Felicity: An American Girl Romance, PT.3, CH.3: The Source Revealed

"Annabelle!" Elizabeth shouted angrily the moment she stepped into the Cole home. This was no time for gentlewomanly confrontation, oh no. Lives had been shaken and plunged into turmoil this day, therefore the time for patience and understanding was past, as far as Elizabeth Cole was concerned. "Annabelle Cole, you get yourself within my presence this instant!"

She had been lying down upstairs. At the sound of Elizabeth's voice ringing through the house, she stiffened in alarm.

"Gawdamighty, Miss Elizabeth!" Dolly cried out as she trotted into the foyer where the youngest Cole daughter stood with her blue eyes blazing in anger, hands on hips, breathing hard from her run back to the house. "Whatchoo goin' on about?"

"You are about to find out, Dolly!" Then Elizabeth squeezed her eyes shut and hollored even louder, "Annabelle, if you do not make yourself present by the time I count to three I'm going to come after you!" This blaring declaration made Dolly pop her hands over her ears. Just outside the front door, Arthur was fertilizing the Coles' boxwood hedges with regurgitation once more.

"One! Two! Th-"

Annabelle appeared at the top of the stairs, looking as though she had just been woken from a nap. She faked a wide yawn and slowly began to descend the stairs in an air of nonchalance. However, on the inside she was fear-frozen and every step was full of trembling dread. She was caught and unable to escape, not that she had anywhere to escape to. She sighed as she stopped just short of the bottom two steps. "Now Bitsy, I know you've had quite a shock this morning, but-"

"Don't you ever call me 'Bitsy' again, Bananbelle Cole! You have really pushed me too far this time!" Elizabeth was trembling with rage.

Annabelle frowned. "Whatever do you mean?" She glanced around taking note of Dolly standing just off to the right looking frightened and the sound of Arthur Pratt gagging just outside. "Where are Mother and Father?"

"At the Merriman house, Annabelle! Which is right where I am taking you so that you can explain your actions in Lord Forsythe's plot to take Felicity!"

Oh Lord, how did they find out? No one was supposed to know! What am I going to do NOW? Annabelle felt as though someone had just doused her with a pail of icy cold water. So it had come. The chills and sweats of being discovered broke out all over her. But how? OH God, what do I do? "Wh-What are you talking about? I do not-you are mis-"

"Nan Merriman saw you!" Elizabeth blurted ferociously."She saw you talking with Forsythe just days ago, on Duke of Gloucester Street! You handed him a rolled up paper and looked quite suspicious! Is this not true, Annabelle? Is Nan Merriman a liar?"

"I-I-I can't-that is-"

Elizabeth stepped up to her and boldly grabbed the startled, older girl's arms firmly. "Tell me, Annabelle, what you have done! What have you got to do with Reginald Forsythe? Did you assist him in any way to get back at Felicity?"

The pain and the fury in Elizabeth's eyes was unlike anything Annabelle Cole had ever seen. It was so frightening that her mind could not work fast enough. Her words were a shaking jumble: "Sure N-Nan M-Merriman saw me speak to Lord Forsythe that day! We were merely t-talking of the weather and-!"

"Then what did you give to him? What was the rolled up paper about, Annabelle?"

"P-Paper?" Oh-no!

Elizabeth gripped her older sister's arms tighter. "Yes, the paper Nan saw you give to him! Don't you dare plead ignorance with me! Did you give Lord Forsythe a roll of paper or is Nan a liar?"
The moment of silence that followed was eerily as sharp as the loud voices that had first pierced it. Annabelle's chin quivered uncontrollably; she was at that place between flat-out denying everything else just to save her own skin and complete confession of everything so that she would be thrown upon the mercies of her own family. Lying was a sin. Calling someone a liar was just as bad. To deny everything would only hurt Elizabeth even more. She hated that her sister had to be hurt at all, but at the time of her scheming, getting back at Felicity Merriman had been all that had mattered.

She had not known things would go this far.

Elizabeth jerked her. "Annabelle!"

"All right, all right, yes!" Unable to hold back any longer, she burst into sobs. "I helped him!"

"My God!" Elizabeth breathed in horror. Her mind spun like mad. She grabbed Annabelle by the closest wrist. "My own sister! You are going to come with me to the Merrimans and tell them and Mother and Father everything that you have done!"

