CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
An hour later, I arrived back at home, well and truly done in. It had been a long night, culminating in an actual explosion, and I was ready to collapse into bed and sleep for three to four days.
I had left the Finches in a cheerful enough mood. There had been no damage to the building, the device being relatively small. (“If they’d really wanted to blow us all up, it would have needed a much greater charge,” Winnie had said. “Though that failsafe was ingenious. I suspect it was the order in which I cut the wires that did it. I wonder if there’s anything in the debris I can examine…”)
Pushing my way through the front door, assuming that even Wheeler was not awake at this hour, I was startled when Izzy erupted into the hallway, looking pale and anxious. I should have known she’d be waiting up for me.
“Oh, Felicity!” she exclaimed, wringing her hands. “It’s terrible .”
How on earth had she found out already? I wondered.
“It was only a very small bomb,” I said, my tone reassuring.
“I—” Izzy came to a halt. “ Bomb? What bomb?”
“I don’t… What were you talking about?” I asked, confused.
“I was talking about your mother. She arrived early – not long after you left. What’s this about a bomb?”
“At the Aviary,” I said. “My mother is here? Now?”
“At the Aviary!” Izzy exclaimed.
“Goodness, Izzy, you act like you’ve never seen a bomb before,” I said distantly, because in the grand scheme of things, the (very small) bomb had already happened and I was demonstrably fine, but my mother arriving almost two weeks early in a fit of excitement over my first season was a real catastrophe.
“What did you tell her about where I was?” I asked.
Izzy sighed, but seemed to accept the shift of priorities. “I told her you’d already gone to bed because you were up late last night corresponding with one of your academic friends.”
I nodded. “Excellent,” I said, then my shoulders slumped. “Only now she’s going to expect me to be up shortly, and I’d like to sleep for a week at least.”
“Poor Felicity,” Izzy said, coming forward to take my hands. “You do look tired. How did it go at the club?”
“I won,” I said with a yawn. “Laing didn’t seem too worried, which is worrying in itself. I took the money to Mrs Finch, and there was a parcel there that exploded. Sylla threw it out of the window first, so it didn’t damage much except my ears, which are still ringing.” I was overcome by a wave of exhaustion that left me swaying on my feet.
“All right,” Izzy said, calmer now, and I took a moment to think how nice it was to have a sister-in-law who wasn’t perturbed for long by bombs and murderers and unexpected mothers-in-law. “At least your work with the agency and Laing is finished now, so that’s one less layer of subterfuge we’re managing.”
“I know,” I said miserably, “but she’ll want me to prepare for the season.”
“I suppose we’ll have to go along with whatever she has planned,” Izzy said. She saw my expression and her grip on my hand tightened. “Only for the time being. I promise. We’ll tackle her together, but we must wait for Max. He wrote to say this business was taking longer than he expected, but that he’d be home within the week. He’s the only one who will have any influence over her.”
She was right, I knew. Izzy and my mother were not well acquainted, and if anything were to really change about my situation, then such instructions would have to come from my brother.
With the money Mrs Finch was going to pay me for my work, I almost had enough to put my original plan into motion, but I still needed my brother’s agreement. I’d hoped that would be in place before Mother’s arrival.
Izzy was rubbing her forehead. “You don’t think it was Laing who planted the bomb?” she said suddenly.
“Laing was with me all evening, so he certainly didn’t plant it himself. And there’s no reason to think he even knows about the Aviary.”
Izzy sighed. “You’re right. Still, I cannot like the timing.”
“You concentrate on the Aviary,” I said, straightening my spine. “I’ll take care of my mother. I can play the part of the doting daughter for a few days, until Max comes home.”
It was nothing I hadn’t done before, but, even so, the prospect was tiring. I had spent a long time trying to squeeze myself into someone else’s idea of me; that feeling had been lifted over this last week. Now that it returned, I felt it crash over me with unexpected violence.
It had been good to be needed. To be valued for my real self. To be seen, not only by Izzy and the Aviary but by Ash too, as someone more than Lady Felicity Vane, a young woman on the marriage mart who didn’t quite fit in. It felt, for a moment, as though the world had opened up in front of me, wide and green, but now the door had slammed shut. It was a lonely feeling.
Only for the time being , I told myself, repeating Izzy’s words in my head.
And yet, as I dragged myself up the stairs to bed, something heavy settled in my chest. It seemed that my adventure had already come to an end.