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“How distressing.” Felicity held her uncle’s dolorous gaze, which became less tragic the longer she held it. “This is all moot if a true will exists.”
“Alas, the baron appears to have been remiss in attending to such legalities.”
“And I must assume you searched for it?”
“Far and wide, niece, far and wide. It does not exist.”
“You are behind the times, Father.” Cousin Cecil stepped from his hiding place behind the dowager countess. “The true testament was found.” His voice wavered, but he carried on. “Thanks to me.”
He glared at his youngest son. “You dared betray me?”
“You dared betray me.” Felicity stood tall, and Alfred stood at her back, as strong as a fortress, as immovable as a rock face. Thedominatumgathered around him, not at its fullest power, but she perceived it was well able to burst forth should the need arise. She took some of its force for herself, and through it, through their growing connection, knew his pride in her, his admiration of her strength and poise, and it flooded her being. “You lied to me, an orphaned young woman, and attempted to sell my family home out from under me. You sought to slaughter my horses, my only remembrance of my mother. And you knew, somehow, of my scheme with them—”
“As if I’d no idea of what you were up to.” Uncle tucked his fingers in his waistcoat pockets, to all appearances enjoying the reactions of theton, uncaring that his family’s dirty linen was airing before all. “As if I’d not had spies in every corner and behind every door. A woman, breeding horses. Foolish creature! Chasing a mad ambition you had no prayer in carrying off with those wretched creatures that were the death of my sister.” The listeners, who had been as still as though a pin were to drop, reacted with shock at the thought of an honorable miss embarking upon a life in trade.
Felicity looked at him with sadness. “You loved my mother, and my mother adored you, even though you ever held my father in low regard. How despicable your behavior is, how foul a person you are to devise this plan, to ruin my life. For I lost her as well, and you wished to ensure that I lost all.”
“There is nothing to prove I have done anything untoward.” Her uncle had the audacity to chuckle. “If a will has been unearthed, by the churl whom I no longer recognize as my son, there is nothing to show I have been plotting against my own niece. You will struggle to place the blame at my door.”
“Father does like to burn things,” Cecil said. “He threw the duke’s offer for my cousin’s hand into the fire.”
“As luck would have it, Cecil,” the duke rumbled, “your brother Rollo liked to hoard things. Just as he was taking ship to the Antipodes, he revealed that he kept several copies of a variety of wills in your father’s hand, and strangely, several versions that are attributed to Baron Templeton—also in your father’s hand.”
“You resorted to forgery to thwart my family? Was it greed, Uncle?” Felicity asked. “Have you not earned enough of your own wealth?”
“Money?” Ezra scoffed, as only a Cit could. “Money is nothing to one who knows how to cultivate it, manipulate it. It was never about money.” He clenched his fingers, knuckles turning white. “It was about the line. The lure of the aristocracy that led my sister to abandon the bosom of her loving family for the embrace of that titled, useless man. It was about that line dying, that minor, insignificant branch of the peerage that meant nothing to anyone of importance, about it disappearing from the face of the earth.” Another gasp exploded. Felicity imagined their reaction had less to do with the Templetons and more to do with a mere Cit conspiring to bring down the Quality.
“It was all for naught, Purcell,” Alfred thundered. “I am delighted to inform you that Miss Templeton’s true endowment was far more than mere guineas or land. Her father, despite his humble rank, was a great favorite of the King’s. Because the baron had not produced a son, the title of Templeton will instead endure through his daughter, and all his earthly possessions are hers.”
Felicity turned a shoulder to her uncle and laid a hand on Alfred’s arm, its trembling betraying her apparent composure. Alfred’s eyes were the only still point in her suddenly tilting world, and she felt as dizzy as she had when she first heard the will was false. “I—I do not understand.”
“No matter what choice you made, to marry or no, the baron ensured that the power of the title would rest in you.” Alfred slipped an arm around her waist; Felicity leaned into his embrace, and Alfie roared with joy.
“My mother was forever telling me I would be exalted above all the other debutantes.” Felicity shook her head. “Mama would have thought saving the title was all that was wonderful, but it seems to have been nothing but a source of pain and trouble. I do not know that it means anything to me, in truth.”
“Perhaps you honor your mother, then, by allowing it. Perhaps somewhere down your father’s line was a relation such as you, a woman of purpose who was fierce, protective, nurturing, and bright,” Alfred said. “In continuing the title, you do so for her. Only think, your firstborn son will carry on this legacy from your line.”
“No.” Felicity turned to face her uncle and the onlookers. “My daughter. My firstborn daughter will be the Baroness Templeton. The title in my gift will continue only in the female line from this day forward.”
“It will be as you say,” Alfred said before one and all, before whispering for her ears only, “and in actual fact, she will be our daughter.”
“That cannot be legal,” Ezra blustered.
“As a soon-to-be peeress of the realm, I would say my cousin’s word was beyond law,” Cecil piped up.
“None of us are above the law,” Purcell protested.
“As to that…” Alfred nodded to the guards, who then swarmed through the room. The King’s guard entered the ballroom without fanfare and laid hands on Ezra Purcell. “You’ll find the punishment for fraud is quite heavy, but not less than the crime of seeking to ruin a young lady’s life and her bloodline through her.” A smattering of applause accompanied a snarling and shouting Purcell on his way to justice as the guards dragged him away.
Alfred turned to her. “Before we were so rudely interrupted, you mentioned something about the next dance?”
“I believe it is a waltz. Would you do me the honor?”
“Would you do me an even greater honor?” He dropped to one knee before her, and yet another gasp flew through the gathering. Felicity saw the Viscountess Montague swooning with joy; the dowagers, as one, raised their lorgnettes. She hoped the wallflowers gained a heroine; the debutantes, a new dream; and the suitors, a new nightmare.
Alfred looked up at her, her whole future laid before her in his loving gaze. “Long ago, I swore to leave my heart to fate. I swore none would do but my own true love. Far and wide I traveled, and all the while, the one whom fate decreed would take my heart into the finest, most loving care was here, at home, in England.” Whisperers informed the room at large that their lands marched at the Surrey border. “I have searched for you everywhere, Felicity.” Tuts met the evidence they were on familiar terms. “I hope I am to be found. Found in your heart, found in your soul, by you, my one and only. The only one for me.” He opened his palm; on it rested a beautiful ring, with four stones set in a silver band. “I offer this as a symbol of my pledge to revere you above all others, as a symbol that our joined lives will shine as brightly as these gems. Do tell me you accept my troth and consent to be my wife.”
In a heartbeat, all her doubts dissipated, and all her dreams were fulfilled. In her imminent acquiescence, she found power and possibility and the surety of promises that would be honored for a lifetime. “I accept,” Felicity said. “Alfred.”
