Chapter 11 #2
She was happy to see her husband getting along with her family, he supposed, but the talk of children likely made her self-conscious.
Had Rose worked out where they came from yet…
? That thought also made him smile. Surely, with the help of Ravenhill library’s extensive collection of erotica, even the most innocent young maiden would grasp the facts of life?
“What shall we do after luncheon?” Magnus asked the group. “You must go upstairs and see Father, of course. After that, we had hoped to take a walk around the gardens but the weather is atrocious. Listen to that rain!”
“The weather is a shame,” Rose piped up. “I would have like to stretch my legs. Long carriage rides always make me so restless.”
“We could play cards,” Edwin suggested but Magnus pulled a face and Rose seemed to copy him.
“You always want to play cards, Edwin,” the younger man grumbled. “It’s all very well in the evening at a club, but at home in the afternoons, it’s only sport for elderly spinsters and people with no energy or conversation.”
Rose giggled at this and shared a grin with Magnus.
“Well, why don’t you suggest something else then?” Edwin said witheringly. “It’s all very well to find fault with my ideas when you put forward none of your own, Magnus.”
“Charades?” suggested the younger man.
“I hate charades,” stated Edwin flatly but in a tone that everyone seemed to know was not to be taken too seriously. “I suppose that is why you always suggest it first.”
“Magnus didn’t suggest charades first,” Rose pointed out, joining her second brother’s side. “He wanted us to take a walk but the weather is too bad.”
As the siblings continued to bicker together, Dorian watched them with interest.
The Duke of Ravenhill had been an only child and of very little interest to either of his parents, beyond the mere fact of his existence and accomplishments.
It pleased them that he was handsome and clever and could hold his own in conversation with adults, but beyond summoning him from the nursery to show off before friends, his parents gave him no real family life at all.
They had been too occupied in loving one another, hating one another and alternately punishing themselves or their spouse for deficiencies that both of them possessed.
Each of them had taken a string of lovers and Dorian well remembered strange ladies and gentlemen being smuggled in and out of the house, or sometimes openly flaunted.
The latter often provoked screaming rows and the throwing of vases…
It would have been better if his parents had entirely loved one another or entirely hated one another.
They might then have had some peace and happiness, either together or apart.
As it was, there was only chaos and unpredictable arguments that young Dorian learned to step back from and regard with dispassion.
He had never allowed himself to feel any emotion to such an extreme and never wished to do so. Friendship, adult understanding and purely sexual passion were so much simpler and more civilized.
“They are usually like this, I’m afraid,” commented the Duchess of Westvale apologetically, breaking in on Dorian’s unusual introspection. “Magnus and Rose do gang up together on their older brother, but Edwin has actually always preferred it that way. He was never a boy to bully younger children.”
“They all look happy enough to me,” Dorian reflected, smiling back at the slender dark-haired woman and following her informal tone. "I am sure that you and the Duke of Westvale raised all your children to understand fairness and reason.”
Eugenia Williams laughed.
“I hope we did,” she replied. “How strange it must be for you though, having no family to speak of, and now walking into this. No wonder you were staring. I trust their verbal tussling does not make you uncomfortable.”
The Duke of Ravenhill shook his head and realized he had let down his guard in letting the Duchess of Westvale see his fascination.
“I am glad to see Rose happy,” he told the duchess. “However, I plan to agree with whatever plan for the afternoon those three decide, and not interfere.”
“Hoop-a-Hook!” exclaimed Magnus, coming to some conclusion in the back and forth with Edwin. “Yes, we must play Hoop-a-Hook!”
“Hoop-a-Hook!” Rose echoed with enthusiasm. “Oh, do say yes, Edwin. We haven’t played it for an age.”
The plates now cleared, they all stood up from the table.
“Oh, very well, if neither of you have any care for dignity before the Duke of Ravenhill,” assented Lord Carradon, throwing down his napkin with a groan. “Mother and I can watch you from a safe distance.”
Dorian laughed and shook his head.
“I am always ready to learn new games. What on earth is Hoop-a-Hook?”
“It was a game we always played in winter when it was too cold or wet to be outside,” Rose explained with shining eyes.
“There is a large board in the cupboard of the games room next to the conservatory. It is fixed with hooks of every shape and size and comes with a collection of colored hoops to throw onto them.”
“We have slightly different rules for different players,” Magnus picked up. “So, everyone must stand ten paces back from the board when they throw their hoops, but Rose’s ten paces will be a shorter distance to mine or yours. Anyone who wears spectacles gets an extra throw.”
“Different hooks and hoops have different scores too,” Rose put in. “You get six points for throwing a small hoop onto a small hook, but only three for getting a large hoop on a large ring.”
“Well, I’m ready for a game of Hoop-a-Hook,” Dorian declared. “Is it a traditional game? It’s not one I remember from school.”
“Father made it up for us,” said Rose with a sigh. “When we were children, he used to make up all kinds of games and stories. Sometimes, he would pretend to be a bear and chase us around the house.”
“Rose!” protested Edwin, slightly uncomfortable to have his father’s dignity called into question before company, even if he and Dorian had come to terms.
“Well, he did. We all loved that game,” Magnus spoke up in Rose’s defense as he opened the dining room door for the party to exit.
“Father!” Rose exclaimed as the view of the hallway was revealed and they saw the pale figure in the bathchair, swaddled in dressing gown, blankets and thick slippers. “You are downstairs!”
She rushed to the Duke of Westvale’s side and embraced him as the old man chuckled.
“Yes, my dear Rose. I wanted to give you a surprise.”
