Chapter Five
Only when Mercy grasped Felicity’s wrist with both hands and yanked her back did she realize she had been going into the darkness…after Mr. Atticus Wheadon.
“What in the heavens, pray tell, has possessed you?” Mercy gasped in an urgent whisper. “You cannot follow after a strange man down a dark hall to who knows where! You may have made a point of your disregard for the ton’s edicts to all who know you, yet even those who are familiar with your shocking behavior will never allow you to recover from that.”
“He is not strange…” Felicity said under her breath, again without thinking, without giving herself a chance to reconsider. “Well, he is a bit strange, but in a good way.”
Mercy frowned. “Is there such a thing as a good way to be strange?”
For reasons beyond Felicity’s present understanding, she bristled at her twin’s words. “I wish to inquire after his health. He did just come to my aid, after all. You are welcome to join if you wish to be useful and keep watch for me.”
She did not wait for an answer. Turning on her heel, Felicity marched deeper down the hallway. Mercy’s familiar footsteps swished softly against the rug, following quickly.
No tall, angular figure appeared before her, no matter how far Felicity walked down that long path, the sounds of a lively evening fading behind her. Her eyes had just fixed upon a footman up ahead whom she prayed had seen where his young master had gone when they came upon a well-lit staircase. Felicity could just make out the disheveled, mahogany-brown head bobbing down the stairs through the carved wood banister.
Felicity ignored her sister’s squirm of discomfort and hastened her steps so as not to lose sight of Mr. Wheadon again. Mercy still followed, always loyal to Felicity’s wildest fancies. On the floor below, Mr. Wheadon disappeared behind a heavy, oak door, leaving it open just enough for Felicity to spy the library beyond.
An unexpected smile tugged at her lips as she slowed to a furtive tiptoe. She was not surprised that his refuge was the library. Why did she feel as though she understood this man when nothing could be further from the truth?
Without hesitation, Felicity stepped one foot over the threshold.
Mercy once again grabbed hold of her sister’s wrist. “Felicity, you cannot truly mean to enter that room…to be alone with him! This is not like before, when you told me he found you in the garden. That was in broad daylight, in full view of any number of servants who might validate your claims of innocence if anyone asked—though even that situation was already quite a leap from propriety. But this… I shall enter with you, at least.”
Felicity could only stare into the shadows of the library, flickering in the light of a distant fireplace.
A powerful force for which she had no name, because she had never felt such a thing in her three-and-twenty years, called to her heart. It beat hard and insistent in reply, longing to follow…to see if Lady Swan was correct after all.
“Leave the door fully open. You wait outside,” she instructed, her own voice muffled against the drumming in her chest.
“Felicity.”
The sharpness in Mercy’s voice forced Felicity back to cold reality.
“You know this would lead to my ruination as well as your own.”
Felicity could only meet her twin’s perfectly just and sensible sharpness with the earnest emotion in her eyes. She knew her oldest and dearest friend would feel it.
“I need to see if he is well.”
Mercy’s frown eased into a reluctant pout. She nodded and took up her post at the doorway.
To Felicity’s relief, the smoldering fire revealed that Mr. Wheadon had not already disappeared into the impressively labyrinthine shelves of Setherwell’s library. In fact, he had not gone very far at all.
The gentleman braced one hand against a shelf along the left wall, his shoulders rounded and head lowered. Even in this dim light, Felicity could see the tremor of labored breathing.
A fear she had not been aware of until it had come to fruition seized her chest. He truly was not well at all.
Hoping not to startle the poor man, Felicity slipped closer with lighter footwork than had ever graced any ballroom. She cleared the nervous lump in her throat.
He spun around, panic ablaze in his eyes.
They squeezed shut when the gentleman saw Felicity. His breathing slowed.
“Miss Reeve, are you in need of assist—Good heavens, you should not be in here.”
His caring first instinct was not lost on Felicity. Warmth flooded her from the center of her chest outward. She did her best to brush that aside. Now was not the time to determine what that might signify.
“Do not fret over where I should or should not be, Mr. Wheadon. I can manage myself,” Felicity replied in a forced factual tone.
Mr. Wheadon took a step closer, his hand sliding off the shelf, long fingers trailing over leather spines.
Strange how Felicity’s senses seemed to flee at the precise moments she needed them most. Once more without thinking, she found herself matching his movement, bringing them nearly toe to toe.
“I certainly have no doubt of that,” he said, worrying at the sleeves of his coat, “but I am afraid you are putting yourself at grave risk in the eyes of Society at this very moment. I am certainly not worth the repercussions you would suffer should we be found.”
