Adored In Autumn

by Jess Michaels

  Seyton smiled at her, a gentle expression. He looked at Asher, then back to her. “My lady, once I left your employ, I cut all ties. I did not speak to anyone I’d worked with. I have lived in this cottage without any connection to Society workings for years. So I didn’t know.”

  “If you had…” Celia whispered. “What would you have done?”

  Seyton set his jaw and thrust his shoulders back. “You two coming into the world I’d once worked in could be seen as nothing less than providence. I would have…I would have come. Your grandfather be damned, Lady Stenfax be damned…I would have come.”

  “Lady Stenfax?” Gray said. “Our mother?”

  Felicity shot Asher a quick look before she said, “Yes. Mama once interfered in something to do with Asher. She…threatened him and Seyton.”

  “Threatened them?” Gray gasped. “What could she possible threaten them over?”

  “You and Asher,” Stenfax whispered, and his eyes went wide as he put the pieces together.

  Felicity’s cheeks flamed as she looked once more to Asher, then nodded. “It doesn’t matter now. But I can’t imagine the horrible memories it brought back for you, Seyton. And I can tell you she is very sorry now, as am I.”

  “You have nothing to be sorry about, for you did nothing wrong,” Seyton said. “And we all made mistakes in those days. Today has shown me that mistakes can be overcome.”

  He smiled as he reached out to take each of his daughters’ hands and held them. There was a peace on his face, a joy that Asher could hardly recognize. After all, he’d never seen his father like this. He’d only seen the broken remnants. His father whole was…amazing.

  “It is getting late,” Elise said. “Is there something I can make in the kitchen for everyone?”

  Seyton gasped as he looked at the clock on the mantel. “Gracious, it is late. But I cannot have the Countess of Stenfax making supper in my little kitchen. Asher, will you come with me? You and I will put together a little feast.”

  Asher nodded. “Of course.”

  “May we help?” Celia asked.

  Seyton leaned in and kissed first her cheek and then Rosalinde’s. “Another time, yes. Tonight, let your brother and I celebrate you.”

  The women both looked uncertain, but nodded as Asher and his father left the room.

  He followed Seyton the short distance to the small kitchen and watched as his father began to gather up the items needed for a cold supper.

  “Father,” Asher whispered.

  The older man hesitated in his gatherings and looked at him. “You—you brought them home to me.”

  Asher stepped forward and wrapped his arms around the older man. His father clung to him, taking long, deep breaths. When he pulled away, Asher said, “Why didn’t you tell me about them? About Agatha?”

  “You were a little boy,” Seyton explained as he pulled a ham to the counter and began cutting it. “How cruel would it have been to make you carry that secret?”

  “I wasn’t always a little boy,” Asher said, placing a hand on his father’s to make him stop working.

  Seyton looked up. “They were gone. I didn’t want you to grieve them as I did.” His face brightened a little as if he were putting that pain away. “Will you slice that cheese?”

  Asher sighed and took a knife to do as he’d been asked. For a few moments, the small kitchen was quiet and then his father said, “Felicity, eh?”

  Asher tensed. “If you are going to tell me to remember my place, trust me that I do, father.”

  “Your place,” Seyton repeated slowly.

  Asher nodded. Seyton said nothing, but as his father passed him, he smiled. “You still remember how to do that so the slices are exactly even.”

  Asher hesitated in the cutting, thinking back to how many times he’d helped in the kitchen, served in the dining hall, brought round the horses.

  “I’m a servant at heart, I suppose,” he said softly. “The muscles remember.”

  His father wiped his hands on a towel before he turned. “Asher, you have not been a servant for years.”

  He pursed his lips. “I was born one. I raised myself up, yes, but what I am is what I am at my core.”

  “So that is what you believe your place is,” Seyton said.

  “It is what you told me my place was for years,” Asher retorted as he set the knife down next to his cutting board and leaned both hands on the counter. “Isn’t it?”

  Seyton bent his head. “I was wrong, Asher.”

  “I beg your pardon?” Asher said, truly surprised by that statement.

  Seyton moved toward him, and Asher saw something he’d never seen in his father’s eyes before. Hope.

  “For years I told myself that it was my fault Agatha died, that it was my fault that my daughters were taken…my fault because I didn’t keep my place.” Seyton was focused on him now. Not letting Asher break their gaze. “When I saw you begin to notice Felicity…Lady Barbridge…there was a terror in me that I couldn’t tamp down. I feared you would repeat my mistakes. That you would live the same life I had lived. I wanted to protect you.”

  “Well, what if it is the same life?” Asher asked. “I love Felicity.” He caught his breath as he said that out loud for the first time. “I have loved her for so long, I can hardly remember a time when I didn’t. But we are from different worlds, aren’t we? What if that does stand between us? What if that does matter more than she wants to believe it will? What if she is shunned by those who matter to her?”

  “You think her family, the one that is bound so tightly to your own family, would shun her for marrying you?” his father asked.

  Asher shook his head. “Perhaps not her family, but her friends.”

  Seyton shrugged. “They might.”

  “Not comforting, Father,” Asher said, walking across the room and taking a heavy seat on the stool before the counter. “I’m only saying that there are many ways to put a wedge between people. What if she regrets it later?”

