Chapter 9
Felix extended his hand toward Rose. “I believe I promised you a dance.”
She took it, her fingers cool and steady. “We may as well,” she said. “I suppose it is what’s expected.”
He smiled, but it was softer, more secretive, as if the smile were for her alone. “Let’s give them something to talk about, then.”
They joined the waltz, and the world spun away into a blur of candlelight. Rose felt his hand at her waist, the heat of it, the security, and the warning; he was hers, for now, and all of London was watching.
Over his shoulder, she caught the pale flash of Lady Rutledge’s eyes, fixed on the pair of them with an intensity that chilled her from the inside out.
But Felix kept her close, and for the space of a single, perfect waltz, Rose let herself believe in the future they’d made. Even if that future was stitched together from lies, and longing, and the brittle hope that the sharks might someday lose interest.
When the music faded and the applause rose around them, Felix pressed her hand once before letting it go.
He led her from the floor, and for a moment, the crowd parted around them as if they were the only two people in the room.
“Are you watching for curfew, Duchess?” Lord Aldworth asked, having materialized next to the duke’s elbow again, nodding toward Rose with an air of theatrical appraisal.
Felix’s expression did not change, but something in his jaw tightened. “She is not a child, Aldworth.”
“No,” David agreed pleasantly, and leaned closer to the pair. “But you are still watching the door.”
Rose’s face heated. When his eyes found hers, she did not look away, not even towards the door.
This time, she took the lead, guiding the duke into the next dance, refusing to look back.
The following morning, the nurse entered Rose’s room shortly before breakfast.
“She’s up, Your Grace. Been fed, burped, and scolded for pinching the ruffles on her blanket.” The nurse gave Rose a half-curtsy, hands flour-dusted with talc. “Quite the set of lungs she’s got for one so new.”
Rose managed to smile. “Thank you, Mrs. Durham. I’ll take her now.”
The nurse hesitated, not ready to relinquish her charge.
“The duke said she is to have every comfort, no matter the cost. I hope you will forgive me for saying, but not all noblemen care so much for foundl—” She broke off, as if the word illegitimate hovered just past her teeth, and replaced it with, “…for the little ones.”
Rose plucked Lizzie from her makeshift cradle and tucked the infant against her shoulder. The warmth of the baby’s cheek seeped through linen and skin straight into her heart.
“His Grace has his moments,” Rose said, trying to keep her voice neutral.
Mrs. Durham grinned, then shuffled away to prepare the next round of feedings or perhaps to gossip with the other staff about the new duchess’s odd devotion to her ward. Rose was left in the hush of the nursery, the faint morning light filtering through a veil of new curtains.
Lizzie blinked up at her, gaze unfocused but searching, as if she recognized something essential in Rose’s face.
“You are a marvel,” Rose whispered, tracing the curve of Lizzie’s brow. The baby snuffled, then yawned, her tiny fists waving. “I wish Julia could see you,” Rose said, and for a moment her voice caught.
She settled in the window seat, cradling Lizzie and watching as the rest of the world woke: a gardener in the rose beds, a pair of footmen squabbling over who would fetch the mail, a flock of sparrows dancing on the terrace stones.
There was peace here, a pocket of quiet Rose had never known in all her years in Whiteridge House or St. Clement’s.
After a time, Lizzie began to squirm. Rose reached for a battered volume of poetry she’d brought up from the duke’s library and began to read aloud.
She got as far as, “I am half sick of shadows—” when the baby burbled, a sound suspiciously like a giggle, and Rose laughed outright.
“Of course you are. You have never known a single one,” she said, kissing the downy fuzz atop Lizzie’s head.
“We’ll make a poet of you, yet,” Rose said, even as she felt a prick of sadness for the girl’s mother, for all the futures Julia would never see. She brushed away the thought. “No more sadness. That’s a rule in this house.”
She pressed the book shut and held Lizzie closer. “You will always have someone to hold you, do you understand? Always.”
“You shouldn’t lie to her,” said a voice from the door.
Rose startled, nearly dropping the book. The duke leaned against the doorframe, arms folded, his face half in shadow and half illuminated by a shaft of sun that made his hair look golden.
“How long have you been standing there?” she hissed.
He shrugged, crossing the room at his usual, unhurried pace. “Long enough to see you reciting poetry to an infant.”
She looked away, fussing with the blanket. “It helps her sleep.”
Felix smirked and perched on the window seat beside her. “Does it help you sleep?”
Rose said nothing.
Felix glanced down at Lizzie, who stared back with open, wet curiosity. “I think she knows you’re lying,” he said.
