“If that is true, then we know the secret,” Rosalinde said, getting up and pacing off. Gray followed her, placing a hand on the small of her back as she leaned against the mantel and took a few long breaths.
“Our father,” Celia whispered in a broken tone that hurt Asher’s heart.
“Your father?” he repeated.
The two women looked at each other, then to him. Finally Rosalinde sighed. “It’s a long story. But you are a friend to this family and it’s time you know it.”
“How do we even begin?” Celia said.
“At the beginning,” John suggested.
He and Celia exchanged a look that told Asher those words meant something to them privately. He found himself looking toward Felicity, thinking of their beginning.
She wasn’t looking at him, though. She was staring straight ahead, her face still and cold. He hated to see her that way.
“My grandfather always told the story that our mother had gone to visit a distant aunt, then fallen in love with and married a gentleman’s son. She bore him two daughters,” Celia said. “But they’d died in an accident and so he came to collect us, to raise us as any loving grandfather would do.”
Rosalinde snorted her derision at that story. “But it wasn’t true.”
“What was true?” Asher asked.
“A long time ago, long before we were born,” Celia said, scrubbing a hand over her face. “Our mother fell in love with one of our grandfather’s servants.”
“Gregory Fitzgilbert is a miserable man,” Rosalinde explained. “It was no wonder she wanted some way out. They ran away together. My grandfather was furious. He had only one child and he had wanted to trade on our mother to increase his position. He searched for them and they were forced to hide. To never marry for fear that reading the bannes would put them in Fitzgilbert’s crosshairs.”
“The servant was your father,” Asher said softly.
Celia nodded. “But we didn’t know that. We’d always heard the other story, the lie. Until our grandfather decided he could use us to further himself.”
“I bucked that,” Rosalinde said. “I married someone below his desires.”
Asher looked at Gray and he shook his head. “Not me. Rosalinde was married before.”
“Her marriage enraged our grandfather,” Celia said. “So he came to me and told me the truth, that our father was actually alive. And that if I wanted to ever know his identity, I would marry well. I would marry Stenfax.”
Asher sat down hard. “Yes, I remember something about that. This is all very intertwined and complicated.”
“It is,” Stenfax said with a sigh. “I had no idea, of course. I never would have allowed either Rosalinde or Celia to be treated in such a manner.”
“Ultimately, it all worked out as it did,” Celia said. “Stenfax and I broke off the engagement, Gray and Rosalinde married and I found John. But Fitzgilbert has kept his secrets very well. We still don’t know who that man was who fathered us.”
Asher bent his head. “I’m so sorry for you both. I was separated from my father for a while when I was a boy and it was very difficult. I cannot imagine how hard it would be to never even know him.”
Celia sighed and leaned her head against John’s shoulder. “It has been difficult, even if Rosalinde and I have come to accept that we will likely never know him.”
“Unless the code has been broken,” Felicity whispered, involving herself in the conversation at last. Her voice trembled and barely carried. “If the code has been broken and that is what your grandfather is being blackmailed over, you two could at last find out the truth.”
Rosalinde and Celia exchanged a glance. Asher knew it too well. It was a look of hope that was tempered by years of disappointment.
“It’s true,” John said. “If Asher and I can retrieve the book, we might find your answers at last.”
“And if the code is broken, I hope that will be the good that comes out of it,” Felicity said. Her breath came short as she lifted her fists to her heart. “But if their secret comes out…mine cannot be far behind. And if it does, then all your happiness will be ruined and it…it is my fault.”
She let out a cry and rushed from the room.
Elise made a move to follow her, but Asher held up a hand. “Let me,” he said softly.
The room went still again and everyone stared at him. He knew why. By being the one to comfort her, he was laying a claim to her that couldn’t be ignored.
And in that moment, he didn’t give a damn. He just wanted to help her. So he ignored their stares, their implications, and followed Felicity.
Felicity stood in the dark music room, shaking not from the coolness of the room, but from the terror in her heart. It had a grip on her, icy fingers spreading through her entire body, pulling her down to where she would eventually drown in ruin, scandal and despair.
“Felicity.”
She froze at Asher’s gentle voice at the door behind her. They had sent him after her, rather than one of the women or her brothers?
She turned and found him closing the door behind him. He said nothing as he crossed the room to her, nothing as he folded his arms around her and drew her against his warmth and his strength.
She tensed at first, wanting to fight the support she knew wouldn’t always be there, but he didn’t let her pull away. He just held her and eventually she went limp against him.
She had no idea how long they stood that way in the silence, in the dark, but it felt like forever. It felt like it could be forever. That she could depend on him and never be let down or abandoned again.
Of course it wasn’t true.
At last he tilted her face up toward his. In the dim light she saw the tension there, the worry, but she also saw the need, the desire. She saw that he cared for her, because of course he had always cared for her.
“It’s going to be all right,” he said, and his tone was firm and certain, despite the situation.
She pulled away with a rough bark or derision. “All right? There is no all right in this situation, Asher.”
