Minutes later, hours, perhaps, they lay in silence beneath the stars in the stunning wake of what they’d done. Devil had reversed their position, draping Felicity across his chest, where her head lay and her fingers danced circles on his skin.
He held her tight against him, his arms and coat keeping her warm, his fingers sifting through her hair in a delicious, rhythmic caress, and for that brief eternity, she imagined that the night had changed him as much as it had changed her.
She closed her eyes, the steady beat of his heart against her thoughts—the quiet, domestic fantasy that ended with his taking her hand in his and pledging himself to her, forever. She inhaled, overcome with the scent of him, tobacco flower and juniper and sin, and she imagined that, forever, any hint of it would summon the false memories she wove in his arms.
A Covent Garden wedding, a raucous celebration filled with wine and song, and a night to follow on this very roof—a repeat of tonight, but better, because it would not end with him leaving her.
It would end with a life together. A marriage. A partnership. A line of children with beautiful amber eyes and strong shoulders and long, straight noses. Children who would learn that the world was wide and good, and the aristocracy was nothing compared to the hardworking men and women who built the city in which they lived and made it better every day.
Men like their father. Women like the one she hoped to become by his side.
She closed her eyes and imagined those children. Wanted them. Loved them, already.
Just as she loved their father.
“Felicity.” He said her name, low and perfect, and she lifted her head to meet his gaze. “Dawn approaches.”
Dawn, ready to burn away the dark and with it, those precious, unmade memories.
Don’t send me back. Keep me here. I belong here.
She didn’t say the words, but he seemed to hear them anyway. He exhaled, the sound broken. “You deserved more than this,” he said. “You deserved a wedding night. With a man ten times what I am. With a man who can give you ton and title, name and fortune, a Mayfair townhouse and a country estate that’s been in the family for generations.”
Anger flared. “You’re wrong.”
“I’m not.”
“I don’t want those things.”
He watched her for an age. “Tell me again why you were crying in that bedchamber, the day you picked the lock. The day your friends turned their backs on you. Tell me again what you mourned.”
Hot embarrassment flared. “It’s not the same,” she protested. “I’m not the same. I don’t care about Mayfair and balls.”
“If I believed that . . .” He looked away, back to the stars. “I’d crawl to you without hesitation, but if I did, you would never have that life. Nor the acceptance.”
“Would you love me?” she whispered, the sound barely there, barely different than the wind rustling over the tiles on the rooftop. The sound of skin brushing against skin. The sound of their breath mingled.
The sound of hope.
He exhaled, long and jagged. And then he told her something true. “Not enough.”
And there, under the stars in this place she had come to love, Felicity resolved to prove him wrong.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Everything had changed, Felicity realized, as she alighted from her family’s carriage the next evening, her mother following immediately behind, her rich pink satin skirts swirling around her.
A year ago, a month ago, two weeks ago, Felicity had longed for this exact moment. It was mid-June and summer had arrived, all of London preparing to pack up and leave for the country, but the best of the city’s gossips wouldn’t dream of leaving before this particular ball—the Duchess of Northumberland’s summer herald, the most glamorous ball of the season.
A year ago, a month ago, two weeks ago, Felicity couldn’t have imagined a more desirable event than this one, climbing the steps to Northumberland House, the manor windows glittering with candlelight, her mother fairly vibrating her pleasure at Felicity’s elbow, the handful of guests assembled outside and clustered around the door acknowledging her without hesitation.
Welcoming her.
Claiming her.
Except everything had changed.
And not simply the fact that she was no longer odd, wallflower, spinster Felicity.
Nor that she was, to all assembled, the future Duchess of Marwick.
Oh, that was certainly why the aristocracy believed everything had changed. But Felicity knew better. She knew that what had changed, summarily and irrevocably, was that she had fallen in love with the world beyond this, and with the man who had revealed it to her. And that truth betrayed another: This world she had once cared so much about was nothing in comparison to his. To him.
Which he did not believe, and so, without recourse, Felicity had come to this place, filled with these people, to prove it to him.
The knowledge straightened her spine and squared her shoulders. It kept her chin high, as she was suddenly unwilling to allow this place—these people—to hold dominion over her. There was only one person who held her in his sway. And only one hope of winning him.
Which meant she had to find her fiancé.
“Your engagement has already made the world take notice!” the marchioness said excitedly as they stepped into the great Northumberland foyer, throngs of people surrounding them. She looked to the main staircase, filled with revelers, and gave a little squeak. “We weren’t invited last year; we weren’t welcome. Because of—well, you know.”
Felicity slowed and looked to her mother. “I don’t, as a matter of fact.”
The marchioness looked to her and lowered her voice. “Because of your scandal.”
“You mean the scandal of my being trotted off to the Duke of Haven’s marriage mart?”
Her mother shook her head. “Not only that.”
“The scandal of my aging spinsterhood?”
“That might have been a bit of it, as well.”
“Is it more or less a bit of it than my being exiled from the inner circle of the jewels of the ton?”
“Really, Felicity.” Her mother looked about with a too loud laugh, clearly afraid that someone might overhear them.
Felicity was less interested in that eventuality. “I would have thought that the scandal that eliminated our names from the guest list was Father and Arthur losing all the family’s money.”
Her mother’s eyes went wide. “Felicity!”
Felicity pressed her lips together, knowing now was neither the place, nor the time, but not particularly caring. Turning, she made her way up the stairs, toward the great ballroom. “It’s no matter, Mother. After all, we’re here tonight.”
“Yes,” the marchioness said. “That’s the important bit. As is the duke. And we shall be here next year. And all the years after.”
I shan’t be.
“Even your father plans to make an appearance tonight.”
Of course her father would, now that he felt he could show his face with the family coffers nearly filled once more.
Felicity focused on the top of the stairs. “I must find the duke.”
She had not made it ten paces when a voice called out from somewhere above, “Felicity!”