Chapter Ten
Samuel tried to speak, but there were so few gaps in the barrage of words being spoken at him over the dining table, he was astonished Rose was still drawing breath.
“—and then Lilianna and I went to her modiste, and what a beautiful set of fabrics that woman has! I was delighted to see that sage green was back in fashion, for it suits me so well, and so I ordered three ballgowns and three day dresses—”
Samuel took a bite of the admittedly delicious partridge, and wondered just how many gowns a woman needed.
Clearly more than six.
“—and your cousin Lucy suggested I buy a fan to match each gown, and it was a rather delightful idea that I had no issue with,” Rose said with a wink, pausing only for a moment to take a sip of her wine.
“I spoke to the solicitor—”
“And then we met two of your other cousins at Don Saltero’s Chelsea Coffee House, Evelyn and Gwendolyn, and most charming they are too.
I had invited your sister Frank, but apparently she was too busy redesigning the world.
At least,” Rose said with a laugh, “I think that is what she said. And then your mother called on me…”
Most of London Society had called on her, by the sounds of it.
Samuel had been out most of the day, meeting with the London branch of the solicitors whom Great-Aunt Tessie had granted permission to distribute funds, and distribute they had.
Samuel had never seen such a look on his bank manager’s face.
“—and Benjamin called and left a card—”
“You stay away from my brother,” Samuel said warningly, just about managing to get his words in before his wife continued.
“—and he and I will be attending the opera tomorrow and you are more than welcome to join us.” Rose’s smile did not falter, precisely, but it did not grow. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
It was difficult to look at her any other way.
Oh, Samuel had known she was pretty. There was a reason Miss Rosemary Morgan, as she had been then, had caught his eye as he’d stridden through Brighton’s streets, beyond the fact that he had knocked her to the ground. She had been pretty.
She was now magnificent. Even with his newfound riches, with the simultaneous hiring of a valet for himself, the addition of a lady’s maid to his household had seemed an awful expense, until Samuel had seen just what impressive hairstyles the woman could create with Rose’s luscious golden hair.
The visits to the modiste had gained his wife two gowns immediately, her measurements—and here he had to swallow—apparently being close to the ideal, and the way the green silk she was wearing tonight skimmed down to her décolletage…
Samuel cleared his throat. “I’m not looking at you any particular way.”
“Yes, you are. You’ve been looking at me strangely since I came down for dinner,” Rose said, irritatingly accurately. “Like… Like there’s something on my face.”
There was something on her face, and it was beauty. Samuel had never realized just how intoxicating it was to listen to a woman speak, but the way Rose laughed and pouted with those red-tinted lips as her brilliant eyes sparkled in the candlelight…
Well, it was a good thing he had striven for decorum and seated the two of them at opposite ends of the long dining table. There was no possibility at this distance that he could reach out and take Rose’s hand in his and whisper sweet nothings into her ear.
Not that he would have done that. Obviously.
This is all an act, Samuel reminded himself sternly. She’s acting like this because she is acting. It’s all a farce!
Though why she was bothering to act the noble lady excited over a day of shopping when it was just the two of them, he had no idea.
“I’m just looking at you,” Samuel said as jovially as he could manage.
It did not sound jovial. It sounded false, and awkward, and that was because that was exactly what it was.
“Well,” Rose said lightly, placing her cutlery down on her empty plate, “I will say that there are some advantages to being the Marchioness of Aylesbury.”
Samuel could not help but smile at that. “Just some?”
“Oh, I like the way that people simper at me and stroke my ego,” said the irrepressible Rose. “I like being able to buy pretty things and I like your sisters. All your family, in fact. I have yet to meet an unpleasant member.”
“Lilianna is a force, to be sure. And Frank has her moments,” Samuel said dryly, recalling the time his younger sister had pelted ball bearings at a gentleman caller for daring to speak to her.
“I am sure she does. Everyone does, in their way, but your family… Well, they are some of the nicest people I have ever met,” Rose said lightly. “I shall miss them.”
And there it was: the ever-present reminder that this, none of this, was going to last. That it was all going to be over and done with within a year. That whatever they were building here was all false, the walls of which would soon tumble down.
It had been his plan. He could not expect a stranger—a woman with a career, no less, no matter how poorly it had been going—to commit to a lifetime with him. Samuel had known this was going to happen…and yet somehow it pained him.
