Adored In Autumn

by Jess Michaels

  “You’ve been hiding,” Elise said, meeting her gaze evenly.

  Felicity sighed. Leave it to her best friend, the one who knew her better than anyone else, to get straight to the point. “Have you all come to intervene and convince me to come out and face the world?”

  Celia and Rosalinde exchanged a look and Felicity saw communication flow between the sisters. Rosalinde was the one who responded, “You are too clever for your own good. Those were almost the exact words we were going to say.”

  “I have heard them all over the years, I assure you,” Felicity said.

  “Facing Asher is harder than facing the world, I would wager,” Elise said softly.

  This was not a topic she wanted to broach, though she doubted she’d be given much of a choice in the end. These women were like beautiful bulldogs, they would not release now that they had a bone to chew. It was all meant kindly, of course, for her “own good”.

  “Well, I know what you think of our Mr. Seyton, Elise,” Felicity said. “But I’d be curious what Rosalinde and Celia think.”

  Celia smiled immediately. “I like him,” she said. “He’s very handsome, isn’t he? And intelligent. He and John are going to be great friends, I can see that already.”

  “It’s more than just that, of course,” Rosalinde continued. “There’s a kindness to him, as well. He seems almost…”

  She trailed off, and Celia picked up where she left off. “…familiar.”

  “Did you get that sense, too?” Rosalinde said, turning toward her sister. “How funny that we both felt it, without realizing the other had the reaction.”

  Elise laughed. “It is because I swear you share a heart. You’re like twins.”

  Felicity smiled, too, partly because the friendly banter felt so comfortable, partly because it distracted from the topic she didn’t want to broach.

  “I can see why you loved him,” Celia said.

  And there was the subject, rearing its ugly head. Felicity got to her feet and walked away to the window where she said, “It seems Elise cannot keep her mouth shut about that secret to anyone.”

  When Elise caught her breath, Felicity turned back to spear her with a glare. Elise opened her mouth to defend herself, but Celia was the one who responded. “Elise told us nothing,” she said, and Rosalinde nodded.

  “It isn’t hard to guess,” Rosalinde said softly. “From the way you spoke to me about Mr. Seyton last week and from the fact that you’ve been in hiding since his arrival. Clearly there was something between you once.”

  Felicity pressed her lips together and shook her head. “I’m sorry, Elise. I thought, since you’d told Lucien…”

  Elise moved toward her and wrapped an arm around her. “I know that there is still wariness you feel toward me. In time, I hope it will fade. But I don’t think it’s the worst thing that your friends know you once cared for Asher. Perhaps we can help.”

  “Help how?” Felicity said with a long sigh. “What’s done is done, past is past. It was a long time ago that I felt that way.”

  Elise looked down at her and her expression was deeply incredulous. “Old flames never die. Not completely. Stenfax and I are proof of that, I think.”

  Felicity shoved aside the flicker of hope that made itself known in her belly. She shrugged Elise’s arm away and walked back to her seat. As she sat, she said, “With us, it’s more complicated.”

  Rosalinde leaned forward and looked like she would say something, but before she could there was a light knock on the door. As it opened, Felicity lunged to her feet for the subject of their conversation entered the room.

  “Asher,” she gasped out.

  He drew back at finding four women staring at him, and Felicity blushed anew. Every person in the room looked guilty in such an obvious way that he had to know they’d been talking about him.

  “Good morning, ladies,” he said, his tone betraying nothing about whether he knew that truth. “I was told you were all gathered here. I’m happy to see you’re feeling better, Felicity, and out of your chamber. We missed you at breakfast this morning.”

  Felicity shifted with discomfort at having her lies called out to her face. Asher smiled and she shrugged. “I—thank you.”

  “Do you think you feel well enough to take a walk with me?” he asked.

  Her lips parted with the unexpected question. “A—a walk?” she repeated.

  He smiled again. “Yes. I think the fresh air might do me good.”

