Chapter Sixteen #2
Did this man even exist? Who had reported on this story? Did they really know more about his wife than he did or was it all a lie?
The force of the many questions pouring through his mind threatened to overwhelm, and all Samuel could do was cling to his newspaper and hope the world would soon stop spinning.
This was…impossible. Outrageous. Terrible.
He lowered the newspaper and looked at his wife.
His wife. That term had never meant more to him now than it did when he realized he could so easily lose her. His wife—but someone else’s wife? Why in God’s name hadn’t she mentioned this before?
All that to-do at the church, the way she had pointed out that the wedding was to be her only one…
Samuel tried to swallow, but his throat was too dry. And all that had been a lie?
“You look pale.” Rose’s voice reached him from a great distance. “Did you read something unpleasant?”
Unpleasant? Yes, it was unpleasant to think that the truth and honesty, the openness they had shared for weeks, was in fact merely a facade.
If it was true. But who would dare make up such a story?
Samuel almost laughed. But then, what should he have expected, given that he was paying a woman, an actress, to temporarily be his wife?
“Or something perhaps suggestively scandalous?” Rose’s voice was teasing now.
When he blinked and the woman before him came into focus, she was still reading her play, but there was a smile on her lips.
Her lips. Her kissable lips.
He would never kiss them again. How could he, now that all trust between them had been broken? Now that he knew he could never believe a word she said?
Desperate hope that it was a misunderstanding rose within Samuel, swiftly following the panic and attempting to dampen it down.
It was a gossip column—they did not always print the truth, and even if there was a kernel of truth in there, perhaps they had the wrong end of the stick. Perhaps she had been engaged once before. Yes, that could be it.
The way he clung to the mere suggestion of a way to explain it all away was worrying in and of itself.
Samuel cleared his throat. “Rose?”
“Hmmm?” She did not look up.
Was he truly going to do this? Was it not better to live in ignorance, never quite knowing, never quite sure, but safe in the fact that he did not know for certain?
Rose looked up and grinned cheekily. “You rascal, I am far too sore to go again. I’ve never been worn out like you wear me out.”
And it was this statement that pushed Samuel over the edge. Had he truly been the only one to love her like that…or was there another husband somewhere who knew just how Rosemary Morgan tasted?
Samuel set the newspaper aside. “Rose, I… I need to ask you something.”
“I told you, I’m too sore to—”
“Not that,” he added hastily, not sure whether he could bear to hear that again. “No, it’s… It’s about your past.”
He was looking for it this time and so he saw the way her shoulders stiffened, how her whole body tensed then relaxed. She gained control of herself swiftly, he had to admit. But for a moment, just a moment, she was terrified.
Rose placed her book down. “My past?”
“There’s…” Samuel tried to inhale, he really did, but it was a challenge. “There is a piece of gossip about you. In the newspaper.”
Swinging her legs back down and facing him directly, Rose swallowed visibly as her breath hitched. “In the newspaper—they know I am an actress?”
“They do. How they know, I cannot tell, but that much I know is true.”
“And it is my name there, in the newspaper?”
Her urgency did not make sense to Samuel, but he nodded.
“Yes. Well, you are described as ‘Lady A’ and a newcomer to Society, so I do not think it will take people long. You are also described…as a newly married lady.” Keep calm, man.
“There is something else about your past in there that is very shocking.”
The color was draining from her face. “I—I should have told you.”
And there it was. Confirmation that he had been right; that was, that he had been wrong to trust his own instincts.
The pain was acute, far sharper than Samuel had predicted.
To know that he was the second—at least, for she was an actress, and actresses had fewer scruples about such things—to know Rose intimately was not what hurt, he was discovering.
No, he was no prude, and he had taken sufficient women to bed to know that technique was sometimes enhanced by practice.
No, it was the fact that she had kept this from him. Such a crucial part of Rose’s life, another marriage, and she had not seen fit to tell him. She had not trusted him.
“Yes,” Samuel said quietly. “You should have.”
“It was just—it was so long ago, and I hated that it defined me even then,” Rose said hastily, her words rushing out of her mouth as though it were a relief to speak them. “And I thought, once you knew… Well, it was exciting, you not knowing. I thought if you knew, you might treat me differently.”
He could not help it. His features softened. “Rose.”
“You saw me as I was and you chose me,” she said with a dry laugh, “and I thought, once you knew that I was nobility—”
Samuel almost fell off his chair. “I beg your pardon?”
Rose stared, her head tilted slightly. “You—You said my past, it was published in the paper.”
“It says you’ve been married before! Not that you are a gentleborn woman—I’m sorry, nobility?”
Tugging a hand through his hair and wondering how he hadn’t lost a great deal of it in the last five minutes, Samuel stared in utter bewilderment.
Rose, a lady. A noblewoman?
It couldn’t be. It wasn’t possible!
And yet…even as he sat here, occurrence after occurrence of Rose effortlessly navigating a complex social situation, dancing at balls, laughing at just the right times…
Dear God, he hadn’t even bothered to tell her how to use a fish knife, and she’d eaten those scallops as though she’d been fresh from the womb and using fifteen different forks.
As though she were born to it.
Dear God.
“You didn’t—it doesn’t say anything about my father, the Marquess of Dalton?” whispered Rose.
It was a good thing Samuel was seated, for his legs most certainly would have given way under him had he been standing.
Her father. Lord Dalton.
Lord Dalton. Her father.
