Chapter Sixteen
“Iam sorry.” The words slipped from Felicity’s mouth, almost slurred. She saw, heard, felt everything in slow motion. The very edges of the drawing room blurred.
Was this truly happening? She hardly realized what she was saying. But she must. She could never, ever see such a tortured expression on Atticus’s face again or be the cause of it. This had gone well out of hand. She had been caught completely out of her depth and done something terrible as a result. She had broken Atticus’s trust.
“I am so, so sorry.”
Her husband took a step back. Much farther and he would go right through the wall. Atticus never did take much heed of his surroundings, a trait that had brought Felicity much amusement over the past few months. She wished she had known then that those would be some of the last times amusement or joy would color her life.
“I-Is there anything else I should know?” he pressed without any real urgency.
Her sweet Atticus had become so brave, so assured in himself. So much so that he had not removed his gaze from her until now. He already did not trust whatever reply she would make.
“No, I promise,” Felicity insisted, almost breathless. Her heart twisted when he did not look at her. “Atticus, you must know I care for you more deeply than words can express.”
Felicity could not bring herself to hate the trembling in her tone. It had been astoundingly foolish to think it could have ended any differently. Not for someone like her.
Now, thanks to her own stubbornness, she had trapped Atticus into a marriage founded on dishonesty, robbing him of the life he deserved with someone who would no doubt have handled his precious heart with more care.
What else had Felicity expected? She was never meant to be the tender, selfless partner whom Atticus needed. Her nature was that of a storm and always would be—reckless and unwelcome.
Atticus had finally seen the truth of it. How could he not? Felicity’s own incurable flaws blinded her, forcing her to blink back tears. She had brought this upon herself and doomed an innocent man in the process.
It was unforgivable. The gradual resignation in her husband’s handsome face told her as much.
“I would have understood,” he said under his breath, wounded gaze on the floor. “At least, I think I would have. I suppose we shall never know now.”
Another crescendo of deafening silence filled the chasm between Felicity and Atticus. She did not know how long they stood in total stillness. The sensation spread through her body like a rash, urging her to jump, scream, tear off and shatter the jewels constricting her throat—to run far away, to run forever. To run straight into the safety of her familiar fears.
Stillness would never be the same for her. Not like it was when Atticus stood beside her. Felicity would never find peace again, so what would be the harm in running?
“Perhaps this was a mistake.”
Atticus flinched. Felicity felt the air squeeze out of her lungs. Still, his focus remained anywhere but on her. How desperately she longed to look into his lovely eyes yet could not bear to see the pain of her betrayal in them.
Her husband had put his full, fragile trust in Felicity. She, in turn, though not intentionally, had made a fool of him. Indeed, Atticus should have known much, much sooner. He was, after all, the bearer of equal consequence in Lady Swan’s scheme—and the bearer of unfair burden in this marriage that was entirely Felicity’s fault.
The faults did not end there. Of course, Felicity’s pride had prevented her from admitting that she may not have been capable of this miraculous change, the change that had allowed her to open her heart to Atticus, without another’s assistance.
“A mistake?” Atticus echoed.
“All of this,” Felicity continued quickly before she could lose her nerve. She pleaded to the guarded air surrounding her husband as he half-turned away from her, brows furrowing. “From the very beginning, I have made so many mistakes. I cannot tell you how sorry I am that you are paying the price for them as well. I never should have encouraged either of us to think I deserved your faith and…love.”
Love. The word seized Felicity’s chest in a cruel grip. Neither of them had actually said it aloud to each other yet. She hated that she had lost her opportunity to hear him offer it to her with warmth, with tenderness. Then again, she could not be sure if such a memory would bring her more comfort or remorse in the lonely days to come.
“What would you have me do?”
“Do?” Felicity repeated dumbly. There was nothing more either of them could do. They had known that since the moment Felicity had stepped into the library, what felt like a lifetime ago now.
Atticus’s hands clenched and unclenched at his sides. A nervous habit Felicity had slowly begun to unwind by placing her hand in his when she’d noticed it.
Did he long to reach for her now? Felicity shook her head, a tear falling loose. She brushed it away with her knuckles. It was far more likely that he despised her than longed for her.