“About what?”
“About the always. Children outgrow their caretakers. You can’t keep them forever.”
Rose’s chest tightened. “You say that as if from experience.”
He gave a humorless laugh. “When I was twelve, I stole my father’s best horse and rode it to the village. Spent the entire day eating currant buns and teaching the baker’s boys how to box. When the old duke found out, he didn’t speak to me for three days.”
Rose stared at him, genuinely startled. “You ran off to play with the village boys?”
He arched a brow. “Did you think I was always this well-mannered?”
Rose looked down at Lizzie, her thumb stroking the infant’s velvet cheek. The story of the baker’s boys sat strangely in her mind, a rare crack in Felix’s polished armor.
“Why did you have to run off?” she asked softly. “To the village, I mean.”
Felix shrugged, his gaze drifting to the window. “My father had a distinct aversion to anything he deemed ‘low.’ He didn’t want me to associate with peasants. Naturally, that made the baker’s sons the most fascinating people in the county.”
Rose felt a sudden, sharp pang of sympathy for the twelve-year-old boy who had been forced to steal a horse just to find a bit of warmth.
“I’m sorry,” she mumbled.
“Don’t. I only told you that as an example. Parents, guardians… they can guard all they like, but children will inevitably do things their elders find distasteful.”
Rose adjusted the blanket around the baby, her chin lifting. “I doubt Lizzie will be a reckless girl. She has Julia’s steadier temperament.”
“Being reckless once in a while isn’t a bad thing,” Felix countered, a ghost of a smirk returning to his face.
“Only as long as one doesn’t embarrass themselves,” Rose replied primly. “Or their family.”
Felix leaned back against the window frame, studying her with a look that felt uncomfortably thorough. “That depends entirely on how easily a person is embarrassed. Some of us find the spectacle rather invigorating.”
“I am well aware of your love for spectacle,” she murmured.
“You proved that last night,” he said, his voice dropping an octave. “I’ve never seen a woman turn so many shades of crimson in a single evening. You were practically vibrating with mortification.”
Rose felt the heat rise to her cheeks again, the memory of the wedding breakfast—and Lady Rutledge—stinging like a fresh slap.
“It doesn’t matter now,” she said, turning her attention back to the baby.
“Doesn’t it? You seemed quite affected.”
“We are breaking our rule, Felix,” she said, her voice tight. “We agreed to keep our distance. Analyzing my state of mind is hardly keeping a distance.”
Felix fell silent, but he didn’t move. He watched the way she cradled Lizzie, his eyes following the gentle, practiced rhythm of her rocking.
“I truly cannot understand you,” he said quietly. “You are so incredibly kind to her. You look at that child as if she were your own soul.” He paused, his gaze intensifying. “Why wouldn’t you want a child of your own, Rose?”
Rose kept her eyes fixed on Lizzie’s sleeping face, her heart hammering against her ribs.
“That was not part of our arrangement, Your Grace.”
“I’m not asking the duchess,” he pressed. “I’m asking the woman.”
Rose finally looked up, her gaze meeting his with a defensive flicker. “Have you already changed your mind, Duke?”
“No, Duchess,” he replied, his mouth curving into that maddening, elegant smirk. “That was mere curiosity.”
“I don’t remember being curious about one another being part of our deal,” she said, her voice regaining its crisp edge.
Felix’s smirk deepened. “Interesting.”
He stood up then, the movement fluid and sudden. He buttoned his coat, the air in the room shifting as the Duke of Carden reclaimed the space.
“We leave for London tomorrow,” he announced. “It’s time we began the work. We will introduce Lizzie to society slowly and carefully. By the time she is of age, the ton will have accepted her as ours.”
Rose nodded, her throat tight. “I agree. It’s for the best.”
He stood over her for a long moment, the silence between them suddenly thick with a tension she could not name. His shadow fell across her and the baby like a dark, protective canopy.
For a second, she thought he might reach out—to touch her, or perhaps the child—but his hands remained at his sides.
“Tomorrow, then,” he said.
Without another word, he turned and strode toward the door. The click of the latch echoed in the quiet room, leaving Rose alone with the silence and the heavy, lingering scent of his sandalwood cologne.
“Are you certain I must?” Rose adjusted the brim of her hat, trying to anchor it against the insistent wind.
Her mother’s answer came, clipped and final. “Yes, you must. A duchess is a public creature, and it would not do for you to hide after your own wedding. Hyde Park is society’s best theater. Better to face the gawkers than let them believe you’re afraid.”
