“I’m certain that could not be true, Mama,” Felicity gasped out.
Lady Stenfax laughed. “But it is. You are looking at Asher and thinking of how wonderful it is to have him back in our home.”
Asher glanced at Lady Stenfax, and his expression was suddenly pinched and tight. “I’m surprised to hear you say that, my lady.”
Her mother blushed. “Of course I would say it.”
He nodded slightly. “Well, then I thank you for your welcome and your kind hospitality.”
His gaze shifted and held on Felicity, challenging her. Warming her.
“It is very nice to have him…” Felicity began, then trailed off.
“Home,” Stenfax finished with a grin for his friend. “Very wonderful, yes.”
“Andsounexpected,” their mother continued, her voice elevating ever so slightly, in the way it always did when she was nervous. Not that Felicity understood what Lady Stenfax had to be nervous about. Asher wasn’therobsession, after all. “But then what hasn’t been lately?”
Elise smiled. “Your family has had quite the upheaval in the past twelve months, it is true. From Stenfax and Celia’s broken engagement, to Gray and Rosalinde’s whirlwind courtship, to my reunion with Stenfax, it seems there is always a surprise around each corner.”
“A wonderful surprise,” Gray corrected as he lifted Rosalinde’s hand to his lips.
Felicity turned her attention to her plate, unable to look such happiness in the face when she was so turned upside down herself.
“But what brought Asher here?” her mother continued.
The table grew quieter, a somber mood settling over it. Felicity felt heat flooding her cheeks since the mood was due to her. Of course her mother didn’t know that. Lady Stenfax had spent a lifetime being blissfully ignorant of the troubles around her. She’d never seemed to fully grasp the abuse Felicity had suffered, nor did she have any awareness of the book that now threatened her only daughter.
“I was on my way to see my father,” Asher explained, his tone easy and not revealing anything else. “When I heard that Stenfax had married Elise—Lady Stenfax.”
Elise leaned toward him with a laugh. “Elise. We’re too old of friends to go by ceremony, especially in this house.”
Asher smiled at her before he continued, “I wrote to Stenfax with my congratulations and he asked me to stop by and spend a bit of time before I went on in my travels.”
To Felicity’s surprise, Lady Stenfax’s cheeks had paled at this most benign of explanations. “On your way to see your father, you say? Lord, he has not been in our home in years.”
“Not since just after Asher left us,” Gray said. “We do miss his presence.”
“I tried to convince him to return to my service many times,” Stenfax said with a sigh.
“Did you?” Lady Stenfax asked, her voice remaining a little too loud.
Asher shrugged. “Well, he has the trouble with his hands now. And he is enjoying his retirement. He seemed rather…disillusionedby the time he left. I don’t know what else to say. His life was, in some ways, a mystery to me.”
“How so?” Rosalinde asked.
“My mother died when I was very young,” Asher explained, his gaze slipping to Felicity. She found herself holding that stare, sending her support in wordless waves as best she could, for she knew this was a painful topic. One he rarely broached.
“I’m sorry,” Celia said. “We also lost our mother at a young age, so we understand your pain.”
His expression drew taut and pained. “It is a terrible little club, isn’t it?”
Rosalinde and Celia both nodded, and Celia reached out to catch John’s hand before she whispered, “Yes.”
Asher sighed. “After she died, my father took a position with a cruel gentleman who would not allow a child in tow. I stayed with an aunt. He wrote to me often, but I knew very little about his life there, except that it changed him. When we were reunited at last, he was never quite the same.”
Felicity frowned at the lines of pain that slashed across Asher’s face. “I know it was difficult to be separated from him,” she said softly. “I’m glad his coming to work for my father helped to reunite you.”
“As are we all,” Lady Stenfax said, and suddenly pushed from the table. “Stenfax, wouldn’t you say it is time for the gentlemen to go take their port?”