Felicity wrinkled her nose. “I know the rules well enough. What I do not know and what I must know immediately is if you are unwell.”
The raised brows and slightly ajar mouth of his surprised expression were so endearing that Felicity failed to suppress her blush. She offered a silent plea to the heavens that the dimness of the library would conceal what she could not. How could a grown man look so…darling?
“Why?” Mr. Wheadon asked, so quietly, Felicity would not have heard if she had not been so close. They were, indeed, very, very close.
In an effort to distract herself from the fact, Felicity huffed and crossed her arms. She had already broken enough rules in this man’s presence that another transgression seemed negligible. “I noticed you seemed unwell earlier and wanted to be sure you were being tended to. I am merely returning your helpful deed.”
The gentleman gave a small smile and lowered his head respectfully. “I am quite well now, thanks to you, Miss Reeve. I am ever grateful for your kind attention.”
In the silence that followed, the only thing Felicity heard was the fluttering of her own heart. What on Earth was happening to her?
Before Felicity could lose herself down that convoluted path of thought that would yield no satisfying answers, Mr. Wheadon’s face transformed before her eyes.
From quiet contentment to pure horror.
The carefree wings of the butterflies in Felicity’s stomach crumpled. Her very blood frozen, Felicity turned.
The viscountess’s shadow filled the doorway of the library. Mercy hovered behind her with head bowed, hands twisting her ivory skirts.
Felicity’s insides twisted into sickening shapes.
“M-My lady, please allow me to explain—”
“Mother, it is not what you think—”
“Silence.”
Felicity snapped her mouth shut immediately, a true rarity. Judging by the way Mr. Wheadon’s lips muttered silently, Felicity guessed that he was praying for a miracle to deliver them from this dreadful dream. At least, it certainly was a dreadful dream for Felicity.
Lady Eldmar only came a few more steps into the library. Surely, even with the dying flames in the fireplace, she could see how close her daughter stood to an unmarried man, completely unchaperoned in a dark room.
“Already sneaking away for privacy? Well, if you are that smitten with each other, there is only one thing for it.”
A painful lump launched itself into Felicity’s throat. “No, Mother,” she croaked, her mind spinning too fast to formulate a coherent sentence. “We do not feel—I do not feel—I only meant—”
“That hardly matters now, does it?” Lady Eldmar clapped her hands together. “I must say, I did not think this would be the way I finally got you down the aisle. Not ideal, to be sure, but in a few years’ time, no one will remember your hasty courtship, as we shall all exclusively refer to it from this moment forth.”
The spinning stopped. Felicity’s mind went blank as her mother’s words rang in her ears. The floor beneath her feet became more like sand than solid wood.
“My lady, I know you have no reason to trust my word, stranger to you that I am, but I can assure you that nothing untoward occurred or would have occurred. Miss Reeve only sought to look after me when she noticed I was in distress, but as the moment had passed, we were just preparing to return.”
Felicity was only vaguely aware of the surprising strength in Mr. Wheadon’s voice, of the comforting pressure of his arm against hers. They stood side by side, facing the ends of both their lives as they knew them.
“That is all lovely, but I am afraid none of that matters, either. Or are you informing me that you refuse to take responsibility for my daughter’s honor?”
Even in the dying firelight, Felicity could see the calculating tilt of her mother’s head. No, the woman had hammered the nails into the coffin of Felicity’s freedom the moment she’d seen them alone. Felicity was certain she knew nothing untoward had happened and could allow this to be swept away, yet still, she did not care. There would be no amount of begging equal enough to Lady Eldmar’s pleasure in ridding herself of her greatest headache.
“Of course not,” Mr. Wheadon whispered, head hanging between his shoulders. “I will do whatever is necessary to make this right.”
“Very well, then! You and Felicity shall marry as soon as the banns are read,” the viscountess announced.
Felicity stared blankly at the floor. Could this truly be happening to her?
Did she have any right to be surprised? How often had her mother, her governess, even her friends and sister, told her that she could very well find herself in true peril if she acted out at the wrong time with the wrong audience?
Surely, that Lady Swan could take part of the blame. If the anonymous matchmaker had not infiltrated the minds of all of Felicity’s companions—of Felicity herself—perhaps she would not have spared Mr. Atticus Wheadon a second glance upon his arrival in Bainbridge, would not have cared if he’d left the ballroom in a rush, would have not followed him here.
Surely, even if she had meddled, Lady Swan could not have meant for it to unfold like this.