Adored In Autumn

by Jess Michaels

  “It is very nice to have him…” Felicity began, then trailed off.

  “Home,” Stenfax finished with a grin for his friend. “Very wonderful, yes.”

  “And so unexpected,” their mother continued, her voice elevating ever so slightly, in the way it always did when she was nervous. Not that Felicity understood what Lady Stenfax had to be nervous about. Asher wasn’t her obsession, after all. “But then what hasn’t been lately?”

  Elise smiled. “Your family has had quite the upheaval in the past twelve months, it is true. From Stenfax and Celia’s broken engagement, to Gray and Rosalinde’s whirlwind courtship, to my reunion with Stenfax, it seems there is always a surprise around each corner.”

  “A wonderful surprise,” Gray corrected as he lifted Rosalinde’s hand to his lips.

  Felicity turned her attention to her plate, unable to look such happiness in the face when she was so turned upside down herself.

  “But what brought Asher here?” her mother continued.

  The table grew quieter, a somber mood settling over it. Felicity felt heat flooding her cheeks since the mood was due to her. Of course her mother didn’t know that. Lady Stenfax had spent a lifetime being blissfully ignorant of the troubles around her. She’d never seemed to fully grasp the abuse Felicity had suffered, nor did she have any awareness of the book that now threatened her only daughter.

  “I was on my way to see my father,” Asher explained, his tone easy and not revealing anything else. “When I heard that Stenfax had married Elise—Lady Stenfax.”

  Elise leaned toward him with a laugh. “Elise. We’re too old of friends to go by ceremony, especially in this house.”

  Asher smiled at her before he continued, “I wrote to Stenfax with my congratulations and he asked me to stop by and spend a bit of time before I went on in my travels.”

  To Felicity’s surprise, Lady Stenfax’s cheeks had paled at this most benign of explanations. “On your way to see your father, you say? Lord, he has not been in our home in years.”

  “Not since just after Asher left us,” Gray said. “We do miss his presence.”

  “I tried to convince him to return to my service many times,” Stenfax said with a sigh.

  “Did you?” Lady Stenfax asked, her voice remaining a little too loud.

  Asher shrugged. “Well, he has the trouble with his hands now. And he is enjoying his retirement. He seemed rather…disillusioned by the time he left. I don’t know what else to say. His life was, in some ways, a mystery to me.”

  “How so?” Rosalinde asked.

  “My mother died when I was very young,” Asher explained, his gaze slipping to Felicity. She found herself holding that stare, sending her support in wordless waves as best she could, for she knew this was a painful topic. One he rarely broached.

  “I’m sorry,” Celia said. “We also lost our mother at a young age, so we understand your pain.”

  His expression drew taut and pained. “It is a terrible little club, isn’t it?”

  Rosalinde and Celia both nodded, and Celia reached out to catch John’s hand before she whispered, “Yes.”

  Asher sighed. “After she died, my father took a position with a cruel gentleman who would not allow a child in tow. I stayed with an aunt. He wrote to me often, but I knew very little about his life there, except that it changed him. When we were reunited at last, he was never quite the same.”

  Felicity frowned at the lines of pain that slashed across Asher’s face. “I know it was difficult to be separated from him,” she said softly. “I’m glad his coming to work for my father helped to reunite you.”

  “As are we all,” Lady Stenfax said, and suddenly pushed from the table. “Stenfax, wouldn’t you say it is time for the gentlemen to go take their port?”

  Stenfax looked up at their mother in surprise and Felicity did the same. She had no idea why Lady Stenfax looked so pale. She had always been flighty, but this was something more than that.

  “Yes,” Stenfax said as he got to his feet. “You are correct, of course, Mama. If the gentlemen will join me in the billiard room.”

  “And we shall retire to the east parlor,” Elise said, also giving Lady Stenfax a strange look before she motioned the women toward the door.

  Felicity stood slowly and glanced down the table at where Asher was rising. Their eyes met again and he didn’t break the hold of their stare even as he pushed his seat in and backed toward the men.

