Chapter 9 #3
His eyes were trained on her face. Her mouth? Not my mouth, surely, she thought. Not again. But being this close to him, she could not help dropping her gaze to his lips too, remembering what it had felt like to kiss him and be kissed—the way he had tasted and the way she had melted in his arms.
“I will ask nothing more of you than a few months, long enough to see my aunt through the Season and to settle whatever you wish for yourself. I will take her to France. We will stay there for a time. She is happy when she travels.
Perhaps your parents will come along as a consolation prize to me, the jilted lover.
Because once the arrangement has served its full purpose, you may quietly withdraw from the arrangement and marry in earnest. I imagine you will make a very contented and conformable wife, once all this sordid business is behind you and you can shirk your role as a woman who wants me. ”
Rosalie started. She had not thought at length about how this would end.
She had thought only of her strange new hunger to be looked at.
But yes, this arrangement had a purpose beyond itself, and that purpose was to secure her a husband, who was waiting patiently at the far end of it, like a reward she was meant to be racing toward.
She parted her lips to correct him. I do want you.
I do not love Mr. Sinclair. I have never claimed to.
The whole foundation of what you believe about me is a lie I told to protect someone else.
The words rose as far as her throat before guilt closed around them and held them there.
If she told him the truth now, with his hand still warm around hers, she did not know if the offer would still stand.
“Your Grace—” she began.
Just as the library door creaked open.
“Ah...” Mr. Sinclair said, waiting in the doorway, barely discernible against the light from the hall. His gaze moved between them. “I... Well, I was told I might find the two of you somewhere nearby, but I did not think...”
The duke released her hand at once. She stepped back so quickly she almost hit the bookshelf. Her body tingled with embarrassment. The duke inclined his head toward Mr. Sinclair with an ease that gave nothing away, smiling that devilish persuasive smile.
“I suppose dinner is about to be called,” he said.
“Were you lost, Your Grace?” Mr. Sinclair asked, stepping into the dark room and staring at Rosalie.
“No, not lost. We were only delayed by a conversation I found I could not cut short. Miss Winthrop and I were discussing a book she particularly enjoys.” He picked up the first book he could find and marched over to Mr. Sinclair, giving it to him.
“But perhaps it is better suited to your tastes. I will go ahead of you and find Baron Winthrop before dinner. There is a matter I must raise with him tonight if he can spare me a moment.”
The Duke of Hartmere was gone before Rosalie could say a word. They were alone now and waiting. Mr. Sinclair stood motionless, staring down at the cover of the book he had been handed, visibly wondering what he had just interrupted. She had no idea how she intended to answer him.
“King Lear. My late wife enjoyed Shakespeare greatly.”
“Mr. Sinclair, that was not as it seemed,” Rosalie said. The lies were coming so easily now it scared her. “We truly were only talking.”
“Alone.”
“Yes, alone. But... it was innocent. We lost track of time. The door closed accidentally… I did not know you were coming tonight.”
“Would that knowledge have changed this scene in the slightest?”
His words cut through her like a hot knife. She flinched involuntarily, tears smarting behind her eyes. She willed them to go away and approached him.
To her surprise, he held out his arm to her. She looked down at his gloved hand. She felt compelled to join her arm with his. He set down the book.
“Miss Winthrop, if you would return with me...” He paused before they reached the door. “It is not in my nature to press you on anything you do not care to share. But I hope you know you may speak honestly with me, whatever the matter is. I am not so easily rattled as I may appear.”
He was so decent, it hurt her. He would make a good husband, if he didn’t hate her by the end of all this trouble.
And yet, she could see the uncertainty in his eyes—the duty he carried with him always.
She was not mistaken about that. He did not love her yet and would abandon her if another woman came along.
Maybe that would be for the best. No. She needed him.
Or else... It was not worth thinking about tonight.
“I know I can,” she said. “And I am grateful for it more than I can properly say, and grateful too that you are as gentle and kind as you are, Mr. Sinclair.”
He smiled a little sadly. “Then let us go to dinner,” he said.
They walked back toward the drawing room together. Rosalie was aware that, beyond the door, her father was likely deep in conversation with the Duke of Hartmere. And whatever was said between them tonight would set something in motion she no longer had the power to stop.
But she had not thought, until this very moment on Mr. Sinclair’s arm, how many people she might have to deceive to get what came naturally to most women—a life of her own.