  Elise moved forward, her smile bright and wide. “What a wonderful idea,” she answered before Felicity could.

  Felicity spun on Elise with her mouth open even wider. Was Elise actually encouraging this idea that she and Asher be alone together?

  Celia and Rosalinde were also smiling widely. “The weather is so wonderful, it seems a shame to miss the opportunity,” Rosalinde said, placing a hand on Felicity’s back and gently urging her forward.

  Felicity tried to keep her voice calm as she said, “Well, if all of you are so keen on the idea, perhaps we should make a group of it. All of us go.”

  Asher’s expression faltered a fraction at that suggestion, but he had no chance to oppose or support the idea, for Celia said, “Gracious, no! Rosalinde and I have a great deal to do today to keep the dowager busy. And Elise is…”

  “I’m helping Stenfax, Gray and Dane with the code,” Elise said.

  Felicity tilted her head and glared at her best friend. “You’re breaking the code.”

  Asher moved forward. “If you don’t want to—”

  Elise caught her breath. “Of course she does, don’t you, Felicity?”

  Felicity’s shoulders rolled forward. For all her hesitance, the fact was she did want to go for a walk with Asher. Which was exactly why she shouldn’t. These temptations were to be avoided, not indulged, for they couldn’t end well.

  But Asher was staring at her, waiting quietly, his dark gaze boring into her like he could see past her mask, see past her walls, see into the soul she had been hiding for years.

  “Very well,” she said, hearing her voice like it belonged to someone else.

  He lit up, like she had found a candle within him and sparked it with her agreement, and she held back a gasp of surprise. This couldn’t mean anything to him. God knew it never had before.

  “Give me a moment to get my wrap,” she said, trying to find a way to remain steady on her feet as she moved past him. “I’ll meet you in the foyer in a few moments.”

  He nodded and she said nothing else as she acknowledged her friends and slipped from the room. In the hall, she raised her hands to her chest and felt them tremble.

  Time alone with Asher Seyton was a dangerous thing. And she’d have to remain vigilant and careful if she didn’t want this walk to turn into something far more dangerous, indeed.

  The walk along the paths leading from the main house was beautiful, especially since the autumn leaves were beginning to turn, giving their time together a golden and red hue. But Asher would not have ever said that the walk was a comfortable one. Not when Felicity walked at least three feet away from him, her chin lifted like she was being forced into this action.

  “You’ve been avoiding me,” he said at last.

  She stumbled and he reached out, catching her elbow to hold her steady. She jolted at the contact of his hand on her and jerked away, staggering back as she stared at him with wide eyes and shaking hands.

  “Don’t,” she whispered.

  “What do you mean, don’t? Are you saying you deny that since you confessed the truth about your husband’s death to me you’ve been staying away? That you didn’t hide in your room for luncheon, supper and breakfast? That you weren’t in the library trying to avoid bumping into me?”

  She shook her head, still staring at him as she backed up another long step.

  He let out a long sigh. “Damn it, Felicity, I only wish to talk to you.”

  She held up a hand. “Don’t,” she repeated again.

&nbs
p; But he couldn’t stop as she wanted him to do. Because of his duty to help her, but for more reasons than just that. He had grown up next to this woman. He had called her a friend—he had secretly called her more. He missed her quick smile and wit, he missed the way she used to tease him and connect with him. He missed her.

  He didn’t want to spend however much time he had with her having her rush out of rooms whenever he entered and fake headaches to avoid breaking bread with him.

  “Felicity,” he said, gentling his tone.

  She caught her breath and he saw tears rush to her eyes. Ones she blinked away with an almost violent fervor, like she didn’t want him to see them. Like she couldn’t show him even the slightest bit of vulnerability.

  And in that moment, Asher hated the man who had hurt her more than he had ever hated another person.

  “Don’t,” she said on a broken gasp. “I’ve said enough, Asher. I’ve told you the worst, just let me be.”

