Chapter 4
The following morning dawned bright enough to make the previous day's rain seem almost imaginary.
Hyde Park had already begun to fill with riders, fashionable carriages, and ladies strolling the broad gravel paths beneath fresh green leaves still jeweled with droplets of water. The air smelled faintly of damp earth and early roses.
Rosalind noticed none of it.
Her attention remained fixed upon every approaching carriage.
Beside her, Isabella linked her arm through hers. “You are staring.”
“I am watching.”
“You have been watching the same corner of the park for nearly five minutes.”
Rosalind offered no reply.
She knew precisely when William arrived.
Not because she saw him first.
Because Gabriel Frost's laugh carried across the path a heartbeat before either gentleman came into view.
They could scarcely have been more different.
William was tall and athletic, with fair hair that never seemed inclined to remain orderly.
Even now, a breeze had coaxed a single lock across his forehead, lending him a boyishness entirely at odds with the gravity of why they had come.
His bright blue eyes settled on her almost immediately.
Rosalind looked away before he could mistake the moment for welcome.
Beside him, Gabriel wore his dark hair with meticulous care, his handsome features perpetually touched by the look of a man on the verge of sharing an excellent joke.
William drew people in with effortless sincerity.
Gabriel did so by making them wonder what amused him.
Both gentlemen bowed.
“Lady Rosalind.”
“Miss Hartwell.”
Rosalind inclined her head. “Lord William. Mr. Frost.”
For a moment, no one spoke.
William was the first to break the silence. “I received something yesterday evening that I believe you ought to see.”
He withdrew a folded letter from inside his coat and held it out to her.
Rosalind accepted it with growing apprehension. It bore the seal of Harding & Sons Auctioneers.
As she read, a knot formed in her stomach.
The letter confirmed her father's appointment at Tattersall's in three days' time to inspect a bay stallion he had expressed considerable interest in. At his request, the horse had been held pending their meeting.
She lowered the page, only to lift it again a moment later.
Her father had spoken of little else for nearly a fortnight. She could still hear him praising the stallion's bloodlines one moment and grumbling the next that no horse dealer had ever entered a negotiation intending to ask a fair price.
Her grip tightened around the page. “He could have changed his mind. Or simply decided not to go.”
William inclined his head, conceding the point. “He could have.”
Rosalind searched his face. “Yet you do not believe he did.”
“No,” he replied quietly. “I do not.”
His expression held nothing of triumph, only quiet conviction. Irritatingly, it made him even more difficult to doubt.
She lowered her eyes to the letter once more.
She wanted to dismiss it, to convince herself it was nothing more than an ordinary piece of correspondence that had survived by chance.
Yet the words refused to lose their weight.
Her father had not only spoken of purchasing the horse.
He had arranged to inspect it, asked that it be held for him, and every indication suggested he fully expected to be there.
Slowly, she folded the letter along its original crease before handing it back. “I still intend to continue my own inquiries.”
“I would expect nothing less.”
“And I do not intend to sit quietly while everyone decides he abandoned us.”
“You shouldn't.”
She hesitated before asking the question that had lingered in her mind since yesterday. “You mean to continue looking as well?”
“I do.”
“Why?”
His answer came without the slightest hesitation. “Because your father deserves to be found.”
Something eased inside her. It was not quite trust, nor anything so substantial, but perhaps the smallest beginning of it.
She no longer felt as though she carried the burden alone.
Lord William Sinclair had chosen to shoulder it beside her, and whatever his reasons, she found herself quietly grateful.
“Then I shall inform you if I discover anything.”
“As shall I.”
The understanding settled between them more naturally than either of them seemed to expect.
After a moment, Rosalind turned her gaze toward the Serpentine, watching a pair of swans drift silently across the water. “It may not matter,” she said at last.
William looked at her. “What may not?”
“Finding the truth.” She drew a slow breath. “Society has already reached its conclusion.”
She told him about the British Institution. About the withdrawn invitation, and the carefully worded note that had managed to wound far more deeply than an outright insult ever could.
William listened without interrupting, his expression growing steadily more thoughtful as she spoke.
