Chapter Eleven
Rosalie
“Does she prefer flowers, or shall I get her pastries? I know it’s not the most common, but my friends at Cambridge had much
better luck with pastries than flowers. Granted, it was winter, so that might have had something to do with it. Would she
like a good tipple, instead?”
“Breathe!” Rosalie chides, squeezing Christopher’s arm.
Christopher looks over at her, chagrined, his cheeks pink. Though that could be sun. It’s unseasonably warm and lovely outside,
hence their walk through Sydney Gardens this afternoon.
Rosalie wanted to stay in bed all day, lamenting that Mrs. Pine walked in before Rosalie could take Miss Pine’s mouth and
know how sweet she might taste. Grateful that she walked in before Rosalie went and made a terrible fool of herself.
“Are you listening to me?”
“Yes,” Rosalie lies. Christopher nudges her with his hip. “Take Amalie on a promenade to start, bring her daisies if you can
get them—they’re pedestrian, but her favorite. And she likes macarons and marzipan.”
“Good, good,” Christopher says. “You’re sure?”
Rosalie forces herself to focus on her brother. “I am positive. Amalie will certainly be wooed if you follow my directions.”
“She wouldn’t prefer Mr. Fortes? He’s older, and more distinguished—”
“And she doesn’t want him,” Rosalie says firmly, tugging Christopher to the side of the walking path so they can stand beneath
a weeping willow tree, out of the sun. She meets his eyes. “You are a catch, dearest little brother, all right?”
Christopher’s face splits in a slow smile. “Really?”
“Don’t make me say it again.”
He laughs, his cheeks dimpling, and squeezes her arm into his side. “Thank you. That is high praise indeed.”
“Don’t get used to it,” she says gruffly, holding on to his cuff with her free hand as he guides them back out onto the path.
Rosalie tries to focus on places to suggest for their promenade—to bury herself in Christopher and Amalie’s impending courtship—and
ignore all other concerning thoughts, feelings, and urges about a certain tall, willowy, beautiful—
“We should plan some outings so you too can spend time with your . . . person of interest,” Christopher suggests.
Rosalie glances up at him, wrinkling her nose. “Just call him Mr. Dean. He doesn’t suggest such . . . florid language.”
“Were I speaking of Mr. Dean, I would have called him your absentminded, reticent, interior, tall dark brood of a man.”
“Christopher.”
“That is florid language. I was merely trying to be circumspect, but if I must be blunt,” he begins, dragging her off the path
yet again so they can loiter by the embankment down to the stream. “What are we planning to do to get you more time with the
lovely, charming, statuesque Miss Pine?”
Rosalie freezes beside him. “I . . . don’t know what you mean.”
“Don’t you?” he asks, turning to look down into the stream, clearly giving her a moment.
Rosalie hesitates. It’s not that he’ll care. Or rather, not that he’ll be scandalized. He wasn’t the day he walked in on her
and Jane kissing in the solarium four years ago. He simply said, “Oops,” and shut the door, standing guard until they settled
themselves. Then he peppered her with endless questions for two weeks until Jane abruptly announced her engagement.
He let her cry on his shoulder for a fortnight, until she’d tucked her sorrow and confusion and anger into a little box in
her head. Until she decided never to give her heart to someone who would leave her for someone else, someone better, someone
more . . . acceptable.
She’s been doing a damn good job of keeping her heart and her desire safely tucked away for the past four years. Mr. Dean
is safe. Mr. Dean is acceptable. Mr. Dean won’t leave her for a man, at any rate. And he’d certainly never suspect that her
scrutiny of Miss Pine is anything other than comparative.
But Christopher doesn’t miss a trick. Still. Telling him is giving voice to the ridiculousness in her head.
Then again, keeping it bottled in her head isn’t doing anything to persuade her treacherous heart and desire. She almost kissed
the girl in a cloakroom, for God’s sake.
Maybe it would be safer with Christopher to keep watch—to save her from trying something with Miss Pine and seeing her married
off anyway. Or worse, discovering Miss Pine is more like most people than she seems. Rosalie probably imagined the want in
her eyes in the dim light of the cloakroom.
“Am I so obvious?” she asks, her voice barely more than a whisper.
Christopher squeezes her arm. “Only to me. Everyone else is far too wrapped up in their own affairs. Well, everyone except Aunt Genevieve.” Rosalie looks up at him in surprise. “Her painting does rather give it away.”
“When were you in my room?”
He laughs. “I wanted to go through your new books and Mother was going on and on about the walk.”
“She’s gotten rather zealous about it,” Rosalie agrees, putting worries about Aunt Genevieve away in the box in her head for
later.
