14. A Stand Off
A STAND OFF
Three days passed.
Three long, irritating, entirely wasted days.
Lord Reginald Preston, it seemed, meant to vex Rose by spending as few waking hours as possible at The Domus.
After promising to learn about it.
About them.
If he had been any other man, Rose would have expected him back in that receiving room first thing the following evening.
No other man could have known she was here—willing, waiting—and then stayed away. But Reginald was not any other man.
And although she’d given him exactly what was needed to leave him wanting more, with every day he stayed away, Rose became more certain she had miscalculated.
He hadn’t walked away that night because he’d been ashamed.
No, he’d walked away… angry.
The memory left an unfamiliar ache beneath her ribs. An ache she couldn’t look at too closely.
Because, in those moments, after… Rose had been… shaken. Shattered, nearly.
And now…
He was avoiding her as though she were the danger.
“This changes nothing,” he’d said.
Only.
What if… it had?
Was he avoiding The Domus, or was he avoiding her?
She could not know for certain. Not until he faced her again.
It was a proper mess. With Lord Reginald gone, Rose could do nothing to persuade him, challenge him, or make him understand the house. And having promised not to receive any gentlemen, she could not even return to the work that had always made her feel useful.
Nonetheless, though he seemed to have forgotten his promise to learn about The Domus, Rose kept hers.
She had not entertained a single client.
She told herself this was the source of her discontent. A woman did not enjoy having her choices taken from her, even temporarily. Even with compensation promised.
But the truth was far less convenient.
After those few moments with Reginald, Rose found it impossible to even imagine entertaining anyone else.
Nothing was going as planned!
On the third day, she took matters into her own hands and marched across to the offices. “When is he returning?” she demanded.
Frowning deeply, Mr. Huxley looked up from his desk, spectacles sliding down his nose, and informed her that his Lordship had failed to provide him with a schedule.
Rose wasn’t sure who was the most upset by this, her or Mr. Huxley.
She told herself it did not matter. She still had plenty of time to convince him. He could not hide forever. Could he?
By the fourth afternoon, Rose’s patience was worn utterly thin.
The house seemed too warm. Too close. As smothering as her own impatience.
Even Nell, who had been pleased when Rose told her a little of what had happened in the receiving room, seemed more on edge.
Rose had not given her details. She had not described Lord Reginald on his knees, or the way his hands had held her, or how close Rose had come to forgetting why she had brought him there at all.
She had simply told Nell that she had left him wanting.
That she had given him pleasure enough to remember without giving him satisfaction enough to be done with her.
She had not mentioned that she had dreamed of him every night since.
She told Nell the part that mattered.
Even so, a cold flicker of guilt moved through Rose. The report felt like a betrayal. Here she was, trying to prove that The Domus did not use women, all the while using herself as a means of changing his mind.
Rose pushed the thought away. The distinction did not signify.
Could not signify.
She’d grown so restless that when Nell mentioned that the small blue bottle in the locked cupboard was nearly empty, Rose snatched at the errand as though it were a lifeline.
“I’ll go,” she said.
Violet, curled in the corner of the chaise with a hot brick wrapped in flannel pressed against her belly, opened one eye. “You?”
Marianne looked up from her magazine. “You should send one of the maids.”
“That’s not necessary. Really.”
“You’ll purchase the laudanum?” Violet asked faintly.
“And chamomile. And more lavender water, if Mr. Hale has any worth buying.” Rose reached for her gloves, and then flicked the folded list out of Nell’s hand.
“Take Denny,” Nell suggested.
“I don’t need Denny.”
Nell’s expression hardened.
Rose sighed. “It’s broad daylight, for heaven’s sake. And it’s not as though the apothecary’s shop is in the rookeries. I’ll be fine.”
“You are in a mood,” Marianne observed.
“I’m in need of exercise,” Rose said. “That’s all.”
A quarter of an hour later, Rose stepped into the afternoon sun in her sober gray walking gown and gloves. She wore no wig, only a modest bonnet over her own pale blonde hair, pinned neatly at her nape.
The air struck her like steam from a boiling pot.
Heat radiated off the bricks and street, the gutters smelled worse than usual, and even the horses seemed to be moving as though the ground were made of molasses.
It almost had her ducking back inside to the relative cool of The Domus.
But she needed to move—she needed a change of scenery. Anything to do besides wait around for Lord Reginald to make good on his promise.
So Rose set off.
