Had his desire to win spun out of control? He said he was close to learning her past. But that was impossible. Clooney had been so very careful covering their tracks.
If she was wrong … her fate was sealed. Landrigan would finally have the upper hand. For she would not let Jasper’s daughters know the truth of her past. Not for anything in the world. She had a reputation to uphold now. The girls looked to her to do the right thing and make moral choices.
For a split second, she considered taking her nieces and running away. What Landrigan really wanted was the estate, after all. But she had no means for an income. Not to mention, because of Jasper, because of her promise to him, they were well and duly trapped here.
Yet what a haven to be trapped in.
Felicity stepped out of the henhouse into the sun, letting the light’s warmth calm her as a chill breeze—flavored with spruce—cleansed the mustiness from her lungs. The songs of birds trilled all around. She glanced over her shoulder at the henhouse. It had once been a simple whitewashed shed. But Aislinn and Lianna had asked to repaint it the summer before Jasper’s stroke. Now it was bright pink with white shingles. Felicity smiled, thinking of that day. The four of them had worked on it together and ended up covered in pink splotches. When they’d returned to the castle in the evening to clean up, Binata had thought they’d all stumbled into poison ivy and threatened to give them oatmeal baths.
Felicity’s heart sank on the memory. She missed their closeness … the family they once were. But even with Jasper’s absence, she still loved this place. She knew herself here, accepted and understood herself in a way that she never had in her prior life.
The solitude, the serenity. Such a contrast to her self-loathing, chaotic walk in London where she was always on display for wealthy men looking to satisfy their animal urges. She would never go back. This estate was her livelihood, her means to make an honest life for the girls and take pride in her daily accomplishments—however humble they were.
She supposed, even were she to marry Landrigan, she would still have that. She could insist on the union being in name only. And if he pressed, at least she would only have to give her body to one salacious man, as opposed to a dozen or more. She needn’t worry he would ever harm the girls due to Binata’s constant presence, and his respect and love for his aunt. Felicity’s biggest fear was how she would keep her brother’s secret protected with Landrigan living beneath the same roof.
Feeling more lost than ever, Felicity wandered down the path toward the castle. Pebbles crunched beneath her soles. The trail wove in and out of the shade and the air fluctuated between warmth and coolness. Nick’s face flashed through her mind—teasing the same shifting sensations in her heart. His intense eyes, his expressive mouth. That glistening diamond in his ear. After hearing his story last night, she wondered if the gemstone was somehow tied to his mother. Or, more likely, the dead wife he still sought.
Senseless postulating, Felicity.
She’d lost the opportunity to find out now, lost any chance of an amicable relationship after her horrible mistreatment of him. He’d opened his heart—a gesture which managed to melt the ice around her own. Then she’d slammed the door in his face.
What did it matter? Nick would soon be gone. He’d found nothing spiritual to keep him here. No ghosts other than Landrigan. He’d be leaving within another week or so, once his dog had healed enough for travel. After the loss of his wife, the last thing Nick would want was a widow and her nieces monopolizing his time.
She could only hope the forget-me-not she’d sent him with breakfast this morn would merit some clemency, that he would put aside any resentment for her actions and meet her at the greenhouse for a picnic. It appeared all he’d known in the years since she first met him was loneliness and regret. He deserved pleasant company and quiet moments, and she would see that he experienced at least a portion of that before he left.
An outbreak of nickering shook Felicity from her thoughts and stalled her footsteps. Curious as to what could’ve stirred the horses into such a frenzy, she took the left fork going away from the castle toward the stables. The path led through a shaded passage where coniferous branches and moss hung from the other side of the tall, stone fence.
Vines dragged across her head and shoulders as she stepped out into the sunlight. Tugging some needle-like leaves from her upswept hair, she squinted in disbelief.
Johnny Boy ran along the outside of the stables, as spry as a springtime pup. If not for the missing ear, Felicity would never have guessed it was the same dog. Tobias was attempting to catch the pit bull. Even Nutmeg had joined the chase.
