Chapter Eleven #2
Amalie, increase her interest in Christopher. A little emotion, a little jealousy, could be just the trick.
“Perhaps if we ensure for every outing you take Miss Pine on, you have two with Amalie?” she suggests.
“Perfect. That’s perfect,” Christopher says, his face splitting in a beaming smile. “Where do you want to go with her first?
Another hike, where I could get lost in the woods? Ooh, or, I could get food poisoning in the market and leave you to fend
for yourselves? No, that could backfire. Let me think—”
“I have missed you,” Rosalie says, smiling as he blinks, looking back at her, so caught up in scheming.
“I’ve missed you too,” he says, reaching out to take her arm again and begin walking out of the park and down the sun-warmed,
broad street toward home. “I can’t wait to graduate and return full time.”
“You won’t miss school?” Rosalie wonders. “Wouldn’t prefer London?”
Christopher shakes his head. “I’m eager to learn to manage the estate,” he says firmly. “I want to do right by our tenants, and our staff, and by you, I hope you know that.”
Rosalie looks up to find him watching her. “I do.”
“If you decide marrying Mr. Boring doesn’t suit you, you can stay with me forever, just so you know.”
Rosalie wraps both hands around his arm and leans into his shoulder. “Don’t call him that. And thank you. That—that means the world,” she says, her voice tight.
Maybe that future he talked about isn’t totally out of reach. The one where they find better words for how she might love
someone.
“Second-class honors?” Father asks, his eyebrows creased as he stares at Christopher later that night at the dinner table.
“For this, you forwent accompanying me to London in the fall?”
Mother looks down at her dinner, picking at her pheasant while Christopher keeps sitting tall, unflinching in the face of
their father’s disapproval.
“I’ll keep trying,” Christopher says, his voice strong, but just the slightest bit raspy.
Second-class honors is jolly good. Rosalie’s sure she wouldn’t do even half so well in the classes Christopher takes. He’ll
make an excellent earl. Does it really—
“This is not what we do.”
Christopher nods and looks down at his plate.
“Perhaps when we get to London, I ought to find you a tutor.”
Christopher glances at Rosalie and she shakes her head. It’ll only make him angrier if Christopher—
“Actually, Father, I should like to stay in Bath for the remainder of the season.”
Father looks up, eyes narrowing.
“I feel I can do more for the family here,” Christopher says firmly.
“Oh?” Father says, leaning back in his seat. “And how is that?”
“I would like to court Miss Pine.”
Mother gasps, her fork falling to the table.
“We just thought that Mr. Sholle’s affections for Miss Pine clearly aren’t making an impression on Mr. Dean,” Rosalie jumps
in quickly. “Perhaps a little more competition might deter him, and Christopher offered to help.” She hopes it comes off casually.
Father considers her, then looks to Christopher, and then over to Mother, who’s red-faced and still spluttering.
“That . . . is not the worst idea I’ve ever heard,” Father says slowly.
Christopher perks up in his seat and Rosalie stares at Father, surprised. That was easier than she expected.
“Why?” Mother adds, her voice strangled.
“Rosalie is right—we don’t want Mr. Dean getting any ideas that Miss Pine might be available,” Father says simply.
“We’ve already been pushing Mr. Sholle as her match. Certainly we don’t need Christopher involved,” Mother argues.
“You must admit, Mother, a man in line to be earl poses much more of a threat to Mr. Dean than a mere baron’s son,” Rosalie
says quickly, the rationale slimy on her tongue.
She’s rather hoping Miss Pine doesn’t care a whit about titles, or gender.
“She has a point,” Father says, glancing at Rosalie approvingly.
In any other situation, she’d be proud to have him on her side, but none of this feels good.
Mother gapes around at all of them. “You can’t be serious.”
“I don’t plan to marry the woman,” Christopher assures her. “But I think protecting Rosalie’s future prospects is a worthy way to spend the rest of the season, and then once we’ve all seen her settled, we can move on to other matters,” he says, looking to Father.
“I suppose there are worse ways for you to spend the spring,” Father says reluctantly.
“Do we actually think Mrs. Pine would ever allow it, or believe it?” Mother asks Father.
“Surely the blood can’t really still be poisoned between the two of you. She’s a wealthy woman with a successful husband and
a married son. Her daughter is lovely,” Father says.
Rosalie wonders whether Father has been paying any attention at all to their goings-on over the last month.
“Bad blood?” Christopher asks, giving Rosalie quite a look.
They had more pressing matters to discuss earlier.
Mother sighs and looks across at Christopher, her face softening. Sure, tell him what happened. Forget that Rosalie’s been asking her for over a month. Mother will always give in to baby Christopher.