The August heat pressed closer with each step, and before she had gone two streets, a bead of perspiration slid beneath her bonnet and down the back of her neck. Even the flower girls looked defeated, their carnations and cornflowers drooping in their baskets, as wilted as Rose felt.
She turned the corner, already regretting the pace she had set, as a dark carriage drew alongside her and slowed.
Rose ignored it and kept walking.
Impossible, impertinent fellows, no doubt.
Only when she heard the door open, did she cast a hasty glance.
And then nearly tripped on the uneven pavement.
“Miss Darling.”
Lord Reginald Preston sat inside the carriage, one gloved hand braced on the open door, his dark coat severe against the pale upholstery.
But, as had every other time she looked at him, it was his eyes that caught her.
Silver. Shadows etched beneath them. But…
Fixed entirely upon her.
Her pulse betrayed her at once.
She stopped.
For half a heartbeat, Reginald thought she might pretend she had not heard him and continue marching down Brook Street with her little chin in the air.
Then she turned.
Even from a distance, he’d recognized her immediately.
Perhaps it was the tilt of her head. The determined set of her shoulders. The sway of her hips beneath that sober gray walking gown, which ought to have made her look plain but somehow did nothing of the sort.
Or perhaps it was simply that every part of him came awake at the sight of Rose Darling.
The one woman he’d taken great pains to avoid.
Four days.
For four days, he had intentionally not set foot in The Domus.
He had met with solicitors. He had visited his brother. At night, he had gone to bed hard, furious, and far too well-acquainted with his own hand.
Because he would not change his mind.
He could not change his mind.
All he needed to do was keep driving.
Instead, the moment he saw her walking, he had struck his fist against the carriage roof and ordered the driver to stop.
He belonged in Bedlam.
Now she stood beside the open door, her face flushed from the weather, a reticule looped over one wrist and a folded paper clutched in her gloved hand.
Tendrils of blonde hair curled out from beneath her bonnet.
So the darker hair she wore at The Domus was a wig.
This was her true color, pinned neatly at her nape. Soft. Nearly platinum in the afternoon light.
Reginald liked it.
Far more than he ought.
“My lord,” she said.
He took a second to look down the street.
No maid. No footman. No Boris looming behind her as he damn well ought to be.
Reginald frowned.
“You are alone.”
Rose glanced behind her, then to either side. “So I appear to be.”
His mouth tightened. “You should not be walking unaccompanied.”
Rose stared at him.
Then she laughed.
Not a polite laugh. A real laugh, bright and sudden enough to make two passing ladies turn their heads.
“I fail to see what is amusing.”
She stepped closer to the carriage and lowered her voice. “I am not one of your Mayfair ladies, my lord. Or had you forgotten?”
No.
He had not forgotten.
Heat tightened low in his body.
“I am just going to the apothecary,” she added. “Two streets over.”
“Then I’ll take you.”
Her brows lifted. “Is that an order?”
The question struck uncomfortably close.
After what had passed between them in that room, he could hardly command her into his carriage simply because he was not ready to watch her walk away.
“No,” he said. “It is not an order.”
A teasing light entered her eyes.
“Then what is it?”
Reginald stepped down from the carriage and came to stand before her.
“A request.”
Rose searched his eyes, as though trying to discover what lay behind the words.
But then her expression faltered, and when her voice came, it was quieter.
“You have been avoiding me.”
The street seemed to narrow around them. Wheels rattled behind him. A horse whinnied.
Yes, he had. “I have been occupied.”
“Of course.” Her mouth curved. “Solicitors. Dukes. Account books. All very demanding.”
The comment came out a little too casually.
Which had him wondering if he had hurt her. Not merely frustrated her by thwarting her plans.
But… hurt her.
Because of what had passed between them in that private parlor. Because of whatever this was between them. Something he couldn’t even begin to name.
The realization should have alarmed him.
Instead, something inside him softened.
“I am on my way to the docks,” he said. “I’m needed at the ship to answer a few questions.” And then he added, “Before I return to The Domus.”
“The Phantom Gale.”
“Yes.”
“My rival for your affections.”
His brows drew together. “My affections?”
“The ship,” she said. “Do keep up, my lord.”
This was a mistake.
And yet Reginald held out his hand to help her into the carriage.
“Come with me to the docks first. Then I will take you to the apothecary.”
Rose looked at his hand.
Then at him.
“You’ll show me your ship?”
“It’ll be my pleasure.”
She placed her hand in his, and Reginald’s fingers closed around hers.
He had meant only to help her into the carriage.
Instead, for one brief, unforgivable moment, he held on as though he had been waiting all four of those days just to touch her again.