Chapter 10 #2
Her face flashed with fury. Before he could apologize, the music started. Rosalie responded by stomping hard but discreetly enough on the toe of his boot. He gritted his teeth and turned from her to begin their dance. A line of couples had formed with shocking speed for a reel.
He held out his hand before she could harm him further.
She took it and let him draw her into the first moves.
It was not, strictly speaking, good dancing.
He had not danced properly in months, and he let Rosalie decide on the nature of the reel.
It took maybe four or five bars for the rest of the couples to follow, laughing at the absurdity of the moment.
The sun came down hard. Within minutes, half the lawn had abandoned its cups to dance on grass that was entirely unsuited to the purpose.
To his surprise, Rosalie was soon laughing. They were dancing with other people by then, and he tried to find her in the crowd. The sounds came out breathless and happy. There was the flash of her bonnet as she struggled to catch it. She was still laughing when she returned to him.
“I didn’t think you could dance,” she said to him as he spun her. “You are surprisingly surefooted.”
“You will never say that to me again.”
“It is a compliment, Your Grace,” she said teasingly.
His anger stood no chance against her smile. “Then I shall compliment you too,” he said, holding her close as their next step demanded. His body coiled pleasantly as her hands fit neatly into his. “Today has proven too well that you know how to draw in guileless men and not let them go.”
The statement evidently landed wrong. Her face flashed with color. “What... You must be deep in your cups indeed.”
“Hardly.”
“I can smell it on you. You are either being uncommonly kind or uncommonly cruel.” She said it as though it had been a joke. He felt it had not been.
He was forced to release her without giving her an answer, sending her off to her next partner. They only reunited many minutes later, when the dance concluded. With the last notes, she stepped back from him, color still fresh in her face. She dipped into a curtsy and left the lawn alone.
Hours later, the party finally entered its late stages.
The staff came out of hiding to begin clearing away the outdoor tents, furniture, and discarded glasses, while the guests circled the manor toward their carriages in sets.
They walked past the windows where Gabriel stood, staring out at the lawn as the temperature dropped indoors and outdoors, and the sun began to set.
He heard from behind him, “Has anyone seen my—oh.” And he looked up from the glass of water he had poured himself, finding Rosalie standing in the doorway of the large, echoing drawing room, looking lost.
“We must stop meeting like this... Seen your what?” he asked, his stomach doing an involuntary flip at her presence.
She clutched her reticule in front of her. “My father.”
“Then no, not for the better part of an hour.” He downed the rest of his glass. “Should I be alarmed on his behalf?”
“No need. My mother wants him for our carriage, and no one seems to know where he has gotten to.” She came a few steps into the room, glancing behind her down the corridor as though her father might bleed out of the wallpaper. “I was told he went to see your gallery with...” She stopped herself.
Gabriel laughed under his breath. “Sinclair?”
She nodded. “They went a while ago, and I said I would fetch him.”
“Well then, by all means, Miss Winthrop. The gallery is at the end of that corridor, past the staircase.” Gabriel turned the glass, watching a pearl of water run along the side. “When you find him, you may tell your father he has excellent taste in galleries—and in men. It is a fine gallery.”
Rosalie lightly shook her head. She had discarded her bonnet, and he privately and fleetingly admired the color of her hair in the bright evening sunlight. “Your opinions never cease to delight me.”
She began to leave.
“Let me walk you as far as the gallery entrance. It will save you getting lost again,” he said before she could protest, dropping his glass and catching up with her.
He fell into step beside her down the corridor, aware of every inch of distance between her shoulder and his.
“You danced a great deal today,” he remarked. “I’m surprised you can walk straight.”
“It was hardly a great deal. I danced only four times, and it was on grass, so it hardly counts. My dress will be ruined. The lace at the hem is beyond saving.”
“Oh, dear. But I would still quantify that as a great deal—especially for a woman who keeps her dance card empty on purpose.”
She glanced at him sideways, then bit her lip. “I only noticed after the fact that my dance card had gone... You retrieved it then?”
“Oh, yes. The next morning at the scene of the crime.” He looked away from her lip, which was flushed with blood. “You had not put your name on it, only The Rose.”
“It was a masquerade ball, Your Grace. Not that my attempts at preserving my anonymity mattered in the end. You discovered my identity soon enough.”
“Do you wish I had not?”
She fell quiet, obviously resolved not to give him an answer. He tried not to care, but he slowed his pace unintentionally as the gallery approached.
“What were you dressed as?”
“The night of the masquerade? A black bird. A crow, a raven. I was not very precise in my orders.”
“It suited you.”
“The rose suited you.”
She laughed.
He slowed as they reached the gallery doors, standing open onto a long beige room lined with paintings and red curtains. Her father and Sinclair were visible near the far end of the hall, deep in conversation in front of a landscape that neither of them appeared to be looking at very closely.
“You elusive father, safe and unharmed.”
“Thank you,” Rosalie said. But she did not move toward the entrance immediately. “Thank you for finding him, and for the dance earlier. My manners escaped me at the time.”
“And then some. You did me bodily harm.”
“How do you know it had not been a simple misstep?”
“I saw the hatred in your gaze before you admitted the killing blow.”
Her smile was mischievous. He had never liked an expression on her more, and he tried to commit it to memory, but he was tired.
“There is no hatred between us, Your Grace.”
Gabriel met her eye and started. He was not sure how to respond.
“Before you try to convince me otherwise, Your Grace, I ought to remind you that we have a musicale to survive tomorrow.”
He cleared his throat. “I have not forgotten, three o’clock. Be ready for me, for I will call on you myself if your mother permits it.”
“How generous of you.”
“That is our arrangement, is it not? For me to be generous and for you to be generous in kind—and nothing more.”
The expression on her face still hadn’t faltered. He had an intense desire to take her in his arms again and to kiss the impish smile away. It would not have been hard. It would have been the easiest thing in the world to succumb to her.
To his horror, she turned then and waved at her father and Mr. Sinclair, who must have noticed them.
“Before I leave,” she said softly, “I wanted to tell you about the roses in your garden. Whoever planted them has been far too severe. They will not bloom properly next season, well, not the old climbers certainly. Someone has cut them back as though they were this year’s growth, and they are not.
That sort of plant requires a good deal of patience. ”
Gabriel tried to think about the roses. He just about knew where they were—and only because Elisabeth had recently been discussing them. “How do you know such a thing?”
“I saw them.” She gestured to the window and the grounds beyond.
“But if you mean how I know what state they are in, I spent my early childhood at my grandfather’s heels in the garden in Cornwall.
Mother and Father were always traveling even then.
I was allowed to help prune them when the weather permitted, while my older sister was busy with etiquette lessons.
And then I suppose, as an adult... Well, I have read some botany books. I would like...”
When she paused, he encouraged her to continue.
“I dreamed of two things for my future house: a large library and a large garden.”
“I would not have thought,” he said softly.
“I dare say there are many things you would not have thought about me, Your Grace.”
With a graceful nod, she disappeared into the gallery to collect her father from Mr. Sinclair. Gabriel waited for her to return, then he accompanied their group outdoors. Once he returned inside, he found the nearest footman, carrying glasses.
“Fetch Morland for me,” he said. “We must re-examine the roses.”