In a daze, Felicity approached the queer scene. Unexpected sadness slowed her steps. However implausible it was, Johnny Boy was fully recuperated. And that could only mean one thing.
Nick would be leaving sooner than anyone had anticipated.
Nick took the first three flights toward the turret carefully. He stayed within the imprinted footsteps already there and tried to leave the spider webs intact. He wouldn’t risk getting caught. If he failed finding some sort of proof that this Raven man existed, he would only further alienate Felicity by going behind her back to the tower.
The stairway’s slim winding corridor triggered a stagnant, claustrophobic heaviness in the air. Square windows—no bigger than a folded hanky—spiraled upward with the wall’s climb, providing soft bursts of light along the way.
Heady excitement pumped through his veins. The closer he came to the top, the more his hair prickled on his arms and neck, an otherworldly rush luring him onward.
At the end of the fifth flight, he stopped dead and clamped his grip around the iron stair rail affixed to the stone wall. He had to hold his lantern high here, as the windows had ended. He stared up at the turret’s door far above, unblinking, taken aback by the extent of damage to the final flight of stairs.
The cook had not exaggerated. Where there should’ve been steps in a straight run upward, there was instead a jagged downpour of broken rock and fragmented stone—some even ground to pebbles and dust. It reminded Nick of a layered cake that had been sat upon so it slanted to mismatched slabs of worthless crumbs. The damage was irreversible and, being so isolated, he would venture manmade. Who had done it; and why?
There wasn’t even enough of a step here or there to provide footing for a mountain goat. Whoever ruined the stairs wanted to ensure no one would ever be going through that door again.
Cursing, Nick backed downward, forgetting the loose pebbles beneath his boot. He took a bad slide and twisted off his step, catching himself with the railing. His knee banged on the stone below and stopped the fall.
He hissed from the jab shuddering through his thigh and he watched the dizzying depths where several pebbles bounced downward along the stairs.
The scene shook something loose within him … a lost memory. Blurred and enigmatic, but very real. He’d once watched a man fall down a flight of stairs much like these—narrow, steep, and made of stone.
Standing up, Nick sucked in a sharp breath as the flashback hit him full force, making the pain in his knee as insignificant as a bee sting. He hadn’t thought of the tragedy in years. Partly because he’d been so drunk at the time, he sometimes thought he’d dreamt it. But even more because his part in the violence was more than anyone would wish to remember.
He’d visited a famed brothel in London’s Rotten Row with some friends for his sixteenth birthday. They’d managed an appointment for him to spend an hour with the renowned Jasmine—the reigning courtesan who could leave men sated with merely a touch and a taste.
After he and his friends drank enough bourbon to float a passenger liner, Nick had meandered upstairs alone to find her. A woman’s heart-rending cries burst from the room as he arrived.
The door was slightly ajar, and Nick paused beside it, hearing the words: “You won’t leave me, Jasmine. You feckless whore!”
Nick peered within. When he saw the man stabbing his victim in the sh
adows, he snapped. Bursting into the room, he wrestled the attacker into the hallway and to the top of the stairs. He lost his grip on his opponent’s waist, sending the stranger hurtling to his death.
Nick had returned, numb with shock, to comfort the mangled woman on the floor. She’d been encompassed in darkness, a line of moonlight illuminating nothing but the gaping slash from her chest to her abdomen and those tragic eyes—unblinking. Just like the eyes in his dream last night.
Felicity’s eyes.
Nick dropped the glass lantern to the steps with a crash as he remembered vividly her words in the greenhouse that first night: “No. Not you … how could it be you?” She’d recognized him, despite his beard. And her coldness to him, how she constantly pushed him away at the last minute … she’d been fearing he would recognize her.
Now it made sense: that habit of touching her chest, as if subconsciously recalling some trauma from her past. She bore a scar—and not just an emotional one. No wonder she couldn’t trust men.
