, molten gold in the shifting shadows. “Ye are daft to think that anything from your past could prevent me from loving ye in the present. And ye are stubborn to have kept us apart for this long.”

  When he put it that way…

  “I have had my reasons,” she mumbled, dropping her gaze.

  “Aye, I know.” He rubbed his chin. “Because of the scandal, and what people would say. But after that ringer ye gave Lady Manheim I’m inclined to think ye no longer give a flyin’ fish what anyone else thinks of ye. Nor should ye. So the only thing I’m left to assume is that even after all this time, ye still don’t think I’m good enough for ye.”

  Her jaw dropped. Was that was he really thought?

  “I never said that!” she exclaimed.

  “Ye never had to, love.” Tipping onto his heels, he crossed his arms. “But I’m not half as dumb as I look.”

  “I never thought you were dumb,” she said fiercely. “And I never thought you were not good enough for me. If anything, it is the opposite.”

  Felix snorted. “Now that’s a crock if I’ve ever heard one.”

  “It’s true,” she insisted when his top lip curled in disbelief. “There are things about me you do not know.”

  “Then tell me.”

  “It – it is not that simple.”

  “Aye, it is.” His expression inscrutable, he cupped the nape of his neck and squeezed the corded muscles until his knuckles shone white in the weak lamplight. “We can go on as we have been for the next fifty years and I wouldn’t bat an eye, because I’d rather have part of ye than none at all. But that isn’t what I want, and I don’t think that’s what ye want either.”

  “No.” She closed her eyes again. “It isn’t.”

  She wanted more than a courtship. She wanted a lifetime. A lifetime of waking up beside him in the morning and falling asleep next to him at night. A lifetime of his roguish stares and naughty quips. A lifetime of knowing she was loved beyond measure. But in exchange for a lifetime, she needed to do the one thing she had sworn to herself she would never do again.

  If she wanted the dream, she needed to finally face her demons.

  She needed to tell him what had happened seven years ago.

  She needed to tell him about Rodger.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Seven Years Ago

  The Sherwood’s Country Residence

  “Is Lady Sherwood here?” Pulling off her soft leather kid gloves, Felicity tucked them beneath her arm before she untied her hat and slowly pulled it free of her hair. The foyer she’d been shown into was considerably darker than the bright sunlight outside, and it took her eyes several seconds to adjust. When they did she looked up to discover Scarlett’s husband slowly descending the staircase. Given the early hour – it was only a shade past nine – he was still in half dress, and she took a quick, embarrassed step back towards the door.

  “Lord Sherwood. I apologize for interrupting your morning. The butler let me in. I was hoping to catch Scarlett before she left for her morning ride, but if she is not here–”

  “You just missed her.” Stopping at the foot of the stairs, he draped his arm over the railing and regarded her with piercing green eyes and the hint of a smile. “Is there something I can help you with, Lady Ashburn?”

  “No. No, that is quite all right.” Felicity could not pinpoint exactly why she was never comfortable in Lord Sherwood’s presence. She should have been. He was, after all, her best friend’s husband. They’d attended any number of dinner parties and social gatherings together. Why, the four of them had just returned from a weekend in Bath. Her and Ezra, Rodger and Scarlett. And yet…and yet there was something about him that always caused the tiny hairs on the nape of her neck to prickle whenever he was near. Very much like they were doing right now. She took another tiny step of retreat. “I – I’ll just be going, then.”

  “Wait.” Rodger descended the last stair and walked across the foyer, his stockinged feet silent on the marble tile. “My wife left you something upstairs on the off chance that you were to stop by. I would be remiss if I did not give it to you.”

  “Oh. Well.” She chewed on her bottom lip. “I can wait here while a servant retrieves it.”

  “The problem,” said Rodger, looking charmingly sheepish, “is that I’ve forgotten what it was she left for you. A necklace, I believe. One she borrowed at the Headley’s ball.”

  “Yes, she did borrow a necklace.”

  “Excellent! Then you’ll be able to pick out the right one.” His teeth flashed in a grin. “She has so many I can no longer tell one from the other, and she’d have my head if I disorganize them in any way.”

  Scarlett did take her jewelry very seriously.

  And yet…

  “I should really come back when Scarlett is here. I wouldn’t want to intrude
on her privacy.”

  “Nonsense. It will only take but a minute. Come with me.”

