Chapter 16
Sixteen
Maybe because of that feeling, or maybe because of the heavy rainfall that night, Rosalie could not fall asleep.
The cause of her insomnia was nothing so dramatic as heartache, she told herself, curled at the foot of her bed in her room, with a candle burning low and a novel she had already read twice propped open on her knees.
By midnight she had abandoned the pretense of reading and gone down to the library instead, in search of something with fewer feelings than the book she had brought. The house was deathly quiet. She had just pulled a promising volume from the shelf when the door opened.
Rosalie dropped the book and gasped. It took a second to recognize James Edgeworth, the Marquess of Beaumont, looking equally surprised to find the room occupied. He was still dressed in his riding clothes, but Rosalie was in her night clothes and gown.
“Miss Winthrop?” He glanced at the book on the floor, then at the state of her. He had the good manners not to remark on either. “I thought I heard someone but suspected a footman. I only came for something to read...”
“The fault is mine,” Rosalie said, bending to pick over the book, aptly concealing her mortified blush. “I assumed that everyone else had gone to bed—especially the gentlemen.”
“After our riding expedition, you mean? We should have gone to bed, I agree.” He smiled and crossed the room, casting shadows in the fire as he walked.
His hair was mussed, stubble growing on his face.
He was an attractive gentleman, and very polite.
But unlike Gabriel, he maintained a cold distance from others.
“Unfortunately, His Grace and I have been drinking rather seriously downstairs. I came to find a book... to prove myself in an argument we were having.”
Rosalie nodded, returning her selected book to the shelf and letting her fingers linger on the wood. “What are you arguing about?”
“Nothing of consequence, which is to say the usual. Something about a breed of bird we saw yesterday evening. He says skylark, and I say...” He selected a book and did not look at its spine. “Never mind. You are up rather late yourself, Miss Winthrop.”
“The rain kept me awake. And I always have such trouble sleeping in houses that are unfamiliar to me. It is why I am a terrible traveling companion. When we were in Italy, Lady Chipping and I spent many sleepless nights reading and talking, the intercourse often lasting hours about topics ranging from the lightest to the most onerous...” She cleared her throat, embarrassed.
“Forgive me. A lack of sleep always makes me ramble.”
Lord Beaumont smiled at that revelation, turning to examine a shelf closer to hers.
She watched his profile in the firelight, surprised by how natural it felt to be around him.
She wondered whether that was a product of his love for Tiffany; he loved her so much, and it was so evident to everyone, that he had stopped eliciting fear and excitement in other women.
“You and Gabriel are alike in that,” he said, reaching to examine the spines of a row of large leatherbound books. “Unfortunately, Gabriel does not sleep well as a rule.”
“Not even here?”
“No. Perhaps a little better.” He dropped his arm and turned to her. “You have sensed he is different here? You have not had the chance yet to spend much time with him.”
“His aunt mentioned I might notice a difference in him when I arrived.”
“And yet, I suspect you would have noticed it, even if she had not said anything.” The marquess crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against the bookshelf.
“He is always different here. Wide River was his mother’s favorite of all the houses.
He spent most of his childhood summers running about these grounds before everything happened...
his brother, his father... I was often here too. ”
“I had not known your friendship went back so many years,” she said with a quiet gasp.
“Longer yet. I am older than him by six years. Gabriel was not my first friend.” He smiled in the darkness.
“It was his brother, Marcus. We were thick as thieves in our childhoods. He was the other half of my soul. Children are that way when they are young, constructing their whole selves by leaning on another.”
“Heavens...” Rosalie placed a hand on her chest, where a dull ache had formed. “I am so sorry for your loss, my lord. I had no idea.”
“That does not surprise me. Gabriel is an apt and avid conversationalist, especially when he’s tired, like we said, but he does not often talk about the past.” James crouched to pick a book from a lower shelf, then rose.
“But he is like a brother to me now. I love him like a brother. I would not see any harm done to him.”
Rosalie froze, unsure whether he had intended the words as a general warning or one specifically for her.
He turned the book over in his hands. “But with you, I doubt it will come to that,” he said.