Foolish idea.
“Perhaps it would not be such a good idea to befriend them,” Samuel said quietly, glancing at the footman, who immediately began to clear the empty plates away. “If you are not to be a part of their lives this time next year.”
“Oh, quite to the contrary,” said his wife without a hint of embarrassment. “If I only have a twelvemonth to enjoy their company, I will do so at every opportunity. Oh, ices!”
Her eyes lit up at the arrival of dessert, and Samuel stifled the instinct to grin.
“I remembered how much you enjoyed them at Brighton,” he said quietly.
Rose looked up with pure delight in her face and his pulse skipped a beat. “You remembered?”
I remember everything about you, Samuel did not say. What he did say was, “It’s only an ice.”
“When one has lived in the boiling heats of Italy, one realizes just how rarified and delicious an ice is,” Rose said with her eyes shut, lifting a heavily laden spoon to her mouth.
Samuel knew it was inappropriate, knew he should not do it.
But all that knowledge did not prevent him from watching eagerly as the spoon neared Rose’s plump, wet lips.
They parted slowly, decadently, and he was forced to cross his legs under the table.
In went the spoon and together came her lips, and the soft moan of delight was enough to stiffen a monk.
And he was no monk.
“It’s just an ice,” Samuel repeated, his voice half-strangled.
Rose did not immediately reply, for she was too busy devouring the mouthful of strawberry ice. When she finally swallowed and opened her eyes, Samuel was a little surprised that the chair beneath him had not combusted.
“It’s delicious, that’s what it is,” she said in a low, almost husky voice.
Quick, think of something else. Anything else. Anything! “You lived in Italy?”
For some reason, his innocent question wiped the gleeful expression from Rose’s face. “And?”
“And… And what is it like? I only visited Rome on my Grand Tour,” Samuel said, wishing to goodness she could be done swiftly with the ice so he could then apply some to his groin. “Did you travel much?”
She was staring as though looking for the catch in a trap. “Travel?”
“In Italy.”
There is so much about her I do not know, Samuel could not help but think as he watched her carefully consider what to say—and eat three more lavish mouthfuls of her ice. So much he wanted to know.
And yet what good would that do him? As per the terms of their agreement, Rose would no longer be a part of his life in just under twelve months. She would be gone, never to be seen again.
So why did he want to know so much about her now, knowing he was to lose her?
“I… I traveled in Italy,” Rose said eventually, as though she were admitting to state secrets.
Samuel leaned back, his own ice forgotten. “Why did you leave England?”
His wife’s eyes narrowed, as though he had asked her a very personal question. “Why do you want to know?”
He shrugged, far more nonchalantly than he actually felt. “We are to live together all year. We may as well know something about one another.”
“You know everything about me of import,” Rose said, her cheeks pink now, as though he had expected a great deal from her. “There is nothing else to know.”
Her spoon scraped the bottom of her bowl, and the way her shoulders sagged at the sight of a finished dessert had Samuel do something idiotic.
“Here—take mine.” Before he knew what he was doing, he had risen from his chair—stiff manhood thankfully behaving, finally—and stepped around the table to offer his wife his own ice.
Rose looked up with a slight frown. “Are… Are you sure?”
“‘Sure’?”
“You don’t mind going without?”
Samuel was not sure what made him do it. He certainly had not intended to drop down into the seat beside her and take her free hand in his and caress her fingers as he said, “You have gone without before, haven’t you?”
Rose snatched away her hand as though she had been burned. “No.”
Her answer was far too quick. “There’s no shame in it.”
“I do not recall any clauses in our bargain that required you to know everything about me, Samuel Chance,” she snapped, her focus fixed upon the end of the table where he had, but moments ago, been seated.
Samuel swallowed, discomfort twisting in his stomach that had nothing to do with what he had been eating.
“I… I just thought—”
“No, you wondered,” Rose threw back at him. “You wondered, you enquired, you asked! You want to know all about me, but you’ve hardly told me a thing about yourself!”
Samuel blinked. “But—But you’ve met my whole family!”
Not that he had wished for such a thing to occur, to be sure, but now that it had occurred, he was not entirely against it. What more was there to share, once a woman had met his parents, siblings, uncles, aunts, and cousins? What secrets were there left?