Chapter 16
By the time Rosalind returned home, she was even less certain of everything than she had been when she left.
She sat quietly through the final minutes of the carriage ride, watching familiar streets pass beyond the window while William’s account replayed stubbornly in her mind.
His brother’s childhood. The late duke’s cruelty.
Her father’s unexpected place within the Sinclair family.
Rosalind had always known Edmund and Algernon were close, but she had never imagined how much lay beneath that friendship, or how profoundly her father had shaped the family William remembered.
It should have made her trust Algernon more.
Instead, she could not stop thinking about the gardens.
William believed she had been mistaken, and there were perfectly reasonable grounds for believing him. She had seen the gentleman only briefly from the balcony, after all. The gardens had been dimly lit and crowded with guests, and she had been looking down from a distance.
Yet every time she returned to the memory, she saw the same thing: the familiar breadth of the duke’s shoulders, the turn of his head, and the unmistakable glimpse of his profile before he disappeared among the hedges.
She had recognized Algernon before she had even stopped to wonder what he was doing there.
If she was wrong, then her own certainty could not be trusted. If she was right, Algernon had looked his brother in the face and lied to him.
After everything William had learned that morning, the thought felt particularly cruel.
He had already discovered that his family had concealed the truth from him for most of his life. Rosalind would not give him another reason to question his brother unless she was certain.
By the time the carriage stopped before Carlisle House, the confusion of the morning had settled into a dull ache behind her temples.
She had scarcely removed her bonnet when she remembered her painting lesson with Isabella. For once, the prospect came as a relief.
She desperately wanted to tell her friend everything, but William had trusted her with something painfully private, and whatever suspicions Rosalind might harbor, she would not repay that trust by repeating his family’s secrets.
She was still wondering how much she might safely say when Isabella entered carrying her sketchbook and a small wooden case of paints, her expression stormy enough to make Rosalind’s own troubles temporarily retreat.
“That man is completely mad.”
Rosalind bit back a smile. “What man?”
“Gabriel Frost.”
She deposited the paint box upon the table with more force than necessary.
William had mentioned finding Gabriel lying in the garden, apparently reconsidering his entire existence because of Isabella. Rosalind suspected she was about to learn why.
“He came to the gathering last night.”
“Gabriel did?”
“Yes, and he exposed me.”
Rosalind’s amusement vanished. “What happened?”
Isabella began setting out her brushes as she explained. Gabriel had arrived uninvited, and when someone questioned how he had discovered the gathering, he claimed Miss Hartwell had invited him.
Unfortunately, everyone there knew Isabella only as Miss Bell.
“He announced my identity before half the room,” Isabella finished. “The one place in London where no one cares who my father is, and he made certain they all knew.”
“You think he did it deliberately?”
“Of course. Why else use my real name? Men like Gabriel Frost cannot bear discovering there is somewhere their name and fortune grant them no particular advantage.”
The hurt beneath her anger kept Rosalind from teasing her, though deliberate cruelty was difficult to reconcile with a man who had apparently spent the remainder of his evening lamenting his existence upon William’s lawn.
“Have you considered that he might simply have made a spectacular fool of himself?”
“He is not a fool.”
Rosalind’s brows rose.
“Not entirely,” Isabella amended. “He can be perfectly intelligent when he chooses. He spent nearly twenty minutes discussing a landscape, and he knows considerably more about composition and color than I expected.”
“How unfortunate.”
“What is?”
“Discovering redeeming qualities in a man you despise.”
Isabella ignored her and squeezed paint onto the palette. “Then when I denied knowing him, he looked positively stricken. As though I had somehow wounded him.”
“Perhaps you did.”
“Nonsense. A man with eyes that particular shade of dark brown has no business looking at anyone that way.”
Rosalind paused.
So did Isabella.
“That particular shade of dark brown?”
“Do not.”
“I said nothing.”
“You were about to.”
Rosalind accepted the palette with an innocent smile. “Perhaps you should keep an open mind.”
“I am not interested in Gabriel Frost.”
“Of course not.”
“Not remotely.”
“Then we shall never speak of him again.”
“Good.”
They began the lesson, and Rosalind managed nearly half a minute before curiosity defeated her.
“What particular shade of dark brown?”
Isabella’s brush stopped in midair. “Paint, Rosalind.”
“I am painting.”
“Then kindly continue doing so.”
