Chapter 16 Consequences and Compromises
CONSEQUENCES AND COMPROMISES
When she finally opened her eyes again, the light in the room had changed. Not morning, but much later, the sun bright and high.
She had slept far longer than she meant to.
But before she could even push back the covers, loud knocking on the door made her flinch.
And all the recent events came flooding back to her.
“Rosamund! Are you awake in there?”
The door opened before she could answer, and four figures slipped inside.
Eugenia first—golden-haired and purposeful—followed by Imogen, eyes wide with questions.
Josephine next, with her arms crossed, and then Penelope, quieter, her expression more troubled than the rest.
“Charles wishes to see you in half an hour,” Eugenia announced.
Rosamund pushed herself upright against the pillows.
“I am not surprised,” she said, her voice hoarse, because yes, she had slept, but only after a bout of tears.
The sisters exchanged glances.
Imogen lowered herself onto the bed. “Is he truly beastly?” she asked. “The Duke of Bexley, I mean. Does he roar? Does he—”
“Imogen,” Josephine snapped softly.
Rosamund nearly smiled.
Nearly.
“He does not roar,” she said.
Josephine stepped forward. “Don’t let Charles bully you. Father told us to be bold. He cannot simply undo that because it inconveniences him.”
“Father intended for us to secure our futures,” Eugenia corrected, with grave emphasis. “Not to compromise ourselves in a duke’s country manor.”
“I didn’t compromise myself!” Rosamund answered automatically. Although…
Penelope moved then. Slowly.
“Rosa,” she said, and there was something fragile in her voice. “He was frantic—Charles, when he discovered you weren’t with Georgiana… he thought you’d been abducted. Or worse. He was beyond reason. I had to tell him where you’d gone.” Her fingers twisted together. “I’m so sorry.”
“He was distraught,” Eugenia confirmed.
Rosamund let out a shuddering breath. She had underestimated her brother’s vigilance. Overestimated her own cleverness.
For a fleeting second she considered the cascade of consequences that had begun with that one disclosure.
But she did not blame Penelope.
She was the one who’d orchestrated this. She was the one who had lied.
Penelope had only told the truth.
“It wasn’t your fault,” Rosamund said quietly. “I put you in a difficult position, and for that, I am sorry.”
And she meant it.
“But what about the article?” Penelope tilted her head. “Did you at least get what you needed?”
She had, which was at least one good thing that had come of all this. She would publish her story under her own name. Meet the requirements of her father’s will. And hopefully protect the Duke of Bexley from the other nobles’ meddling.
Nodding, Rosamund swung her legs over the side of the bed and stood.
Eugenia was already crossing to the wardrobe, her fingertips passing over Rosamund’s brighter gowns without pause, to pull out one that Rosamund had worn during mourning.
“Best not to look too cheerful,” she said, handing it over.
No one argued. Instead, her four younger sisters helped Rosamund dress in near silence.
“Why do I feel as though I’m walking to my own wake?” Rosamund asked, as Imogen drew her hair back into a severe knot.
“Perhaps because Charles looked ready to throttle you,” Josephine replied, briskly smoothing the lifeless folds of her gown.
“If he comes out wearing that horrid armband again, then we may panic,” Eugenia said dryly.
“Don’t be macabre,” Penelope scolded, though her fingers lingered at Rosamund’s sleeve as if reluctant to let go. They had all, at one time or another, found refuge in humor these past months.
“We are joking,” Josephine muttered. “Mostly.”
And for a little while—until the half hour expired, until they gathered around her like a small, determined army and escorted her down the stairs—Rosamund almost managed to feel normal.
But when they halted outside Charles’s study, the air shifted.
Rosamund tilted her head back. Had the door always loomed like this?
Without asking if Rosamund was ready, Eugenia rapped her knuckles on the door three times.
“Enter.”
Rosamund drew in a steadying breath and after one last glance at her sisters—borrowing whatever bravery she could—she opened the door and stepped inside alone.
This was inevitable. She knew it. She would endure it. Apologize where apology was due. Accept the reprimand. Weather whatever storm her brother had prepared.
She’d never considered herself easily cowed.
And yet—
The sight of Charles seated behind their father’s desk unsettled her anew, something she had still been adjusting to even before her stay at Ironwood Manor.
She would always associate this room with her father. Her mind’s eye summoned Papa’s gentler posture, his ink-stained fingers, his half-smiles over spectacles. Charles, seated there, looked… different. Of course, but also, more severe.
Would she ever grow accustomed to that?
“Sit,” he said.
No preamble. No greeting or any sign of brotherly affection.
