Growling, he drew his hand from his pocket. He could lie to everyone but himself. He despised how low he’d sunk, despised his weakness. Perhaps he would never escape the opium’s snare. Even chewing off a limb wouldn’t save him.
And he was about to prove true everything Felicity thought of him.
So what.
In the morn, after a night of swimming in delirium, he’d leave. Then it would no longer matter what Felicity thought of anything he did. As to that, why should it matter now? Why did he care what she thought? Yet, from the moment he’d met her he’d cared, however illogical it was.
Well, no longer. He was done caring—about anything.
“Holier than thou Miss Prunes and Prisms,” Nick mumbled on his stroll through the corridor toward his chamber. Hearing a jingle with each step reminded him he’d failed to put the keys in Rachel’s apron.
“Well, hell.” He turned back, about to take the first step down when a shuffling sound from Felicity’s room froze him in place.
Straining to creep without stumbling, he eased toward her locked chamber. Soft candlelight flickered in the candelabra from the wall behind him, laying out his shadow to lead the way.
Somewhere on the other side of the door, Felicity whimpered. She sounded as if she were crying. Blast it all. He wanted to be the one to comfort her. To fix her life. And he was tired of fighting that instinct.
A sharp yelp, then her whimpers grew to pleas. “What must I do to appease you?” she murmured. “Tell me.”
Nick pressed an ear to the wooden barrier between them.
“I know about the butterflies,” she mumbled. “It isn’t the way … there has to be another way.”
She sounded distraught—confused, afraid, and drowsy. Nick could think of only one person she’d accuse of disturbing her butterflies. Donal must have slipped into her chamber while she was medicated. She was unprotected inside her chamber with that maggot hovering over her.
Pulse kicking up, Nick quietly drew the keys from his pocket, sliding the skeleton’s long shank into the keyhole.
Felicity wailed, fraught with emotion. “Please, use my body … I offer it freely! Anything for the girls—”
Her plea broke off, as if someone stopped her short.
Nick’s blood spiked to flame. Turning the key with a snap of his wrist, he shoved the door open.
“Donal, you son of a—” He skidded to a stop in the room’s midst.
Felicity was in her nightgown, alone, her upper torso and head slumped across her writing desk. Nick eased closer. She held a quill in her left hand, the point suspended just above a sheet of paper. A lit lantern flickered, causing the ink that dribbled off the tip to appear to dance.
Was she writing another novel? Was she walking through the scene in her drug-addled mind?
“Felicity?” He leaned over her. Something about her pose made his hair stand on end. Her knuckles were white from gripping the quill so hard. But she wasn’t moving … why? Lifting her neck, he turned her chin toward him and brushed her silky hair from her face. It slipped to the opposite side in a fall of silver-gold so long it grazed her dainty bared ankle. He noted her flawless skin; not a wrinkle in sight. So beautiful.
But her eyes were open, in a trancelike daze. The vision brought back her helplessness as Jasmine with vivid clarity. That haunting gaze, open and unblinking, looking through him as if he weren’t there. Just like the night at the brothel. Nick’s stomach fell. If this was the effects of her sleeping draughts, she had no business taking them.
Dropping to his knees, he propped her up and shook her shoulders gently. “Felicity … Felicity!”
A keening sound broke from her throat as she shoved him away, her eyes still unfocused. Nick fell back on his haunches, surprised by her strength. The laudanum toppled out from his pocket and rolled along the floor.
As he started to reach for the bottle, something whisked across his peripheral. Nick jerked his head in the direction of the movement. In synch with a swishing rustle—the same scraping wings sound he’d hear in Lianna’s chamber the prior night—he looked to the other end of the room. A shadowy fog crept over the wooden floor then stood tall as a silhouette of a man, so faint it could’ve been a mirage. A shallow breath clung inside Nick’s lungs like soggy webs. He blinked once and the fluctuation of darkness and light was gone.
Before Nick could gather his wits, Felicity sunk from her chair in a lifeless heap. Leaping forward, he caught her just as Binata freed the keys he’d left in the door’s latch and rushed into the chamber.
