“I—thank you,” she whispered.
He smiled. “The pleasure wasn’t entirely mine, I hope. But I assure you a great deal of it was.”
She nodded as she slipped from the room and staggered her way up the hall toward her own bed. She wasn’t sure what had just happened. But one thing felt certain.
Nothing was ever going to be the same again.
Chapter Eight
Asher stepped into the breakfast room before nine the next morning. He fully expected to be alone, for he knew most men and women of rank didn’t drag themselves from bed until much later in the day. He was too restless to sleep, too restless from memories of Felicity and her sweetest surrender to him.
God, how he’d wanted to claim her at last. To mark her with his body. No amount of self-pleasure after she left could match what he would have felt like finally doing that.
And yet he hadn’t. Because he knew even though she said she wanted that, she might regret it when it was over. Right now she needed tenderness, care, to be given to and never taken from. Somehow he would have to keep doing that.
“Good morning, Mr. Seyton.”
He turned, yanked from his thoughts as Rosalinde Danford and Celia Dane entered the breakfast room, their arms linked. He smiled, for the two women couldn’t look more alike. No one would ever believe they weren’t sisters with their dark hair, porcelain skin and bright blue eyes.
“Good morning, Mrs. Dane, Mrs. Danford,” he said.
“Celia and Rosalinde, please. With all you’re doing for our family, we really couldn’t bear it if you were so formal,” Celia said, her smile wide.
He inclined his head. “And you shall call me Asher,” he said. “Would you like something to eat or drink?”
“Allow me,” Rosalinde said, going to pour coffee and gather a few breakfast pastries on a plate. She brought it to the table bit by bit and then took a place next to her sister and across from where Asher sat at last.
“It’s nice we get a moment,” Celia said. “You are always spoken of so highly by the family.”
He wrinkled his brow. “Was I spoken of?”
Rosalinde nodded. “Gray mentioned you a few times when we speak of his childhood.”
“In passing, I’m sure,” Asher said, pushing aside his plate. “I was a servant’s son, allowed to join in their fun sometimes, not always. But I always knew my place.”
“And what was your place?” Celia asked, leaning forward.
Asher flashed to an image of Felicity arching beneath him. He shook it away. “Outside,” he croaked out.
Celia tilted her head. “Because of your birth, you mean.”
He nodded. “There is always going to be a wall between those born of servants and those born of gentlemen. They may pretend they don’t see it, but I know it’s there. I have to know.”
Rosalinde smiled at her sister, a little knowing smile that Asher didn’t fully understand. “Well, this family has never stood much on the ceremony of who someone was born to. My experience has been that they see the person, not the past. And clearly, they all care for you deeply.”
Asher pursed his lips. This woman was kind, but she didn’t understand. She was a gentleman’s daughter, a gentleman’s granddaughter. But there was no use arguing.
“I care for them,” he said.
“Of course you do,” Celia said softly, smiling at him.
He couldn’t help but return the smile. He did like these two women. And they still felt so familiar to him, their kindness made them seem like old friends.
“Felicity seems easier with you here,” Rosalinde said, yanking him from his thoughts.
He stared. “Does she? I feel like my presence only makes her more uncomfortable.”
Celia shifted in her seat and there was true concern on her face, as well as on Rosalinde’s. Yet another reason to like them, for Felicity needed as many loyal friends as she could have.