  “I spent a lifetime telling myself that if my daughters knew me they would not want me. That we were all better off without the truth, without the love. But you brought them here today and I realize that my mistake was not forgetting my place. It was thinking that it mattered more than my heart.”

  Asher wrinkled his brow. “How so?”

  “I believed my daughters would better off with position than with love.” Seyton sighed. “And we all suffered for it. Oh, they are obviously in good places now.”

  Asher nodded immediately. “Rosalinde and Celia have married good men. They are loved and taken care of and happy.”

  Seyton almost sagged in relief. “But because of my loss, I laid out my own past at your feet, Asher. I forced you into a mold that wasn’t fair. I saw how Felicity sat near you tonight, how she comforted you. And if your story of how you discovered the truth about Celia and Rosalinde is accurate, then you have done the same for her. You say you love her, but you are willing to walk away because of some ‘place’ I put on you.”

  “Father—”

  Seyton rushed forward, grabbing Asher’s arm with surprising strength. “If you love her, that is all that matters, son. It is all that will ever matter. You were separated by foolish parents trying to do the right thing. But you were brought back together and you cannot squander this second chance.”

  Asher stared at him, even as his thoughts moved to Felicity. She had told him she loved him more than once in the previous few days. His reaction had always been one of abject terror, for he had always believed they couldn’t be.

  Now he questioned that. Now he questioned everything.

  “Think about it,” his father said gently. “And take the plate of cheese.”

  Asher realized that while he had been engrossed in this conversation, his father had prepared a feast all on his own. A feast Asher knew he wouldn’t touch, despite how delectable it was.

  Because the time had come to finally have it all out with Felicity. Before the night was
over, he would know where he stood. What she desired.

  And what his future held.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Felicity slipped from the cottage and took a moment to let her eyes adjust to the darkness outside. By the light of the moon, she saw a figure at the end of the cliffs, staring down at the ocean below.

  She smiled as she tugged her shawl closer and moved toward him.

  “Hello, Asher,” she said softly, stopped beside him to look down at the light reflecting over the water. “My, it is beautiful.”

  “You are.”

  She turned to find him looking at her, an odd expression on his face. “Thank you. I’m surprised you aren’t inside,” she said.

  He shrugged. “My sisters need time with our father,” he said, then shook his head with a laugh. “My sisters.”

  She edged closer, feeling his warmth as she asked, “Are you happy?”

  He looked at her, and his grin was wide and true. “Shocked. Stunned. And so happy.” He tilted his head. “This is because of you, you know.”

  “Me?” she repeated in surprise. “I did nothing, Asher.”

  “Not true,” he insisted. “Had your brothers not called on me to help you, I wouldn’t have ever known.”

  She pondered that a moment. “I admit, it’s difficult for me to look at my situation, at what forced this set of actions to take place, and see anything positive in it.”

  “But there is more than pain,” he said, reaching out to take her hand. As his fingers slid into hers, she caught her breath and looked up at him. “I hope you can see some goodness in it.”

  “I can,” she whispered.

  He smiled slightly and tugged her hand gently. “Walk with me.”

  They set out on the path, the moon their only light, but it was a full moon and it shone perfectly to guide their way. The sea boiled below, but from so high up the sound of it was gentle and soothing, a balm on Felicity’s heart just as Asher was a balm on her soul. When she was with him, it was more than enough for her. Only she wasn’t certain it could last. That uncertainty made all the other beauty a little less wonderful.

  “You and I have been trying to have a conversation for several days now,” Asher said at last as he stopped at a bench that overlooked the ocean. She took a place on it and he did the same. Their legs touched and it set her body on fire.

  “We have,” she gasped as she looked up into his face. “Are you saying you wish to continue it now?”

  He nodded. “While we were preparing supper, my father and I had an interesting discussion.”

  “About what?” she asked, tensing, for she knew Seyton had once been a driving force in keeping them apart.

  “About deserving things. About our place,” he said.

  Her heart sank. She was right, then, that Seyton had once again discouraged Asher from following his heart. A part of her wanted to just get up and walk away. To accept rather than fight.

  But a stronger part of her, a larger part, wanted something else. It wanted him. And she was no longer willing to settle for anything less.

  “It’s a funny word, isn’t it?” she asked. “Deserve?”

  He cocked an eyebrow. “Dane said something similar to me. Yes, I suppose it.”

  “I hate it, actually. Deserve. At some point, my mother didn’t think you deserved me. That you weren’t good enough. But the opposite was true. I don’t think I was good enough for you.”

  “How do you figure that?” he asked, his tone truly shocked.

  “I have watched you since your return to me. I’ve seen your quiet strength, your kindness, your forgiveness of people who have wronged you.” She shook her head. “You are truly the greatest of men. And I am…not quite as good as you, I don’t think. I have people I can never forgive.”

  Asher pushed a lock of hair away from her cheek and said, “There are some in your life who do not deserve forgiveness. That doesn’t make you less good, it makes you human. And that isn’t the kind of deserving we are talking about, is it? It is the idea of rank.”

