Chapter 24
Chapter Twenty-Four
“Let’s not dress for dinner tonight, Cassius,” suggested Josephine with a yawn, leaning her auburn head on her husband’s shoulder where they sat on a sofa by one of the library windows.
“I am too tired and I’m sure Rose is too.
Your mother will be in town until Tuesday and there is no one else here who deserves respect on account of age. ”
The Duke of Ashbourne smiled and put an arm about his wife’s shoulders, lightly touching her stomach with his other hand.
Watching them, Rose longed for her own husband to do the same.
Finding Dorian here on return from their walk had delighted her and seemed to draw him immediately close, yet he had not once embraced her.
Presently, Dorian was hovering near Rose’s chair beside the library fireplace, almost as though guarding her from something. Rose wished they were in their own library at Ravenhill House and that they could sit together in one chair, Rose curled into Dorian’s arms.
“You had convinced me as soon as you said you were tired,” Cassius answered Josephine. “We shall not dress tonight. We are all friends here and none of us stands on formality. Dinner will be free and easy.”
“Hear, hear,” said Levi Collins, from chair beside Josephine’s older sister, Vera, Lady Elmridge, where they had been talking of his plans for the following summer, his first as the Duke of Hawcrest.
The decision on dress made, and a drinks tray called to the table, they all remained there in the library, chatting comfortably among themselves amidst the blazing warmth of the fire.
Rose liked Levi Collins and could not understand why Dorian seemed to take against him in the hallway. He had been nothing but solicitous and gentlemanly towards Rose and she had been glad of his arm in the gardens, feeling another of those moments of sudden weakness that had plagued her recently.
Remembering another semi-faint at the door of Haybridge Hall, Rose reflected that she had not even had the chance yet to tell Dorian that she had met and liked his sister and niece. Given Jane Chatham’s situation, it was not something she could do casually in company.
At least Dorian’s strange enmity towards Levi Collins seemed to be subsiding.
He was even looking on the Duke of Hawcrest with approval, agreeing occasionally with his statements to Vera and nodding at other times.
Rose smiled at Dorian and was happy to see him sometimes smile back at her quite naturally although he kept a distance.
Her husband was forgetting to be charming tonight and it was both worrying and endearing. Would they be alone to talk that night? Rose did not even know where Dorian was sleeping.
“If you have an interest in art, Levi, perhaps Dorian can introduce you to his friends in Chelsea,” Cassius said, picking up on some exchange between the Duke of Hawcrest and Lady Eldridge.
“More in architecture,” Levi Collins corrected his host quickly. “My interest is more practical than personal, in any case. Half of Hawcrest Hall is falling down and I’m inclined to think that a complete rebuild is the only solution. I’d like to get some expert views.”
“If the basic structure isn’t solid, rebuilding might save you a great deal of future trouble,” Dorian remarked. “Some of the homes of the greatest families in England ought to be pulled down and rebuilt in my opinion.”
The Duke of Hawcrest nodded in agreement, clearly not having taken offense at the earlier mild clash in the hallway.
“Tradition and history are no use when the rain comes through the roof, the floors are sinking and the ceilings falling in,” he said.
“In your opinion, Dorian, we ought to pull down vast swathes of English traditions and mores with the crumbling houses and start all over again,” chuckled Cassius Emerton.
“Nor can I entirely disagree, as long as your replacements are better rather than worse. I ask only that you and Levi do not start your revolution at Ashbourne Castle.”
The two other dukes smiled at this, and then at one another, giving Rose the hope that Dorian and Levi might be friends. While very different personalties, they did seem to have certain views and experiences in common.
When the dinner gong sounded, the others began to rise to their feet, stretching and yawning, while Dorian strolled over to a shelf to replace a book he had been browsing. Rose felt she had almost been falling asleep in the warmth of the fire and a woolen blanket she had pulled over herself.
As she stood and stepped away from the chair, another wave of dizziness took hold of her. Levi Collins saw first what was happening and sprang across the room to catch Rose by elbow and shoulder before she could fall.
Then Dorian was there, shoving Levi rather roughly aside and lifting Rose in his arms as the room spun around her. What was happening?
“I have her,” Dorian’s voice sounded, rather aggressively. “Rose? Rose?”