On that tragic night, he had whispered her name. Jasmine. He had smoothed her tangled, black hair and spoke gently, asking her not to die. He’d held her cold hand until her lashes had closed.
A hand softer than rose petals.
When his friends found him, they forced him to leave lest he be accused of murdering both the man and the courtesan. They had all thought her dead.
By God, she had lived. Not only that … she’d taken a new identity.
But what of her age? It was wrong. That was seven years ago. It didn’t add up. Jasmine was only eighteen at the time. Her youth was her trademark.
Then again … what was it Lia had said about her aunt’s wrinkles? That they faded with the night. Hadn’t he seen that for himself inside the greenhouse, and blamed it on a trick of moonlight? And hadn’t Felicity slipped up and said something about being too young to raise the girls? Not to mention those dark lashes and eyebrows without a hint of gray.
Jasmine’s hair had been dark as night … not so difficult a thing to change with washes made of herbs, of which she had plenty here.
The countess was not at all who she seemed to be and wasn’t nearly so old as she would have everyone think. That explained the youthfulness of her body, of her mind. And if she was lying about her age, what else was she lying about?
Had she even been married to the earl, in truth? Why would a man of such power and wealth have taken a scarred courtesan to wife?
Nick’s innards quaked as he picked up the broken glass from his fallen lantern, finally understanding that dark terror which kept her so isolated and distant.
He eased down the stairs, staying within the existent footprints despite his burning desire to rush out of the castle to find her. If Felicity was the woman from the brothel … and he felt sure she was … no way in hell was he leaving.
He held her secret in the palm of his hand, and she knew it. But what she didn’t know was that she held his hope in hers.
All he wanted was a quiet life. The chance to start over anew without the threat of shaming his family darkening his every thought. He could have security here, hidden away from the world. Away from its temptations. The past that had always haunted him would become as indistinct as the dust in this castle full of mysteries.
He could still search for a way to seek forgiveness from Mina, yet that didn’t seem so pressing at the moment. Not when he’d be reacquainting the beautiful and beguiling Jasmine—a courtesan every bit as broken and damned as him.
Chapter Fifteen
Felicity cradled Dinah in her arms, trying to soothe the hissing tabby cat.
The moment she’d wrapped her mind around Johnny Boy’s burst of energy, Felicity had joined in Tobias’s chase of the dogs. She’d managed to save Dinah in the process. It had been no easy undertaking, and she suspected she looked as much of a mess as the cat—covered in dirt with her hair unkempt and dress rumpled.
The shredded scarf at her neck fluttered in the breeze, barely covering the rip in her bodice’s neckline. She secured Dinah between her breasts in the hopes to hold her dress in place, worried that the tip of her scar might show through her thin cotton chemise.
As she followed Tobias and Johnny Boy along the path with Nutmeg in tow, the castle came into view. Her nerves eased upon seeing no sign of Landrigan’s carriage. She and the stable boy walked silently with the animals, all of them panting—weary from their run. Overhead, clouds had come to settle, darkening the sky to an ominous gray and making the air humid and heavy. So much for her picnic plans.
Or so she’d thought.
Before they’d even climbed the first step to the castle door, she saw Nick on the threshold—muscles accentuated by the tightness of the shirt he wore—holding a lidded picnic basket. He no longer had his cane.
She glared pointedly at him, meaning to ask about his and Johnny Boy’s swift recovery, but her tongue numbed to silence. He had shaved off his beard and looked again like the boy who had saved her so many years ago. Yet, not a boy at all. The dim daylight underscored the strong angles of his face with shadows, rendering him beautiful in a dark and dangerous slant. The sage hues of his shirt reflected in his irises. The result was a liquidized greenish-gray, like puddles of rain mirroring a tree’s leaves.
After greeting Johnny Boy and inciting a tail-wagging of epic proportions, Nick instructed the stable hands to take the dog in, citing Clooney wished to examine him. Once they left, Nick turned his full attention to Felicity.
He tipped his hat, his earring glittering in the faint light. “It appears Johnny has been making himself at home.”