“You may make of that whatever you like. To put it candidly to you... I do not have the necessary facts to say anything more precise... And I have drunk too much wine to conduct a proper interrogation on you now, not that I would dare, even if I were sober.”
She felt it was appropriate to laugh, and it eased some of her anxiety. The marquess seemed pleased by her reaction and provided her with another genteel smile.
He bid her goodnight as he left, leaving the door open wider than it had been when he had arrived.
She followed not long after with a candle in one hand and a new book in the other. Heading up the wide staircase and along the gallery corridor toward her own room, she stopped halfway down.
Gabriel stood there in the dark, in his shirt sleeves, his cravat loosened, and his hair disordered, like he had been running his hands through it.
But what is he doing here? Rosalie thought, pausing at the end of the corridor, unnoticed. On the way to my room?
She took another step forward and was betrayed by the sound of the floorboards creaking beneath her. Cursing old houses, she stopped in her tracks as Gabriel turned. His face flashed with surprise, perhaps horror, and then with relief.
“It’s only you,” he whispered, laughing quietly. “I thought it was a ghost. What are you doing, Miss Winthrop, wandering my house at all hours? Should we have locked up our valuables?” He came closer. “What is that under your arm?”
“A book,” she said, equally as quiet as he had been. She shot a careful look at the doors on either side of the hall, unable to remember who had been assigned which room. “I found I could not sleep.”
He observed her for a moment, his head tilted to the side. His eyes were heavy with either sleep or the drink Lord Beaumont had said they had imbibed.
Then, he grinned. “I know perfectly well what you were doing. My friend the marquess told me he had spied you before he went off to bed himself. I do hope he was proper with you.”
Rosalie’s eyes widened. “Entirely proper,” she protested. “He would not... I would never...”
“Hush now,” he told her, shaking his head. “It is more of my teasing. I do like to tease you sometimes, don’t I?”
“I do not like it when you do,” she said, half-sincerely. “I must retire to my room.” She moved past him, her heart racing so hard she was certain he could hear it, and she paused in front of her door. “Are you not retiring?”
“I might,” he said, leaning himself against the wall, “now that I know you did not trip up the stairs and break your neck in a tumble.”
“Sadly, I have no such confidence that you will make your way to your chamber in one piece.”
“Have faith in me. It is not far from yours.” His smile was disarming, and Rosalie hated the effect it had on her. “I could navigate this house blind, anyway. Though I will not stop you if you wish to escort me, Ros.”
“Ros?” No one had ever called her that. Why was he coming up with nicknames for her now?
“Do you not like that either?”
“I am so used to Rosie.”
“I like Ros for you. And what about the house? How do you like it? I am sorry I was so far away from you when you arrived.”
“I...” She looked at him, her throat closing in on itself as he came closer again, refusing to maintain an appropriate amount of space between them.
Her body felt cold and exposed beneath her nightclothes; her hair, worn loose, was like chainmail over her shoulders.
“It is the loveliest house I have ever seen. Fourteenth century, so lovely... built under Henry VI...”
“My little historian, my favorite scholar. Would that you had been my tutor instead of that old bore Mr. Crawley.” If he had not been so deep in his cups, she could have mistaken the look in his eyes for one of admiration rather than inebriation.
“He used to teach me here, you know? I was worried you would find the house cold. It has not always felt warm to me... but it is warmer now.”
He reached out and touched her arm. The gesture was so light, just above the wrist, his fingers warm through the thin fabric of her sleeve. For a moment neither of them moved, the candle between them casting their shadows long against the wall.
Was it true what her mother had said, that he was much more tragic than he pretended to be?
Or did Rosalie want to see him as a tragic hero to explain the ache behind her breast every time he was nearby?
To think of him as someone uncomplicated and vulnerable, and not just someone who was playing with her for his own vain amusement?
His fingers pressed deeper into the flesh of her arm, leaving dents where his skin connected with hers. A shiver ran down Rosalie’s back. She wanted to lean into his touch, to throw the book on the ground and kiss him again, like they had kissed the first time they had met.