  She pressed her lips together. “Do you not think Rosalinde deserves Gray?”

  He drew back. “What do you mean?”

  “Well, Rosalinde was born of the same father as you were, whether anyone knew it or not. Gray was born of rank. I suppose, if the truth of her parentage came out in Society, there might be some who said she didn’t deserve him. Are you one of those snobs?”

  “Of course not,” he said. “One only has to look at them to see that they belong together.”

  “And Dane. Does he deserve Celia?” she asked. “His beginnings were dark and low, indeed.”

  “Yes,” he whispered. “Of course he deserves her.”

  “Then you are willing to allow your sisters more happiness than yourself?” she asked. She leaned forward and grabbed both his hands, lifting them to her chest, forcing him to lean closer. “Asher Seyton, I love you. And I know you love me.”

  He stared at her a moment and her heart nearly stopped. He might not admit what she knew. He might deny it. She might even be delusional in seeing it. Wanting it so much she forced it to appear.

  But at last he sighed. “Yes, I do. I do love you, Felicity. I have always loved you. I will always love you.”

  She smiled. She couldn’t help it. Now that those words had been spoken, she had no doubt she would convince him. She would fight until she did, even if he resisted out of some misguided attempt to protect her.

  “I spent far too long being proper,” she said. “And doing what others expected of me. Of worrying what someone else would say was right. I will not walk away from our future, Asher. And more to the point, I won’t let you do so either.”

  His lip curled up in the corner, a masculine sneer. “Won’t you? How will you stop me?”

  She leaned in to cup his cheeks and kissed him. They had kissed so many times before, but this time was different. This time she didn’t hold back, she didn’t feel fear. She poured everything she was, everything she felt, everything she hoped for, into the kiss. And when he drew her against his chest and deepened the kiss, she knew he was hers. She was his. And that would be forever.

  “You are persuasive,” he chuckled when they finally broke apart. Then his face grew serious. “And you are right. I know you are. Love and happiness were taken from us years ago. They were taken from so many we loved. It would be wrong to deny it, to deny what we could be and do together. I don’t deserve you, perhaps, in the eyes of some. But I love you. And I want you as my wife, if you will have me.”

  Her eyes grew wide, for she hadn’t expected this moment. Not tonight. And yet here it was, Asher offering his life to her. His name. His future. She looked into his eyes and she saw the joy they would celebrate, the grief they would mourn, the children they would bear and raise…together. All of it together. All of it as a unit that was far stronger than the sum of its parts. She saw it all, and for a moment the power of it terrified her. But the moment passed and left behind only joy and love and hope.

  “Yes,” she said, at first softly. Then louder and louder. “Yes! Yes!”

  He laughed as he caught her and sealed their bargain with a kiss. Sealed their future. Sealed their happiness. And she knew, for the first time in what felt like forever, that all in her world was right at last.

  Epilogue

  A few months later

  “Happy Christmas,” Asher said, pressing a kiss to Felicity’s cheek as he stepped up beside her. He had been her husband for just a few weeks now, but she was very happy being Mrs. Seyton rather than Lady Barbridge.

  He looked over the room with her. Her heart swelled at all she saw. Her family was here, all of it. Celia and John sat at the piano, playing a duet as Rosalinde and Gray spun around dancing, despite Rosalinde’s rapidly rounding figure. Felicity had never seen her older brother so happy. Stenfax and Elise sat watching them, laughing together. This was her best friend, one she had lost for far too long. And her brother, who had carried this family on
his back, now looked free of worry as he held his wife’s hand.

  Their mother sat with them, smiling at the scene, as well. The past few months had not always been easy. There had been guilt and anger that came to the surface, but slowly Felicity and her siblings were repairing their relationships with their mother.

  Next to her sat Seyton, who had joined the family for Christmas. He still didn’t look comfortable in his role as family, rather than servant, but his joy at being with his son and his long lost daughters was undeniable.

  “Did John tell you the news?” Asher asked as he took her hand.

  She glanced at him. “That Roger Beckford is to be transported tomorrow? Yes.”

  “And how do you feel about that?” he asked, turning her toward him, searching her face for her pain, for her fear, for anything dark or dangerous that remained.

  She smiled to reassure him. “I feel…peaceful. He cooperated with the authorities in the end. Transportation is just as final as hanging for what he did. And once he is gone from London, there is nothing that remains of the horrors he and Fitzgilbert and Barbridge and many others committed.”

  He smiled at her calm and she rested her head on his shoulder as they looked at the scene before them once again.

  “Do you know that just over a year ago, none of this seemed possible?” Felicity said.

  Asher wrapped his arms around her. “How so?”

  Felicity shook her head in wonder. “Well, just last November, Stenfax was still to marry Celia. Gray was completely cut off, certain he would never love. We didn’t even know John. And Elise was despised and alone in London.” She turned in his arms and looked up at him. “And you…you were lost to me.”

  “I was never lost to you,” he said, bending down to kiss her. “I was always yours in my heart.”

  She smiled. “And now you are mine in every other way.”

  He nodded. “Forever, Mrs. Seyton.”

  She looked back at the others. “We are lucky. Everyone in this room got a second chance.”