  Finally, it was she who turned away, the intensity between them too much. She followed the others down the hallway and to the parlor, though she hardly saw anything or anyone in the room. She was too busy thinking of Asher and his kiss.

  There was so much pain in her heart at present, so many memories that haunted her. But when Asher finally kissed her, all that had bled away and for a brief moment she’d been at peace.

  Perhaps that drew her in as much as any other desire for him. That blissful silence in her mind when he touched her.

  “Felicity?”

  She jumped as Elise touched her arm and looked up at her friend with an apologetic smile. “I’m sorry. Just woolgathering.”

  Elise slid an arm through hers, taking her for a turn around the outside parameter of the room. “You seem to have been doing that a lot at supper.”

  Felicity sighed. “I suppose I was. It was rude of me, I apologize.”

  “No need for it. I understand how difficult things are right now with the book hanging over your head and Asher here to complicate things.”

  Elise cast a glance toward Lady Stenfax, who sat in the middle of the room with Celia and Rosalinde. Whatever had been troubling her at supper seemed to have passed, for she was now smiling and seemed normal.

  Felicity pursed her lips. “Mama was odd with him, wasn’t she?”

  Elise followed her gaze. “A bit.”

  “But then sometimes her moods are a bit hard to read,” Felicity said.

  Elise shot her a side glance. “Something you inherited, I think.”

  Felicity slowed her walking pace and sighed. “I’m certain I have no idea what you mean.”

  Elise turned toward her and leaned closer, to keep their conversation private. “What is between you?”

  Felicity froze, for she knew exactly what Elise was referring to, even if she shrugged. “Between who?”

  Elise’s eyebrow arched slowly. “You and Asher.”

  Felicity swallowed hard. This was exactly why she’d been avoiding him. When she was with him, it was like someone cut open her heart for everyone to see. She couldn’t hide herself the way she normally could.

  And that was a bad thing.

  “Nothing,” she whispered, the lie coming off her tongue easily though it didn’t sound genuine.

  Elise touched her hand. “You still don’t trust me?”

  Felicity shut her eyes. For years, she hadn’t trusted her best friend. In fact, she had despised her because she didn’t understand why Elise had turned away from Stenfax. Those years had been lonely without a friend.

  They’d begun to reconnect in the weeks since the truth came out and Elise married Stenfax at last. But Elise still didn’t fully understand.

  “I-I haven’t trusted anyone for long time,” she whispered. “But if I don’t trust you, it isn’t because of what happened with Lucien. It isn’t because it’s you.”

  “Then why?”

  “Because I’m not the same person I was…before,” she admitted. “I don’t fit anymore. I see Gray with Rosalinde and Celia with John and you with Lucien, and I see how happy you all are. It makes me happy, but it also pushes me away farther and farther. Because my life is not ever going to be like that. It can’t be.”

  Elise blinked and Felicity realized her friend’s eyes had welled with tears. For her. “Why can’t it be?”

  “Too much pain,” Felicity explained, her voice cracking. “You know, you experienced something like it in your own marriage.”

  Elise caught her breath. “No
thing like what you went through. I would never dare compare my unhappiness to your torture, Felicity. And I can understand why you would be reticent to ever try to connect with a person like that again. But you deserve to be happy. You deserve companionship and love and pleasure.”

  Felicity bent her head, shut her eyes. Elise made it sound so easy, but for her it wasn’t. Still, she thought again of the effect Asher had on her. Making her come alive, making her forget, calming her fears…all with one little touch.

  Could she have more? Could she do it without losing herself? There was a strong part of her that longed to try, if only for a little while.

  She looked at Elise again. “What would you think if I did what you did?”

  Elise’s brow wrinkled in confusion. “What I did?”

  “You and Stenfax. What if I took Asher as a lover?”

