“Hm, I suppose that can be arranged. Carefully, of course.”
Relief swept through her. She’d been wanting this, hoping this time she could choose for herself. The idea of marrying a total stranger was preposterous to her now. She’d played that game at Alston House and lost. Not that she had any feelings toward Lord Alston. He was a nice man, if a little immature in her mind, but he’d made her realize things about herself. She preferred men with dark hair, for example.
“Good. Good.” Felicity stood. “I won’t keep Mr. Chase waiting.”
“This is a private appointment. Don’t worry about being seen. Madame Justine knows you are a special friend of mine.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Dove-Lyon.”
Felicity left her parlor, her heart tripping over itself as she dragged on her plain, green wool cloak. Her hands shook as she pulled on her gloves, the buttery soft leather a gift from some unknown person in the Den. Felicity suspected Mrs. Dove-Lyon. When she’d first arrived, Felicity had balked at any extravagance thrown her way. She’d promised herself she would earn her keep, that she was not deserving of charity. But the people of the Lyon’s Den paid no heed. The ladies upstairs who entertained the gentlemen had given her a comb andsome hair ribbons. A simple blue gown was left on her bed one afternoon. And the gloves—oh, these gloves. They were sinfully luxurious. She’d never felt anything so soft. Kid leather, for certain, dyed to a deep burgundy. They must have cost a small fortune. She’d wanted to put them in a drawer and never look at them again, but... just as her father had said, she was a charlatan, a deviant. She couldn’t resist the lure of their buttery texture. The perfect fit.
She’d worn them, and lightning had not struck her down. But guilt did taste sour on the back of her tongue every time she slid her fingers inside. She didn’t know who to thank for them. She only prayed they’d come from some lost property bin and not purchased from a shop. She couldn’t bear to know the actual cost of these gloves.
Felicity folded herself in her cloak. The morning was crisp and clear. From her window, the sky had been a bright lapis blue, but frost clung to the roofs where the sun had not yet warmed the tiles. Spring was fading to summer slowly, clinging much like Felicity was to this season where she’d known safety and comfort. But seasons changed, and so must she. It would start now, despite the anxious drumming of her heart. At least she had Mr. Chase to blunt the edge of her fears. She entered the servants’ stairs leading to the nondescript ladies’ entry for the Lyon’s Den. She nodded to the women who held the door as she settled her straw bonnet on her head and knotted the white strings.
A carriage waited. Mr. Chase leaned against the side, chewing a bit of straw as he watched laborers unload crates from a wagon.
His gaze flicked to her, his piercing blue eyes pinning her like an insect to cork, and she couldn’t move. Heat washed over her body, her nerves and courage unraveling. One side of his mouth curved up, but his smile did not meet his eyes, and that was not usual for him—for them. He always had something pleasant and amusing to say. He straightened and opened the carriage door.
“Thank you,” Felicity said, her voice barely above a whisper. He nodded.
Why wasn’t he speaking to her? In fact, they hadn’t spoken at all, not since that night at Alston House. He’d been a shadow, passing in and out of the Den over the last few weeks, but he’d never approached her.
She’d thought... they were friends? She must have been wrong. And now, unlike the times he’d ferried her back and forth to Lord Alston’s residence, he did not sit inside the carriage with her. He climbed to the top beside the driver.
Felicity swallowed her hurt. She blinked rapidly as she examined the luxurious interior of the carriage and bit her lip. The door whipped open again, startling her. Mr. Chase climbed inside, his face set in hard lines.
“He refused my company,” he said.
“Oh?” Felicity fisted her hands under her cloak.
“It’s chilly this morning.”
“Indeed.”
He was looking everywhere but at her, and Felicity didn’t know what to make of this new person who was not the man she’d come to know. Had that man been a performance? For whose sake, exactly?
“Mr. Chase?” Felicity asked before her brain could catch up with her mouth. “Why won’t you look at me?”
His chilling gaze met hers. His eyes were the kind of blue one only saw on expensive fabrics, sapphires, or the radiant blue of a peacock’s feather. It was unfair, really, for a man to have such beautiful eyes.
“My apologies, Miss Brandon, if I gave you the impression that I am avoiding you.”
Not a drop of his teasing smile or tone inflected his words. What was wrong?
Oh.
Oh.
She was no longer Miss Smith, the nurse, a working-class commoner. Not that a vicar’s daughter held much power in society, butshe was now an unwed young woman of at least some social standing. To a bachelor, that was like having the pox. Young women were best avoided, at least in her limited understanding of men and social affairs. Though perhapslimitedwas an understatement. Felicity came from a village so small and backward that men and women were not permitted to dance. But she was no longer trapped in that village, and she had to learn to embrace the modern rules of society.
“I’m still the same person I was before.”
His gaze held hers as the coach rocked into motion. “But you aren’t. You’re a young lady. It occurred to me that I was too familiar in our previous interactions.”
Felicity dropped her gaze from his, straightening the invisible wrinkles in her skirt to hide her disappointment. “I’m four and twenty. I’m a spinster. You weren’t forward. You were my friend.” She hesitantly looked up at him.
His jaw flexed, and he looked away. The smudges under his eyes darkened.
