He didn’t even bother to nod.
She did. “I shouldn't be surprised, I suppose, that people like you were more concerned for grown men than their inconvenient girl children.”
He got ruddy. “That wasn't my fault...”
“I'm sure. So, my father was a man of...power?”
“I thought you didn't want to know.”
She caught her breath, swinging on Flint, who stood by looking not nearly outraged enough. “You told him?”
He lifted his hands in a helpless gesture. “I did not.”
“Your headmistress did,” the duke informed her. “You and my niece evidently broke in to look at files.”
“I see. Did Miss Chase get paid to spy on us?”
“No. Miss Schroeder did.”
Another blow to the stomach. Miss Schroeder, who had swooped in to save all the girls from the abuses of Miss Chase. Miss Schroeder, whom they thought they could all trust. Of course she must have worked for this man. Of course she would have passed on the big and little secrets she'd learned over the years. And yet, it felt like a worse betrayal than Flint's. Felicity had never quite trusted Flint. He had always seemed too good to be true. She had trusted Miss Schroeder.
Really, she should have known better.
“Oddly enough,” she said without looking at Flint, “I seem to have changed my mind. Why was I given a place at Last Chance Academy?”
The duke kept his silence.
Flint turned on him. “You will tell her, or I’ll have this place burned down with you still in it,” he snapped.
The duke stiffened. “How dare...”
“How dare you, sir? Have you become so lost in your own consequence that you no longer consider human cost? Tell. Her.”
The older man shot his son a glare that Felicity was certain had intimidated legions. Flint didn’t so much as blink.
Finally, the duke turned back to Felicity. “Because your father was a high-ranking diplomat connected to the house of Bracken. My sister-in-law's step-brother.”
Felicity was still trying to weave through all of Pip’s family stories to find a connection when Flint burst out laughing. “Good God. Uncle Andrew is her father?!”
She turned on him. “You mean Randy Uncle Andy?” she retorted much too loudly, stunned.
The duke actually flinched. “That is the Marquess of Melborne, young lady.”
Felicity shook her head, rather enjoying the duke’s evident discomfort. Although why he should be disconcerted, she didn’t know. According to Pip, he had been the one to send Pip’s cousins and brothers out to Randy Uncle Andy for training in the ‘manly’ arts.
That thought brought its inevitable conclusion. “Good God. Pip is my cousin.” She swung around on Flint. “You're my cousin. Did you know?”
The glare he was directing at his father was positively deadly. “Of course not. How could I? And that’s step-cousin.”
She had a family. She had Pip after all. She had...No, there was no benefit to claiming the men in this room.
“And my mother?” she asked.
“Died in childbirth,” the duke said. “You cannot threaten her.”
Felicity felt that blow like a slap across the face. Worse was Flint's responding silence.
“You are perfectly correct, of course,” she said, keeping rigid control of her emotions. “What could my existence possibly be but a threat? Thank you for reminding me. From what I’ve heard Uncle Andy is also gone. No chance of blackmail there, either, is there? Now, if you don't mind, I shall be gone.”
“You won’t explain this to us?” The duke asked, lifting the papers.
“You seem an intelligent sort,” she said without stopping. “I am certain you’ll figure it out.” She did stop then, mere steps from the door, but refused to face them. “Oh, I should probably check, just to be sure. Did you get the message about that person named Reed?”
“We did,” the duke said. “How did you get it if you weren’t involved?”
“Bucky stopped by. He did not shoot at me. Reed did. Bucky said it had something to do with John Harvester, whoever he is.” She heard Flint suck in a startled breath, but didn’t think she had the strength left to learn more. “Bucky did give me the key to decoding the list. You won’t find him for more, though. He’s gone.”
The key. She truly had lost her locket. All she could do was shake her head and start walking again.
“Felicity, listen to me,” Flint protested, his hand out as well.