“I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” she murmured as Dorian sat down, cradling her in his arms. “This has happened three times this week.”
“Three times?” Dorian repeated with alarm, his arms tightening. “Why didn’t you say something? Why didn’t you tell me?”
Because you weren’t there, Rose wanted to cry out, but felt too tired even to rail against him.
“Should we call out the physician?” asked the voice of the Duke of Ashbourne, somewhere out of Rose’s view.
Did she need a physician? Rose couldn’t say that she exactly felt ill, only strange and occasionally dizzy.
It was surely not worth the trouble of calling a physician out on a cold winter night.
Turning her head to explain this, she saw Josephine standing on her toes to whisper something in Cassius’ ear.
The Duke of Ashbourne nodded at whatever was said and some of the immediate concern evaporated from his face.
“I think perhaps Rose only needs to rest,” Josephine said aloud then, coming to her friend’s side with a reassuring smile. “I shall have a tray brought to your room for dinner, if you wish to retire early, Rose. We can send someone for the physician tomorrow, if you don’t feel better.”
The offer was tempting, but at the same time, it would mean being alone again and losing perhaps her only chance to talk to Dorian.
“Stay with me, Dorian,” Rose whispered to him. “Please, don’t go.”
In response, he took a deep breath and nodded, stroking her hair. How handsome, tender and pained his face looked now, all at once.
“I had better take Rose upstairs to rest,” he told the rest of the group, and Rose could hear eagerness, concern and reluctance competing in his tone. “You can send up dinner for both of us. Where is Rose’s room?”
“Next door to yours, Dorian,” Cassius said flatly, as if stating the blindingly obvious. “With a connecting door and shared dressing room. You are married, you know…”
Despite Rose’s reassurances that her faintness had passed, Dorian insisted on supporting her up the stairs and it was all she could do to persuade him that he need not carry her. Kneeling beside her as she sat down on her bed, he took off her slippers and eased her feet up onto the cover.
“Stay with me, Dorian,” Rose said again as he stood, sensing that he might flee to his own room next door, or a chair in the corner.
She held out her hand to him and to Rose’s relief, he took it between both of his and then sat down beside her on the bed.
“Hold me,” she added, looking up at his face. “Please, hold me, Dorian.”
For a moment the Duke of Ravenhill paused, his face deeply conflicted, but then, with a long sight that was almost a groan, he did as Rose asked and lay down beside her on the bed, bringing her head onto his shoulder and holding her close to him, one hand automatically stroking her hair.
“I wish we could stay like this forever,” Rose admitted after some minutes had passed and Dorian’s muscles were relaxing beneath her head. “There is so much I don’t understand but when you hold me, it doesn’t matter.”
“My Rose,” he answered with deep sadness in his voice. “I don’t want to hurt you. I could not bear it. You were trapped into this marriage against your will and if you would like a legal separation, I will arrange it, and you need never see me again… My Rose, my wife…”
Rose gasped and sat up, feeling as though Dorian had thrown a bucket of icy water over her.
Perceiving her reaction, he made to sit up but Rose knew she could not let him go.
Dorian’s words were like a bomb thrown into the room and the fuse must be put out before it exploded and destroyed everything.
She clambered over his prone form and seized his hands in his, pushing them back onto the pillows.
“How can you say such things, Dorian? How can you possibly suggest that to me? Never say those words again! Never!”
He looked confused but this only increased Rose’s fierceness. She felt that she might be angrier than she had ever been in her life.
Rose was Dorian’s wife and he had sworn himself to her in front of a priest and their families, even seeming determined to keep his unwilling vows in his own way.
Despite their ill-starred beginnings, Rose had never felt so loved and cherished as when she was in Dorian’s bed.
Yet still he had abandoned and ignored her.
Well, she would not be ignored any more!
“I will not have it, Dorian. You must talk to me! I’m your wife and I love you and I refuse to believe that is wrong. I refuse to let you believe it! I know you have been faithful to me in London, whatever other people might think and I want no legal separation. I want my husband back!”
His dark eyes seemed lost on hearing these passionate assertions, yet were full of unfulfilled longing.
“What is wrong with me, Rose? Why can I think of nothing but you? Why do I feel torn into pieces? Why did I almost hit Levi Collins, only for offering you his arm?”