  The way she shook when she said that, the expression on her face, all of it cut Asher down to the bone. Her entire existence had been boiled down to one horrible night and the consequences she had been running from ever since. Now that the secret was out, it was all she talked about, all she expected anyone to care about.

  It was all she was, or all she remembered she was. When the truth was so much broader and more beautiful and complicated.

  He took a steadying breath and one calculated step toward her. “I don’t want to talk to you about that night, Felicity.”

  Her breath slowed slightly and she cocked her head like she didn’t understand. “N-no?”

  “No. As you’ve said, you’ve told me enough and I don’t judge you for anything that happened. It is a closed case, as far as I’m concerned, and the only reason you and I will ever discuss it again is to find this book or if you wish to broach the subject.”

  “Oh,” she said softly. “Oh.”

  He took another step toward her and a breeze stirred the trees around them and sent a whiff of vanilla to his nostrils. Her scent. God, that brought him home again, as much as anything else ever had. When had he first noticed her hair smelled like vanilla? When she was sixteen? Seventeen? Old enough to catch his eye. To make him want things he couldn’t have.

  Like he did now.

  “I brought you out here because I want to talk about us.”

  Any softening that had come into her face fled at last and her expression twisted with even more pain than when she thought he wanted to talk about the night she killed her husband. She stared at him, eyes wide and wild.

  “Us?” she repeated, dragging out the word, emphasizing it.

  He nodded. “Yes, us.”

  “What us, Asher?” she said, her voice cracking. “The us when we were children? The us when you kissed me that night on the terrace? The us when you walked away without even looking back?”

  He flinched at the accusation. “You know it never could have worked. I kissed you that night and I shouldn’t have. I crossed a line that a servant…or a servant’s son…should never cross.”

  “And you strolled off to your education and your future without so much as a thought for me,” Felicity said. “Bully for you. So noble.”

  “You had a future laid out for you,” he argued, and immediately wished he could take it back when she turned her head like she’d been slapped. Now that he knew exactly what that future had entailed, he knew it was the wrong thing to say.

  “My future,” she repeated, her voice soft and dangerously calm. “Yes, I suppose I did. My mother wanted me to marry a man with a title and with money. But that isn’t why I married Barbridge. Do you want to know why I married him?”

  He didn’t. In that moment, looking at her broken expression, hearing the years of pain stored up in her voice and in the tears he would wager she didn’t even realize were streaming down her face, he didn’t want to know. And yet he couldn’t deny her, or walk away.

  “Yes,” he whispered. “Tell me why you married him.”

  “He was the first man who looked at me after you marched out of my life without so much as a backward glance,” she said, her tone low and even and cold.

  He could hardly breathe as he stared at her, absorbing the pain that seemed to pulse out of her. He swallowed hard. “You—you blame me for your marriage?”

  “Yes,” she hissed out, and then she stopped. She seemed to consider the accusation and her shoulders slumped forward. “No. No, I know it wasn’t your fault. It was mine for not seeing what he truly was. It was mine for believing you wanted me or cared for me when you truly didn’t. For letting that break my heart and make me weak to a manipulative bastard like Barbridge.”

  She shook her head and turned, like she was going to walk back to the house. He watched her take a few steps, knowing he should let her go. The situation was too charged, too emotional, to result in anything good. Letting her go was the sensible thing to do.

  But he couldn’t be sensible. Not when she was so wrong.

  He moved up behind her and put an arm around her, crossing over her chest and drawing her gently back. She stopped moving immediately, going tense in his embrace. But then he felt her relax against him. With a great shudder, she surrendered and her head tipped back to rest against his chest.

  “Don’t you think for a moment that I didn’t want you, Felicity. That I don’t want you.” He slowly turned her until she was fully in his arms, her face tilted up toward his. “Then. Now. Always.”