Cradling Felicity’s limp, feather-light body in his arms, Nick met the nanny’s dark gaze. Her black eyes assessed the room and stalled upon the bottle next to Nick’s feet. Reading the accusation and fear behind her expression, he said, “Get Clooney.” When the nanny hesitated, he lifted the arm supporting Felicity’s head and bent his cheek to her bluing lips. Her breath was threaded, barely discernable. His throat clenched. “Damnit woman!” he yelled to Binata. “Get Clooney now, or she’ll die!”
Chapter Nineteen
Felicity stretched beneath her covers. The curtain rings rattled as someone opened her drapes, coaxing a watered-down sunrise to fill her chamber.
She grumbled, rolling to her stomach to avoid the grayish haze. Face buried in her pillow, she inhaled the bedclothes’ comforting scent of lilac. Awareness trickled through her slowly, like the soft raindrops pattering the window.
She flipped over and sat up with a start. “Why am I here?”
“Where else would you be at the crack of dawn?” Clooney strode from the window and urged her to lie back again. “And you’re to stay put for the duration of the morning.” He took her wrist in his hand to find her pulse.
Felicity glanced around, feeling out of sorts. She’d had horrible dreams throughout the night. Dreams of trying to bring Jasper back to her and the girls, of him attempting to speak but unable to reach them. She could see his mouth forming words, but could never hear his voice. It was as if a plane of glass stood between them.
“Gave us all a scare last night.” Clooney laid down her hand and touched her forehead with a cool, leathery palm.
“I did?”
“You were at the desk, much like when you used to write the novel. But there were no words on the paper. And we couldn’t rouse you. You don’t remember anything?” Clooney bent over her and stared hard into her pupils. His eyes were bloodshot and his breath smelled of coffee and pipe tobacco.
Try as she might, she only recalled her strange dreams, then the sensation of floating weightless.
Wait. There was more. When she started to drift downward, she’d heard someone calling her from faraway…
“Nick!” She sat up again, bumping her head into Clooney’s.
Clooney toppled backward but regained his balance against her desk. He scowled, stroking the red place on his forehead as she rubbed her own to ease the ache. “Yes, Nick. Told you he wasn’t to be trusted.”
“He was in here?”
“Said he heard a noise from your room.”
“But…” She remembered having her door locked. How did he get in?
“He’s a thief, Dove,” Clooney offered, as if reading her mind. “Not only pilfers ponies, but keys. And drugs.”
A slow curl of trepidation uncoiled within Felicity’s chest. “Drugs…”
Clooney held up a bottle of opium tincture. “At first I thought he’d used it on you. But it’s unopened. Not a drop is gone. He admitted he stole it for himself.”
Still fuzzy, Felicity tried to make sense of the groundskeeper’s words. “Where is he?”
“He’s assigned himself your protector. Been sitting guard outside your door all night ever since I refused to let him in again.”
“Guarding me? From what?”
Clooney shrugged. “Fool wouldn’t tell me. Seemed to think you were in danger from something.”
Felicity wondered what Nick could’ve seen. It had to be extreme to unsettle him so.
Anxious though she was at that thought, the image of Nick holding a vigil offered a tender counterbalance. She felt inexplicably warm and satiate to know he’d been there. She didn’t welcome the feeling, or this growing dependence he seemed to inspire in her.
Clooney cleared his throat. He held up the bottle again. “What shall we do about this?”
Her eyes burned, thinking upon the horrible things she’d said to Nick in the outlook post. She’d driven him to seek succor from the one mistress who would never turn her back on him. Laudanum.
It was partly her guilt to bear for the theft, as well.
She had to give Nick back his dignity, and the best way was to show him he’d earned her trust. “Clooney, could you please look in the top drawer of my desk. There’s a knife there.”
Clooney found the blade wrapped in a cloth and brought it to her.
“Send Nick in and leave us,” she said, taking the knife and setting it in the billowed sheets beside her.
Clooney’s thin shoulders tensed beneath his plaid shirt. “Not sure if he’s done. Went to wash off and shave. Besides, don’t you need—” He gestured to the aged skin around his eyes and mouth.