“Nothing terrible has happened yet,” he reminded her.
She shut her eyes, pressing her fists against her sides. “No. Not yet. But tomorrow or the next day or the next week or the next month, it will. It will, Asher. If this man has broken the code, if the truth about what I did is in that book, and we all know it’s in that book…then everything terrible will come to pass.”
“You are banking on a lot of possible outcomes, fearing ends that you don’t know will happen,” he said.
She turned on him. “Don’t sport with my intelligence, Asher. You and I both know exactly what will happen. If it comes out that I murdered my husband, that I covered up that murder, there is only one outcome: ruin. How exactly that ruin looks will depend on many variables. But ruin it will be. My name will be dragged through the mud, my life will be analyzed in the cruelest ways. And worst of all, my entire family will be destroyed because of it. My brothers, who have both just found peace and happiness, will have it torn away and even their unborn children will bear the mark of my actions.”
He was silent and her heart sank. He knew what she said was true, there was no denying it. There was no softening it. She had bought herself time with her deception all those years ago, but not freedom.
And the cost was coming, demanding to be paid at last.
“What do you think you should have done differently?” he asked as he moved on her.
He didn’t crowd her, he didn’t hold her, he just reached out and took her hand, sliding his thumb along her skin in a soothing stroke.
She blinked. “That night?”
“Are you of the belief that you should have let him choke the…” His voice caught and he drew a long breath before he continued, “That you should have let him choke the life out of you?”
She felt the tear slide down her face and she gasped in pain at the idea of her life being taken. She remembered the fear of that horrible
night.
“I-I don’t know,” she said at last. “I don’t know. I wanted to live. I still want to live.”
“And if you hadn’t struck him, if you hadn’t shot him,” Asher continued, “he would have killed you.”
She nodded. Of that she was utterly convinced. “Yes.”
“Then what you did is exactly what you should have done. And your family would rather have the fire of hell and the worst of the gossip rain down on them then the alternative, I assure you.”
She bent her head. “I know you’re right.”
He tilted her face back up, and now he was much closer. His heat wrapped around her even when his arms didn’t, his intensity drew her in.
“What you may not know is that if you had died that night, there would have been a part of me that died, too.”
She caught her breath at that admission, spoken in the same broken tone that he’d used when he asked her what she believed she should have done that horrible night. His eyes were wide, a bit wild, as if just the idea of losing her set him on a terrible path in his mind.
“The best thing you ever did, the best decision you ever made, was to keep yourself alive by any means possible,” he said. “You did what you needed to do. And now I am going to ask you something very difficult.”
“What?” she asked, caught up in how intense he was. How focused. How close.
“I am going to ask you to believe in me. Believe in the vow I’m about to make.”
She couldn’t find her breath, but someone managed to squeak out, “Vow?”
“I vow to you, Felicity, that I will not let anyone hurt you. I know you trust no one, I even understand why, but I am going to ask you to trust me. To know you can trust me.”
Her lips parted. Trust him. With her life. With her future. With her everything. Because he currently held everything in his hands.
She gripped his forearm with the hand he didn’t hold and stared up into his eyes. “I-I’ll try.”
His lips turned up in a small smile. “I’ll take trying.”
He leaned in and his mouth brushed hers, gentle at first but then with more heat, more possessive power. She wrapped her arms around his neck and let all her thoughts and fears bleed away, pushed out by the pleasure being with him brought her. She forgot it all and just let him in.
Eventually, he drew away. “There’s nothing I’d love more than to continue this right here, right now, but the others are waiting.”
She jerked out a nod and when he offered his arm, she took it. But as he led her from the room, back to her family, she feared that what had just happened between them would be obvious on her face when they rejoined the others.
Because it felt like everything had changed in those stolen moments. And nothing could ever be the same.
Chapter Twelve
Asher sat in a tavern on a side of town he doubted Stenfax or Gray had ever been to. It wasn’t the worst part of town, but it wasn’t the type of place a man of rank or privilege ever frequented. It was the retreat of the honest working man. The chimney sweep, the lantern lighter, the servant.
He hadn’t been to this place in years. Not since he first arrived in London. Now he didn’t belong here, either. He was a different kind of worker now, one who wore a white collar with a cravat and a fine tailored jacket. Even if, in his heart, he still felt like the boy who’d been raised a servant.
The door to the place opened and a man stepped in. He was about the same age as Asher, with bright red hair and mischievous green eyes. Asher grinned as he stood up and waved. The man met his gaze and also smiled as he crossed the crowded floor, a hand outstretched.
“Asher Seyton!” he cried as they shook hands. “As I breathe, it’s good to see you!”
“And you, Hendrix. Sit, please. Let me get you an ale.”
They sat and Asher waved at the barmaid to bring them two drinks. As they waited, he looked at his companion. Hendrix had been a friend he made in his teens, when they both served houses. Asher had been moving through different jobs, trained by his father. That summer, the family had come to London and he’d served as a footman. So had Hendrix. While they waited around for their masters at balls and events, they talked. They’d become friends.
