Chapter 20
The worst of Rosalind’s anger had begun to cool by the time they were halfway home.
Unfortunately, that left room for everything else.
Hurt. Confusion. Fear.
And beneath all three, the memory of William standing beside the pond, looking at her as though she had struck him.
I have never lied to you.
She believed him. That was the infuriating part.
Rosalind leaned her head against the cushioned squabs and watched London pass beyond the window. She had spent the journey turning the same facts over until she could scarcely distinguish one from another.
Algernon’s carriage had collected her father from White’s. Augusta had given her a false rumor no one else appeared to have heard. Algernon had claimed to be away from London when Rosalind knew she had seen him at the ball.
And William had known none of it.
That should have absolved him.
Instead, it frightened her.
She had trusted his certainty because she trusted him, and now she no longer knew how much of what William believed had been carefully constructed for him by the people closest to him.
Rosalind closed her eyes.
Only hours ago, she had held his hands in the square while he confessed how deeply his family’s secrets had wounded him. Later, she had sat across from him at tea and caught him watching her so often that pretending not to notice had become ridiculous.
She had laughed with him in the sunshine and, for a little while, forgotten everything except how happy she was to be there.
Now she had ended something that had never been real in the first place.
That thought hurt far more than it ought to have.
By the time the carriage finally slowed before Carlisle House, Rosalind had regained enough control that she no longer feared bursting into tears the moment someone spoke to her.
She straightened, smoothed her skirts, and waited for the footman to open the door.
The moment she and Nelly entered the house, Rosalind turned to her maid. “I need Isabella.”
Nelly nodded immediately. “Shall I send someone?”
“No. Please go yourself. Tell her I need her opinion, and I need her help.”
Whatever Nelly saw in Rosalind’s face prevented further questions. “I’ll bring her.”
“Thank you.”
Nelly hurried away while Rosalind continued into the main drawing room, hoping to reach the stairs before encountering anyone else.
Naturally, her mother was there.
The countess looked up from her correspondence with immediate interest. “There you are. I was beginning to wonder whether the dowager intended to keep you for dinner as well.”
Rosalind closed her eyes briefly.
Not now.
“How was it?” her mother asked, setting aside her pen. “And how is Lord William?”
“He is fine.”
Her mother’s smile widened. “Only fine?”
“Mama, please.”
“What? I am merely asking.”
Rosalind had neither the patience nor the strength to maintain the pretense. “The courtship is over.”
Her mother’s smile vanished. “What?”
“I have no intention of seeing Lord William again.”
The declaration hurt even as she made it, which only made Rosalind more determined not to examine it too closely.
“What happened?”
“Nothing I wish to discuss.”
“Rosalind, surely you cannot end a courtship over one quarrel.”
“It was not a quarrel.”
“Then whatever happened, perhaps you ought to give yourself time before deciding anything. That young man has scarcely taken his eyes from you for days.”
Rosalind turned away. That was precisely the sort of observation she did not need.
“His intentions were never serious.”
Her mother frowned. “What do you mean?”
“He never intended to marry me.”
That silenced her.
After a moment, the countess asked, “Did he tell you that?”
Rosalind hesitated. She hated what she was about to do, but she could hardly confess that the entire courtship had been invented to allow her to investigate Papa’s disappearance without inviting scandal.
“He made his feelings regarding marriage perfectly clear.”
“When?”
“That hardly matters.”
“It matters if you have misunderstood him.”
“I have not.”
Her mother studied her more closely. “Darling, you have had an exhausting day. You were out this morning and again this afternoon, and you look flushed. Perhaps everything feels rather more upsetting at present than it ordinarily would.”
Rosalind stared at her.
Then her mother asked, with maddening delicacy, “Are you near your monthly time?”
For one stunned moment, Rosalind could only look at her.
Then every frustration she had swallowed for weeks seemed to rise at once.
“Why must every decision I make be explained away by the fact that I am a woman?”
“Rosalind—”
“No. I am angry, so I must be overwrought. I am certain, so I must have misunderstood. I decide I no longer wish to court a man, and apparently even that cannot be trusted because perhaps I am menstruating.”
“I only meant—”
“I know what you meant.” Rosalind heard her voice rising and fought to lower it. “Everyone has been telling me what to believe since Papa disappeared. That he ran away. That he left willingly. That he was seen with another woman. That I did not see what I know I saw.”