“He saw me without the wrinkles last night.”
Clooney pouted. “The room was dimly lit. Could’ve missed it.”
Felicity reached for the armchair beside her bed, tugging her shawl toward her. She wrapped the soft weave to cover her gown and pulled longs strands of hair out from beneath it. “He knows, Clooney … about everything that night in the brothel, all but the babe I lost.” She smoothed her tresses in place over her shoulders so they hung across her chest and the excess coiled to a silvery heap in her lap. “He’s the young man who intercepted the Earl. The one that saved Jasmine … me … so I could become the dowager. At our picnic, he told me he remembered.”
Clooney’s eyebrows drew up. “Wait. Wait…” He smacked his lips, no doubt craving his pipe. “You’ve known all along! Haven’t you?”
In lieu of an answer, Felicity looked down at her lap and eased her bed sheets up to her breasts, a conscious effort to shield her scar.
When she glanced up again, weariness clouded Clooney’s liquid eyes. “How did he find you?” he asked.
“He wasn’t even looking. Fate opened her palm, and we both fell into it.” She bit her lip, considering her next confession carefully. “He asked me to marry him. As a way out of this nightmare with Landrigan.”
Clooney sat on her bed’s edge. “You can’t possibly be considering—knowing what he is?”
“A chivalrous man? A compassionate and loyal friend? He sat vigil over me.”
“Hoping to win harbor here, so he might have access to our opium.”
Felicity squelched the insecurity that bloomed at Clooney’s logic. “He’s my hero.”
“Once. In the past. You have children to consider now.” Clooney said it as if he truly thought Felicity could forget.
“The girls adore him. You know he worked with Aislinn to find a cure for my butterflies. He’s been sincere in his efforts to help us.”
The crinkles edging Clooney’s eyes deepened. He handed off the opium tincture and molded her fingers around its slick glass. “He only means to stay until the free supply is gone. Obviously has a weakness.”
“Who among us doesn’t?” She narrowed her eyes to accuse.
“True enough. But you’ve a stepson who would use any misstep to blackmail you. Were you to marry an addict—”
“A recovering addict. You already noted that the laudanum was unopened.” Felicity surprised herself with this sudden defensiveness toward Nick. She’d had time to think last evening after returning from the post. They had shared so much over these past few days. She considered Nick a friend. And had circumstances been different, would’ve wanted him for so much more. She tasted something in his kisses that she couldn’t get enough of, a fount of passion and strength she yearned to draw upon. Her own had run dry years ago, when she’d lost her baby and any chance of ever having one again.
“Felicity … whether you marry another man or no, Donal will not give up until he’s won his father’s estate. He’s in this for greed. Things could get violent.”
She frowned. “I’m not marrying anyone. I simply want to assure that Nick understands how grateful I am before he goes. That he’s welcome to visit again anytime.”
Clooney huffed. “You mean, anytime he’s craving more of the help’s hospitality.”
Felicity stiffened beneath the sheets. “Whatever do you mean?”
“Those stolen keys were Rachel’s. Binata saw the maid come out of Nick’s chamber late last night. Said her clothes looked … ruffled.”
Before Felicity could process the information, the door swung open and Binata carried in a tray. Steam rose from a kettle nestled among thick slabs of gingerbread and sliced pudding with buttered eggs. The tea’s fragrant cloud carried a scent of hazelnut and caramel. Felicity’s stomach would’ve growled, had she not been so nauseous.
Nick stopped at the threshold behind the nanny, a powerful counterpoise to her small frame.
His palm sculpted the door frame. Steel-gray eyes swept over Felicity—intimate as a whisper and a touch. She wondered if he’d looked at Rachel like that last night when he’d…
Her lashes squeezed closed. After all they’d shared, after how he’d opened his heart to her and her to him. She had sacrificed her desires and needs so he could find another woman who could give him offspring one day. But to even imagine his hands on Rachel … his lips swallowing her moans …
If he’d left that maid with child she would never forgive him.
Jealousy rose like bile in her throat.
