Or, rather, whom.
So many people. Not people… men. She’d have to meet them all. Smile at them, be kind to them…
And then choose one. Which meant rejecting others.
What a nightmare.
Glancing around her iron and double-paned glasshouse at the array of blurred and vibrant color, she noted the sun had climbed higher than she’d realized.
Oh, that she could stay here amongst the dahlias and crocuses, the hyacinths and begonias. She much preferred their company to that of most people.
Pushing herself to her feet, Felicity stretched the stiff muscles of her back and reached for the pot of aloe vera. It’d been something of an experiment, as such things didn’t tend to thrive in English soil, but she was determined to give it one more try in the house where the atmosphere was a little drier. Hopefully, she had time to get it inside for a triage, and return to tidy up the greenhouse and ready herself to face the day.
Carrying it gingerly with both hands, Felicity rushed from the hothouse into the courtyard of Cresthaven Place, her family’s stately whinstone home in Mayfair. She found the courtyard entrance to the rear foyer locked.
After recent events, she’d instructed her staff to keep all doors secured, and they must not have noticed she’d been outside.
It pleased her, though, that someone remained vigilant.
After knocking for several moments to no avail, she realized that the staff must be below stairs attending their own breakfast.
Which meant she’d need to go to the front entrance and ring the bell to summon her butler, Mr. Bartholomew.
Lifting her skirts, she scurried toward the deep courtyard arch— almost a tunnel— beneath which carriages passed through to unload their passengers away from the busy London streets.
The iron gate stood open in anticipation of the day’s bevy of alarming traffic.
A familiar sensation poured over her, one that had plagued her for several months now. It was different than her general sense of anxiety and unease. Indeed, her flesh warmed and the fine hairs on her body would lift to attention. Immediately an alarm trilled up her spine as if her back had been licked by a demon.
She felt this sense most often at night, when she was alone. She’d go to her window and look out into the dark.
And was haunted by the sense that the darkness stared back at her.
Doing her best to ignore her trepidation, Felicity noted that one of the aloe leaves was broken, weeping its syrup-like substance. She balanced the pot in one hand and did her best to coax the bend of the branch back in without it snapping.
It might have worked, had she not crashed headlong into the wall.
The clay pot shattered upon the cobbles of her drive, leaving a strange little oblong mound of dirt upon which was strewn the single plant.
It absurdly reminded Felicity of a tiny grave. She made a silly sound of amusement as she blinked down at it with something almost like relief.
Well, there was no saving it now, and she was almost glad she didn’t have to expend the energy.
She barely had any left.
Just as she reached down to tidy the pottery shards, the wall moved.
Felicity jumped back several paces, smothering a cry with her fingers as her brain slowly processed some facts she’d previously missed.
Walls were not broad and warm and covered in wool. They didn’t smell of cedar chips and expensive tobacco.
And they certainly didn’t have thick hair that gleamed like onyx glass.
With a horrified squeak, Felicity retreated several more paces as the impossibly wide man turned to face her.
He moved deliberately, she noticed, like a mountain or an ancient oak, as if taking care where he arranged his uncommon bulk in a world full of small and fragile things.
Normally, Felicity would be frozen on the spot, her mouth open like a demented fish as she searched her blank thoughts for something, anything to say to a stranger in these awkward and embarrassing circumstances. She’d be wishing the tiny grave between them was big enough for her to disappear into.
Perhaps forever.
She’d berate herself for her blindness, her clumsiness, and her inarticulate nature.
But something about the way the man stood in front of her, mute and quite unnaturally still, gave her the time to cobble a sentence together.
It seemed he, too, was frozen in place, stymied into silence by her inelegance.
“Oh, do forgive me for startling you, sir!” Though she’d put distance between them, she reached her hand toward him in a timeless gesture of mea culpa. “I wasn’t minding my step. Did I soil your coat? Did I cause you any harm?”
She squinted over at him— or, rather, up at him— and yearned for her spectacles.
Because of the extremity of her nearsightedness, she had to stand indecently close to people to make out their features without optical assistance.
She’d have given anything for them now.
As it was, she could make out no more than an impression of the man rather than an exact vision of him. He was all darkness and brawn, like a storm cloud of strength even in the rare brilliance of this morning. She found it difficult to distinguish between the sharp black of his suit and coat and that of his hair, which meant he kept it longer than was fashionable.
His eyes were deep— too deep to ascertain color at this distance— his mouth charmingly crooked, his neck and jaw wide.
Felicity wanted to step closer, to truly take the measure of him. But to do so, of course, to a man to whom she’d not been introduced, would be the height of impropriety.
And people on this street watched her family for any misstep.
Especially since the myriad of scandals recently heaped upon their good name.
Upon the “Goode name,” as it were.
“It is I who should beg your pardon.” His reply rumbled in fathomless echoes over the stones with a depth she’d rarely before encountered. His accent was measured and cultured and only a little… off? Like he’d spent some time elsewhere besides
