Chapter Nineteen #2
Rose. Just hearing her name from his lips was intoxicating. Dear God, she was utterly in the man’s thrall. Did he have any idea what he did to her?
No. No, he did not.
And that, Rose thought firmly, is precisely how it’s going to stay. The absolute last thing she needed was for her own husband to realize just how in love with him she was! That would never do.
The very idea!
“I am, you know.”
Her attention snapped back to him. “Are what?”
“Sorry.” Samuel even looked sorry, a furrow in his brow and a worry in his eyes that suggested true repentance. At least, repentance of a kind.
Lungs were supposed to breathe air, weren’t they? Rose forced hers to get back to work, and the additional oxygen to her brain was most welcome. She had almost forgotten to breathe from the moment the blaggard had turned up again at his own home.
“Ah, my lord.” Smiling, Arden appeared from nowhere. “I am glad you have returned from your travels. There are a number of items I wish to draw to your atten—”
“Not now!”
Rose flushed as she realized her yell had not only been intensively rude, but had also been echoed by her husband.
By Samuel. By the Marquess of Aylesbury. Blast it all to hell.
“Not now, Arden,” Samuel added, by way of apparent apology. “The marchioness and I have a few things we need to discuss.”
Rose scowled at the brute. Oh, so he was going to keep up the pretense, was he? Didn’t want the servants gossiping, did he? So why on earth had he thought it was a prudent idea to just disappear off into the great unknown with not even a forwarding address?
“I quite understand, my lord,” said the butler, not understanding in the least and showing it by his wide eyes and gaze flickering between them. “I shall be in the servants’ hall when you are ready for me.”
The man turned and left, and before Rose could say anything about Scotland and borrowing a coach and Samuel never seeing her again, the blasted husband she was lumbered with had stepped into the breakfast room and closed the door behind her.
“There,” he said brightly. “Privacy.”
“I don’t know why you bother,” Rose snapped, a stabbing sensation in her gut rising. This was the last conversation she would ever have with the man she loved. “The whole of Society will know soon enough!”
“Yes, I suppose they will. It was inevitable,” Samuel said nonchalantly, stepping around the table and seating himself beside her. “Once the gossip column was published.”
That the man could sit there and pick up a slice of toast—her slice of toast and marmalade from underneath her newspaper!—and eat it as though nothing had happened…
Well, that just proves it, Rose said darkly, desperately trying to repair the wall around her heart as with each second in Samuel’s company, another brick came down. He did not understand at all—and moreover, he did not care.
Samuel munched happily. “Goodness, this marmalade is good.”
Rose launched herself from her seat, unable to stay still for a moment longer. “Is that all you can say—that the marmalade is good?”
Her husband, for the time being, blinked up at her. “Isn’t it, though?”
“Of course it’s good! It’s the best marmalade I have ever tasted,” shot back Rose, blinking away tears. Was she truly about to have this conversation with a precursor about marmalade? “That’s not what’s important!”
“You know, I quite agree. And as you said, the whole of Society will know soon enough. I suppose that means we will have to prepare ourselves for visitors,” Samuel said blithely, finishing off his—her—piece of toast.
Rose stared at the man, unsure for a moment whether or not he was still in full possession of his wits.
‘Visitors’?
She was not about to prepare herself for visitors. She was about to leave, head for Scotland, perhaps, as the most unlikely place she would ever run into someone with a surname of Dalton or Chance, and that was all.
There was no negotiation. No debate. Nothing, absolutely nothing Samuel could say that would persuade her to—
“I am desperately in love with you, you know,” Samuel said quietly, gazing up at her.
Rose’s breath caught.
He was staring like… Well, as though he adored her. No Romeo had ever played it better. No Aramis, or Lysander, or Petruchio.
No, Samuel had outstripped them all and with absolutely no training. It was uncanny.
“You… You cannot mean that,” Rose said, her voice hoarse.
Damn it, her projection had always been so impeccable!
“The fact that you cannot believe yourself to be lovable is just another reason why it is my duty to convince you otherwise,” her husband said quietly. “Rose, I love you—”
“You don’t love me. You don’t even know me!”
“I know that you never played strip chess before you came to this house,” returned Samuel with a calm that would have been galling, if her mind weren’t already distracted by the myriad of other emotions whirling through her.
Rose opened her mouth, hesitated, then closed it again.
Movement, that was what she needed. She needed to move. A scene like this always required using the entire stage.
Striding over to the fireplace and then over to the window, Rose found to her great dismay that the flouncing about had done absolutely nothing to quieten her rapidly beating pulse and had provided absolutely no additional witty remarks.
Blast it all to hell. She usually had a script for this.
But there is, she realized as she glanced over at her irritatingly patient husband, no script for this. No pat words, no filler lines.
This was real life, and if she was not careful, it was going to pass her by. The scene would end and not with a kiss, but with a break.
Was that truly what she wanted?
“And I know you were a Dalton, then a Morgan, and now a Chance,” Samuel continued, as though there had been no pause in his statements. “And…” His voice cracked. “I know I want you to stay a Chance.”
Rose’s lips parted, but what could she say?
“I took a chance on you, an actress who was struggling through no fault of her own, just over a month ago,” Samuel said quietly, rising to his feet. “And I am so glad I did.”
“Samuel,” whispered Rose.
He did not let her continue. “Because you have shown me that the world is full of elation, and—and opportunities to help others.”