“When I was a young woman—”
“You’re still a young woman,” Father cuts in.
Mother rolls her eyes, but it does soften her just a touch. “When I was in my first official season here, Mrs. Pine and I
were friends.”
“The best of friends, actually,” Father says.
“Are you going to let me tell this story?” Mother asks.
Father puts up his hands, leaning back in his chair.
“We were dear friends, and then we started being courted by the same man—a Navy captain. And of course, we promised that we’d
stay friends, whoever won him,” Mother explains.
Rosalie’s stomach clenches. She’d hate to think that all this drama, all the hatred—an entirely lost dear friendship—happened over a man.
“Soon enough, I met your father, and well, you know there was never anyone else for me,” Mother continues, smiling over at
Father, who blows a kiss back in return.
He may often be rather harsh with Christopher, but Rosalie’s never seen him be anything but loving toward their mother. Rosalie
wonders if Mr. Dean would ever be half so affectionate with her. She rather doubts it.
“If you married Father, surely your rivalry with Mrs. Pine couldn’t be the source of so much animosity. She didn’t end up
marrying some Navy captain either,” Christopher interjects.
“No. No, she didn’t,” Mother says slowly.
She has the same look on her face right now as she does whenever she tells Rosalie something for her own good. “Because you
stopped her,” Rosalie says. “You knew better, so you stopped her somehow.”
Mother meets her eyes. “Your father knew things about the Navy captain. Horrible things. I kept hoping Eleanor would simply
fall for Mr. Pine, the far better option, but the captain was . . . persuasive. He left me little choice but to intervene.”
“She’s angry you saved her from a dangerous man?” Christopher wonders.
Rosalie watches the way her mother’s face shifts. She glances back at Father, who’s no longer playful, and is instead looking
down at his plate, frowning.
“You didn’t tell her, did you?” Rosalie asks. “You just chose for her.”
“I made sure that Mr. Pine was her only option,” Mother replies firmly.
“How?”
“Your father encouraged him to propose, and given her situation, it was a swift marriage and they left Bath.”
“What was her situation?” Christopher asks, before Rosalie can suggest something far more accusatory.
“I suggested the captain had taken certain advantages, which scared him off,” Mother says.
There is a long, awful pause.
“You ruined her?” Rosalie asks, aghast.
“Mr. Pine swooped in not two days later. It was hardly ruin. And he’s a wonderful man. Isn’t he, dear?” she asks Father, refusing
to meet Rosalie’s eyes.
“He is indeed. I think if you ask Mrs. Pine and Miss Pine you’ll find them happy with their lot in life.”
“Why didn’t you just tell her?” Rosalie implores. “What if Mr. Pine hadn’t proposed? You could have ruined her life, her family’s
life.”
“I saved her,” Mother says, her voice tight.
“Seems she doesn’t see it that way,” Christopher says archly.
“Yes, well, her finding out it was me was an unfortunate consequence,” Mother says stiffly.
“You couldn’t have written? You couldn’t have explained? She was your friend,” Rosalie says, her chest tight and painful.
Mother is conniving and manipulative, but Rosalie never thought she’d go so far as to ruin a woman, for her own good or not.
“It was for the best.”
Rosalie looks over at her father, who’s now sitting straight in his chair. “Father, it—”
“Is in the past, and there will be no more said about it. Perhaps Christopher courting the daughter will thaw any remaining
ill will.”
“After all these years, doesn’t she deserve to—”
“No,” her parents bark together.
Rosalie and Christopher jump. They never raise their voices.
“You’ll not speak to anyone about this,” Father says firmly.
“But—”
“Do not ever discuss this with anyone,” Father repeats, looking Rosalie dead in the eye.
Rosalie can do nothing more than nod. She doesn’t want to say she’s frightened of the look he gives her, but it’s a close
thing. She’s rarely ever seen him so serious.
There’s something missing from the story. There has to be. Something that would make her mother ruin her best friend instead
of explaining why she couldn’t marry a man. What did the Navy captain do that was so horrible it couldn’t be spoken about?
Or worse, what did her parents do? And what now about Miss Pine?
Rosalie’s been party to another scheme of Mother’s—another planned arrangement—deciding for another Pine woman whom she should
marry. Because she and her mother know best, don’t they? Is Rosalie really going to participate in repeating this cycle? Manipulate Miss Pine until she does what Rosalie
wants?
She needs to get a letter to Miss Pine. Invite her on an outing with Christopher, so they can talk. So they can figure out
how to right the wrong that was done to Mrs. Pine.