“No,” she said, her focus on the door she needed to get through. “Not again. Never again. And if you follow me, I swear on my grandmother’s grave I will knee you in the cods.”
Felicity threw the door open to find Higgins standing just on the other side. “Word has been sent, Miss,” he said gravely. “Sukie will accompany you. She is packing your things.”
“Were you listening, Higgins?” the duke demanded.
“Yes, Your Grace,” the butler said. “My resignation is on the desk in my quarters.”
And he turned to hold onto Felicity’s arm as she walked out.
Which was the moment Felicity finally broke. She couldn’t say a word. But when she nodded up at the sorrowful man, there were tears streaming down her cheeks. Even so, she kept walking right out of Flint’s life and back into her own.
Chapter 14
Flint only waited for the door to close behind Felicity to turn on his father.
“Do not move from this room,” he said. “I shall be right back.”
“Where do you think you’re going?” the duke demanded.
“To protect the only thing I care about.”
He absently waved a hand. “I said you had the house.”
Flint just shook his head. “She’s right. You truly have lost any humanity that might remain.”
“Come back here and finish this,” the duke snapped.
Flint didn’t so much as turn around. “Go to hell, sir. Or stay here until I get back. I don’t much care.”
By the time Flint reached her, Felicity was halfway up the great staircase, Higgins just behind her.
“Felicity,” he called.
She ignored him.
“Higgins,” he growled striding after them, “stop.”
But astonishingly, Higgins didn’t even pause.
Flint reached the bottom of the stairs. “Higgins. She is in danger. Do you want her death on your conscience?”
That brought everyone to a stop halfway up the staircase. Higgins looked over his shoulder. Felicity did not. Flint saw a shudder go through her and very much feared he was going to see tears if she turned. He wasn’t so certain he could withstand that at that moment. He wished like hell she had not heard that conversation just now.
“Please, Felicity,” he said. “We have no idea where Reed is. If you go outside, you could walk right into his hands. You are no longer safe. No matter how you feel about me, please don’t leave the house.”
“You truly think it is possible of Mister Francis?” Higgins asked.
Flint sighed. “I simply don’t know anymore, Higgins. But I cannot take the chance. You know that.”
A step above Higgins, Felicity seemed to shrink a bit. She didn’t bother to turn around.
“All right,” she said, “I’ll stay.” Then she turned to pat Higgins’s hand. “Now go downstairs and rip up that resignation. I couldn’t bear you leaving on my account.”
Flint saw his butler turn to her and was astonished to see tears in the old man’s eyes. “We’ll find him, Miss,” he said. “Don’t you worry. Billy Burke will never let you be hurt.”
She actually stretched up on her toes and kissed the butler’s cheek. “I know,” she said.
“Billy Burke?” Flint echoed, having had just about enough. “Don’t be absurd. I won’t let you be hurt. It’s why I’m asking you to stay.”
She nodded without facing him. “Thank you.” Her voice was as flat as Sussex.
He wanted to hit something.
Why had she been listening? He could have prevented this.
“Felicity, I need to talk to you.”
“Maybe later,” she said in a way that sounded like ‘not ever.’
And damn it all if he didn’t just stand there like a rock as she climbed the rest of the way up and disappeared into the shadows. He should run after her. He should drag her into his room so she had to listen to him even if she did, as she threatened to do, knee him in the cods.
He should give her a little time before approaching her. Let her calm down. Be sensible. It would give him a chance to stanch his own bleeding. His chest ached harder than if he’d been stabbed.
“You’re not leaving, I take it, Higgins,” he said instead.
The butler had turned back down the stairs and was headed for the green baize door at the back of the great hall. “She needs protecting, now, doesn’t she, m’lord?”
Flint would deal with him later as well. For now, he needed to get back in and settle some things with his father.
He was waiting inside her sitting room when she opened the door.
“Oh, for the love of Heaven,” Felicity found herself snapping.
“Shut the door.” He was pointing a gun at her.