  Elise’s eyes got very wide and she looked around as if to verify no one else had heard. Of course they hadn’t. Felicity and Elise were in the far corner of the large room and Rosalinde and Celia were keeping Lady Stenfax busy.

  Elise swallowed. “Oh, I see.”

  “It would be different for us,” Felicity hastened to add. “You and my brother were in love, engaged before. You rekindled that love by reconnecting in…” She blushed. “…in that way. It wouldn’t be like that for me and Asher.”

  “Are you certain? After all, I know you…cared for him,” Elise pointed out gently. “Passion can be a very powerful revealer of truth.”

  Felicity set her jaw. She’d never truly experienced passion beyond those two kisses from Asher, one so long ago, one just hours before. She didn’t know if those intense feelings could truly take over reason and show secrets.

  But if they could, she would simply have to keep that from happening. Control it. Isolate her heart away from her body. She could do that, she knew how.

  “I wouldn’t allow myself to do something so foolish as care for him again,” she promised, more for herself than for her friend.

  Elise arched a brow, incredulity slashed across her face. “You may not be able to stop it.”

  Felicity shook her head. “I can. There is no room in my heart for love. Like I said when we started, there’s too much damage.”

  Elise clearly wanted to say more, to argue further, but before she could, Lady Stenfax stood up. “You two have been whispering over there for far too long. Come join us.”

  Felicity almost sagged in relief at her mother’s order, for it kept her from having to delve deeper into this topic with Elise. Or to make a decision on what she should do at all.

  But she was leaning toward giving in to her desires. Because right now they seemed more important than anything.

  Asher leaned back against the billiard table edge, clutching his untouched drink and trying to look like he was attending to the conversation of the other men. He was not. Nor had he been the entire time they’d been sequestered away.

  No, his mind had been wandering, just as it had all day, to Felicity. Her kiss was still seared on his lips, a permanent brand that marked him as hers, even if she didn’t see it that way. But more than that, he was haunted by the emptiness in her eyes. And what had put it there.

  “…what progress you’ve made, Asher.”

  He blinked at the sound of his name and looked up to find Stenfax, Gray and Dane all staring at him, awaiting an answer to a question he hadn’t been listening to in the slightest.

  “I’m sorry, would you repeat that?” he asked, straightening up.

  Stenfax gave him an odd look as Dane said, “I was just telling Stenfax and Gray that you and I had been tracing the odd sums of money in Elise’s late husband’s ledgers.”

  “Ah,” Asher said, focusing at last. “Yes, he did collect quite a bit of money from various sources. Some was legitimate. We can find debts or transfers of property that go along with them. But some are…less clear.”

  “Did you know that Kirkford was receiving money from Gregory Fitzgilbert?” Dane asked, his jaw set in a hard line.

  Gray took a long step forward and his dark eyes flashed pure rage. “Rosalinde and Celia’s grandfather?”

  “Are they close?” Asher asked, uncertain at the cause of Gray’s sudden and strong reaction. The Gray he’d known growing up didn’t get so emotional.

  “No,” Dane said with a humorless laugh. “Their grandfather is a pure bastard who blackmailed Celia into an engagement with Stenfax and nearly murdered Rosalinde for interfering.”

  “I should have killed that poxy fuck when I had the chance,” Gray muttered.

  Stenfax laid a hand on his arm gently. “Easy now. If you had, we’d have two large problems instead of one. Let’s focus on Felicity. We’ll work out the details with Fitzgilbert once that’s done.”

  Gray looked less than convinced, as did Dane, but Asher realized it was not the time to push the subject. “It’s clear Kirkford was blackmailing these men for some reason or another. But we haven’t seen funds removed from their accounts since the death of Elise’s husband. So it seems that so far there is no evidence the code in the book has been broken.”

  “Are there any leads to follow that might help us find the book before those codes are broken?” Stenfax pressed.

  Dane clenched a fist on the desk. “I’ve got men working on it in London, trying to find Roger Beckford. The circle is starting to tighten, but we’re not there yet.”

