“The final straw,” Gray said. “What does that mean?”
Elise turned toward Gray. “He decided he was going to destroy Lucien. Andthatis where the story begins to involve me.”
Felicity pushed to her feet. “So you actively participated in this revenge by leaving my brother.”
“No!” Elise snapped, spinning toward her. “Great God, you would think you knew me better after everything we went through, Felicity.”
“I don’t know you. I thought I did, but I never did,” Felicity said back, her tone cold and dismissive.
Elise flinched away from it. “Sit down, I’ll explain it now if everyone would stop interrupting me.”
Felicity slowly did so, but she folded her arms and glared at Elise. Her contempt was vast and not masked in the slightest. It felt as painful as Ambrose’s punch the night before.
Elise drew a long breath. Stenfax was staring at her now, no longer leaning on the fireplace mantel, but his body coiled with tension, like he was preparing for an attack.
“Kirkford came to me the night before I threw you over,” she explained. “It was the night of some ball and I’d cried off with a headache, but my parents had gone. I was alone when he called. I hardly knew the man, but I was…” She sucked in a breath. “…afraid. There was something wrong with him and I recognized it right away. He told me that I would not be marrying you. He said within twenty-four hours I’d end my engagement.”
Lucien moved forward. “And what made you go along with that?”
Now Elise faced Felicity again and shook her head. “I’m sorry, Felicity,” she bit out. “I’m so sorry. He—he knew.”
Felicity stiffened, going ramrod straight in the chair. “Knew?” she whispered.
“He knew,” Elise repeated.
She recognized the moment Felicity fully understood her cryptic words. Her friend jumped up, backing away, her hands up, as if she could ward it off.
“What is she talking about?” Gray asked, looking at Felicity, then Elise, then Lucien.
“Whatareyou talking about?” Lucien repeated, but only directed the question at Elise.
Elise ignored him for the time being. “I’m sorry,” she repeated to Felicity.
“How? How?” Felicity asked, hitting the wall beside the door and flattening there, her hands shaking and all the color gone from her face.
“A servant, I think. He had a letter, signed by the man, confessing his part in it all. I wouldn’t have believed it, but—but I’d seen you after and I’d always known something was wrong about the story you told. I should have pushed harder, I should have made you tell me. I should have been a better friend.”
Lucien moved across the room in three long steps and placed himself between Elise and Felicity. He looked angry, but more than that, he looked apprehensive.
“Stop these riddles,” he insisted, his voice suddenly too loud in the quiet room. “You say Kirkford knew something and that it was about Felicity. What is it he knew?”
Elise moved past him, reaching out to her former friend. And to her surprise, Felicity allowed her to take her hand. She clung to Elise like she was a lifeline.
“Should I say it?” Elise asked, blinking at tears.
Felicity shook her head. “No. It’s my secret. I-I should tell them. I probably should have told them a long time ago.”
Elise nodded slowly, then let Felicity go as she paced past her brother and took the spot where he’d been brooding by the fireplace. Elise moved forward and placed herself beside Lucien, resting a hand on his forearm in order to the give the support she knew he’d need in a moment.
“You all know what I endured at the hands of my husband,” Felicity began, her voice trembling.
Both Gray and Lucien flinched, and Elise felt for them. When they’d realized Felicity was being abused by her bastard of a husband, both had tried to save her. But the man had been rich and powerful and Felicity’s husband. The law recognized his right todisciplineher as he saw fit. There had been no saving her, and both men had suffered greatly in their powerlessness.
“You know it was bad, but not how bad,” Felicity continued, and now she was shaking all over. “By the end, his violence had escalated and I truly feared for my life. One night he came to my bedroom, demanding—” She broke off and gave Elise a look. “May I assume he was demanding the same thing the new Duke of Kirkford demanded of you?”
Elise nodded once. “Yes.”
“When I wasn’t as exuberant about the prospect as he’d like, he began to hurt me.” Felicity’s eyes brightened with tears that streamed down her cheeks. “And then he told me he was going to kill me. He was choking me, the life was leaving me. I hit him with a vase and he let me go, but he kept coming at me. So I grabbed the pistol from his waist and I shot him.”
