Ewan’s gaze found his instantly, and Devil regretted the words. What Ewan seemed to think they hinted at. “I shan’t hurt her,” Ewan said. “I’m going to marry her.”
The unpleasant pronouncement grated, but Devil did his best to ignore the sensation. Felicity Faircloth of the silly name was most definitely embroiled now. Which meant he had no choice but to engage her.
Ewan pressed on. “Her family seems quite desperate for a duke—so desperate that the lady herself simply pronounced us engaged this evening. And to my knowledge, we’ve never even met. She’s clearly a simpleton, but I don’t care. Heirs are heirs.”
She wasn’t a simpleton. She was fascinating. Smart-mouthed and curious and more comfortable in the darkness than he would have imagined. And with a smile that made a man pay attention.
It was a pity he’d have to ruin her.
“I shall find the girl’s family and offer them fortune, title, all of it. Whatever it takes. Banns shall post Sunday,” Marwick said, calmly, as though he was discussing the weather, “and they will see us married within the month. Heirs soon on the way.”
No one gets back in. Not without a match for the ages.
Felicity’s words from earlier echoed through Devil. The woman would be thrilled with this turn of events. Marriage to Marwick got her what she wanted. A heroine’s return to the aristocracy.
Except she wouldn’t return.
Because Devil would never allow it, beautiful smile or no. Though the smile might make her ruination all the better.
Devil’s brows lowered. “You get heirs on Felicity Faircloth over my rotting corpse.”
“You think she will choose Covent Garden over Mayfair?”
I want back in.
Mayfair was everything Felicity Faircloth wanted. He’d simply have to show her what else there was to see. In the meantime, he threw his sharpest knife. “I think she is not the first woman to risk with me rather than spend a lifetime with you, Ewan.”
It struck true.
The duke looked away, back out the window. “Get out.”
Chapter Four
Felicity sailed through the open door of her ancestral home, ignoring the fact that her brother was at her heels. She paused to force a smile at the butler, still holding the door. “Good evening, Irving.”
“Good evening, my lady,” the butler intoned, closing the door behind Arthur and reaching for the earl’s gloves. “My lord.”
Arthur shook his head. “I’m not staying, Irving. I’m only here to have words with my sister.”
Felicity turned to meet the brown gaze identical to her own. “Now you’d like to speak? We rode home in silence.”
“I wouldn’t call it silence.”
“Oh, no?”
“No. I’d call it speechlessness.”
She scoffed, yanking at her gloves, using the movement to avoid her brother’s eyes and the hot guilt that thrummed through her at the idea of discussing the disastrous evening that had unfolded.
“Good God, Felicity, I’m not sure there’s a brother in Christendom who would be able to find words in the wake of your audacity.”
“Oh, please. I told a tiny lie.” She made for the staircase, waving a hand through the air and trying to sound as though she weren’t as horrified as she was. “Plenty of people have done far more outrageous things. It’s not as though I took up work in a bordello.”
Arthur’s eyes bugged from their sockets. “A tiny lie?” Before she could reply he added, “And you shouldn’t even know the word bordello.”
She looked back, the two steps she’d already taken putting her above her twin. “Really?”
“Really.”
“I suppose you think that it isn’t proper, me knowing the word bordello.”
“I don’t think. I know. And stop saying bordello.”
“Am I making you uncomfortable?”
Her brother narrowed his brown gaze on hers. “No, but I can see you wish to. And I don’t want you to offend Irving.”
The butler’s brows rose.
Felicity turned to him. “Am I offending you, Irving?”
“No more than usual, my lady,” the older man said, all seriousness.
Felicity gave a little chuckle as he took his leave.
“I’m happy one of us is still able to find levity in our situation.” Arthur looked to the great chandelier above and said, “Good God, Felicity.”
And they were returned to where they’d begun, guilt and panic and not a small amount of fear coursing through her. “I didn’t mean to say it.”
Her brother shot her a look. “Bordello?”
“Oh, now it’s you who are jesting?”
He spread his hands wide. “I don’t know what else to do.” He stopped, then thought of more to say. The obvious thing. “How could you possibly think—”
“I know,” she interrupted.
“No, I don’t think you do. What you’ve done is—”
“I know,” she insisted.
“Felicity. You told the world that you’re marrying the Duke of Marwick.”
She was feeling rather queasy. “It wasn’t the world.”
“No, just six of the biggest gossips in it. None of whom like you, I might add, so it’s not as though we can silence them.” The reminder of their distaste for her was not helping her roiling innards. Arthur was pressing on, however, oblivious. “Not that it matters. You might as well have shouted it from the orchestra’s platform for the speed with which it tore through that ballroom. I had to hie out of there before Marwick sought me out and confronted me with it. Or, worse, before he stood up in front of all assembled and called you a liar.”
It had been a terrible mistake. She knew. But they’d made her so angry. And they’d been so cruel. And she’d felt so alone. “I didn’t mean to—”
Arthur sighed, long and heavy with an unseen burden. “You never mean to.”
The words were soft, spoken almost at a whisper, as though Felicity weren’t supposed to hear them. Or as though she weren’t there. But she was, of course. She might always be. “Arthur—”
“You didn’t mean to get yourself caught in a man’s bedchamber—”
“I didn’t even know it was his bedchamber.” It had been a locked door. Abovestairs at a ball that had broken her heart. Of course, Arthur would never understand that. In his mind it was brainless. And perhaps it had been.
He was on to something else now. “You didn’t mean to turn down three perfectly fine offers in the ensuing months.”
Her spine straightened. Those she had meant. “They were perfectly fine offers if you liked the aging or the dull-witted.”
“They were men who wanted to marry you, Felicity.”
“No, they were men who wanted to marry my dowry. They wanted to be in business with you,” she pointed out. Arthur was a great business mind and could turn goose feathers into gold. “One of them even told me that I could remain living here if I liked.”
Her brother’s cheeks were going ruddy. “And what would have been wrong with that?!”
She blinked. “With living apart from my husband in a loveless marriage?”
“Please,” he scoffed, “now we are at love? You might as well carry yourself up to the damn shelf.”
She narrowed her gaze on him. “Why? You have love.”
Arthur exhaled harshly. “That’s different.”
Several years ago, Arthur had married Lady Prudence Featherstone in a renowned love match. Pru was the girl who’d lived on the dilapidated estate next door to the country seat of Arthur and Felicity’s father, and all of London sighed when they referred to the brilliant young Earl of Grout, heir to a marquessate, and his impoverished, lovely bride, who’d immediately delivered her besotted husband an heir and was currently at home, awaiting the birth of his spare.