“I don’t know what he is now,” she said, then immediately wished she could take it back for her brothers both looked shocked by her answer.
“He’s a good man,” Gray said slowly, casting Stenfax a side glance.
She folded her arms. “What does that mean?”
He blinked. “That he’s a good man?”
“One who obviously cares for you,” Stenfax added.
Suddenly Felicity felt too close in the carriage, too hot and constricted. She briefly considered just opening the door and jumping for it, but of course that was utterly foolish. They were going too fast and she was in no danger except of making a fool of herself in front of her brothers.
Nothing new there.
“You two obviously think you know something,” she said, wishing her voice didn’t tremble.
Stenfax sighed. “You already know what Elise told me.”
“And of courseyoutold Gray,” she said, glaring at Gray.
“It’s not my fault,” Gray said, holding up his hands. “Besides, it was Rosalinde who mentioned it first. Then I talked to Stenfax and we compared notes and…Felicity, were you really in love with him as a girl?”
She felt the heat of a blush rush up through her face, all the way to her hairline and she knew that told the story more than her words would. But she said them anyway.
“I cared for him,” she admitted. “He fascinated me. But he made it clear he didn’t return the feelings.”
“How?” Gray asked.
“You sound incredulous,” Felicity said, instead of answering the question.
Stenfax laughed. “I think it’s just that the way you act around each other makes it clear he has feelings for you.”
She pursed her lips as she thought of Asher’s mouth on her, his hands on her. “He has some feelings, I’m sure. He is a man, after all, and I am a woman. But that isn’t the same as caring for me. Or wanting whatever foolish thing I convinced myself I could have as a girl.”
Gray nodded slowly. “So you will not pursue those feelings again?”
She stared at him. “Of course not. I can’t.”
“Why?” Stenfax asked, sounding truly confused by her refusal. “Why wouldn’t you? Is it his rank?”
“No, that is his problem, not mine,” she snapped, her frustration on that subject coming to the fore without her meaning it to. “For me it is more complicated. I just…can’t. I have no room for such feelings anymore. I’m too…too…damaged.”
She said the last word so softly that she was surprised her brothers could hear it. But they obviously did by the way they both recoiled, their faces twisting in pain and a need to help her. Of course they couldn’t, but they didn’t seem to know that.
Gray shifted over to her side of the carriage and wrapped an arm around her. He held her silently a moment before he said, “I always thought I was too damaged, too, Felicity.”
“As did I,” Stenfax whispered. “But we both found love.”
Felicity bent her head. “Your situations are very different than mine.”
“Yours has more risk, I know,” Gray said, his fingers tightening around her arm. “But it’s worth the risk, Felicity. If you can be brave enough to take it, it’s so very worth it.”
She squeezed her eyes shut and took a few long breaths. Her brothers were offering her a lifeboat on a very stormy sea. But she was so afraid it would capsize, so afraid it was an illusion, she just wasn’t ready to take the rope, to make the leap.
She might never be.
“We’re almost to London,” she said, pushing the curtain back. Asher no longer rode beside the carriage and she breathed a sigh of relief at that fact. “Perhaps we could talk a little about the plan.”
Gray sighed, kissing her on the temple before he retook his place beside Stenfax.