  Against her better judgement, Felicity followed Rodger up the stairs and down the hall. But instead of going to Scarlett’s dressing chamber he entered a bedroom she’d never seen before and beckoned her inside.

  “Did Scarlett move her things?” Confused, she stepped into the room. It was clearly intended for guests, the four poster bed neatly made and a stack of clean linens sitting beside a porcelain wash basin. With the curtains pulled closed it was also rather dark, and she did not realize Rodger had stepped behind her to close the door until she heard it slide into place with a soft click. “Lord – Lord Sherwood, what are we doing in here?”

  “Call me Rodger.” His smile thinned, taking on a predatory sharpness as he began to stalk her around the room. She took two steps back for every one step he took towards her, but the bedchamber was only so large, and soon she found herself trapped at the foot of the bed with nowhere else to go.

  “Please, Lord Sherwood.” Her chest felt painfully tight and her skin had begun to crawl, as if tiny ants were racing up and down her arms. “I – I should not be here.”

  “And yet here you are.” His green eyes gleamed in the shadowy interior. “There is no need to disguise your feelings any longer, Lady Ashburn. We’re finally alone. We can do whatever we like…as many times as we like.” He touched her face and she flinched, turning her head sharply to the side when he tried to trace the line of her jaw with his fingertip. He chuckled quietly, and the sound of his laughter was like sharp nails digging into her flesh.

  Do something, she thought desperately. Say something! Don’t just stand here.

  “Lord Sherwood, I – I am afraid there has been a misunderstanding.” Her lips felt dry, cracked. She wet them with her tongue. “Please step aside so I can leave.”

  Desire darkened his gaze as his stare dipped to her mouth. “I don’t think that’s really what you want.”

  “It is,” she said emphatically. “It is what I want. I promise not to say anything to Scarlett. If you just let me pass–”

  He grabbed her wrist and yanked. Thrown off balance, she stumbled into his chest. “Is this how you wish to play it?” he whispered against her ear. “Is this what excites you? Then so be it.” And then he shoved her backwards, onto the mattress. She tried to roll to the side, but he pinned her down with one arm while the other yanked at her skirts. He pushed them up past her thighs and dragged her drawers down below her knees, pulling so forcefully the string threaded through the waistband snapped in half.

  After that everything happened quickly. At least by the measurement of time. In heartbeats, it took forever. A small eternity where Felicity could do nothing but lay there, frozen by the pain and the terror and the disbelief. Even when Rodger released her arms and stood up she continued to lay on the bed, staring blindly up at the ceiling.

  There was a crack in the plaster. It was small and narrow, but given time it would begin to fester and spread. Someone really needed to mend it, she thought idly as Rodger yanked up his trousers and began to button his shirt. Before it spread to the walls. By then it would be too late.

  “Do you need help getting dressed?” One golden brow lifted in question, Rodger loomed over her. She flinched when his shadow passed over her legs.

  “No.” The single word forced itself from a throat dry as dust, and she wondered where it had been when she needed it before. When he was grunting and pawing and thrusting. “No. I do not need anything from you.”

  As he studied her oddly vacant expression, a frown touched the corners of Rodger’s mouth. “Perhaps I…miscalculated the depths of your affection for me.”

  “Yes,” she said quietly as she sat up. “Perhaps you did.”

  He watched her for a moment more, and then he shrugged. Just a small, effortless lift and fall of his shoulders. As if he were brushing away a fly. “Very well. It won’t happen again.”

  She waited until he left to dress herself. With hands that weren’t quite steady she forced herself to stand, to pull up her drawers, to pull down and smooth her skirts. There was nothing she could do for her hair, and in her haste to leave, to run, to get out from the suffocatingly hot room as quickly as possible, she did not even bother to search for her missing stocking before she fled out the door and down the stairs.

  Mindful of the servants, she made herself take small, measured steps. When the front door suddenly swung open and Scarlett stepped into the foyer, her cheeks still flushed from her morning rode, Felicity stopped short in the middle of the staircase.

  Her stomach cramped painfully as her mouth opened and closed, then opened again. Good Lord, what was she supposed to say? What could she say? That Rodger had just taken her by force in one of the guest bedrooms? Except that wasn’t entirely true, was it? Because if he really had taken her by force shouldn’t she have done something other than lay there? Shouldn’t she have fought him off, or told him to stop, or screamed, at the very least. But she’d done none of those things.

  She’d done nothing.

  He had raped her, and she’d done nothing.