  “Damn it,” Asher muttered, stepping away from the group. “Every single day we fail, Felicity is in greater danger. Isn’t there some way to speed this up?”

  Dane stared at him evenly. “Investigations take the time they take. We’re doing the best we can to narrow our focus. I’m hoping we’ll get there within a week.”

  “And then what do we do?” Gray asked, flexing his hands in and out of fists at his sides.

  Asher folded his arms. “Whatever it bloody takes to save her.”

  That statement caused Dane, Gray and Stenfax to all jerk their gazes toward him, but before they could continue the conversation, the door to the billiard room opened and Elise stepped inside. She gave Asher a brief, odd look before she smiled at the group as a whole.

  “You boys have been gone a long time.” She stepped up to Stenfax and lifted on her tiptoes to brush her lips over his.

  Asher turned his head. Elise and Lucien’s childhood love had worked out in the end. His would not. He knew that. It didn’t make it sting less.

  “Won’t you join us again?” Elise asked, smiling at the others.

  “Of course,” Stenfax said, slipping her hand into the crook of his arm.

  The couple led the way from the room. Gray and Dane walked before Asher, their heads close together, discussing the grandfather of their respective wives, he assumed. He was just as glad to be separate from them at present.

  His mind spun too hard to be good company.

  They entered the parlor and each gentleman found his wife. Lively conversation began, and as Asher entered the room behind them all, he found Felicity. She, too, stood outside the circle of her family, watching them.

  Watching him.

  And in that moment, he wanted her more than he’d ever wanted anything in his entire life. Wanted her so much that he wasn’t certain he would be able to keep himself in control, in check. But he’d have to. Because there was no leaving here until he had helped her.

  It was all he could do.

  Chapter Seven

  Asher shrugged a robe over his naked body and moved to the desk in his bedchamber. Spread across the surface were piles of papers and figures, a numerical representation of the danger Felicity was in. An equation of how to save her…if he could only solve it.

  He fisted a hand on the table top and shook his head. He just couldn’t see the path. And it was infinitely frustrating.

  There was a light knock on the door and he jerked his head up. It was after midnight now. Long ago, everyone else in the house had gone to their beds, including Felicity.

 
; Felicity who had cast him one last long look before she left the parlor hours before. That look had hung in his mind ever since.

  The knock came again and he pulled himself from his thoughts and tightened his robe as he moved to the door. “One moment,” he called out.

  He turned the key and opened it. What he found nearly made him stagger back in surprise.

  Felicity stood at his doorway. She looked as she had the first night he arrived here. Her hair was down around her shoulders and back in honey gold waves, she was in her dressing gown.

  “Felicity,” he breathed, her name almost a prayer across his lips. Then he shook his head as some portion of reality returned to him. “What are you doing here? Are you well?”

  “Very well,” she murmured, reaching out to place a palm against the center of his chest. She pushed gently, forcing him back into room. She shut the door and slowly relocked it before she faced him.

  Her expression was hooded, unreadable except for a spark of heated desire that flickered there. And oh, how he wanted to take that desire at face value, to just reach for her as he had in a thousand dreams and take what he wanted.

  But this wasn’t a dream. And he couldn’t. Shouldn’t.

  “Why are you here?” he repeated, this time breathless when he could smell that vanilla heaven again.

  She tilted her head. “Don’t you know?” she asked as she stepped up to him and placed both hands on his shoulders. She slowly slid them up until she wrapped her arms around him. Her body molded flush to his as she whispered, “I want you. I want this.”

  She brushed her lips to his, and he couldn’t even consider self-control in that moment. He cupped her backside, feeling that beneath her robe she was as naked as he was. She gasped but then continued to kiss him, driving her tongue into his mouth, taking control the way she hadn’t earlier in the day.

  And he let her, partly out of shock and partly because her desire for him felt so damned good. It was impossible to resist it when she arched against him like a cat and her mouth moved urgently over his. Desperately.