So, when she and Maribeth had been chatting away and the topic of the Devastating Duke came up and Mare had jokingly suggestedThe Plan, they had laughed and then fallen silent when reality hit:The Planhad merit.
Maribeth was always coming up with outrageous, scandalous suggestions for Felicity. Maribeth wanted Felicity to have fun, live a little. Colborn was unfaithful, so why shouldn’t Felicity be as well?
Because Felicity was a naive, totty-headed, fool.She wanted to be faithful. She didn’t want to seek out other partners. Felicity had always used her parents’ marriage as her reason for notlifting her skirts, so to speak. She wanted a love like theirs: True love, a fairy tale. Or in other words—a steaming pile of manure.
How bird-witted could she get? The incredible amount of infidelity surrounding her—her betrothed, her best friend, her parents, the numerous assignations at the Chesterfield ball—should have been a blazing bright beacon. Fool.
Felicity was perhaps becoming a mite self-disparaging and cynical. She shook off those thoughts, the ones creeping into her brain like the rain creeping into her skin beneath her cloak. She still had a chance to save herself.
Thus, Maribeth’s joke became very non-joke like, and Felicity dove headfirst—off a cliff, toward a stormy sea lined with jagged rocks—intoThe Plan. She just had to hope she wasn’t sent packing before she had a chance to execute said plan.
Revenge and escape were heady. As was what they meant: Control. Over her future, over her life, overherself.
She couldn’t fail.
There was no turning back now. Her hired carriage was gone.
She shivered, though she didn’t think it was from the cold. She couldn’t ignore the fact that the plan also scratched a very tempting itch. The kind of itch that made one feel as though they would crawl out of their skin if they didn’t get to it.
She had tried to hide that fact from herself. But then she saw another one of Colborn’s exploits in the scandal sheets a few days prior. And decided it was quite stupid to lie to herself. What was wrong with having one bloody itch? Her fiancé obviously has a serious ailment with how many itches he was scratching. He probably also had the pox. Perhaps that was why he was so itchy.
So here she was at Devonford Castle.
She stepped up to the door, grasped the giant iron knocker and slammed it down, the sound of her future echoing off the stones surrounding her.
Time to seduce the Duke.
3
Ash
Surprisewasnotastrong enough word, Ashley Stuart, the Duke of Devonford, decided.
To describe his shock at seeing Lady Felicity Jennings standing in his drawing room at midnight.
Seemingly alone.
And very wet.
A shiver wracked her delicate body. Bloody hell. It was the end of April. Nights were frigid enough without adding on a cold rain.
“Baldwin, blankets and towels,” Ash murmured to his butler.
“Straight away, Your Grace.”
Ash strode to the young woman. Where in the blazes was her cloak? She was wearing a thin slip-of-a-dress. There was barely enough material to constitute a dress. It looked more like a nightdress if he were being honest. The white fabric was so thin he could see the shape of her thighs as her legs quaked from the cold. He needed to get her warm. With haste.
“Lady Felicity, your visit has caught me quite unawares. You are going to catch your death in this cold.” He grabbed her hand—shite, it was like ice. “Come, we must get you in front of the fire, and I will get you a brandy. Baldwin is procuring towels.”
She shot him a tremulous smile through normally pink lips turned blue. He dragged her to the hearth, probably more roughly than was strictly proper, but his erratic heartbeat had his actions harsher than that of a gentleman.
He placed her just before the protruding white stone fireplace, a fireplace large enough she could easily walk inside, which hopefully would help heat her person quickly.
“Stand here.” He bent and briskly stoked the fire, turning the soft glowing coals into a blaze. “Now, brandy.”
And then he would ascertain the reason for her visit…and whether she was as alone as she appeared to be. His heart gave a hard, panicked thud. From her freezing state. Not from her being alone. Here. With him.
He strode to the sideboard on the side of the room, where she had been standing when he had entered. He quickly poured a glass of French brandy.
