Chapter 15
Felicity slumped against the wall of the hackney cab and buried her face in her hands.
Keeping one’s promise to one’s brother was the honorable thing to do. Keeping one’s vow to indigent children with no other hope was themoralthing to do.
Yet walking away from Giles hadn’t felt like the right thing.
It had felt like losing everything.
Including her soul.
“Where to?” the driver asked.
“Grosvenor Square,” she mumbled.
That wasn’t what she wanted, either. There was nothing wrong with fighting for others. But sometimes, a woman had to fight for herself, too. Now that she’d tasted love, now that she knew what life with Giles might be like, how could she settle for anything less?
She couldn’t. Nothing was worth giving up love.
Felicity lifted her tear-streaked face from her hands and gazed down at her trouser-clad thighs. This could be the last time she dressed like who she truly was… or the first day of a better life. A life where she didn’t have to hide anymore. Where she could follow her passions, no matter what or who that might be.
If she went back to Giles now and begged for a second chance to get the answer right, he would always believe it was her marriage to him that ruined her standing in society and everything she wanted out of life.
Rubbish, of course. He was the best part of her. If it took losing her reputation to have him, then she’d do so first and openly, to prove choosing him was whatshewanted, and that he wasn’t ruining anything.
“Driver!” She banged on the wall. “I changed my mind. The Haymarket, please.”
He made the next turn.
She smoothed her trousers and smiled. Ladies weren’t allowed in the Wicked Duke? Felicity was no lady. She would show everyone in London exactly what she thought of their rules, and prove to Cole that sometimes the “best” match wasn’t made in Almack’s, but in the heart.
“Haymarket,” said the driver without pulling over to the side of the road.
There was nowhere to pull to. So many horses and carriages filled the lanes around the Wicked Duke, there had barely been enough room to squeeze the hack into the mix.
Her legs trembled. Cole had always told her the tavern wastheplace to be after a big race, but she hadn’t expected this many people would bear witness to the scandal she was about to cause.
Even better, she told herself as she flipped the driver a coin. By the time word reached Giles, she would be infamous. He would know she was choosing to be with him because she’d chosen to beherself.
She marched into the Wicked Duke with her hands in her trouser pockets and her head held high.
“F-felicity?” Lord Raymore spluttered in disbelief.
Her heart jumped at the unexpected encounter. But of course he was here. Everyone else was. And Raymore deserved as much as anyone to know exactly what sort of woman he’d almost proposed to. Let him count his blessings that he was finding out now.
“LadyFelicity?” blurted another of her brother’s friends. “Introusers?”
“Lady Felicity in trousers!” A cheer went up and glasses clinked around the tavern as if they’d been waiting for the sister of a duke to walk through the door and cause the scandal of the season.
Her brother did not take up the cry. As he turned toward her, his pale cheeks mottled alarmingly in disbelief.
The crowd fell to a hush, their attention rapt.
Chin up, she strode forward to face him.
He looked like he wished to throttle her. “What the devil do you think you’re—”
“I don’t want to be a marchioness,” she blurted.
