Chapter 6
All Felicity wanted was a couple of hours sleep, which was surely not too much to ask. But apparently it was. She had talked to Robin for a few minutes and then gone upstairs to find Victor Grant waiting in the hall outside of her bedchamber.
“I trust your patient has not died in the night,” he said, in a tone that implied the opposite.
The best form of defense was attack. “Were you spying on me, Mr. Grant?”
“Let us say, rather, I was looking out for the lady I mean to make my bride.”
“I have already refused your proposal, Mr. Grant. I will not marry you.”
Grant smiled. “I think you will. I hold your reputation in the palm of my hand, Lady Felicity. One word from me, and the whole of England will know you spent the night in the schoolhouse with Weatherall. And what is he, after all? A penniless schoolmaster. Distantly related to an earl, it is true. But by no means a match for a Belvoir, one of the great families of England.”
“Of the United Kingdom, Mr. Grant,” Felicity informed him, lifting her chin proudly.
And yes, she was proud. The Belvoirs had served king and country since there was a country, and all without scandal staining their name.
Grant was mistaken if he thought his threat would work on her, however.
That very pristine reputation would protect her, and if it did not?
Then better retirement to the country alone than marriage to a yellow-bellied cur.
“The answer is still no,” she said.
The man had not expected that. His smile slipped, and he snarled. “Then I will have no choice but to tell that Bow Street Runner who is here looking for our highwayman that Weatherall is Captain Moonlight,” he said.
Felicity absorbed the blow, schooling her face to show no expression.
He could not know for certain, and even if he had witnessed something incriminating, it would be his word against Justin’s.
And her word. She would give Justin an alibi even if she had to perjure herself. “What utter nonsense,” she said.
“I am going to Brighton today, Lady Felicity. I shall call on your brother and tell him what you have been up to. He, at least, will have a care to your reputation.”
Felicity managed to say, quietly, “I am of age, Mr. Grant. I will make my own choices.”
“Be sure that you make the right one,” Grant insisted and swaggered off, leaving Felicity far more disturbed than she would allow him to see.
* * *
Justin dragged himself out of bed to answer a thunderous cascade of knocks on his door. It was Victor Grant, who raised his brow at Justin’s appearance and said, “What does the schoolmaster get when he is late for school? Six of the best? Would you like me to administer them for you?”
“Get lost, Grant,” Justin said. “I have nothing to say to you.” He tried to shut the door, but Grant put his boot in the way.
“I have something to say to you, however,” Grant said. “You have been annoying Lady Felicity Belvoir, and I won’t have it. Stay away from my betrothed.”
As had often happened in battle, Justin suddenly felt very calm, very much in control, all his emotions set to one side to be picked up again on the other side of the conflict. “No, Grant. It is I who say those words to you. Stop annoying Lady Felicity. We are to be married.”
The reward for sins often arrived before the payment, and so it was in this case.
Grant’s jaw dropped, and his attempt to speak caught on a stutter.
The payment would come when Felicity discovered what he’d said.
No matter. Justin would pay whatever penance she demanded, and it would be worth it for the expression in Grant’s eyes.
“Nonsense,” said the man, gathering his usual cloak of supercilious dignity around himself.
“Marry you? You are nothing and no one. She is a Belvoir, and one of the great beauties of our age. You are penniless, and she brings a fortune with her. You were a mediocre naval officer and are now a village schoolteacher. She is used to the highest of Society and is welcome in all the courts of Europe. A marriage between you? Ridiculous.”
How odd. These were the same arguments that Justin had been using, but hearing them from Grant he could see how petty they were. If Felicity loved him as he loved her, and if she wanted the life he could give her, then what else mattered?
“It is you who are ridiculous, Grant. Chasing after a woman who has already refused you several times.”
“A woman has a right to be pursued,” Grant said, loftily. “A sensible man does not regard it as discouragement.”
“A wise man assumes a woman like Lady Felicity knows her own mind. She has chosen me, Grant. Now go away.” As he said that, he gave Grant a shove to move him from the doorstep, and slammed the door in the man’s face. He latched it, locked it, and—for good measure—put the bar in place.
After a few minutes, he heard Grant’s horse leaving.
But before he could go back upstairs to his bed, another knock sounded, more gentle but equally insistent.
By pressing his face to the window, he could just see a skirt.