Dinah’s answering mewl ended in a growl, as if she were tattling on the dog.
Nick grinned, reaching out to rub between her gray ears, his finger coming dangerously close to touching Felicity’s chest. Her breasts tingled at the proximity.
“Sorry little sweeting,” Nick murmured to the cat. “I shall have to teach Johnny how to treat a lady. Glad to see you came through better than your mistress, though.”
He met Felicity’s stare and something new rushed from his gaze to hers. A knowing look. It was as if he plunged into the depths of her heart and fished out her secrets, holding them up on a silken line to appraise them in the daylight. She tore her gaze free, afraid everything she’d been hiding would surface on her face beneath his intense study.
Her arms jerked around the cat and won her a scalding hiss. Felicity set the tabby down and held the scarf in place over the small rip in her bodice. Dinah darted across the threshold, diving between Nick’s legs on the way in. Nick stepped out of the way so Nutmeg could follow.
“You accepted my invitation?” With her free hand, Felicity tried to smooth her hair into some semblance of order but decided it impossible and gave up.
“Yes. And the mouse’s ear was a fine touch. Thank you.” Nick’s sexy half-smile appeared.
She had to stifle the dotty grin that wanted to bubble up in response. Giddiness … that was an emotion she’d never had the luxury to embrace before. How did he make her feel secure enough that such a silly sensation would even rear its head?
He lifted the basket. “Are you ready then?”
“I’m a mess…”
“You’re no more disheveled than me.”
Felicity studied him. The rest of his appearance didn’t quite match up to his freshly shaved face. Dusty and wrinkled trousers, hair strands fallen out of his queue. He must have been in a hurry to get ready this morning. Was it because he’d been anxious to see her?
Felicity, don’t play the fool. This is to be a picnic between platonic acquaintances, nothing more.
Loose strands of gold at the edge of his hat caught the wind and flailed around the square lines of his jaw, bringing her focus to his lips. In that moment, it hit her full force. This man could erase all memory of Landrigan’s hands on her skin. All memory of the men throughout her life who’d defiled her for their satisfaction, leaving her without any of her own.
It sta
rtled her to realize she didn’t want to take a proper lunch with Nick. She wanted to be his lunch—to feel his mouth on her once more, tasting every inch of her body … every inch except her scar. “I-I should wash off and change.” She squeezed the torn scarf at her neck and tried to contain the trembling in her vocal chords.
Nick’s attention shifted to the sky as several droplets plopped to her forehead. “No time for that,” he said. “There’s a blanket in the basket … you can use it for a shawl once we’re settled. And the rain will wash you off well enough. Best be on our way before any weirdness impedes us.”
“Weirdness?”
He surprised her by descending the stairs, snagging her wrist, and pulling her onto the path without answering. A soft mist began to patter on the trees.
She tried to keep up with his long stride, her legs still tired from her chase at the stables. It had been one thing to be alone with Nick when his body was less than functioning. Today, he was unbridled potency and vigorous determination, without anything to weaken him and offer her balance.
How had he healed so quickly?
“Your limp…” She couldn’t manage better than bare-boned remarks, needing to preserve her breath for the brisk stroll.
“Yes. Some of the weirdness to which I referred. My untimely recuperation is tied to that queer fungus in your greenhouse.”
Felicity strained her ears, unsure she’d heard him clearly over the rainfall. He proceeded to apprise her of his talk with Aislinn about the fungus. The weakening in Felicity’s legs seeped into her abdomen, causing it to jitter. “How do you think it got on your skin?”
He paused abruptly and turned to her. “Perhaps when I fell into the vines last night, some of it clung to my clothes … and somehow spread to Johnny, as well.”
Felicity panted, catching her breath. “And Aislinn believes it’s a curative?”
“An exceptional one, that works almost overnight it would seem. Your caterpillars and passion vines will soon be thriving once more, if you let nature take its course.”
The Glass Butterfly Page 15