“You’ve given us all a surprise, Ambrose,” said Eugenia Williams, her smile clouded with concern as she came over to her husband’s side. “Is this wise?”
“An hour or so with my daughter and her new husband will do me more good than all the physicking in London,” insisted the old man as firmly as he could. “I am sure I have missed my little Rose more than she will have had time to miss me.”
“Oh, I have missed you, Father,” Rose assured him, kissing the old man again on the cheek.
“But not too much, I’m sure. Your young man’s company must have been welcome recompense for any homesickness.”
“A husband and a father are very different things,” Dorian commented, coming forward to shake his father-in-law’s thin hand. “Whatever company I can provide cannot stop Rose from missing yours.”
Ambrose Williams smiled appreciatively.
“How glad I am to see you together today. You make a very fine pair and I’m sure your children will be the handsomest in London when they arrive.”
Rose blushed beet red at this remark and could not meet Dorian’s eyes. Perceiving this, Ambrose looked a little chagrined.
“Forgive me, dear girl. An old man like me is always impatient to meet his grandchildren.”
“Of course you are,” agreed his wife, smiling sympathetically at both Ambrose and at Rose and Dorian. “But you cannot hurry nature.”
“Very true, Duchess Eugenia,” agreed Dorian, with a look at Rose that was intended to be reassuring if she had not still been avoiding his gaze.
“We’re going to play Hoop-a-Hook, Father,” Magnus announced cheerfully then, having far less interest than his parents in Rose’s future offspring or anyone else’s. “Shall I wheel you through to watch us play? You may be umpire.”
The old man chuckled and rubbed his hands as his second son took over the handles of the chair from a footman.
“Hoop-a-Hook, eh? It will be just like old times.”
“Giving up are you?” wheezed the Duke of Westvale as Dorian pulled up a seat beside his bathchair, close to the fire.
“I keep forgetting the rules and I’m losing miserably,” Dorian excused himself with a smile. “I don’t think the others will notice if I sit this round out.”
Ten paces each from the huge board of hooks, the three Williams siblings were chattering animatedly, sometimes arguing and throwing hoops skillfully.
Abandoned by Edwin, who had been drawn into the game despite his earlier reserve, Eugenia Williams had taken up some embroidery and occupied herself with that.
Periodically, she rose and adjusted a selection of screens intended to shield her husband from drafts only she seemed to feel.
“I can see them at play just like this ten years ago, fifteen years ago,” the old man reminisced. “Like a litter of puppies, scrappy and full of energy. Of course, I was strong enough to keep up with them then. How strange to see them all grown.”
“Rose is enjoying herself, isn't she?” Dorian remarked, thinking now of a different sketch of his wife, fully dressed, laughing and beckoning him to a game.
“I must ask if she would like a game of Hoop-a-Hook assembled at Ravenhill House. I do hope that when she feels settled, she will invite her friends to visit more often.”
“I’m sure she would like that,” agreed her father. “There’s people who say Rose is too shy or too reserved, but they don’t know her. My wife doesn’t like to talk of it, but there were even people saying that Rose would never find a husband, even with looks like hers, and the dowry I gave her.”
The Duke of Westvale shook his head in disbelief as he looked back.
“Rose is the most beautiful woman I have ever laid eyes on,” said Dorian honestly. “I hope she will let me take her portrait one day.”
“You’re an artist are you?” said the old man with interest. “Very good. Yes, Rose has looks that should be set down in paint, doesn’t she? You wouldn’t believe it now, but she takes after me.”
The Duke of Ravenhill smiled.
“I can see the likeness,” he remarked, looking beyond age and illness to once-clear blue eyes and hair that had been thick and blond in his youth.
“I was the most handsome man in London once,” Ambrose Williams chortled to himself. “As you are now, according to Rose.”
“She said that?” Dorian asked in surprise.
“Rose said almost exactly what you said of her,” Ambrose clarified. “You’re the most handsome man she has ever seen, apparently. Such mutual appreciation bodes well at the start of a marriage, doesn’t it?”
Dorian laughed and nodded. He had received so many compliments on his looks that they generally barely touched him. Knowing that Rose found his appearance so pleasing was welcome, however. It felt different.
“Rose hasn’t told me that to my face yet,” he said. “Deserved or not, I look forward to hearing it from her lips. The confidence of someone shy is worth far more than any more easily given confidence, I feel.”
“You speak truly. Rose is a fine young woman and not so shy when she feels comfortable in someone’s company,” said her father affectionately.
“Those who called her a wallflower and said she preferred books to men were not kind or congenial company for her, I believe. My daughter thrives on love. I am glad that she has found it.”
Dorian smiled back at Ambrose although his conscience was pricking him slightly once he realized he had fallen into some web of pre-existing deceit.
The old man evidently thought that Dorian and Rose had been a love match and the rest of the family had played along with the idea.
Likely that was even the reason for Rose’s compliment on Dorian’s handsomeness.
It made him feel like an imposter in some way although he himself had told no lies and engaged in no deliberate deception.
“You will look after my Rose, won’t you?” the Duke of Westvale asked suddenly. “I don’t believe I am long for this world and, of all my children, it is Rose who plays on my mind.”
“I promise you that I will always take care of Rose,” Dorian assured him, glad to be able to make a solid and simple promise that seemed to make the old man happy. “She is my wife now.”
It was a declaration of duty for Dorian, but if Ambrose Williams chose to see it as a declaration of love, he might have the comfort of that. In fact, Dorian would argue that he was likely to take better care of his wife than many men who professed themselves violently in love when they married.
Love was something dangerous, unpredictable and destructive of its own object. Dorian hoped it was something he would never have to encounter.