“I’m not afraid,” Rose said, though her heart thudded a protest. “I merely dislike being on display.”
Lady Whiteridge shot her a look that had cowed every one of her daughters since the nursery. “You will grow used to it.”
Rose doubted it. But she nodded and allowed the footman to hand her down onto the pavement. The air smelled of horseflesh, violets, and a faint, unpleasant trace of river mud. Already, the promenade was filling with families, couples, and single women pacing with the ferocity of caged wolves.
Lizzie was at home with Mrs. Durham. Rose’s arms felt oddly empty, her hands unanchored and restless at her sides.
Lady Whiteridge linked arms with her daughter and began the slow march toward the Serpentine.
It did not take long for the stares to begin.
Rose felt them as tugs at the hem of her dress, sharp pricks along her neck.
She felt her name ripple through the crowd: the new Duchess of Carden.
The nunnery girl. The foundling’s mother.
Lady Whiteridge kept up a steady monologue about the proper way to acknowledge acquaintances at a distance, but Rose’s attention was pulled again and again to the ripple of awareness following in their wake.
A pair of young women in matching straw bonnets walked arm-in-arm just ahead, glancing back every few steps.
Rose caught the phrase “out of nowhere” and “plain, really” as they passed.
“Mother,” she whispered. “Why are they staring?”
Lady Whiteridge did not miss a step. “Because you are a novelty. And because the duke’s reputation is such that no one quite believes you managed to catch him.”
“Is that all?”
Her mother hesitated, just for a moment. “They think the baby is yours. They think you are a woman of low morals and uncommon luck.” Lady Whiteridge’s tone was almost admiring. “There are worse things to be.”
Rose felt her mouth go dry. “So, the rumors have already reached London.”
“Rose, dear,” her mother stretched the word out. “The rumors have reached Vienna. I had a letter from Aunt Mayweather just yesterday, full of advice on how to handle a bastard in the family.”
They passed an elderly couple sitting on a bench. The woman glared openly at Rose, then leaned to hiss something into her husband’s ear. He smirked. Rose squared her shoulders and tried to project the unruffled confidence she had watched Felix wear the night before.
She managed three steps.
Lady Rutledge appeared, as if summoned by the tension. The dowager countess looked even more formidable in daylight, her blonde hair a sculpture of braids, her eyes ice-bright above a gown of peacock blue. She glided toward them, a pair of gentlemen in her train.
“Your Grace. Lady Whiteridge,” Lady Rutledge greeted. “How lovely to see you in the park. One never knows if a newlywed will choose to emerge or spend the first month in bed.”
Her mother inclined her head. “We were just admiring the weather.”
Rutledge’s smile widened, all teeth. “You are brave to show yourself, Lady Rose. I would have thought you’d be hiding, what with all the talk.”
“What talk?”
Lady Rutledge fanned herself. “Oh, you know society—such gossips. I myself have never believed a word of it.”
“A word of what, Lady Rutledge?” Rose asked, as steadily as she could manage.
“That you were already in a family way, of course,” Lady Rutledge said, the words light as down but razor-edged. “And that the duke is merely protecting his own.”
Rose’s face went hot, but she did not drop her mother’s arm. “People may say what they wish. I am not the first woman to be the subject of idle gossip.”
Lady Rutledge leaned in, conspiratorial. “Oh, but you are the first to wear the title of Duchess of Carden with such… history. Most brides do not arrive with a child in tow.”
“Lizzie is my ward. She is the daughter of my husband’s cousin, Michael Greycliff. If you wish to malign her, I suggest you do so directly.”
Lady Rutledge recoiled, only for an instant, but Rose saw it. “I wish her nothing but happiness. Though I must say, she has the duke’s eyes. Most inconvenient, for a foundling.”
Rose smiled, sweet as honey. “She is a Greycliff, my lady.”
Lady Rutledge laughed, the sound ringing across the water. “Of course she is. Well, I shall see you at the Perseids Ball, if you dare to attend.”
“We will be there,” Rose said, surprising herself.
“I look forward to it.” Lady Rutledge departed, but not before pausing for a final glance at Rose.
When they were alone, Lady Whiteridge exhaled. “That was handled rather well.”
Rose stared at the sun flashing on the lake. “Thank you, Mother.” The sudden honesty was surprising even to herself.
As they neared the park gates, Rose caught sight of the duke, astride his enormous gray horse, waiting at the edge of the avenue. He saw her, tipped his hat, and in that moment, the look Lady Rutledge had given her lingered.
Rose knew the next move would not be hers.
She was not afraid. But she was no longer sure of her footing.