“How lovely for you. I wish someone had bothered to tell me. Or explained what the joke is.”
Finally, she lifted her head, wishing she could shrill at the woman, knowing she had no reason. It wasn't the beauty's fault. She was simply trying to be kind. At least Felicity hoped she was. She didn't think she could survive another person setting her up for such a fall. And still she had to scrub the tears from her face.
“I mean no insult, Miss—-” Felicity began.
That perfect smile again. “Missus. Mrs. Genève Dent-Hardy. You are Miss Chambers?”
Instinct kicked in and pushed Felicity into a drawing room curtsy. “How do you do, Mrs. Dent-Hardy. But why has he delegated you to beard the lion in her den, as it were?”
“Oh, he doesn't know I'm here. But I couldn't allow you to leave thinking...”
Felicity's jaw came up. “Thinking what? That the nobility is so bored it must find an unprotected woman to torment? That games are more important than her livelihood or self-respect or honor?”
“But I was serious,” the lordling himself piped up, stepping up next to his paramour. Before Felicity could answer, his features took on a thunderous appearance. “Isthiswhere the staff put you?”
Felicity looked around the room as if she had not been shivering in it for four days. “Of course.”
It was, after all, on the staff floor, a single room without fireplace or bureau or rug. It did have four hooks on the wall, though, and a tiny dormer window near the ceiling, which let in some light. Felicity had certainly occupied worse.
“Higgins!” Lord Flint suddenly bellowed, turning away from the door. “H-i-i-g-g-i-i-i-i-i-i-ns!!!”
Felicity looked around again. “What is wrong?”
She heard someone thundering up the narrow third-floor steps.
“My lord?” The skeletal butler appeared in the doorway, huffing and pink.
“Get Mrs. Windom up here,”his employer growled. “Right. Now!This is inexcusable. Whose idea was it to put a guest of this house in the goddamnattic?!”
“My lord,” the butler protested, red-faced, as he shot an uncomfortable look at Mrs. Dent-Hardy.
Thank heavens the butler hadn't been here earlier, Felicity thought. Her language would have sent him into a seizure.
“Miss Chambers is moving.Now!”Lord Flint commanded. “The Chinese bedroom, do you hear me?” The young lord had his hands clenched and was leaning over the old man. “Do youhearme?”
“No thank you,” Felicity said, finally getting her bag closed. “I would prefer Mr. Higgins get me a ride to the nearest posting house.”
“Don't be absurd,” Lord Flint snapped. “You'll stay here and marry me.”
“Don'tyoube absurd, my lord,” she said, lifting the bag in her arms. “You have no more desire to marry me than I have to marry you.”
“Marry?” Higgins gasped in failing tones.
“Of course you do,” Lord Flint scoffed. “No one would be idiotic enough to turn down a chance like that. You would be mistress of this house and another like it. A duke's daughter-by-marriage. A leader of fashion. Put that bag down.”
Felicity bristled, back straight, chin out, cheeks hot. “My lord. Women are not afforded many choices in life. Especially poor women. Especially poor, orphaned women.” Trembling with the effort, she stepped up to him, barely noticing that Mrs. Dent-Hardy scooted aside, smiling like a conspirator. She did notice that her own chin only came as high as the lordling's top jacket button. “But I do have this choice. I am going home, my lord. I am going to teach girls to maintain their self-respect as their parents auction them off like sheep in a market, and I am going to assure them that they amount to more than their piano or drawing or stitchery. Because then I can help them avoid the kind of insult I have suffered today.”
And without another word, she pushed past her tormentor by the expedience of shoving her bag straight into his stomach.
“Higgins?” she asked, walking out into the hall as the lord dropped, gasping to his knees. “Do I have to walk?”
Higgins was frozen in place. “Oh, Miss...”
She sighed. “I understand. It would not be worth your job.” Patting his thin arm, she stepped past. “I will not endanger another person's position.”
And with annoyingly persistent tears once again streaking her cheeks, Felicity descended the stairs, never once acknowledging the sound of female hands clapping behind her except to think that Mrs. Dent-Hardy really must learn to keep her opinions to herself.
* * *
