Elise blinked and Felicity realized her friend’s eyes had welled with tears. For her. “Why can’t it be?”
“Too much pain,” Felicity explained, her voice cracking. “You know, you experienced something like it in your own marriage.”
Elise caught her breath. “Nothing like what you went through. I would never dare compare my unhappiness to your torture, Felicity. And I can understand why you would be reticent to ever try to connect with a person like that again. But youdeserveto be happy. You deserve companionship and love and pleasure.”
Felicity bent her head, shut her eyes. Elise made it sound so easy, but for her it wasn’t. Still, she thought again of the effect Asher had on her. Making her come alive, making her forget, calming her fears…all with one little touch.
Could she have more? Could she do it without losing herself? There was a strong part of her that longed to try, if only for a little while.
She looked at Elise again. “What would you think if I did what you did?”
Elise’s brow wrinkled in confusion. “What I did?”
“You and Stenfax. What if I took Asher as a lover?”
Elise’s eyes got very wide and she looked around as if to verify no one else had heard. Of course they hadn’t. Felicity and Elise were in the far corner of the large room and Rosalinde and Celia were keeping Lady Stenfax busy.
Elise swallowed. “Oh, I see.”
“It would be different for us,” Felicity hastened to add. “You and my brother were in love, engaged before. You rekindled that love by reconnecting in…” She blushed. “…in that way. It wouldn’t be like that for me and Asher.”
“Are you certain? After all, I know you…cared for him,” Elise pointed out gently. “Passion can be a very powerful revealer of truth.”
Felicity set her jaw. She’d never truly experienced passion beyond those two kisses from Asher, one so long ago, one just hours before. She didn’t know if those intense feelings could truly take over reason and show secrets.
But if they could, she would simply have to keep that from happening. Control it. Isolate her heart away from her body. She could do that, she knew how.
“I wouldn’t allow myself to do something so foolish as care for him again,” she promised, more for herself than for her friend.
Elise arched a brow, incredulity slashed across her face. “You may not be able to stop it.”
Felicity shook her head. “I can. There is no room in my heart for love. Like I said when we started, there’s too much damage.”
Elise clearly wanted to say more, to argue further, but before she could, Lady Stenfax stood up. “You two have been whispering over there for far too long. Come join us.”
Felicity almost sagged in relief at her mother’s order, for it kept her from having to delve deeper into this topic with Elise. Or to make a decision on what she should do at all.
But she was leaning toward giving in to her desires. Because right now they seemed more important than anything.
Asher leaned back against the billiard table edge, clutching his untouched drink and trying to look like he was attending to the conversation of the other men. He was not. Nor had he been the entire time they’d been sequestered away.
No, his mind had been wandering, just as it had all day, to Felicity. Her kiss was still seared on his lips, a permanent brand that marked him as hers, even if she didn’t see it that way. But more than that, he was haunted by the emptiness in her eyes. And what had put it there.
“…what progress you’ve made, Asher.”
He blinked at the sound of his name and looked up to find Stenfax, Gray and Dane all staring at him, awaiting an answer to a question he hadn’t been listening to in the slightest.
“I’m sorry, would you repeat that?” he asked, straightening up.
Stenfax gave him an odd look as Dane said, “I was just telling Stenfax and Gray that you and I had been tracing the odd sums of money in Elise’s late husband’s ledgers.”
“Ah,” Asher said, focusing at last. “Yes, he did collect quite a bit of money from various sources. Some was legitimate. We can find debts or transfers of property that go along with them. But some are…less clear.”
“Did you know that Kirkford was receiving money from Gregory Fitzgilbert?” Dane asked, his jaw set in a hard line.
Gray took a long step forward and his dark eyes flashed pure rage. “Rosalinde and Celia’s grandfather?”
“Are they close?” Asher asked, uncertain at the cause of Gray’s sudden and strong reaction. The Gray he’d known growing up didn’t get so emotional.