“So you’ve made good for yourself,” Hendrix said, looking Asher up and down.
Suddenly Asher’s clothes felt a bit too tight. Like he had wrapped another man’s skin over himself. In some ways, he supposed he had.
“I just changed the way I dealt with men of rank,” he said.
Hendrix’s eyes twinkled. “Don’t downplay it. I’m happy to see you rise above your beginnings. Gives me hope for my own sons someday.”
Asher tilted his head. “You have children?”
Hendrix flinched slightly. “No, not yet. My current master doesn’t allow for his servants to marry or have children. I have a lady I court, but I’m trapped. I’m hoping to get out of Fitzgilbert’s employ soon, though.”
Asher tensed. There it was, the real reason he’d asked to meet with his friend. Hendrix served in the house of Celia and Rosalinde’s grandfather. Since Fitzgilbert was the only one who was potentially paying out to their villain, Hendrix was the best lead Asher had to finding that man and ending all this.
“Gregory Fitzgilbert,” he said cautiously. Oh, he and Hendrix and a dozen other servants had talked about their employers in the past. But there was a difference in talking to one of their own and to an outsider. He wasn’t certain if Hendrix would think him the first or the second.
Hendrix eyed him carefully. “You want to know about him.”
Asher nodded slowly. “I do. He’s…he’s related to a friend of mine. A lady who is in some trouble.”
“A lady,” Hendrix cooed. “Well, there you are. A fine lady, too, I’d wager. You’d catch a fine one now, looking like a gentleman.”
“Looking like one?” Asher said with a laugh. “It often feels like a mask, I fear. But yes, she is a very fine lady.”
Hendrix swigged a drink of his ale. “I pity her if she’s affiliated in any way with Fitzgilbert. He’s a bastard of the highest order.”
Asher arched a brow. “I’ve heard stories, yes.”
“Not the half of it, I’m sure. I got hired by the man three years ago and it’s the worst mistake I ever made, taking the job. He mistreats everyone on his staff from the lowest to the high. They all hate him. I wouldn’t be surprised if the kitchen staff poisons him some day.”
Asher frowned as he thought of Celia and Rosalinde and the abject terror that filled their faces when they spoke of their grandfather. That he would keep them from their father, it made him so very angry and defensive in ways he didn’t really understand. They were the wives of his childhood friends, nothing more, and yet he felt…protective of them somehow.
“If you’ve been there so long, you must have known his granddaughters.”
Hendrix’s demeanor changed in an instant. He smiled and straightened up. “Aye, I did. Lovely young women, worth more than that man gave them. They both married well. Very well. Fitzgilbert turns over his staff quickly, but those of us left who knew them only wish them the best.”
This was all very interesting, but it was time to pursue more pressing issues with Hendrix. He just had to tread carefully here.
“Have you noticed anything…odd about the man lately. In the past week or so?” he asked.
Hendrix sighed and met Asher’s eyes evenly. “Is this news within the servant network or am I speaking to a gentleman who might let word of my insubordination get back to Fitzgilbert?”
Asher caught his breath. That Hendrix would even ask such a thing! But then again…he didn’t really belong anymore. Not anywhere, it seemed.
“You are talking to your friend,” he said. “And I assure you that anything you tell me will stay anonymous. And if you’re looking for an out, I’m connected enough now that I might be able to find you a position in a different house. One that wouldn’t keep you from a wife or a family
when you and your lady are ready.”
Hendrix stared at him. “You would help me?”
“Footmen always stick together,” Asher reminded him. “Even former footmen.”
Hendrix smiled, a faint expression filled with memory. Then he nodded. “All right. For an old friend, I’ll talk. In the past week, Fitzgilbert has been acting…odd. Even for him. He’s nervous and angry and agitated more than usual. And there are these letters that come in and out at all hours of the day and night. And just between you, me and the wall there…” Hendrix leaned forward and so did Asher. “There’s money being exchanged.”
“How do you know?” Asher asked, even though he already knew about the money.
“Hard to hide a big wad of it bound up in a missive, especially when you’re too drunk to fold it properly.” Hendrix lifted both his eyebrows and shot Asher a telling look.
Asher nodded. “Would it be…difficult for you to let me know the next time he sends one of these letters, especially ones with blunt, out?”
Hendrix considered it a moment. “If you really think you could find me a position in a better household, I’d take the risk.”
Asher thought of all the men he had worked for in the past, including the ones he was currently spending time with. “I have no doubt I could help,” he promised.
“Then if you give me your address, I’ll send you something straight away. He always makes a big fuss about privacy when these messages come, so the moment he starts locking doors and screeching at any maid that gets too close, I’ll let you know.”
Asher shook his hand. “Thank you, Hendrix. Your help means a great deal.”
Hendrix grinned. “At your service, guv,” he said with a laugh. Then he leaned forward again. “But you know, Asher, if you want to know more about Fitzgilbert, you really ought to ask your father.”
Asher stared at him. “My father? Why would I ask my father?”
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