Her father Lord—
“Look,” Rose said firmly, as though only speaking so she could grasp a hold of the conversation. “My father—”
“Lord Dalton,” croaked Samuel, his stomach twisting.
“Lord Dalton,” she repeated, though her mouth twisted as though his very name were bitter in her mouth.
“Though he was the Earl of Burnell when I left home. I… I missed my grandfather’s funeral just last year.
” She swallowed. “My-My father, he never encouraged my acting. He never wanted me to make a ‘fool of myself and the family name on the stage,’ as he put it.”
“But—But…you said your name was Rose Morgan!” What was the world coming to? That a woman could lie so blatantly, and straight to his face!
Rose’s expression flickered, her breath hitching again. “And it was. It is Rosemary Chance, Marchioness of Aylesbury now, but when I ran away from home, I—I married a man called Luke Morgan. He… He died just weeks after our marriage.” She swallowed, chewing her lip.
Samuel wanted to snap at her, but he felt his chest sting at the signs of his wife in pain. In pain over… the man she’d once loved enough to marry. Without being hired to.
He cleared his throat as she offered no further details. “I’m-I’m sorry for that, but… You mean to tell me you were Lady Rose Morgan, not Miss Morgan all that time? You said—at our wedding, you said you’d never been married before!”
This wasn’t happening. This was absolutely not happening.
He wasn’t the man she loved. He never could be. Could never replace a ghost, a true love gone so soon.
She stiffened. “I said it was the only true wedding I would ever have. Samuel, I eloped. It was not—”
This time, Samuel rose to his feet, unable to take another revelation without standing. “Good God, Rose!”
“It wasn’t a lie—you never asked about—I never said that Morgan was my maiden name!” Rose too had straightened and she was standing mere feet from him now.
Tugging another trembling hand through his hair, Samuel shot back, “You are a Dalton! Damn it, Rose, you’re from a noble house and I have paid you to become my wife!”
“You wouldn’t have listened. You wouldn’t have understood. It was clear to me you’d only consider a noble lady for your forever marchioness, but I didn’t want to be picked for that reason. Can you even begin to understand that?”
“I would have at least appreciated the chance to!” Was anything true anymore? Did he know anything about this woman? “Have you even been to Rome?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” snapped the actress, throwing back her hair, which was coming unpinned in her fury. “Of course I’ve been to Rome!”
“Well, excuse me, but I just discovered that a noble family with only one daughter who ever came out to Society actually has two! And you are one of them!” Samuel had not intended to raise his voice, but the woman was impossible!
He massaged his forehead, scrambling for the details about the Dalton lineage in Debrett’s Guide, as if he could summon a page he’d only ever glanced at to life in his mind’s eye.
He did seem to remember the title was a new one, used by the current marquess’s father, the first man to have the title, until just last year.
“I don’t recall what happened to their other daughter. ”
“My parents lied and said I was ill,” she said softly. “That I was sent to the country with a distant relative and I would never debut in Society. At least, that’s what they threatened to do if I left. It only makes sense, since they can’t exactly scrub me from the family tree.”
“Well, how convenient. How convenient for you all, that no one apparently delved too deeply.” His words were sharp—too sharp—even to his own ear.
“You’re just upset because you wanted to think you had been the first to show me pleasure!”
The barb stung, but not as much as the way Rose’s face had looked when she had said it.
Only hours ago, they’d been in perfect harmony. And now…
“I am upset,” Samuel said slowly, trying to keep his voice level, “because you lied.”
“I did not lie! And you’ve got what you wanted, anyway—you’ve got all the money from Miss Margolotta’s will,” Rose said forebodingly, folding her arms. “That was all you wanted, wasn’t it? I suppose bedding me was just a bonus?”
His shoulders were moving up and down, and only then did Samuel realize that was because he was panting hard.
How could she say such a thing—and to him! How could she accuse him of only being interested in the money, such a miserly thing, indeed!
The fact that it had been almost true until very recently was completely beside the point.
But it wasn’t ever as if he felt he needed the money for himself. He’d had things he’d wanted to do with it—good things. And his mother had warned him the other possible heir would just waste it.
“I can’t hear this,” Samuel found himself saying, heart beating frantically and nausea rising.
She was nobility. He had defiled a noblewoman, not with his body but with his scheme. Dear God, should he have even done it at all, to any woman? Here she was, his wife, and he had only married her to claim a fortune.
What sort of man was he?
“You don’t have to hear it. I didn’t want to tell you in the first place!”
“No, I mean I—I can’t stay here.”
Samuel had stepped across the room before he knew what he was doing, the drive to exit the room and not face the woman he adored and yet clearly did not know overpowering him.
“Samuel!”
He hesitated, one hand on the door. Turning slowly, hoping to goodness he did not lose his nerve by falling to his feet and begging her to forgive him for he knew not what, Samuel looked into Rose’s eyes.
They were filled with tears. They were also filled with defiance.
“I have done nothing wrong,” she said, though her voice wobbled on the last word.
Christ almighty, he could not remain here. “You can stay here,” Samuel said shakily, his voice strangled. “But I can’t… All of this is unknown to me now. You are unknown to me. I… I have to go.”
“Samuel!”
Paying no heed to the cry behind him, Samuel strode forward—out of the drawing room, across the hall, out the front door. He did not stop until his lungs were screaming and his feet ached.
It was dark. He had been gone hours. He was unsure where he was.
And he still had no idea what to do.