She could hardly blame him. She despised herself. Felicity’s battered, quaking heart whispered a reminder that she was doing what was best, even if neither of them felt it yet.
“H-How do you wish to proceed? A return to the early days?”
Felicity squeezed her eyes shut. She hated to hear that tremble in his voice, not anxiety but pain.
How could they ever hope to overcome this hurdle? How could Atticus ever believe anything Felicity said of her feelings now? “Y-Yes, I think that would be wise.”
Each word sliced her to her core. Felicity finally lowered her head. When had she ever cared for the wise course? She certainly did not feel wise at present. In fact, she was sure no greater fool had ever walked this Earth than she. Felicity was a complete and utter fool for thinking she could have a kind of happiness she had not known possible, a happiness where freedom was found in the safety of another’s kind, patient soul.
“As you wish.”
Those three syllables hammered the nails into the coffin. Felicity felt each one in the depths of her hollow stomach.
Before Felicity realized what was happening, Atticus’s hesitant step forward became a rush toward her. No, not toward her. Past her. His eyes remained fixed on the floor, his strides giving him a wide berth around Felicity.
“Atticus, I am sorry,” she blurted out as he came parallel to her.
He paused. His head remained lowered. His hands had stilled. “I know.”
There was nothing more to be said. Atticus quit the drawing room. Felicity stood in the center for an untold amount of time, her head tilted back. She stared up at the artful swirls and swoops of the white moulding that crept across the ceiling to form an even bigger and more breathtaking pattern in the center. Strange that she had never thought to appreciate it until now.
The tears that had pooled in her eyes, bridled by sheer force of will, flowed freely down her cheeks and neck and into her hair. She had always hated that wet, pitiful feeling tears produced. For now, she had not the energy to care.
Somehow, despite cherishing every precious moment with Atticus as they’d occurred, Felicity found herself still wishing she had appreciated them more profoundly. Her eyes drifted closed. Then again, if she had realized then what would come to pass now, perhaps she would have never allowed it to develop further.
She never would have experienced this range of wondrous emotions and the fullness of contentment only found in true acceptance. She never would have experienced this all-encompassing sorrow that threw a harsh light upon her many deficiencies—not the least of which being the unjustness of the pity she felt for herself. Heavy muscles twitched, the last vestiges of her energy calling for release.
Innocent, unselfish, obliging Atticus had suffered the greatest. Because of Felicity.
What right did she have to flee from the drawing room, tears flying behind her, and slam her bedroom door behind her with a whimper? What right did she have to behave as though she were the wretched one when she could only imagine the agony in the room not two walls away from hers? She was no tragic heroine from one of Atticus’s books. She was the antagonist.
Her back still pressed against her door, Felicity lowered her face into her hands. Her shoulders shook, every inch of her skin ablaze.
“What have you done?” Felicity groaned.
She did not know which of her innumerable missteps she addressed. Perhaps every one she had taken from the very moment she’d received Lady Swan’s letter had been a misstep. All these months, Felicity had thought she had chosen a path of caution when she had really done the same as she always had from the very start: act without thinking to the vexation and detriment of everyone around her.
Peeling herself away from the door, Felicity dragged her aching body to the bed and fell face-first amongst her many plump pillows. She had just begun to burrow under the covers when a knock sounded.
“Madam, shall I ready you for bed?” called her lady’s maid.
“Not now, Hammond,” Felicity replied without lifting her face from the comfort of her pillows.
“Pardon?”
With a pained grumble, Felicity forced her head up. “Later, please, Hammond!”
“C-Certainly, madam. Are you quite well? Might I fetch you anything?”
“No, but I do thank you,” Felicity answered with as much softness as she could muster. A moment of hesitation and Hammond’s footsteps retreated down the hall.
“This is quite beyond human intervention, I am afraid,” Felicity added under her breath as she pulled the blanket over her head.
The surrounding softness and darkness had helped to soothe Felicity’s aching heart as a child. It had protected her from the pain inflicted by others, if only for a night of fitful sleep. Yet no matter how Felicity twisted or wrapped herself, the tears and grief continued, relentless.
Because she was the one who had inflicted this pain upon herself and upon an undeserving heart. Not Lady Swan. Not her own mother. No one had made Felicity’s choices but Felicity.
From this fact she could not hide. No one else owned the blame but her.