"Oh no! No, no ,no!" sobbed Annabelle fearfully. "They will hate me! They will all hate me!"

"'Tis no less than what you deserve!" Elizabeth yanked hard on her sister's wrist as she made for the front door. Annabelle struggled weakly, but Elizabeth was tensed and full of energy stemming from raw fury. She showed no mercy. "Arthur, let's go! Dolly, you are in charge of the house until someone gets back!"

"Yes'm!" Dolly scurried to close the front door as Elizabeth dragged the wailing Annabelle out of it.

Arthur was sitting sprawled out on the pebble path, pale and drained in a post-regurgitive daze. "I believe I am quite emptied now," said he, meekly.

"Get up, Arthur. You may need to assist me in getting my witch-of-a-sister to the Merriman's!"

"Elizabeth, please...!" wailed Annabelle between sobs. "Do not make me!"

Elizabeth ignored her. "Arthur now!"

"Coming, my love!" He scrambled to his feet, wavered, tottered after the Cole sisters deliriously. "I am in need of sustenance!"

"Mrs. Merriman will give you something to sustain you," Elizabeth called back at him. She ignored the stares of the people and soldiers they passed, too focused on finding out what all Annabelle knew and had done as she towed her sobbing older sister along in a death-grip. Annabelle continued to cry and stumble, looking as though she was being taken to her doom.

Behind the girls, Arthur straggled along, looking forlorn. "Why would Annabelle choose to help Lord Forsythe when she knew you and I would be hurt?"

"Because hurting Felicity was far too important!" snarled Elizabeth in reply.

Annabelle whimpered, "I didn't want the both of you to be hurt! I did not know he would go to such extremes!"

Arthur caught up to the older sister and tried to catch her eye. "You are engaged to a militant Major, who is also the heir to an earldom! Why hold on to childhood jealousies when you are a grown woman of rational thought?"

"Because she's Annabelle!" Elizabeth replied for her sister angrily. "If she cannot have something, no one will!"

"Th-that is not true! I just-I only wanted-Oh, please, Elizabeth, do not make me face them all and Ben!" They were coming up on the Merriman home.

Elizabeth gave Annabelle's wrist an extra hard yank. "'Tis no where near as bad at the situation my dearest friend is facing, I'll wager!" Pangs of guilt slashed through her heart and she ached to have Felicity home. "If Felicity is hurt, it is your fault-and mine! But at least I have the moral sense to know when I have been wrong!"

"I'm sorry!" Annabelle cried, as she was towed toward the Merriman's front door. "I didn't mean-I didn't think!'

"Oh you were thinking, all right, but only of yourself!" snapped Elizabeth.

The front door came open and Rose stepped out to meet them. "Miss Nan sent me out to get Mr. Arthur 'fore he falls on his face like a dried up twig!"

"Thank you, Rose." Elizabeth pulled on Annabelle's arm, felt the tense resisitance in it. "Are my Mother and Father still here?"

"Aye, Miss Beth." Rose glanced briefly at Annabelle, who whimpered again. "Mr. Ben left to look for Felicity."

"Oh thank the Lord!" Annabelle cried. "I would not want him to see me in such a state!"

"Annabelle!" Elizabeth reprimanded sharply. "If I were you, and thank the Lord I am not, I would be more concerned with what our parents and the Merriman family are going to do!"

Annabelle started sobbing again.

"I met Lord Forsythe at Lady Templeton's Autmun Harvest Ball just before Ben and his cavalry left Williamsburg," confessed Annabelle Cole, sniffing miserably where she sat in a chair across from her parents on a two-seater and a brooding Nan Merriman. To her left were Mr. and Mrs. Merriman, quiet and stiff. Her dark brown eyes were downcast, fearful of meeting any of the hurt, pained and upset stares she knew were fastened upon her. "We spoke of how we believed it was wrong of his Aunt to have invited the Patriot soldiers, and Lord Forsythe expressed his immense dislike for Ben especially, for he felt that he was the better choice for Felicity. I-I told him how I admired Ben, and then he suggested that we may be of use to each other."

"Oh Annabelle," said Mrs Cole in deep disappointment.

In her lap, her hands balled. "At the time, Lord Forsythe was primarily concerned with the conditions in which he was to inherit his late father's business. And my father soon came to visit, and I returned to New York with him, but Forsythe and I kept up a correspondance...he asked me to keep him well advised with all the news concerning Felicity and Ben."