Not Milly again, please God, no. But the figure stepped back to glance from side to side, and when he realized it was Felicity, he could not get the door open fast enough.
“Was that Grant I saw leaving?” she demanded, as he drew her inside and shut the door to protect her from the eyes of scandalmongers. “What did he want?”
“To tell me I wasn’t good enough for you,” he blurted.
She raised her eyebrows and gave an unamused chuckle. “At least there is something the two of you agree about.”
I hurt her. Justin supposed he must have known it before, but seeing her use humor to deflect possible hurt brought it home to him.
“I told him we are betrothed,” he blurted.
“I shouldn’t have. Not when I haven’t even asked you.
I love you, Lady Felicity Belvoir. I have loved you since I first met you.
For the past two years, even while I kept telling myself that it was hopeless, and that I was an arrogant bumptious fool for ever thinking I was fit to touch the toe of your shoe, I have loved you.
Will you forgive this poor fool for running away without talking to you? ”
Somewhere in that impassioned speech, he had caught up her two hands. He lifted them to his lips, and then said, “Will you marry me, and join me in a partnership to make our dreams come true? Will you, Felicity?”
Felicity lifted her lovely face and touched her sweet lips to his. “Yes, Justin. Yes, I will.”
During the kiss, Justin lost his wits for a while, allowing Felicity to instead fill his senses, sinking into the web of desire even as he wove it. He was not ready when she drew back after several glorious minutes, but he immediately loosened his grip so that she did not feel confined.
She had an urgent matter on her mind. “Justin, if there is anything in the school’s outbuildings that can be traced back to Captain Moonlight, we must hide it.
Robin and I led Grant here when I came to care for you last night, and he hinted that he searched the sheds and plans to have you arrested. ”
“Our cloaks, hats and masks,” Justin said. “Also, plain tack for Robin’s horse. His own is too distinctive to use. And if they search the schoolhouse, too, my pistol.”
“Quick,” said Felicity. “Let us move them. The cloaks, hats and masks first, I think. The rest can be explained away if required. I’ll do it. You’re still recovering.”
“We’ll do it together,” Justin insisted.
They wrapped the cloaks, hats, and masks in oiled cloth and hid them in a hollow Felicity excavated in the wood pile, putting back enough of the cut logs to seal them away out of sight. “Your pistol next,” Felicity said. “I’ll take it back up to the house with me and hide it in my room.”
“That you will not,” said Justin. “I shall wrap it well and bury it in the flour bin. As for the tack, I think we can forget about that. It is plain enough, and I can hang it up next to my own.”
He didn’t want Felicity to go, but surely she must have been missed by now? “Does Lady Somerville have nothing on today?”
Judging by her startled look, she had not given the house party a thought. “I shall be missed! We are meant to be painting watercolors on the other side of the lake. Justin, I must go, but I don’t want to.” She moved back into his arms for another kiss.
“I shall walk you back,” he said.
“You shall go back to bed,” she responded. “The wounds were trivial, Justin, but the blow to the head was hard enough to knock you out! It is full daylight, and I shall go by the road, so you need not fret.”
Justin reluctantly let her go, but stood on the doorstep and watched her until she was out of sight.
He stopped in the kitchen to make himself a cup of tea before returning to bed, and it was there that he was found by Principal Officer Pierce, the Bow Street Runner who had been hanging around the district like a bad smell.
“Weatherall, is it not?” said the runner.
“I am Justin Weatherall,” Justin admitted.
“Due to information received, I have to ask you how you were wounded, Weatherall,” said the runner.
Information received from whom? Was this Grant’s mischief? “An accident with a gun,” Justin replied.
“Causing a head wound,” the runner stated, which was not a great stretch, given Justin’s bandaged head.
“And several wounds in the shoulder and arm, none deep or serious,” Justin said. The bandage that held his dressings in place was clearly visible at the open neck of his shirt. Inspired, he added, “I suspect it was an espingole—a bit like a blunderbuss, but in pistol form.”
It was unlikely the runner would accept the diversion, and he didn’t. “And who shot you, Weatherall?”
Ah. That was a trickier question. Justin couldn’t think of a safe answer. “I regret, sir, that I cannot say.”
“Then I regret, sir, that I must take you into custody, on suspicion of being a highwayman,” said the runner.