Chapter 3
“What?” Lady Rose’s head snapped up.
“You and the child. Both.”
Her countenance fractured into uncertainty. “Where?”
“To Carden Hall,” Felix answered. “We’ll sort the rest from there.”
She looked at him as if he had offered her a noose and a crown at the same time. “What? Why? Why would I come with you to your home, Your Grace?”
The words stung, but he allowed it. “You’ll be the child’s nurse.
Or her governess. Or her…” The word mother died on his tongue.
Lady Rose did not respond. She only rocked the child.
Her lips were pressed white with fury and fatigue.
Felix turned to leave the room. “We will leave in an hour. Start packing whatever you may need.”
“This can never happen. No one will accept an unmarried woman living at your house.”
Felix’s posture stiffened in the cold. His eyes were sharp, biting when he spoke. “Then we shall wed. No room for scandal or questions.”
Lady Rose’s face morphed into disgust. “You expect me to believe that you would wed a near-stranger to save face?”
“I expect you to believe that I would wed a near-stranger to give that child a name,” Felix said. “Whether it saves my face is beside the point.”
She shook her head. “Marriage is not an instant solution to all of your problems, Your Grace.”
“No. But it is the solution to Lizzie’s.”
The words landed where he intended them to. Lady Rose said nothing. She looked down at the baby, at the way Lizzie’s fist had curled into the wool at her shoulder, trusting, and blind to all of it.
“You did not help Julia,” she said at last, her voice quieter now, stripped of its edge. “You can’t even remember how many women you’ve ruined, let alone name the ones you’ve abandoned. Why should this be any different?”
“Because she is here,” he said. “And I am here. And whatever I was before, I am asking you now.”
The silence stretched. Lady Rose’s jaw tightened. She was working through something, he could see it—not persuaded, not yet, but no longer certain she could hold the line.
“I will not be managed,” she said finally. “Not by you nor by whatever arrangement you think tidies this away.”
“I am not asking you to be managed. This is for Lizzie.”
Another silence. Longer this time.
“If I agree,” she said slowly, “it is for her. Not for you. Not for your name or your roof or whatever peace of mind you imagine this purchases.”
Felix held her gaze. “Understood.”
She looked down at Lizzie once more, and something in her face closed over. The expression resolved itself into the flat, exhausted features of a woman who had run out of better options.
“Then we are agreed,” she said. “For her.”
A line from Ovid floated up into his memory. Aut amat, aut odit mulier; nihil est tertium.
A woman either loves or hates. There is no third option.
He wondered which one she was closer to just now.
Felix bowed and turned, striding down the corridor, calling behind him, “You will find my words are ironclad. We have one hour to settle business, Lady Rose, and then we will leave.”
In all of her time at the abbey, Rose knew the cloistered corridors of St. Clement’s had never seen such a spectacle: Felix, immaculate even in the dim hall, striding forward with her and the bundled baby at his side.
She could not believe they had come to this arrangement in such a short space of time. A few moments earlier, she was to be the guardian of her late friend’s child. Now she was also to be the wife of a duke. It was a lot to take in.
The duke’s boots rang with authority and certainty against ancient flagstones, echoing down the passage.
Ahead, the younger novices arrayed themselves in a loose blockade of feigned indifference, their heads bent studiously over nonexistent tasks. Every eye tracked the progress of the odd little family.
Rose kept her focus straight ahead. Lizzie had woken during the walk, and she now regarded the world with a damp solemnity, her jaw working as she contemplated whether to laugh or scream.
Felix broke their momentum and stopped in front of the Mother Superior’s office. The door was already open, as if the old woman had anticipated their immediate return.
Rose found herself pitying the woman as they stepped inside. For all her cruelty, she had run this bleak institution longer than Rose had been alive, and now her carefully calibrated order was being upended by a man who swept in, paid his tithe, and left chaos in his wake.
Mother Superior’s gaze did not move from the baby. “You return quickly, Your Grace.”
Felix bowed; a gesture executed with enough irony to be disrespectful. “There is little reason to dawdle, Reverend Mother, when the matter is so urgent.”
“I presume you have reached a satisfactory arrangement.”
He smiled with his very white teeth. “More than satisfactory. Lady Rose has agreed to become my wife and serve as guardian to this child. In return, I will ensure St. Clement’s receives a most generous donation.”
A ripple passed through the novices in the hallway.
Mother Superior’s mouth pinched, then relaxed. “The Order is grateful for your support.” Rose waited for her to say more, to protest, but instead the old woman looked straight at her, then at Lizzie. “I hope you know what you are doing, girl.”
Rose’s heart thudded. For a moment, she wanted to say, no, I don’t. Instead, she squared her shoulders and forced herself to meet the challenge. “I am doing what Julia asked of me.”
Mother Superior nodded, a hint of respect in the motion.