A middle-aged man in his best Weston who looked as disheveled as Bucky. A little plump, squinting as if he were near-sighted, not too steady a gun-hand.
Well, Felicity had just about had enough.
“Mr. Reed, I presume,” she said, stepping farther into the room without closing the door behind her. “Unless you’re Mr. Harvester.”
She might as well have kicked him by his expression. “John is dead. I said shut the door.”
“And turn away from that gun? I don’t think so. Should I assume Bucky told you how to find me?”
Please don’t tell me one of the staff told you, she thought, knowing she would not be able to tolerate one more betrayal.
“No. I’ve known for a while now. Dent is safe. He’s gone.”
“You should be, too. You have nothing left here to fight for. The duke already has your name.”
He seemed to deflate. “I must have that list. You know where it is.”
She felt oddly detached, as if she were playing a scene on some stage. None of it seemed real. She had spent all her credulity on a man who didn’t want her. Nothing else much mattered right now.
“I know there is a list. Bucky told me. And I told him that I took nothing with me from the Lassiters’ that wasn’t mine.”
“But you have the key!”
She nodded, keeping as perfectly still as she could. She felt so numb. It didn’t mean she wanted to be dead, and that gun was just a bit too unsteady and pointing directly at her chest. And the man holding it was sweating.
“I did,” she said. “I gave it to the duke. But unless there is some secret compartment no one knows of, the only thing engraved in the gold is a key, a lion, and the letter G.”
He blinked a few times. “What does that mean?”
She shrugged. “I’m sure I don’t know. Please. Leave the way you got in. You have a chance to get away before you’re found. You can’t shoot me, you know. The noise would bring the entire staff up here before you could make it to the window.”
He just stood there. Felicity didn’t move. The numbness was wearing off. She was very much afraid she was going to start trembling any moment. She might have just been rejected, humiliated, demeaned and deserted, but she wasn’t dead. She didn’t think she wanted to be. Not at all.
Lord, did that mean she would survive Flint Bracken intact?
Not intact. Battered and broken and heartsick, cracked like a porcelain vase.
“Well?”
He lifted the gun.
It took Flint a half hour to extricate himself from the duke. It shouldn’t have. After all, he had discovered more information than the duke had anticipated. They now had the names of twenty-five people involved with the Lions—some they had suspected, some they had not. He noted that the Lassiters were the last name on the list. Poor Felicity. She had loved that little girl.
“You don’t need the locket anymore,” he told his father, picking it up off the desk. “I’ll return it.”
His father was a second too late to retrieve it from him. “Don’t be daft, boy. That is evidence.”
“I’ll make a copy. This one goes back to its owner.”
Which was some of the business he had to attend to. Leaving his father sputtering like a landed carp, Flint took the time to freshen up, not even bothering to call his valet. Then he broke into his own safe to retrieve something his grandmother had tucked away there five or so years before, which he thought would go very well with the locket. With both in hand, he took the front stairs two at a time until he reached the second floor.
It didn’t occur to him that the hallways were suspiciously empty of staff, or that the house seemed unnaturally silent, as if it had been deserted. He was too focused on the doorway to the Chinese bedroom.
Giving his jacket a tug, he knocked.
And waited.
He knocked again. He waited again.
He never considered waiting any longer. He had asked Felicity to stay here, and she wasn’t answering. And they hadn’t found Francis Reed. He turned the knob and pushed.
The door opened easily in his hand, but the sitting room was empty
“Felicity?”
Nothing. He walked on through. Her room was made up, the tables cleared of any personal effects. He walked into the dressing room, anticipation curdling into dread.
It was just as empty—no people, no clothing, no Felicity. There wasn’t so much as a dropped hairpin on the floor. The space looked as if it had been uninhabited for months.
He backed out much faster than he’d come in.
“Higgins!”
His voice echoed down the stairs and back.
“H-i-i-i-i-i-i-g-g-g-g-g-i-i-i-in-s!!!!!!”