“Mother has told you to pay Miss Pine little attention and make sure she spends her time with Mr. Sholle, and you’ve talked
with her every moment he wasn’t within earshot. You never disobey Mother.”
Rosalie blinks. “I disobey her all the time.”
“Not when it counts,” Christopher insists. Rosalie shrugs, unsure of how to take his razor-sharp observations. “So you must
really like her.”
She wants to protest, wants to argue, but there’s something so absurdly comforting about Christopher just knowing.
“It’s dreadful,” she says, leaning into him dramatically.
Christopher laughs and bends his head to rest on hers as she slumps against his shoulder. “It seems rather fun to me,” he
says.
“Fun?”
“The two of you flirting right under Mr. Dean and Mr. Sholle’s noses with neither of them any the wiser?”
“It is a little bit fun,” she admits in a whisper. Christopher laughs, the sound ringing around them. “Mother’s going to kill
me, though.”
“She wouldn’t be too upset, would she?”
“If Miss Pine not only doesn’t marry Mr. Sholle, leaving Mr. Dean available for me, but I also forsake him to . . . what, run away and live in some city boardinghouse with another woman?”
“Oh, please, I’d put you up in a hovel, don’t be dramatic,” Christopher says, and Rosalie can’t help but laugh. “Mr. Sholle
is a poor prize for the funny, bright, engaging Miss Pine, even putting you aside.”
“We’re putting me aside?” she asks, affronted.
“I’m just saying, you couldn’t have given the poor girl even a chance at happiness? Mr. Sholle is so—”
“Perfectly adequate?” Rosalie supplies.
“Yes! Should she be consigned to a life of matrimony, Miss Pine deserves someone far more interesting. As do you.”
“Are you perhaps a little sweet on Miss Pine too?” Rosalie finds herself asking.
She wouldn’t blame him. How could anyone not be?
“Are you admitting you’re sweet on her?” Christopher returns gleefully.
“I— We are talking about you and your hypothetical crush now, not me.”
Christopher narrows his eyes and Rosalie endeavors to stare back menacingly. Which is so much more difficult now that he’s
gone and gotten even taller than he was just last year, while she stays annoyingly petite.
“I would never pursue a lady who interests you,” he says seriously. “Unless you needed me to for appropriate cover, of course.”
Rosalie blinks, punched in the gut by his sincerity and kindness. She can do nothing more than lean up to kiss his cheek.
“I just want you to be happy,” he says with a little shrug, cheeks pinking.
She loves him so dearly.
“And I would love to foil Mother’s plans. It sounds like the best way to spend the spring. Miss Pine and Mr. Sholle? It’s almost as absurd as you spending forever with Mr. Dean.”
“Don’t start,” Rosalie says, her affection dimming. “You’re meant to be going to London with Father next week.”
Christopher’s been against Mr. Dean since the beginning. For not . . . insubstantial reasons. But she can only deal with one
heavy courting issue today.
“What’s one more year at home?” Christopher says dismissively. “Surely we can at least architect more group outings so that you and Miss Pine may spend more time together; determine if she’s really worth risking
all of Mother’s machinations.”
And Rosalie’s heart. But that feels too vulnerable, even for this supportive conversation.
“When do you imagine I’d get the chance to ask Miss Pine if she shares my unnatural inclination with Mr. Sholle and Mr. Dean
always about?” Rosalie asks.
“It is not unnatural,” Christopher says, sharp and fast. Rosalie blinks. She didn’t mean— “You are not unnatural. I don’t
ever want to hear you say that again.”
“I—”
“That the world doesn’t accept two women in love is a travesty. You are a wonder, you deserve far more than horrid Mr. Dean,
and I won’t hear a bad word about you, all right?” he insists, his face hard all of a sudden.
Rosalie stares at her not-so-little brother. “Cambridge has made you much more assertive.”
His lips twitch. “Promise me.”
“I promise,” Rosalie says, reaching out to take his hand for a brief squeeze before letting go. “I really didn’t mean anything
by it. It’s simply how it’s discussed.”
“Then we’ll find better words,” he says firmly. “Together. Oh!”
“What?” she asks, reluctant to continue. It makes her insides twist, to try to think about the way the world might react to
her wanting to take Miss Pine publicly in her arms.
“What if I pretended to court Miss Pine? Then you could be our chaperone, and I could just . . . conveniently sod off.”
That’s brilliant, but . . . “What about Amalie?” Rosalie finds herself asking.
Christopher hesitates for just a moment too long and Rosalie sighs. She can’t let him jeopardize whatever this burgeoning
thing is with Amalie. Christopher will be an excellent husband, and Amalie deserves an excellent husband.
But, then again, if Christopher looks like he’s interested in Miss Pine . . . maybe that would light more of a fire underneath