Elizabeth glared hard at her sister from where she stood across the room. "And I suppose you relayed to him every single word I wrote to you!"

Annabelle shivered from the cold of edgy nervousness. "Yes."

"Then I am sorry Mrs. Merriman, Mr. Merriman," Elizabeth said to the parents of her best friend. "And to you, too, Nan. I had no idea that my news from home would be so abused."

"Its...its all right, Elizabeth," Edward Merriman said kindly to her. His wounds had begun to grieve him again, making his eyes water. "You didn't know."

Mr. Cole looked straight at his eldest daughter. "I am very disappointed in you, Annabelle! I would ask you how you could stoop to such a level, but I'm afraid I already know the answer! You have been spoiled to an extreme, and for that, your mother and I am to blame. But I had thought we had also passed on to you some sense of ethic! This good family and your own sister have suffered cruelly this day! Though you are not directly responsible for what has happened, you did have a helping hand in it, and I am beyond words at how angry I am at you this moment!'

"I'm sorry!" Annabelle whimpered.

"Indeed!" agreed Mrs. Cole indignantly. "I believe you are sorry that you were caught!'

"Annabelle," Mr. Merriman began, trying to be patient with her, trying to keep the hurt from his voice, "do you know where exactly Forsythe is taking Felicity?"

It took her a moment to compose herself, withdrawing a handkerchief from her skirts pocket into which she blew her already red nose. "To New York, s-sir," she replied nasaly. "I think. In his letters and speaking to him in person, he only ever expressed his wishes to remove Felicity from Williamsburg. He seemed interested in New York, since it is where Loyalists are treated more kindly. While I was living there with Father, he wrote and asked me what I could find out about a reliable hunter looking for employment."

Elizabeth's fists clenched at her sides. "Are you saying that you are the one who sought out this Mr. Gooch that Arthur and Ben have spoke of?"

Annabelle trembled at her sister's rage. "N-Not exactly, I-I turned to Basil! I told him that a Loyalist friend was returning to Williamsburg, seeking out a bounty hunter to find his Patriot enemy, and, well, you know how strong a Loyalist Basil is! He sought out Mr. Gooch for Forsythe!"

"At your request!" Elizabeth exclaimed. Groans and quiet oaths of shock and disasppointment sounded all around the room.

"But I knew nothing of the details of Lord Forsythe's plan!" Annabelle pleaded, as if this statement could redeem herself to them somehow. "When I met this Mr. Gooch with Basil, the man did not strike me as being capable of doing anything, seeing as how he loved to drink so much. Basil said he had a fine reputation for markmanship, so I did not question him-"

"Did it ever occur to you that Forsythe might want a hunter so that he could have somebody slain?" Nan blurted angrily. "Are you that dense?"

"No!" Annabelle's hands flopped helplessly in her lap. "I knew only that Forsythe wanted Felicity! I didn't want to know what he wanted Mr. Gooch for! I did not ask questions and he did not volunteer specifics!"

Mr. Cole wiped his forehead. "But a bounty hunter, Annabelle! Would you not have wondered-? Ah, Christ," he muttered, realizing it was pointless to ask. "What all does Major Crumb know of Forsythe?"

"B-Basil knows only that Forsythe is a rich Loyalist doing whatever he must to support the King."

Mr. Merriman appealed to Annabelle once more, trying to get her to focus. "Annabelle, please: where do you think Forsythe would take Felicity?"

"In all honesty, Mr. Merriman, I would say New York. 'Twould make sense." She sniffed weakly. "I know I have done wrong. I truly am sorry..."

Elizabeth shook her head. "All because of your old jealousy of my best friend. Tell me something else, Annabelle: What was the paper you gave to Lord Forsythe that day?"

"He had asked me a day earlier if there was any particular apothecary in town that carried opiate-based powders. I wrote down the names and addresses of the best apothecarys in town, that is all. He said he was looking for effectual powders to take back to his Uncle Lord Templeton."

"Powders?" Elizabeth's hands flew to her cheeks.

"Ah-hah!" This exclamation came from Arthur, who had been in the Merriman mini-kitchen putting food and fluids back into his weakened body. He could no longer stand not knowing what was being said. He staggered into the parlor with a fork still in one hand and his napkin still tucked into his cravat. "I told you, Beth! My drink had been tainted!"

