Chapter Fourteen
Nicholas comprehended, at best, half of what she’d told him. He hunched forward, picking up one of the many pieces of parchment strewn across the work table. Mallory’s sketch of the alchemical symbol for the Philosopher’s Stone, which she’d seen in a vision—or so Felicity said.
His stomach rolled, the sour taste in his mouth returning. From visions to elemental transformations to the dead coming back to life, every bloody part of Felicity’s story had him on edge.
At this point, he would have preferred it if she’d been involved with Bocka Morrow’s coven—at least Teddy could vouch for them.
“You must think me mad.” Felicity no longer looked at him, her gaze fastened on her folded hands in her lap.
“No.” Perhaps that was the only thing he was certain of in all of this.
“I would understand if you did,” she continued, as if he had never spoken. “Tressa said this isn’t natural—to try and achieve palingenesis. She said she’s worried about me.”
“As am I.” He reached for her hand, surprised by the relief he felt when she did not pull away. He did not know when it had begun to matter so much to him what this woman thought. What she felt. “But it’s not your sanity I worry for. I worry for your heart.”
She shook her head, lips pressed in a thin line. “You once told me you didn’t think I had a heart.”
He flinched. Had he really been that cruel in his youth? Yes, absolutely, for he’d thought nothing could penetrate her stony exterior.
Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never harm.
He’d shouted this once, to a bully at Eton. That had been how he’d met Teddy—quiet and bookish, the second son of the Earl of Ashbrooke attracted the most malicious brutes, for they knew he wouldn’t fight back.
So Nicholas had fought for him. He’d used his heir apparent status, and his family’s good name, to protect Teddy.
All the while, he’d perpetuated those same hurts during his visits to Tetbery.
He didn’t want to be that man anymore. He felt like a right arse for all the times he’d thought she was cold and distant, when here, staring back at him, was evidence to the contrary. She felt so deeply that it twisted up his insides to know how badly her heart would break.
He couldn’t save her from the pain of Margaret’s death, no matter how much he wanted to. But he could keep Felicity from being hurt more.
Squeezing Felicity’s hand, he vowed to be better. The type of man who fought for the innocent. Like he’d tried to do with his Night Watch Bill.
“I was wrong.” His vehemence—and maybe the admission itself, so surprising for a man who had always claimed life was so good—brought Felicity’s head up abruptly.
She searched his face, as if looking for signs that he was lying. “I don’t understand.”
“No, I didn’t understand.” He wrapped his other hand around hers, covering her palm. “I didn’t understand so many, many things. How your mind worked. What caused you pain. I should have been fighting by your side, defending you to anyone who dared to insult you. I should have been better, Lissie.”
She blinked, those green eyes of hers still dark with suspicion. “This doesn’t sound like you, at all. You’ve never, in all the years I’ve known you, admitted you were wrong. Yet this is twice in one week you have done so.”
“I should have.” He sighed. “I should have done a lot of things, I see.”
“Margaret always said that hindsight has perfect vision.” Her nose wrinkled, making her look so adorable he almost didn’t note her use of the past tense. “I always thought that was a foolish expression. You can’t see behind you.”
He grinned. “Somehow I don’t think that’s what she meant.”
“Perhaps not.” She shrugged. “When I bring her back, I will ask her.”
“I don’t think this is a good idea.” That was an understatement, for he really thought this was the worst idea of the century. “What do you believe happens when you die, Felicity?”
“Nothing.” She lifted her chin up, her eyes narrowing, preparing for a fight. “I know that is not the popular view of the times, but it’s what I think, based on science.”
He was not surprised she believed that. Faith could not be proved rationally, so she’d want no part of it. He, on the other hand, had accepted religion without questioning because Hardings had always been Anglicans.
“What if Margaret is with Randall now?” he asked. “What if she’s happy, up in Heaven?”
For a split second, Felicity seemed to consider this. Her hand tightened around his. Then she shook her head, dismissing the idea. “That is too unlikely to consider. Death does not bring life—unless I find a way to make it so.”
It hit then, the dichotomy of being close to Felicity. Holding her hand, the warmth of her soft skin bolstering him. She was so alive—so vibrant.
While his aunt was so very, very dead.
Felicity couldn’t change that, could she? When they were children, he’d jokingly said she’d create a monster someday. He hadn’t believed then that she could actually do it. He swallowed down that rising doubt, sending up a small prayer that for the first time in her life, she’d fail.
“I want to support you,” he said, tentatively, reluctantly, for he knew she’d pull her hand away, and his words might tear asunder this new intimacy between them. He’d have to take that chance.
“But you don’t agree with me.” She started to tug her hand back from his grip, but then she stopped. “Because you don’t think I can do it?”
“No.” He let go of her hand, let his fingers slip from hers, the loss echoing through the depths of his soul. “Because I fear you’ll succeed.”