Chapter 32
Rose had been to a number of soirees, events, dances, and now even a ceilidh, and each one had been as uproarious and entertaining as one might expect.
As she entered the Great Hall with Peggy right behind her, her parents flanking her sides, Rose saw that the space was as gloriously stocked with food as on the day she first arrived.
But the air was somber and quiet.
This was not a celebration after all, but the parting ways of people who might have had the chance to enjoy lives together. This was much more akin to a funeral—the death that of the life she loved here in the keep.
“Come and sit, lass,” Eilidh spoke softly, ushering her toward the long table at the far end of the room. Dominik was not present, his seat empty, and Rose’s chest constricted, a painful lump forming in her throat.
Still, she followed Eilidh to her usual seat, her parents sitting across from her at the table just a few feet away with Fiona and Eilidh.
A small assemblage compared to the fullness of most meals in the keep.
However, Rose imagined that Eilidh had asked for the chamber to be theirs alone for the evening.
What Rose did notice was the group of three musicians who always played gentle melodies in the background to accompany dinner. They had not been dismissed, and she was grateful for it. Silence would have been utterly taxing.
As she sat, looking over the collection of food piled into the center of the table, Rose was heartened to see all her favorites.
Eilidh had cooked every dish that she had ever mentioned enjoying, and the tears burned at the corner of her eyes.
Gratitude blended with sorrow and the pre-emptive missing of her company.
She was still there with her gathered friends, but Rose already felt as if she’d traveled hundreds of miles away.
The hole in her heart was profound and nauseating.
And then Dominik walked in through the massive doors across the room.
The pinch of his brows was so deep, so furrowed, that she wondered if it was now permanently etched into his face. As he walked closer, his stare traveled over those assembled, and not a single time did his eyes meet hers or even move in her direction.
Rose’s entire being crumbled, and she curled into herself, furiously fighting back the tears that blurred her vision. Her husband would not even look at her, and she was doing all of this—leaving the place she considered home—to help him.
Her throat ached from how she suppressed the sobs that pounded against her sternum from the inside.
And in the quiet, only the musician’s slow plucking filling the background, Dominik circled the long table and took up his seat next to her.
His rightful chair as Laird, and still, he did not look or speak to her.
Dominik began eating, a signal to everyone that they could as well, and from across the short distance, Oskar spoke up from his table.
“All right. That is quite enough of that.” He raised his voice, calling out to the musicians. “Play something with a bit of revelry to it!”
The music changed at once, but more like the tunes she’d heard at the gatherings, and the air in the room lifted some.
Her parents smiled over at her, Horatia making it clear that she would support whatever Rose decided.
Then, in a move that greatly surprised Rose, Horatia lifted her glass in a toast.
“To Clan MacKay. May you be as strong as you were the night that fiend burned your door. And in profound gratitude to the Laird of MacKay for protecting our daughter.”
The small group cheered in agreement, and Rose raised her glass and called out along with them, despite the agony lingering in her chest. Easy conversations began among her friends, then, as they ate and chatted about the various to-dos before traveling and how Eilidh managed to run such an impressive household. It was almost…normal.
But it was not. And Rose’s husband would still not look at her.
When the plates had been cleared, their bellies as full as they could be—though fullness had not stopped Rose but rather unease—her parents called out for the musicians to play a waltz, a dance which was apparently all the rage in England now.
“To your feet, everyone,” Horatia said with impressive volume. “We will dance the night away before the long travel.”
Frivolity and movement burst into life as her family and friends stood from their seats and began to dance happily to the new tune.
Horatia and Baldwin had to teach the Scots the steps, and Rose was very impressed to see how quickly Oskar picked it up, taking Peggy’s hand and swinging her about the floor in the center of the Great Hall.
There was something between them that even Rose could see through her somber-tinted eyes, and she couldn’t help but smile as her maid did, waltzing in a beautiful pattern under Oskar’s lead.
“You're quite good at this,” she said as she passed Rose.
“Daenae sound so surprised, lass.” Oskar was always one for a joke. “I’m good at everything I try me hand at.”
Peggy blushed furiously as they waltzed away from Rose, and she turned to see her father bowing in front of Eilidh and then taking her hand to dance.
Her face was alive with scandal and shock, and Rose found herself laughing.
Nothing felt right or normal but seeing Eilidh so scandalized as to dance with a married Englishman had a way of bringing out the levity in even a dark situation, it seemed.
To Rose’s side, Fiona and Horatia stood next to her, the two of them laughing hysterically as Eilidh was twirled about.
Rose watched, her chest slightly less tense, as her mother leaned over to the young woman and whispered, “We should dance too. Give your Mrs. Eilidh something to truly fluster about.”
Everyone there was partaking in this desperately needed revelry except for Dominik and herself.