  Scarlett’s head tilted in puzzlement when she looked up and saw her friend standing on the stairs. “Felicity, what are you doing here?”

  Before Felicity could explain, before she could even say one word, Rodger’s booming voice rang out from the top of the stairs and the rest of her suddenly fragile world came crumbling down around her.

  “Felicity you forgot your – Scarlett. I did not expect you to return from your ride so soon.”

  Puzzlement turned to disbelief and disbelief to stunned hurt as Scarlett’s gray gaze darted between her husband and her oldest friend. “What…what are you doing here, Felicity?” she repeated, and Felicity hung her head in shame.

  “I…I do not know what to say,” she croaked.

  “How long?” Scarlett looked up at Felicity through a thin veil of tears. “How long has – has this been going on?”

  An affair.

  Scarlett thought she and Rodger were having an affair.

  And why wouldn’t she? All of the immediate signs pointed in that direction. Why, Rodger was even holding Felicity’s blue stocking in his hand. The one she’d lost after he had ripped it forcefully off her foot.

  “Scarlett, please let me explain.” Desperate to make her understand, to make her see, Felicity hurried down the rest of the stairs. But when she tried to reach for Scarlett’s hand her friend snatched it away and stared at her as though she were something that had just been removed from the bottom of her shoe.

  “I asked you a question. How long? A month? Two months? Longer? Tell me!”

  “You do not understand–”

  “Three weeks, give or take,” Rodger called down. “I am sorry you had to find out this way, my dear. It was never my intention.”

  After what Rodger had already proved himself capable of the blatant lie should not have caught Felicity off guard, but it did. She shook her head, ready to refute his statement, but Scarlett was already speaking.

  “No,” she said slowly. “I am sure your intention was to never be caught. How unfortunate for you that I came home before you had a chance to cover up your indiscretion.”

  Still reeling from what had happened to her, Felicity was ill-prepared to defend herself. “Please,” she begged, tears rushing down her cheeks. “If you would only let me explain–”

  “Explain?” Scarlett bit out scathingly. “I am not blind, Felicity. I do not need you to explain anything.”

  “But–”

  “Get out,” she hissed. “I never want to see you ever again.”

  Felicity jerked back. “Surely you do not mean that. I will come back tomorrow after you have had time to calm yourself. Yes.” She took a deep breath. Tomorrow. Everything would make sense tomorrow. Everything would be better tomorrow. “Yes, that is precisely what I shall do. Then we can sit down and discuss–”

  “How you turned yourself
into my husband’s whore?” Scarlett’s bitter laugh echoed through the foyer. “I think not. There is nothing left for us to discuss.” Her jaw clenched. “Am I somehow making myself unclear? I want you to leave and never return! If you do not leave of your own accord I shall have Givens escort you off the property.” Her gaze flicked threateningly to the butler who stood silently in front of the drawing room with his eyes averted.

  When Felicity didn’t move – how could she, when her feet had adhered themselves to the floor? – Scarlett waved her arm. “Givens, come here and–”

  “There is no need for that. I shall see myself out.” Feeling as though her legs were made of wood, Felicity walked stiffly past Scarlett as a footman rushed to open the door. Before she stepped outside she stopped and waited.

  Waited for Rodger to admit the truth.

  Waited for Scarlett to realize that she would never hurt her in such a way.

  But there was only silence. Cold, damning silence. With tears in her eyes and a dagger in her heart, Felicity walked out the door.

  “I discovered I was pregnant with Henry four weeks later.” As she stared into the crackling flames of the fire Felix had started when they’d entered his drawing room, Felicity absently wiped at a tear trailing down her cheek. “Ezra and I were intimate, of course, but he was away that entire month, you see. The dates would not have made sense. So I told him about Rodger. Even then he was still hopeful Henry would be his, but when he was born with blond hair and green eyes…” She trailed off and shook her head, pulling the blanket Felix had given her more closely around her shoulders. “Our marriage was never the same after that.”

  For the entirety of her story Felix had stood beside the fireplace and said not a word. The only sign that he even heard her had been the slow clenching and unclenching of his fists. But now he spoke for the first time. “This is what you’ve been hiding.”

  “Yes.”

  “This is what you’ve been afraid to tell me.”

  She looked from the flames to Felix’s face. His jaw was as tightly clenched as she’d ever seen it, but beyond that she could not decipher what he was thinking.