Rosalind lowered her gaze before Isabella could see her smile.
Usually, painting quieted her mind. Isabella had taught her to notice the smaller details of a subject rather than becoming overwhelmed by the whole: the shape of a shadow, the shift of light across a surface, the subtle difference between one shade and the next.
Today, the lesson proved rather too appropriate.
Her thoughts returned to everything she had learned that morning.
She could picture her father sitting patiently with a frightened Algernon, giving him time to speak without embarrassment and returning again and again until the boy began to find his confidence. It was painfully easy to imagine because it was precisely the sort of thing Papa would have done.
Which made Algernon’s behavior all the more difficult to understand.
If he owed her father so much, surely he would want him found.
Yet Rosalind could not forget the figure disappearing into the gardens.
He is hiding something.
She pressed the charcoal too hard, and the tip snapped.
Isabella glanced over. “You have murdered it.”
Rosalind stared at the broken piece between her fingers. “So I have.”
“You have not been thinking about that drawing for at least a quarter of an hour.”
“No.”
“Would you like to tell me what you have been thinking about?”
For one tempting moment, Rosalind nearly did. Then she remembered William that morning, exhausted and vulnerable as he entrusted her with wounds that belonged not only to him, but to his brother.
“Nothing I can properly explain yet.”
Isabella studied her but, thankfully, did not press.
By the time the lesson ended, Rosalind had produced a thoroughly mediocre study and reached only one useful conclusion.
She might not understand what Algernon was hiding, but she was no longer willing to dismiss what she had seen.
***
She found her mother downstairs shortly afterward and explained that she had been invited to tea at Aldermere House that afternoon.
Her mother’s entire expression brightened. “You are seeing Lord William again?”
Rosalind immediately recognized the significance of again. “His mother invited me to tea.”
“After you met with him this morning.”
“Yes, Mama. I am aware of how the day has been arranged.”
“Twice in one day.”
Rosalind sighed. “It is only tea.”
“Of course it is.”
Somehow, the agreement sounded considerably more suspicious than an argument would have.
“I hoped you might accompany me.”
Her mother’s expression turned apologetic. “I am afraid I cannot. Mrs. Pembroke is calling this afternoon, and I have already postponed her twice.”
Rosalind glanced toward Isabella, but her friend anticipated the question.
“Nor can I.”
“I have not asked you yet.”
“You were going to.” Isabella gathered her gloves. “Unfortunately, I have an appointment.”
Something in her tone immediately made Rosalind suspicious. “What sort of appointment?”
“A fencing lesson.”
Rosalind stared at her. “Since when do you fence?”
“I don’t. That is rather the purpose of the lesson.”
“And you decided this morning that you simply must learn?”
Isabella lifted her chin. “Someone at the gathering remarked that fencing requires a degree of discipline women are unlikely to possess.”
Rosalind already knew where this was going. “And Gabriel agreed.”
“He may have.”
“So you intend to learn solely to prove him wrong.”
“I intend to prove everyone wrong.”
“Including Gabriel.”
Isabella pulled on one glove with unnecessary determination. “Especially Gabriel.”
At least that particular complication seemed considerably easier to understand than anything involving the Sinclair family.
“Then Nelly will have to accompany me.”
The maid, who had entered during the conversation, agreed readily. “Gladly, my lady. I can wait belowstairs while you take tea.”
Rosalind caught the satisfaction in her voice. “You have another reason for volunteering.”
“A house as large as Aldermere is bound to have a very well-informed servants’ hall,” Nelly whispered.
Rosalind understood immediately. Nelly could make discreet inquiries while she was upstairs, particularly now that they knew her father had left White’s in someone else’s carriage.
“Then perhaps we can both make good use of the afternoon.”
Nelly hurried away to prepare, leaving Rosalind with the unsettling realization that she was about to see William for the second time in only a few hours.
Her mother had already begun to notice how often Rosalind found herself in William’s company.
More troubling was that Rosalind was beginning to notice how much she enjoyed it.
Somewhere between a false courtship, a missing father, and a family full of secrets, seeing William had stopped feeling merely useful to the investigation.
She had begun to look forward to it.
***
By the time the carriage stopped before Aldermere House, Rosalind had almost convinced herself that the afternoon was merely another part of their arrangement.
Almost.
Nelly descended behind her, and within moments Rosalind was ushered into the drawing room.