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.
Pru and Arthur adored each other in that unreasonable way that no one believed existed until one witnessed it. They never argued, they enjoyed all the same things, and they were often found together on the edges of London’s ballrooms, preferring the company of each other to the company of anyone else.
It was nauseating, really.
But it wasn’t so impossible, was it? “Why?”
“Because I’ve known Pru for my whole life and love doesn’t come along for everyone.” He paused, then added, “And even when it does, it comes with its own collection of challenges.”
She tilted her head at the words. What did they mean? “Arthur?”
He shook his head, refusing to answer. “The point is, you’re twenty-seven years old, and it’s time for you to stop dithering about and get yourself married to a decent man. Of course, now you’ve made it near impossible.”
But she didn’t want any old husband. She wanted more than that. She wanted a man who could . . . she didn’t even know. A man who could do more than marry her and leave her alone for the rest of her life, certainly.
Nevertheless, she did not want her family to suffer for her wild actions. She looked down at her hands and told the truth. “I’m sorry.”
“Your contrition isn’t enough.” The response was sharp—sharper than she would have expected from her twin brother, who had stood with her since the moment they were born. Since before that. She found his brown gaze—eyes she knew so well because they were hers, as well—and she saw it. Uncertainty. No. Worse. Disappointment.
She took a step down, toward him. “Arthur, what’s happened?”
He swallowed and shook his head. “It’s nothing. I just—I thought perhaps we had a shot.”
“At the duke?” Her eyes were wide with disbelief. “We did not, Arthur. Not even before I said what I did.”
“At . . .” He paused, serious. “At a proper match.”
“And was there a team of gentlemen clamoring to meet me tonight?”
“There was Matthew Binghamton.”
She blinked. “Mr. Binghamton is deadly dull.”
“He’s rich as a king,” Arthur offered.
“Not rich enough for me to marry him, I’m afraid. Wealth does not purchase personality.” When Arthur grumbled, she added, “Would it be so bad for me to remain a spinster? No one will blame you for my being unmarriageable. Father is the Marquess of Bumble, and you’re an earl, and heir. We can do without a match, no?”
While she was wholly embarrassed by what had happened, there was a not-small part of her that was rather grateful that she’d ended the charade.
He looked as though he was thinking of something else. Something important.
“Arthur?”
“There was also Friedrich Homrighausen.”
“Friedrich . . .” Felicity tilted her head, confusion flaring. “Arthur, Herr Homrighausen arrived in London a week ago. And he doesn’t speak English.”
“He didn’t seem
to take issue with that.”
“It did not occur to you that I might take issue with it, as I do not speak German?”
He lifted one shoulder. “You could learn.”
Felicity blinked. “Arthur, I haven’t any desire to live in Bavaria.”
“I hear it’s very nice. Homrighausen is said to have a castle.” He waved a hand. “Turreted.”
She tilted her head. “Am I in the market for turrets?”
“You might be.”
Felicity watched her brother for a long moment, something teasing about the edges of thought—something she could not put voice to, so she settled on, “Arthur?”
Before he could reply, a half-dozen barks sounded from above, followed by, “Oh, dear. I take it the ball did not go as planned?” The question carried down from the first floor railing on the heels of three long-haired dachshunds, the pride of the Marchioness of Bumble, who, despite having a red nose from the cold that had kept her at home, stood in perfect grace, wrapped in a beautiful wine-colored dressing gown, silver hair down about her shoulders. “Did you meet the duke?”
“She didn’t, as a matter of fact,” Arthur said.
The marchioness turned a disappointed gaze on her only daughter. “Oh, Felicity. That won’t do. Dukes don’t grow on trees, you know.”
“They don’t?” Felicity brazened through her reply, willing her twin quiet as she worked to fend off the dogs that were now up on their back legs, pawing at her skirts. “Down! Off!”
“You are not as amusing as you think,” her mother continued, ignoring the canine assault going on below. “There is perhaps one duke available a year? Some years, no dukes at all! And you’ve already missed your chance at last year’s.”
“The Duke of Haven was already married, Mother.”
“You needn’t say it as though I don’t remember!” her mother pointed out. “I should like to give him a firm talking to for how he courted you without ever intending to marry you.”
Felicity ignored the soliloquy, which she’d heard a full thousand times before. She would never have been sent to compete for the duke’s hand if not for the fact that other husbands weren’t exactly clamoring to have her, so she didn’t much mind that he had chosen to remain married to his wife.