Rosamund crossed the room and lowered herself into the chair opposite him, folding her hands in her lap before she could fidget.
For a full minute, the clock on the mantel marked the seconds with merciless precision. Tick. Tick. Tick.
Charles simply studied her. Until— “Are you hurt?”
The question startled her.
“Hurt? No. Definitely not!”
He exhaled once, dropping his gaze.
“Did he…” His jaw worked. “Did he take liberties beyond what you permitted?”
Take liberties?
Oh! “No!” He’d only taken liberties Rosamund had granted freely.
Tick. Tick. Tick.
“Is there…” Her brother cleared his throat. “Is there any reason I should be speaking to him about marriage?”
Her pulse stuttered.
“So you haven’t yet? Spoken to him about… marriage?”
“The subject came up.”
She wasn’t exactly sure why her stomach dropped.
“What did he say?”
Charles’s expression hardened. “He said you are not… ruined.”
Ruined?
“Did you demand that he marry me?”
Charles’s voice went cold. “He was willing to do the honorable thing.”
The room tilted. Willing? That can’t be right.
Julian had assured her—fiercely—that he would never marry.
Not for duty.
Not for his tenants.
Not for anything.
“I told him to go to hell.”
“Why?” she breathed. “Why would you do that?”
Charles looked at her as though she’d grown a second head.
It was not that Rosamund wished anyone to be compelled into marrying her. Or that she be compelled to accept. But she would have preferred the choice to be hers.
“Don’t be absurd, Rosa. You, of all people, know what he is. The rumors alone—”
“And since when,” she cut in, “have you put stock in rumors?”
His jaw hardened.
“Since my sister chose to wager her reputation on a man widely considered to be dangerous, on a man whose sanity is openly questioned.”
“He is not dangerous.”
“You are in no position to determine that.”
“You’re wrong.” The words came sharp. “I am in a far better position than most. I actually know him.” Her voice trembled with the force of it. “You do not.”
“I saw the wall he struck.” Charles met her stare with the deepest of scowls. “I saw the condition of… your gown.”
While Rosamund searched in vain for some innocent explanation for what he’d stumbled on last night, silence settled between them.
“The best course now,” Charles said at last, “is to proceed as though none of this occurred. No one but a handful of people know where you have been this past week, and they can be convinced to keep silent.”
When had her brother turned into such a… duke?
“Either way,” he continued, “you will not see the Duke of Bexley again.”
Her head snapped up.
She knew this was the likely outcome. She’d known it all along.
So why did it feel as though something inside her had only just now broken?
Charles went on, arrogantly rearranging her future.
“You will leave for London tomorrow where you will stay with Mother, and if no one is the wiser, you will complete a proper Season next spring.”
A Season. With… Mother?
“No.”
“Yes.”
“You cannot—Mother does not want me there.” Rosamund’s fists clutched the edges of her chair. “You know she does not.”
Charles was not looking at her now. “Mother will do what I deem necessary to protect this family’s reputation.”
“That makes it even worse!”
“Perhaps you should have considered this possibility before.”
Rosamund forced herself to breathe—to think.
Live beneath the same roof as her mother again? Submit to the scrutiny, the disapproval, the endless corrections?
The quiet, cutting reminders that she was simply too much?
“I cannot,” she said, the words thin now. “Charles… I cannot live with her.”
“You can. And you will.” His tone left no room for argument. “And as for your articles, your little hobby,” he added, almost as an afterthought, “The family funds will no longer be available to finance the literary exploits of… who was it? Robert Belle? An industrious fellow, I’m told.”
Her stomach dropped.
“Printing costs are nominal. And I need to complete my task—”
“Your task is no longer of consequence.”
The air left her lungs in a rush and a thin ringing filled her ears.
At some point, the writing had ceased to be about securing her inheritance, or even honoring her father’s memory. It had grown beyond that—beyond even redeeming the Duke of Bexley’s name.
It was Finch. And Wallace. Mrs. Wetherby and Tilly. Even Angus and Sable.
It was livelihoods. It was proof.
She had not exaggerated when she told Julian that more than his pride would suffer if he lost the estate.
“It isn’t a hobby.”
She had lost Julian, but she absolutely would not lose this. All her work—however carefully hidden behind an alias—would not be surrendered so easily.
“You loved Father,” she said quietly.
“Of course I did.”
“Then why are you trying to undo what he wanted for me?”
Her brother’s spine stiffened and his gaze shifted, just for a fraction of a second, to the portrait above the mantel. His jaw flexed before he dragged his attention back to her.