Adored in Autumn (Seasons #4)(3)

Cora flinched. "I'll take care of that once the body is moved."

Felicity stared at her maid, a friend to her for so many years. Then she lifted her chin. "No, Cora. We will take care of it. If we are going to cover this up to save me, then we'll do it together."

Cora moved toward her, catching her shaking hands. "Are you certain you can manage it, my lady?"

Felicity took a long breath. "After what I've endured these past two years, I can manage anything."

Cora smiled gently at her, then turned as there was a knock on the door. Felicity stepped away as her maid let the other servants in and quietly explained the situation. But as they offered their support and pity to Felicity, she could hardly process it.

She was free. Free of this horrible marriage, free of the prison Erasmus had kept her in. And if they could manage to cover up the truth, she would remain free the rest of her days.

She could only pray that no one would ever find out what she'd done.





Chapter One





Autumn 1811

Felicity tried to keep her expression calm and her breathing even as she leaned forward and looked at a set of papers her friend Celia's husband, John Dane, was showing her. The words swam before her eyes, lines of names and dates that meant nothing to her.

Except her own doom.

It had been three years that she'd kept her secret about the night her husband died. Three years where not even her family had known the truth. She and Cora didn't speak of it even to each other, never saying the words out loud of what she'd done or how her loyal servants had responded to save her from the consequences.

But now all of that had been crushed.

She glanced up from her place to find her brother's wife, Elise, staring at her. Felicity smiled at Celia and John and moved to stand with her at the fire.

"What can I do for you?" Elise whispered.

Felicity squeezed her eyes shut. "You have done enough. My God, Elise, when I think that you were blackmailed into a marriage because of what I did … "

Elise grabbed her hand. "Dearest, that was not your fault. You defended yourself and I'm glad you did. That my late husband discovered that information and blackmailed me into a marriage with it is not your fault."

Felicity forced herself to look at her friend, but as earnest as Elise appeared, Felicity couldn't fully accept what she said. Elise said the past wasn't her fault, but Felicity was the one who had pulled the trigger. Because of that her brother Lucien had suffered, losing the love of his life for many years. Elise had suffered in her own unhappy marriage.

The consequences for Felicity's actions had damaged her family greatly. And they went on and on, it seemed. She glanced at John and Celia again, then her gaze moved to her other brother, Gray, and his wife Rosalinde, who stood at the window, talking about obviously serious subjects. If the truth came out, their family would be destroyed by scandal. Gray's business might suffer. They would all be shunned from good Society.

Elise sighed. "I hoped, of course, that when my husband died, the secret and all its ramifications died with him."

"A hope in vain, it seems," Felicity mused. "He kept a book with all his secrets. What kind of man does that?"



       
         
       
        

"A man like the late Duke of Kirkford, it seems," Elise said, her tone bitter. "A small, bastard of a man who liked to hurt people for sport."

"And now his cousin has that book. It may be in code, but John says all codes can be broken, and he would know, wouldn't he? Having been a spy."

Elise touched her arm again. "Look at me."

Felicity forced herself to do so and found her friend's expression to be gentle and kind. More than she deserved.

"We are going to do everything in our power to stop this man from harming you. Gray and John and Stenfax … they love you and they'll protect you, as will Rosalinde and Celia and I. We are family and you are not alone."

Felicity smiled at her, for she adored Elise for saying such lovely things. But in her heart, she knew her friend was wrong. Felicity was alone. She had been alone for years, she'd made sure of it. She kept herself separate, her interactions on the surface. She never let anyone truly close to her.

It was better that way. She'd learned that if nothing else in her twenty-four years on this earth.

She squeezed Elise's arm and slipped back to her place with John and Celia, leaning over the papers he was examining in the hopes that she could discover something within them that would help them find that book of secrets that could destroy her life and the lives of all those she loved.