His man stuck his head inside. “Between Tramel’s visits and that of your cousin Gladstone, the London house will still be lively.”
The door slammed and Felton sat back with an odd feeling in his gut. Though he welcomed his aunt’s family entertaining his household, he didn’t like Jeremiah Gladstone or Tramel intruding. Jane wasn’t fond of their cousin either. He bragged too much about managing his father’s investments in Demerara, and he stared at Cecilia too much.
Cecilia detested him.
His man would have to keep an eye on things.
One last mission would set things right for Johnson. He’d leave the service with all his missions complete. And if Felton returned feeling the same way he did about Cecilia as in his heart now, he’d admit he was in love, and hope her missing him would mean she might love him too.
CHAPTER8
CECILIA—MAKINGUPISHARD TODO
December 3, 1813
The knocking outside my studio door made my head ache. I was more sensitive to noise now. Everything was loud. My vision swirled.
I blocked my ears, but the pounding continued.
“Cecilia, may I come in?”
“I’m busy.” The painting of this landscape, Demerara’s coast, was nearly complete. I just had to finish the waves of water flowing to the docks. It needed greenish-brown waves topped with white foam.
“Cecilia?” More banging. It was a gong, the way the noise rattled. “Please.”
I knew that wasn’t how the noises truly sounded, but my mind sometimes had problems separating true from imagined.
“Let me in, Cilia. Please.” Felton asked again.
The begging was real and loud.
Just because he was back after so many months away didn’t mean my bed was open to him. It didn’t mean anything at all.
“I’ve been home a fortnight. You haven’t spent a moment with me.”
Didn’t sound like he would stop. I took my canvas and stashed it in the closet like normal to dry. In its place I put the silly imagery I’d started with Felton as a Roman soldier. This time it had his face.
Half closing my eyes, I filled my chest with air. “You know my terms.”
Silence, but no boots knocked away. I went to my easel and awaited Felton’s next move.
The door jiggled. Watson stood there with his ambivalent stone-faced smile. He tucked the housekeeper’s key into his pocket. “It was actually open, sir.”
Then the man-of-all-work bowed to me and left.
My husband came fully inside and shut the door. A brilliant white shirt covered his chest, the sleeves rolled up only half his forearm. He was very tanned. Wherever he’d gone this time had given him plenty of sun.
Without a word, he wrenched off his boots and stockings, then stood before me in chocolate breeches and naked feet.
The pockmarks on his feet weren’t so bad. Just more spots for my jaguarete.
“I’ve come to surrender.”
“You can earn the right to speak to me if and only if you’re in a toga. It’s on the chair next to your wriggling toes.”
The linen sheet I’d prepared, with an ivory satin ribbon stitched along the edges, was folded the same way he did his shirts, along the seams. “I had plenty of time to make it special, with you gone for seven months.”
“Wait.” He went back to the hall and returned with a tray of Stilton cheese, unleavened bread, and something that looked like jam.