He made it to the staircase before he heard the running feet.
“Milord!” Higgins appeared on the run from the west wing. “You’ll want to come with me, Milord.”
“Where?” he demanded, already moving. “And why? Do you know where Miss Chambers is?”
“I do.”
Higgins turned back the way he came, towards Flint’s own room. He didn’t stop there, though. Flint found himself standing in front of Aunt Winnie’s suite as Higgins tapped on the door.
“Higgins, what in the name of...”
But Higgins opened the door, and Flint found himself stumbling to a halt, the little box and chain in his hand falling to the floor.
They were all arrayed across Winnie’s rickety, camphor-scented furniture. Aunt Winnie and Miss Chase shared the pea-green brocade settee, pale, wide-eyed, Miss Chase holding Winnie’s hand. A preternaturally calm Felicity was perched on an old-gold Louis Quince chair facing Francis Reed on the other Louis Quince, a gun in his hand, as if that made any sense.
At least the gun wasn’t pointed at Felicity. It was pointed at Reed’s own head.
“Hello, Flint,” Felicity said with a quiet smile. “Won’t you join us? I think Mr. Reed needs to speak with you.”
“You’re all right?” he asked her, stepping inside.
“I am fine.” She didn’t take her gaze from Reed, but she smiled. Flint wondered if anybody else could see how thin that smile was.
Flint wanted to howl. He wanted to dive into Reed and knock him to the ground. He stood perfectly still.
“Francis?”
Reed turned to him, tears streaming down his cheeks. “I’m sorry, Bracken.”
Flint smiled back. “I know, Francis. But what you’re about to do won’t help anyone. Certainly not Melinda or John.”
If it was possible, Reed looked even more broken. “It’s better that she never knew.”
“They’ve blackmailed you, then?”
There was a very small nod, Reed’s eyes closing.
“Attend me, Francis,” Flint snappe
d, unwilling to lose this man.
At least Reed opened his eyes again, his expression a rueful acknowledgement of the automatic response to a superior officer’s command.
“I’ve been trying to tell Mr. Reed that you would find a way to protect him,” Felicity said. “You were, after all, his commanding officer and are the son of a duke. That should count for something, shouldn’t it?”
She smiled at the rumpled, weary, trembling Reed as if they were old friends.
Reed did not smile back.
“Of course, I will,” Flint promised. “It’s the least I can do when Francis restrains himself from forever traumatizing my aunt by blowing his brains all over her salon wall.”
Felicity glared. Aunt Winnie gasped. Thank God, Francis didn’t.
“Please, Francis,” Flint said, his heart stuttering in his chest. “This isn’t the way. You know it. If you do this, we’ll never have a chance to find a way to save you. Or, for that matter, to save the king and regent. You know how deadly serious the Lions are. So serious they would ruin far more lives than yours. They would ruin Melinda’s. She would suffer for your secret.”
Still, Francis didn’t move.
And then, Felicity did, making Flint’s heart stumble.
“Who is Melinda, Mr. Reed?” she asked, leaning forward to lay a hand on his knee. “Is she your wife?”
His face crumpled even more. “My daughter.”
“Melinda Reed?” Her eyes brightened, and she tapped his knee. “Oh, my. She was a few years ahead of me at Last Chance, wasn’t she? She’s such a lovely girl. A mother now, though, isn’t she? With young boys.”
The tears fell faster. “I would ruin them.”
“Indeed, you would,” she agreed, “if you hurt yourself now. But if you helped save the king, just think what you could offer them.”
He looked over at her. “You don’t understand...”
She smiled, and Flint thought he had never seen her look so beautiful. “Oh, from what Miss St. Clair has been saying about you and Mr. Harvester, I think I do. I’m sure Lord Flint does, and I haven’t heard him say a thing against you—-well, except that you tried to shoot him.”
Reed looked over at Flint. “I’m so sorry...”
Miss Felicity's Dilemma Page 14