Chapter Eleven
The next morning, Nicholas unlatched the gate, stepping out onto the sand of the shoreline. The Atlantic Ocean was quiet today, the waves gently lapping against the beach. This time, he did not take the straight path he had walked with Felicity so many times before in their youth, but instead turned to his left, where the orderly gardens of Tetbery turned into bramble-beaten woods.
He’d never liked this forest. In fact, when he’d first visited the estate as a boy, he’d asked Uncle Randall why he didn’t cut down some of the trees, and expand onto the garden. Uncle Randall had smiled as he informed him that a man could only hope to tame some of nature—the rest, he had to let grow wild. He’d said that these twenty unruly acres reminded him of his real place in the world, because when he hiked through the woods, he wasn’t the Earl of Tetbery anymore.
He was simply a man, enjoying nature the way nature was supposed to be.
That had never made sense to Nicholas. He’d never wanted to be “just any man.” He’d wanted to be a duke.
Now, he didn’t know what he wanted. Everything he’d valued before didn’t seem to matter, not when compared with Felicity’s fresh-faced beauty. Or the fire of defiance lit in her jade eyes. And the taste of her, cinnamon spice and honey.
He thought of her as his, even after they’d agreed upon friendship. The steady, dispassionate way she approached life had made him think she was not capable of great emotional depths.
He’d been wrong.
Wrong about Felicity, wrong about his bill, wrong about his duty—a bloody triangle of wrongness, making him question everything.
I am not duchess material.
He couldn’t deny that. Hell, she wasn’t society material at all. Georgina was supposed to help with that. But what right did he have to insist Felicity change? She’d always been so sure of herself, until Margaret’s death.
And so it was with Tolsworth’s warning in mind that he’d struck out toward the crypt. The old butler had been concerned about Felicity, and now more than ever, Nicholas needed answers. Did she really want only friendship? She’d always been unflinchingly honest, giving him no reason to doubt her words.
But he wanted her to be lying. He wanted her to think of them as more.
Even if she wasn’t duchess material.
Even if he knew damn well the beau monde would never treat him the same again.
Because when he was with Felicity, he was different too. Less concerned with what the world wanted of him—and more concerned with what he wanted. He was a man, outside of being a duke.
Funny that it had taken him hiking to the Grantham family mausoleum to realize that.
In the distance, the mausoleum loomed, high atop the hillside. It was a tall, rectangular building, with a triangular roof that had always seemed too simple when compared with the ornately carved door, and the flower border etched into the stone of the exterior walls. In the crypts were buried every Earl and Countess of Tetbery for the last two hundred years. Two centuries worth of ancestors, with the rest of their family and servants buried in the copse to the left of the mausoleum. To the right of the building was the rushing water, giving the inhabitants a perpetual sea view.
He liked that. It seemed…peaceful.
As he climbed the stone steps up the hillside, he already knew what advice Aunt Margaret would have given him about his current predicament. She’d tell him he ought to let Felicity stay at Tetbery, and that he was a fool for thinking he could ever, ever get that girl out of his mind. He’d thought of Felicity when he was a lad at Eton, as a green adolescent roaming these wild Cornwall shores, and as a man sponsoring his first bill for Parliament.
She’d never been far from his thoughts. Hell, maybe he’d avoided Tetbery these last six years because he knew damn well that the second he set foot on this land, he’d be in her thrall again.
So it was with equal parts bewilderment and solemn reverence that he pulled open the heavy stone door to the mausoleum, the cold burst of air taking his breath away. If he had thought the beach was cold, then the mausoleum was positively artic. He did not remember it ever being this frigid, in all the times he’d visited with Felicity in the past.
She’d always liked it here—she’d said it was quiet—but he’d always thought it eerie. Too many ghosts and all of them probably found him lacking. The whoosh of his released breath echoed, and the tap of his booted feet against the stone floor banished the unearthly silence.
Pulling out his tinderbox, he lit the lantern by the door and unhooked it. Light filled the room, filtering into the cold gray corners. He closed the door behind him. Each room held twelve crypts—usually three grouped together, and then another column beside that. Husbands and wives were buried together in larger tombs. As time passed, the mausoleum had been extended; always further back, never cutting into the graveyard to the left.
With the lantern held high in his hand, he continued on, valiantly attempting to ignore the hair rising on the back of his neck, and the ever-present chill seeping deep into his bones. Finally, after passing through several chambers, he came to the room where Uncle Randall and Aunt Margaret had been buried.
Except nothing was the same.
For a minute, he stood there, mouth agape, eyes wide with shock. His mind sputtered, words not reaching his lips, as he struggled to process what he was seeing.
This did not make sense.
None of this made sense.
And if Felicity had anything to do with this, then Tolsworth was damnably right to be worried about her.