There were more gasps and stricken expressions. Elizabeth turned to him and clasped his wrists. "And I believe you, Arthur! Now that it is too late..."

Nan Merriman folded her arms and looked at Elizabeth with a bit of irritability in her eyes. "You should not have needed these explanations. Your very own heart would have told you. From Ben Davidson I would expect such behavior. But from you..."

"I'm sorry, Nan!" Elizabeth's blue eyes had teared up again. "Please believe me, I am sorry!"

Nan shrugged, still holding onto her anger, but it was mainly concerning Ben. She glared at Annabelle again. "Did you not suspect he would use 'medicinal' powders to poison someone?"

"No! I did not think of that!" Annabelle wiped her red puffy eyes with her hankie. "I told you that I did not question him! He said he had several ideas about how to divide Felicity and Ben, and that he might require your and Arthur's assistance, but I did not take him seriously! I did not think that he would actually do it! He seemed so...talkative, but not capable of taking any action."

Elizabeth glared at her, too. "Actually, Annabelle, I am surprised that you can think at all!"

Mr. Merriman sighed tensely. "Well, what's done is done. There are men out looking for Felicity now. Surely they will be able to catch up to Forsythe's carriage before too long. It is getting toward evening."

"Dear Lord, I pray that she is all right," Mrs. Merriman said softly, staring at the floor with frightened eyes.

Annabelle dabbed at her eyes again, glanced at Elizabeth hugging Arthur. She looked to her father once more. "Are you going to punish me, Father?"

"Punish you?" Mr. Cole raised his head from his hands and looked his eldest living child in the eye with sadness and frustration. "Annabelle, you are a grown woman, for God's sake! I cannot punish you even if I thought it would do any good! All I can do is pray that you have some human decency about you to regret what you've done. I will pray that someday, somehow, you will prove that you do indeed have a soul!"

His words stung. Annabelle's chin quivered with the threat of re-errupting sobs.

"'Tis best that you return home now, Annabelle," Mrs. Cole advised sternly. "The Merrimans have no doubt had enough of you, and you need to do some serious thinking about the pain that you have helped cause us all."

She nodded sullenly, rose from her chair and swept to the parlor door. She paused, looked back at Elizabeth (upon who's shoulder Arthur's head was resting comfortingly), and said, "I really am truly sorry, Beth."

"That remains to be seen," Elizabeth told her coldly.

It was more than she had any right to expect. Annabelle left the Merriman house not even relieved that she had gotten off so easily. She had the burden of the anger of her family upon her now; God only knew how long that would last. She had most likely lost completely the love and trust of her only living sibling. There was nothing left for her but to marry Basil and return to England with him.
It had been so easy to be jealous of Felicity Merriman. The younger girl had that spirit, that untamed enthusiasm that society tried so hard to discourage in girls. Felicity defied expectations and got away with it. She had the looks and the spirit of a wild Irish rose, what with that striking red hair and those spell-casting green eyes. No wonder Ben could not resist her! Felicity was beautiful without realizing it. She was everything Annabelle Cole secretly longed to be.

And Annabelle had had plenty of admiring suitors in New York. Fine officers of the King's army who had kissed her hand, paid her flattering complements and swore up and down that their lives were over if she would not marry them. And it had been fun, flirting and being given so much attention. But yet...the officers seemed to be lacking in something. They were very refined, gentlemanly...stiff. There had been no spark of rebellious livliness, such as Ben Davidson had. No burning passions lying just beneath the surface. And why had she become taken with Basil Crumb? Because he was the closest thing to Ben she would ever get? Ben would always want Felicity because Felicity and he were bonded by love, family, passion and spirit.

As she trudged home, staring at the dirt road, she could not help but feel as though God was punishing her for trying to interfere with His great love-match. For the first time in her life here in the colonies she began to think of life without a jealous grudge. Perhaps, maybe, if she tried to go about her own business without thinking of getting revenge on someone, God would bless her, too. Aye, she did love Basil.

Perhaps it was time she grew up after all.

CHAPTER FINISHED!

Author Nag: Have you been to 'Stolen Breeches' yet? If thou hast not, then get thine ass over there, henceforth!

Tags:american girl fanfic, felicity and ben romance

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