The duke reached into his coat, producing a folded slip of vellum and placing it on the desk. “The arrangement. You’ll find the schedule of contributions from my estate to be to your liking.”
Mother Superior nearly let a smile show on her face, then took it and tucked it away. “You may collect your things, Rose.”
She felt a heavy weight settle on her shoulders as she realized she owned nothing of consequence: one Bible, a brush, a box of letters.
She thought of Julia, of every woman who’d ever been rendered disposable by men with titles and fortunes. Then, she thought of Lizzie, whose fate now depended entirely on the brittle truce between Rose and the man who abandoned her mother.
Rose nodded, unable to trust her own voice.
The duke placed a hand near her elbow. Not touching, exactly, but the implied claim of it was unmistakable. She bristled, but allowed herself to be led down the corridor, past a gaggle of eavesdropping nuns.
“She’ll never last a week,” Sister Victoria muttered, enough for Rose to catch.
She steeled her face and turned with Lizzie balanced expertly in one arm, and fixed the girl with the kind of glare that could peel paint. “I’ve lasted longer in worse places,” she said.
The corridor went silent.
The duke did not look at her, but, out of the corner of her eye, she saw the ghost of a grin tug at his mouth.
Rose ducked her head and shuffled out of his way.
Her world shrank to the gritty cold of the hallway, the uneven bob of Lizzie against her shoulder, and the knowledge that every novice in the corridor watched her narrowed eyes.
She walked faster, shoes scuffing the flagstones, until the chatter of the main corridor fell behind her and she passed into the bare, candle-lit dormitory wing.
Slipping into her cell, she shut the door with a careful click, pressing her spine to the ancient wood. The sudden hush nearly crushed her, Lizzie’s breathing becoming the only thing that rooted her in the moment.
Rose’s hands started shaking the instant she let herself stop moving. She exhaled a slow, uneven breath, then set the baby into the makeshift cradle wedged between her cot and the wall.
She tucked her Bible into her habit’s pocket, then wrapped Lizzie in the blue wool blanket she’d hidden from laundry rotation for being softer than the others. She tucked Julia’s letter against her palm, the stain of tears and ink already darkening the edge.
Rose stared at the empty cell for a moment too long, almost wishing she had some sort of fondness for the place, then gathered Lizzie up and shut the door behind her.
She looked down at the baby, who blinked up at her, unfocused but content, and Rose felt an answering surge of something fiercely protective and raw that she’d never felt before. She could not put a name to it, but the weight of her newfound responsibility was palpable.
She stepped down the hallway toward the main doors, finding the duke in the cloister’s inner arch, his face half-shadowed by the chapel’s dim interior, one eyebrow raised in what might have been impatience or concern.
He didn’t greet her, did not bow or gesture or make any sort of show.
He simply watched as she approached, his eyes moving between the baby and her.
For a moment, the world shrank to just the three of them.
Then, he opened the main doors with a flourish, the wind rushing in and swirling the flames of candles around her.
They crossed the threshold, Rose pausing at the stone step. She looked back, taking in her most recent home, remembering the endless cleaning, the prayers muttered through chapped lips, and the nights awake listening for kindness that never came.
She closed her eyes, one last time, and then stepped forward.
The carriage was already waiting, a sleek beast of black lacquer and polished brass, the Carden arms emblazoned in cruel relief. The driver tipped his hat, and the duke helped Rose in with a gentleness she suspected was performative but which she accepted anyway.
Inside, the air smelled of cedar. The seats seemed impossibly soft after years of penitence and the newness of everything. The extravagance made Rose bite her lip and glance down at her old novice’s habit.
The duke settled beside them, ignoring her nerves. He pulled the door shut and, after a long moment of silence, finally turned himself to look at Rose directly.
“We will be married in a week,” he said, as if announcing the time of dinner.
She stared out the window. “Will you require me to pretend to love you, or just to look the part?”
“Neither,” he said. “But I will require honesty. It’s rarer than affection, in my experience.”
She pressed her lips together tightly and leaned away from him, her heart clenching dangerously as she considered his cold, cynical words.
“That, I can provide,” Rose said eventually, wondering what on earth she had agreed to.
She had always considered St. Clement’s to be a prison, but at least it was a place she understood. Now, she was heading for uncharted territory.
The carriage lurched into motion, the wheels clattering over ruts and stones.
Rose looked down at Lizzie, who had been lulled to sleep, her tiny mouth twitching as if she dreamed of something sweet.
She tucked the child in, then cut her eyes to the duke, meeting his gaze with clear, unflinching resolve.
“We are not the family anyone would have chosen,” she mumbled. “But we are hers.”
The duke looked at her for a long moment, his eyes scanning her facial features, pausing just a second too long on her mouth. “That will be enough.”
The carriage rolled onward, away from the stone walls and the hollow prayers of St. Clement’s, toward a future as unknown as the next dawn.
And Rose did not look back.