When she opened her eyes again, Nick’s freshly-scrubbed skin reflected the shadows of rain streaking the window. He had his washed hair plaited in a haphazard braid, laying bare that handsome, troubled face. He wore his own clothes this morn. His trouser knee was patched and mended and the shirt was pressed and cleaned. In spite of the weariness smudged beneath his eyes, he looked the perfect gentleman—roughened around the edges just enough to take Felicity’s breath.
Just as she’d told Clooney, everyone had a weakness, and hers was obviously this man’s sensuality and charm. But she couldn’t afford to be weak. Her family’s safety depended upon it.
Felicity willed her tears not to fall. She’d send him away today with instructions never to return, as soon as she assured he would keep quiet about her secrets.
She glanced at the tray Binata laid on her desk. As usual, Cook had been very generous, preparing more food than one person could ever eat alone. Felicity tucked the opium bottle and knife beneath her bedclothes. “Lord Thornton, please join me for breakfast.”
“It would be my pleasure.” Nick’s gaze met hers and held as he stepped inside the door, waiting for the others to leave. He wore his earring again. A barrage of emotions threatened to break Felicity apart as she engaged in a stare down with him.
Binata clanged some silverware. The sound spurred Felicity to break her stare and Clooney stood. He shoved his hands in his pockets on his way out, bumping Nick’s shoulder. Nick’s jaw clenched, but he made no move to retaliate. Binata laid down some napkins and started to leave.
“Are the girls up yet?” Felicity asked the nanny, gesturing Nick to take the arm chair beside her bed. She made a conscious effort to focus on Binata instead of Nick’s muscular physique as he piled gingerbread onto a napkin before striding her way.
“They still be sleepin’,” Binata answered. She adjusted the expensive beaded orange scarf covering her hair—a gift from her nephew. “Want I should wake ‘em now?”
“No.”
Nick came to sit beside Felicity, and she smoothed her shawl over her chest.
“They were up late with me last night…” Felicity continued her answer to Binata. “When they rouse, do not allow them to come seeking me in my chamber unless Lord Thornton and I are finished. And I must have time to prepare my face.�
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Nodding, the nanny flashed a curious glance at Nick then left, shutting the door behind her.
Nick’s full lips opened on a question but Felicity spoke first. “The things I said last night. I didn’t mean for them to drive you into…” She stopped herself short of saying my maid’s arms. Better he think she referred to the opium.
“Felicity, you are not responsible for my mistakes. But I do have you to thank for stopping me from doing something irreversible.” Sporting a pained frown, he laid the gingerbread-filled napkin on Felicity’s lap. The weight lightened as he took some food for himself, leaving Felicity’s thigh tingling where his pinky grazed her.
Elbows propped on his knees, he bit off a corner of the spongy bread. “I understand why you said what you did. Why you were chasing me away.”
“Do you?” Felicity’s stomach rumbled louder than her query.
Nick frowned. “Are you going to eat, or must I feed you again? It appears I’ve spoiled you, baby bird.”
A blush crept into Felicity’s face, making the welt from her collision with Clooney swell to a hot rise on her forehead. She rubbed it.
“How’d you hurt your head?” Nick started to reach for her, but Felicity looked away and feigned interest in the breakfast on her lap. She picked up a brown crust, fighting the urge to throw it at him. She wanted him to stop being so attentive. To stop pretending as if he hadn’t bedded her maid beneath her nose. Sinking her teeth into the warm spiciness, she chewed. “Had a collision with Clooney. So, you think I was chasing you away. Why would I?”
Nick’s larynx bobbed on a swallow. “Your cautiousness. Your captivity. They’re all a part of one secret even bigger than your past. And I finally know what it is.”
Felicity’s heart thumped. What had he seen last night? Had he found the passageway into the turret? Tension cloaked the room … a silence so palpable it muffled the rain and clung to the walls like mud.
“This chamber,” he shifted the subject again, dizzying her. “It does not reflect a feminine theme like the others.” He glanced at the red walls and black curtains. “It looks more like a man’s design. A man with tortured sensibilities and deep intellect. Did it belong to your brother?”
The Glass Butterfly Page 20