When she finished, William reached into his coat once more. “I had hoped you might say that.”
He withdrew a second envelope and offered it to her.
Rosalind accepted it with a puzzled frown. The seal belonged to the British Institution.
She broke it open.
Inside lay an engraved invitation to that evening’s private viewing.
Her eyes widened as she looked back at William. “This...”
“One of my brother’s guests invitations,” he explained. “As one of the Institution’s principal patrons, he receives several each Season.”
She looked down at the card once more. “But our names…”
“Will be waiting for you at the entrance,” William assured her. “My brother will see to it himself.”
Rosalind stared at the invitation for another moment before looking back at him. “The invitation has been restored.”
“My brother agreed there was no reason to prevent your attendance.” A faint smile touched William’s lips. “My mother thought the original decision had been quite unjust.”
Rosalind lowered her gaze to the letter.
The explanation was perfectly reasonable, though it also omitted one rather obvious detail.
Algernon Sinclair had scarcely acknowledged her existence when they were children. He had tolerated her because William insisted upon dragging her into whatever adventure they had devised that day, but she could not remember him ever seeking her company of his own accord.
William had always been different.
She knew exactly whose idea this had been.
He had carried her concerns to his family, persuaded them to intervene, and then presented the restored invitation as though he had merely happened to be passing when the matter was resolved.
She looked up again. “Thank you.”
His expression barely altered. “It was the proper thing to do.”
“It was also your doing.”
For the first time since they had met outside the club, something flickered across his face. Surprise, perhaps. Or the faint discomfort of a man whose efforts had been discovered when he had not expected them to be.
“My brother possesses rather more influence than I.”
“That was not what I said.”
A corner of his mouth threatened to lift before discipline reclaimed it. “No,” he admitted. “It was not.”
Rosalind held his gaze for another moment.
Yesterday she had questioned his motives. Today she remembered the boy who had never hesitated to stand beside her.
She had almost forgotten how easy it was to trust him.
It seemed she had not been mistaken after all.
“I shall thank His Grace when next I see him,” she said. “But I wished to thank the correct gentleman first.”
A flicker of warmth crossed his features before the familiar composure settled over them once more.
It was the sort of expression she would never have noticed had she not known him for so long.
He inclined his head. “You are welcome.”
A burst of laughter carried across the path, drawing Rosalind's attention away from the letter.
Several paces distant, Gabriel and Isabella had drifted toward a nearby bench beneath an elm, where Gabriel appeared to be explaining something with an enthusiasm entirely disproportionate to the subject.
“I maintain,” he declared with complete seriousness, “that geese are among the most vindictive creatures in England.”
Isabella regarded him for a long moment. “Geese?”
“Without question.”
“And how have you arrived at this conclusion?”
“Experience,” Gabriel replied gravely. “I have been chased on no fewer than three occasions.”
Isabella's lips twitched despite herself. “Has it occurred to you that the common denominator in those encounters may not have been the geese?”
Gabriel pressed a hand dramatically to his chest. “Miss Hartwell, I fear you have wounded me.”
She merely shook her head, though the smile she tried to suppress betrayed her entirely.
Rosalind found herself smiling as well.
Beside her, William followed her gaze. “My apologies,” he said.
She glanced at him in amusement. “For what?”
“Mr. Frost has never believed a stranger should remain one for very long.”
“I rather think Miss Hartwell is proving equal to the challenge.”
“I rather think she is.”
Their eyes met across the short distance between them.
Once, there had been a time when neither of them would have thought anything of standing this close, of speaking this easily. She could not remember precisely when that familiarity had disappeared, only that somewhere between childhood summers and London Seasons it had quietly slipped away.
Strange how easily it threatened to return.
Rosalind looked away first.
The silence that settled between them no longer carried yesterday's strain.
They had not found Lord Eastmere, nor had either uncovered more than a single, ordinary piece of evidence.
Yet somewhere between an appointment at Tattersall's and a restored invitation, she had found someone who wanted to find her father as she did.
Though Rosalind still wondered if Lord William’s motives were as pure as her own.
***
They returned briefly to Eastmere House, where her mother received the restored invitation with visible relief.