Something about the situation felt akin to a party before a great battle, or a drink before receiving terrible news.
It was a moment of joy that would make the next so much easier to bear, and it provided a distraction from the pain.
Rose needed that. She, too, needed a distraction, and if this was genuinely to be her last evening with Dominik, Rose would spend it dancing with him. That would be her last memory of them together.
Gathering her courage, she walked back toward the main table where Dominik still sat, stopping before him.
“Would you dance with me? I can teach you the steps.”
The moment stretched, and Rose feared that he would not respond, leaving her to walk away with her wounded pride searing into her soul.
But without saying a word, Dominik stood from the table and approached her, almost cautiously.
He followed, still silent, as she led them out into the middle of the room, joining the others in the graceful dance.
“Put your hands like this,” Rose instructed softly, nodding at the others as she helped Dominik’s hands find her waist and her shoulder. “Good. Now, on the balls of your feet, you will meet the music with a rise and fall, you stepping forward, and me stepping back.”
Rose helped him through the first form of the dance, and she noted how Dominik studied her feet and the movements of the others, particularly Oskar.
“Yes, just like that. Step forward on the left foot, then step to the side toward the right, and then close your left foot to your right.” Dominik executed the dance perfectly, his impressive strength backed by an even more remarkable grace and fluidity.
“Excellent. You will give Oskar a bit of serious competition.”
They took a few turns around the room, Dominik’s body responding to the music as hers did. But that was all of him that appeared. His mind was somewhere else, and he still did not look at her.
Rose’s heart broke just that little bit further, and she sagged into herself, letting Dominik twirl her through a spin before they returned to the spot where they had started. His stare fell to her husband’s chest, and she watched it rise and fall steadily.
I cannot let the pain get the best of me. I must put on a brave face.
Looking up into his face with a forced smile, Rose followed along through their next revolution around the room. Dominik truly was wonderful at the waltz, and for never seeing it before, he took to the steps like a fish to water.
“You are indeed a fine dancer, my laird. You may not believe me, but I assure you that you would find nothing but honesty on my face.”
Dominik stopped, making Rose lurch on her feet as she caught her balance. It occurred to her too late that he had taken her words as a demand for him to look at her. She did wish for Dominik to look at her, but not like this.
A glare met her, born from fury and wrath, and Rose reeled backward, her throat constricting as she blinked the renewed tears away. With her heart hammering against her chest, Rose stumbled over something to ease Dominik’s anger.
“I apologize, my laird. If I have said something, I didn’t—”
“Can ye truly be that overjoyed to leave? So verra excited that ye take to the bloody dance floor and twirl about without a care?”
Is that what he thinks? Oh, God…
“No, no. I assure you that I am only trying to find a bit of happiness in the sadness of leaving. I am…Dominik, I am so very grateful to have this last moment with you. I will cherish it—”
“And did ye pack yer things then?” His words were bitten out and laced with venom. Rose’s chin quivered. She could not cry. She could not fall apart in front of him like that. “I expect that ye’ll be leaving the moment this is all over, aye?”
“I…I am as prepared to leave for England as I can be.” A roundabout answer to a question that gutted her. “My things are in a carriage, I believe.”
For as momentary as her enjoyment had been, her grief now was several times as much.
The way Dominik looked at her made Rose wish she could crawl into a hole and never come out to see the light of day.
This expression would be the one that remained in her mind’s eye, the one that haunted her as she tried to carry out her life in London.
Rose had known it would be exceedingly difficult to pretend like the man she loved wasn’t just a coach ride away, that the clan she had begun to see as her own was not right here waiting for her, needing her aid.
Still now, the reality of the weight she would carry with her each day was made all the more monumental.
Agony. That was what awaited her in England, and there was nothing that she could do about it.
But she would not show that to Dominik. She would not have him see her broken and mournful. She would honor the time they had had together. She would be a lady as she always was, and she would make it known to him, if nothing else, that she was thankful for the time they had, though it was brief.
“I wanted to thank you as well…before I left. You have been a gracious host and honorable Laird since the moment of my arrival. I will remember the time I had here fondly. I—”
“That is enough, me Lady. I will not hear more. I am quite done with this evening and everything that it might entail.”
Rose’s mouth dropped open, pain lacing through her form as if she’d been struck, but she could not place where.
Only that were someone to ask, she would tell them that she could not breathe, that it ached to blink, that nausea and tightness of throat plagued her, and that all she wished to do was sob.
“Good evening, and goodbye…Rose.”
She didn’t have the time to say anything back. The Laird spun on his heel and fled from the room with speed befitting a wild animal. He was gone, and that would be the last she saw of him.
The warmth of Dominik’s touch still lingered on her shoulder and back where they had been as they danced. And with each passing second, it vanished more and more, leaving coldness in its wake.