Chapter 1 #2
Rose nodded slowly again, trying to make sense of the little information revealed.
A child somehow came from husband and wife spending time together, although it was hard to know how or why this should be peculiar to married couples.
Why did children not come from men and women being together in general?
It was as well that it didn’t, or the world would be overrun. But still, why?
“Is the house party complete now?” Madeline asked then, changing the subject. “I know most of your guests came last night, including Rose’s family and I arrived this morning. Are we all here?”
“All but Dorian Voss, Duke of Ravenhill,” answered Josephine with a little smile that again seemed to convey some invisible message to Madeline, beyond Rose’s understanding. “He was unavoidably detained in Chelsea last night, but we expect him before luncheon.”
Madeline gave a small laugh and shook her head as though unsurprised to hear this.
Rose thought again of the warning from Josephine’s brother-in-law, Benedict Emerton, last night, after she had expressed sympathy for Dorian Voss’s sudden and dramatic accession to the dukedom upon his cousin’s death:
You will find that His Grace the Duke of Ravenhill requires no special consideration, Lady Rose. He has almost as much charm as I do but uses it to far more deadly effect…
What did everyone have against the poor Duke of Ravenhill?
If Dorian Voss was a truly bad character, the Duke of Ashbourne would not have him in the house, and Rose’s brothers would not have brought her to Ashbourne Castle to associate with him.
Maybe he was one of these men who were always late, or always forgetting invitations and double-booking their social calendars.
Deciding that this was the most likely explanation, Rose asked no further questions for now, although her curiosity remained active, even while Madeline moved on to an account of having to take charge of a younger cousin who was coming to live with her family.
How lovely it would be if the Duke of Ravenhill were a softly-spoken and unassuming man whom Rose might talk to, and earn approval from Edwin…
When the gong sounded for luncheon, Dorian Voss had still not arrived.
“Luncheon could not have come at a better time,” sighed Benedict Emerton, throwing down his cards on the table with a chuckle. “There were never going to be any winners in our game, I feel, only the lesser losers.”
Madeline laughed ruefully too, laying down her own cards with equal chagrin.
“Yes, we are perhaps the worst bridge party ever, aren’t we?” she agreed. “I played everything wrong this morning, but then, so did you, Mr. Emerton.”
“I am the worst player in my family,” remarked Benedict, an amiable young man who preferred to be known as Mr. Emerton rather than Lord Benedict, despite being born the younger son of a duke.
“Cassius and Josephine both run rings around me, as does my mother on occasion. Still, I only really play for the social angle, so winning and losing don’t matter so much. ”
“Luckily for both of you, Rose and I are the worst card players in our family too,” Magnus added, smiling. “Edwin and my parents beat us every time, don’t they, Rose?”
Rose concurred with a nod.
“I enjoyed that game,” she confessed. “When everyone is too quick and determined to win, it takes some of the enjoyment away for me. That was far more fun.”
“Hear, hear!” returned Benedict, standing now and offering Madeline his arm to walk through to luncheon, as Magnus also Rose and extended an arm to his sister.
“We must assemble our incompetent card party again another time and play cards only for enjoyment without any of these disruptive competitive players.”
The rest of the card players agreed, and all began to proceed towards the dining room where luncheon would shortly be served.
Other guests were emerging from the billiards room, library, drawing room, music room, and elsewhere.
The conversation in the hallway where all met grew louder and confused, jarring Rose’s ears.
“…still not here. I dare say the couches of Chelsea are too comfortable…”
“…Dorian has always been of an artistic temperament…”
“…runs on both sides of the family, I believe. Did you hear that his mother once…”
“What is everyone talking about?” Rose whispered to Madeline, bewildered by this apparently universal fascination with the Duke of Ravenhill, even if he was so very tardy. “Why is it so interesting that Dorian Voss is late in arriving?”
Madeline and Benedict Emerton both looked back at her with twitching mouths. Rose felt frustrated that everyone seemed so determined to keep things from her. Was she not one-and-twenty and an adult now, just like Madeline and Josephine? A thought occurred to her.
“Has the Duke of Ravenhill been in the scandal sheets?” she asked her more knowledgeable friend, such publications being strictly banned in the Duke of Westvale’s household and only accessible to Rose when she visited Madeline or Josephine.
“Is his name around the ton? Is that why everyone is talking of him?”
“Not for anything really very bad,” Madeline whispered back, indicating that Rose was at least thinking in the right direction. “But yes, he is well known…especially in…artistic circles.”
Now in the dining room, the guests took their seats, in no specific order, but with ladies and gentlemen alternating and the Duke and Duchess of Ashbourne at either end of the long oak table.
Seeing Rose’s still-enquiring glance, Madeline came to her side while others were still milling around their chairs. She whispered again in her friend’s ear.
“Dorian Voss is very handsome and charming and apparently every woman he wants falls for him. That is what the scandal sheets say. Fortunately, the women he wants are neither young nor innocent themselves, and often even of the demimonde, so he gets away with the most disgraceful behavior.”
“What do you mean?”
“He associates with artists’ models, women writers and musicians and so forth, on the most intimate and flagrant terms,” her friend now told her flatly, perhaps beginning to lose patience with Rose’s incomprehension.
“Some older society ladies too, apparently, although their names are rarely published. I doubt you would have very much in common with him.”
“No, I would not!” gasped Rose, her grasp of the demimonde or any other layers of society outside her own privileged and cosseted sphere being quite limited. “How shocking! I think I would rather not speak to the Duke of Ravenhill at all. Ever!”