Her mother’s expression softened. “Darling—”
“I am tired of trusting everyone else’s certainty more than my own.”
That was the truth of it. And perhaps the reason William’s part in all of this hurt so much.
Rosalind drew a steadying breath. “I know what I am doing, Mama. And I know what Lord William told me.”
“What did he tell you?”
Rosalind swallowed. “That he has no intention of marrying.”
Her mother stilled.
“He made a vow some time ago that he would never marry. His mother has been pressing him to reconsider, and courting me gave him a convenient way to quiet those expectations.”
It was not entirely the truth. Yet it was close enough to the arrangement William had originally proposed that saying it made Rosalind feel vaguely ill.
Her mother slowly sank back into her chair. “He was using you?”
The hurt in her voice immediately punctured Rosalind’s anger.
“Mama, he never promised me anything.”
“But I thought he cared for you.”
Rosalind’s throat tightened. That was precisely the problem.
Her mother shook her head. “The dances. The calls. The way he looks at you—”
“It was a ruse,” Rosalind interrupted, because she could not bear to hear the rest. “Nothing more.”
The words sounded painfully hollow even to her.
Movement near the doorway caught her attention.
Isabella stood there, staring between them.
She still wore the clothes she had chosen for her fencing lesson, her gloves clutched in one hand, while Nelly hovered several steps behind her.
Isabella’s expression had gone from confusion to alarm.
Rosalind had never been so grateful to see anyone. “Forgive me, Mama.”
“Rosalind—”
“I need some time.”
She crossed the room before her mother could stop her.
Isabella followed her up the stairs and down the corridor and waited until Rosalind had closed the bedchamber door before turning to her. “What was that?”
Rosalind crossed toward the windows. “I assume you heard enough to know.”
“I heard you tell your mother that Lord William used you to escape his mother’s matrimonial ambitions.”
“He did.”
“Rosalind.”
She turned. Isabella stood with her arms folded, looking considerably less sympathetic than Rosalind thought the circumstances warranted.
“What?”
“That is a very selective version of what happened.”
“It is also true.”
“Partially. Which is usually the most dangerous sort of truth.” Isabella’s brows drew together. “Why are you ending the courtship?”
“Because William is horrible.”
Isabella stared at her.
Rosalind held her expression for perhaps two seconds. “Fine. His family is horrible.”
“That I am considerably more inclined to believe.”
“And I cannot trust him.”
Isabella’s expression changed. “What happened?”
Rosalind began pacing.
She told her everything she could without betraying what William had confided that morning. She told Isabella about seeing Algernon in the gardens despite his insistence that he had left London.
She explained Augusta’s rumor about Papa and the mysterious woman, and how Nelly’s inquiries had failed to uncover a single person who had heard anything similar.
Then she told her about the carriage.
Isabella stopped her. “What do you mean, the carriage belongs to the duke?”
“Exactly that. Nelly found it in the Aldermere stables.”
“The same carriage your father entered outside White’s?”
“The description matches. One of the duke’s own grooms confirmed it belongs to the household.”
Isabella slowly lowered herself into a chair. “Well.”
“Yes.”
“That is rather more significant than Gabriel Frost destroying my secret identity because he possesses no sense whatsoever.”
Despite herself, Rosalind almost smiled. “Considerably.”
Isabella was silent for a moment. “And William knew nothing?”
“So he says.”
“You believe him.”
Rosalind hated how quickly the answer came. “Yes.”
Worse, she did not merely believe him because she wanted to. She had seen his confusion beside the pond. His shock when she told him about the carriage had been too immediate, too genuine. Whatever Algernon had done, William had been as ignorant of it as she was.
She almost wished he had lied. Anger would have been so much simpler if he had deserved all of it.
Isabella tilted her head. “Then why are you angry with him?”
“Because I trusted him.”
“That does seem an unfortunate quality in a courtship.”
“Isabella.”
“I am attempting to understand.”
Rosalind resumed pacing. “I trusted him when he told me Algernon had left London. I trusted him when he suggested I might have mistaken another gentleman for his brother. I trusted what William knew because I trusted him, and now I discover that William does not know his own family nearly as well as he believes.”
That silenced Isabella.
Rosalind wrapped her arms around herself. “I cannot keep telling him everything we discover when I have no idea what Algernon might learn from him. William does not have to betray me deliberately to place Papa in danger.”
“No,” Isabella admitted. “He does not.”
“And I hate that.”
The words came out quieter than Rosalind intended.