“Samuel—”
“And I know I am not good enough for you, I know that, but I am willing to work on myself.” He spoke with a low passion that thrummed in tune with Rose’s very soul, but she could not believe it. She could not believe any of this was happening. “You make me want to be better, Rose.”
“‘Better’?” She had not intended so much disdain to drip from the two syllables, but it was impossible to speak calmly. “You spoke to me so… so…”
“I am upset because you lied—”
There were no words to describe just how he had spoken to her other than cruel, but Rose knew she had deserved it. She had lied to him—kept the truth from him, that was.
“And I know I should have told you—” The trouble was, as she tried to articulate that, Samuel interrupted her once again.
“You owed me none of your past.”
Rose stared, unsure whether she had heard correctly. “I… I beg your pardon?”
And now he was striding over to her, his immense presence startling her to such an extent that she stepped backward, her knees knocking against the window seat.
“I should never have been so cruel to you. I should never have spoken so harshly to you,” Samuel said hurriedly, lifting a hand but pausing as Rose flinched.
Slowly, silently, her husband lowered his hand.
She swallowed. Try as she might, she had been unable to hide it…and this time, he would surely guess.
Her husband’s voice was low and dark, though his anger was quite clearly directed at her. “Was it your father or your previous spouse who hurt you, Rose?”
Rose swallowed. But it was not a betrayal, not really. Not anymore. “My… My husband. Oh, my father is cold and unpleasant and unexpectedly cruel with his words at times, but Luke… He…”
She could not say it.
Samuel swore under his breath. “When you spoke of him dying so soon after your wedding, you looked hurt. I thought it was because he was your true love.”
“No. Never. I regretted marrying him almost as soon as the ceremony was over.” She could speak of it now with calm, as though it had happened to someone else.
“Six weeks after we were wed, and about five weeks after I had realized just what a terrible mistake I had made. A… A bar fight. He started it.”
Her current husband smiled weakly, looking wounded, but not nearly so much as she had expected. “Well, I suppose I’m beating him then on timing. It took you several weeks to regret marrying me.”
“Samuel.” Rose did not need to inject the syllables with wretchedness. It came naturally.
Samuel inhaled slowly. “I am so sorry for what you have suffered—and more, I am so sorry you have suffered from my own words. I should never have spoken to you like that.”
“You should never have married me,” Rose said with an attempt at a laugh.
Her whole body was tingling with the ache of not being touched by him, but it was only as she glanced up and saw the expression on Samuel’s face that her pulse truly skipped a beat.
The downturned mouth as he scrubbed a hand over his face.
He was…devastated.
Samuel Chance, Marquess of Aylesbury, probably the wealthiest man in the whole of Christendom and therefore able to choose—or acquire—any woman he wanted…was pained at the very thought of not being married to her.
Did that mean—was it even possible, in a small way, that he truly did…
“You love me,” exhaled Rose.
“Of course I do,” Samuel said roughly, gazing with such adulation that heat blossomed through her body. “I had hoped, one day that you… That together, we might find some modicum of…”
His voice trailed away as Rose’s heart leapt to her mouth.
He loved her. He really did.
Oh, she had been the recipient of a number of love speeches. Being an actress in one’s youth, it became an occupational habit, though disturbingly less so in the last twelvemonth or so.
Some of the speeches had been grand. Many of them had been made with sweeping arm movements, one of which had almost knocked her off the stage.
But none of them had been like this: heartfelt, and eager, and tinged with fear.
Fear that the love being expressed may not, in fact, be reciprocated.
Rose reached out for him, but Samuel had already stepped back.
“You are not obliged—I would never demand—”
“Samuel,” she said urgently, happiness overwhelming her.
“—and if you choose to forgive me, there are no expectations—”
“Samuel,” Rose attempted to interrupt, a smile lilting her lips as joy, joy the likes of which she had never known, flowed through her.
“—quite understand if you do not want to—”
“Samuel!”
Her husband blinked. “I beg your pardon?”
“I… I love you.”
Rose had never said it before. At least, she had never said it and meant it, understood it, truly known what it was to love and be loved in return. It had always been an obligation, or a mad attempt to escape her father, or a line on a stage penned by another hand.
It had never been like this: true, and simple, and spoken to a person she truly cherished.
Samuel did not appear to believe her. “But I—I said such awful things.”
“And I kept secrets from you, secrets you were entitled to know once I realized I’d fallen in love with you,” Rose said wryly. She caught his hands on hers and she could have moaned aloud for the rapture of finally being connected to him again. “I love you, Samuel.”
“You love me?” His grin was lopsided, his disbelief palpable.
Rose laughed gently as she pulled him toward her, sighing with delight as his arms encapsulated her, hopefully never to be let go. “I love you. Partly against my wishes, and partly because you are the best man I have ever met.”
Now Samuel’s disbelief was obvious, his eyes fluttering rapidly. “You are teasing me.”
“Just a tad.” Rose lifted a hand and caressed the side of his face, marveling at this man who learned as well as loved. “Now, are you going to kiss me or not?”
The kiss was fiery and passionate, eager and desperate, the hunger for each other that had gone unsated for so long propelling them forward.
But it was also sweet, and reverential, and Rose found to her delight that she could be quite happy kissing this man for a very, very long time.
Providing he stopped eating her marmalade toast.
Oh, and there were a few other loose ends to tie up…