  Yesterday, he’d told himself he’d never try to kiss her again, but now, feeling her breath stir against his lips, seeing her bleary-eyed stare as she looked up at him, there was no resisting it. He needed his mouth on hers like he needed his heart to beat.

  Slowly, he lowered his lips, and this time she didn’t pull away. This time her eyes fluttered shut, and as he brushed her lips with his, she let out a great, shuddering sigh of pleasure and perhaps relief.

  Her mouth opened beneath his and he caught his breath as the kiss deepened. She tasted like vanilla, too and he delved inside, exploring, stroking, teasing and surrendering to temptation just like he had on the terrace all those years ago.

  Only this time she wasn’t an innocent. This time she wound her arms around his neck and lifted into him with an incoherent sound of pleasure. She rocked against him as she gave herself over to him, making little mewling sounds in her throat that he doubted she even recognized.

  It was out of control. She gave freely and he took even though some tiny, fading voice reminded him not to do this. That it wasn’t fair to her. It certainly wasn’t fair to him.

  He didn’t give a damn. His embrace tightened and he found his hands sliding down her spine, settling on her hips, pulling her closer so that her body molded to his.

  She caught her breath with a shuddering sigh and looked up at him. For moment, there was nothing in her stare but pleasure and wanting and surrender. But then it was like she woke up from a dream and realized where she was. He felt her walls slam back up between them, felt her pull away emotionally just before she stepped from his arms and took a shaky step back from him.

  She said nothing as she stood staring at him. Nothing even as she lifted a trembling hand to her lips like she could feel him there still. She said nothing but turned and walked away, back up the path toward the house, away from him.

  He let her go. Partly because he could see she needed to regain some purchase, some control and given what she’d been through, he wasn’t going to deny her that. And partly because he needed the same.

  Kissing her six years ago had been something that haunted him almost daily. A constant drum beat in the back of his mind. This was something different. This was an entire orchestra, dragging behind him, playing an accompaniment to what he wanted.

  There was far more power in the kiss today. Because they each understood it better. Because of all that had happened in between.

  Far more power and far more desire he was beginning to fear he couldn’t deny. Ev
en if he should.

  Chapter Six

  Felicity had been able to avoid lunch with the others, but her mother had insisted she join the group for supper. Since she could think of no excuse that wouldn’t bring the village doctor to her bedside, she had agreed.

  Now she sat at the table, wedged between her mother and Rosalinde, trying desperately not to look just down the way to where Asher sat.

  But not looking at him didn’t help. Not when she could still taste him on her lips, still feel his arms around her. She cast a quick glance down the table and found he had leaned back in his chair and was watching her. Just watching her with those dark, seductive eyes.

  She jerked her own gaze away, but it didn’t help in the slightest. The facts were facts and they were undeniable. She wanted this man. Truly wanted him, with every fiber of her being. She all but pulsed with that desire, long buried, long denied. The last time she’d felt it was on the terrace the night of her coming out. Certainly, she’d never felt it with Barbridge.

  Wanting was terrifying. But there was also something exhilarating in it. She had watched both her brothers and one of her closest friends find passionate love in the past year. Their happiness had made her wonder if there was such a thing as desire that didn’t damage.

  Maybe Asher could help wipe away the bad memories, replace them with good ones.

  “I know what you’re thinking.”

  Felicity jumped at her mother’s words, spoken loudly as she looked at Felicity.

  “I’m certain that could not be true, Mama,” Felicity gasped out.

  Lady Stenfax laughed. “But it is. You are looking at Asher and thinking of how wonderful it is to have him back in our home.”

  Asher glanced at Lady Stenfax, and his expression was suddenly pinched and tight. “I’m surprised to hear you say that, my lady.”

  Her mother blushed. “Of course I would say it.”

  He nodded slightly. “Well, then I thank you for your welcome and your kind hospitality.”

  His gaze shifted and held on Felicity, challenging her. Warming her.