“My sister Mercy…” Sadness drifted like a cloud over her heart, mingling with the love she felt for her twin. “She’s on an extended honeymoon, and I can’t say exactly where in the world she is at the moment. But I’m fairly certain she couldn’t make it home in time to do any good, and I don’t want to bother her…”
She glanced back in Mr. Severand’s direction, noting that he’d folded the paper back up, but made no move to return it to her. “I-I did show that to a detective,” she informed him. “He’s the one who suggested I should engage personal security… so here you are.”
“Here I am.”
Was it her imagination, or did he sound none too happy about the prospect? Perhaps he didn’t think he’d be a good fit for the job? Or maybe he could not be away from a family for so long?
“May I ask you a question, Miss Goode?” he queried, leaning forward in his chair.
“Certainly.”
“Do you think your assailant meant to… to have his way with you?”
She swallowed and shuddered, but ultimately shook her head in the negative. “I can’t speak to his ultimate designs, but there was nothing suggestive in his manner. Only violent. I know this sounds— well, I haven’t much reference to pull from— but the attack felt personal. That man… he hated me. I didn’t recognize him at all, but he hated me. He liked what he did to me. He enjoyed the fact that he could cause me pain and I was helpless against his strength.”
“Doesn’t seem possible,” Severand murmured, turning his head away from her. “Someone hating you.”
Something about the way he said that evoked a pleasant heat from beneath her collar to climb her neck and spread to her cheeks.
“Some people can hate you for just being born,” she murmured, thinking of her father.
“That’s true enough.”
They shared a companionable silence. A discovery of a common pain, unspoken but already understood.
Felicity had known only a few men of close acquaintance. The first being her father, the Baron. A rotund bear of a man, his voice booming and his manners bombastic. He’d been overbearing, extremely religious, and unrelentingly critical. He’d had two loves in his life, money and power, and only paid his four daughters attention when he could use them to acquire more of one or the other.
To increasingly disastrous effect.
Even in death, the Baron controlled her future. Not with an iron fist, but an ironclad contract.
Her brothers-in-law were each of them good men in their own right. They had power or passion or both. They were protective rather than controlling, and adored her sisters with enviable devotion. Her family was so lively, and when they were together, the men and women spoke with equal fervor. There was laughter and debate, a multitude of opinions, and even more chaos.
Felicity loved it, and simultaneously felt lost in the maelstrom of it. Everyone spoke over each other, their wits firing like a volley of rifles, and their words often strewn about like projectiles.
She was often tempted to duck behind something to protect herself from them.
Though none of her loved ones aimed at her.
Not only because of her adversity to conflict, even harmless debate. But because she never said much in a crowd, preferring to watch the conversation rather than fight to be part of it. She was much more relaxed interacting as she did now, with one or two people, in a place that was comfortable and familiar.
All her own.
With someone who was capable of being silent long enough to let her gather thoughts often scrambled by nerves, like marbles spilled on a parquet floor. She’d spoken more to the man in front of her than to anyone else in a very long time.
And she found herself a little bit bold in his company, which, considering his aura of general menace, was indeed a wonder.
“Mr. Severand,” she inquired. “Would you consider yourself a violent man?”
He was quiet for a moment, shifting in his chair for the first time.
“Yes, Miss Goode. I am a violent man.”
Felicity couldn’t for the life of her understand why the way he said this caused little thrills of electricity to spark in her veins.
“Would—” She cleared something husky from her throat. “Would you go so far as to say that you… excel at violence?”
“I would go so far as to say it is the only thing I excel at.”