Chapter 19
“Rosalind?”
Her eyelids fluttered, and William leaned closer as relief finally began to loosen the knot that had lodged beneath his ribs from the moment he watched her collapse.
“There you are.”
Rosalind opened her eyes slowly, blinking against the dappled sunlight filtering through the branches overhead. They had carried her to the shade beside the pond, far enough from the others to escape the worst of the afternoon heat but still within sight of the game.
His mother remained across the lawn with Lady Whitcombe and the other guests, while Nelly knelt beside the blanket.
Rosalind took in her surroundings before her gaze found William.
Her eyes widened.
“Easy,” he said when she immediately tried to sit up.
He reached instinctively to steady her, but she seemed determined to manage without him.
“I am fine.”
“You fainted.”
“I remember.”
Something in her answer struck him as strange, though he mistook it for embarrassment. Some color had returned to her cheeks, and now that she was awake, his fear receded enough for his usual humor to return.
“Apparently defeating me at battledore requires considerably more exertion than you anticipated.”
Rosalind did not smile.
William leaned nearer and lowered his voice. “You needn’t practice the art of swooning for my benefit. We are already courting.”
Ordinarily, that would have earned him one of her looks.
Instead, Nelly reached for Rosalind’s hand and squeezed it.
William saw the change immediately.
Rosalind glanced at her maid before looking back at him, and whatever bewilderment remained in her expression hardened into something that wiped the smile from his face.
“Rosalind, what is it?”
Her gaze flicked toward the others across the lawn. When she spoke, her voice was low enough that William had to lean closer to hear her.
“I know about the carriage.”
He frowned. “What about it?”
“Nelly found it.”
His attention shifted to the maid. “Where?”
“Here.”
For a moment, William did not understand.
Rosalind rose, ignoring his attempt to steady her. “The servants at White’s gave Nelly a more precise description. Dark bodywork, gilt upon the doors, distinctive brass fittings. She saw a carriage matching it while she was belowstairs and asked one of your grooms who it belonged to.”
Something cold settled in William’s stomach.
“It belongs to Algernon,” she said.
William stared at her. “You are certain?”
“Your groom confirmed it.”
Lord Eastmere had left White’s willingly in his brother’s carriage on the night he disappeared.
William struggled to make the pieces fit. “That does not make sense.”
“It does if Algernon has been lying.”
“Rosalind, we do not know that.”
“I saw him last night.”
William drew breath to answer, but she shook her head.
“I saw him, William. I let myself believe I might have been mistaken because you were so certain he had left London. Then he looked you in the face this morning and denied being at the ball.”
The quietness of her voice made the accusation land harder than shouting would have.
“And there is more.” Rosalind glanced again toward the lawn before continuing.
“Augusta told me there were rumors Papa had been seen elsewhere in London with another woman. Nelly has made inquiries. No one has heard such a story. Not a maid, coachman, servant, or anyone else likely to have noticed.”
William stared at her.
Augusta had lied too?
“Now I discover Papa disappeared in Algernon’s carriage.” Rosalind swallowed. “How many coincidences am I supposed to ignore?”
“None.” William stepped closer. “But I knew nothing about the carriage. I knew nothing about what Augusta told you.”
“I believe you.”
He stopped. Somehow, those three words offered no relief at all.
Rosalind’s anger faltered, and beneath it he finally saw what had been there from the beginning.
Fear.
“That is the problem,” she whispered. “I believe that you did not know.”
William felt something inside him sink.
Only that morning, he had stood before her and confessed how deeply it had shaken him to discover how much his own family had concealed from him.
Now that same ignorance stood between them.
“Yesterday, you believed Algernon had left London because he told you he had. You believed I must have seen someone else because he denied being at the ball.” Her voice trembled despite her effort to control it.
“And I believed you because I trusted you more than I trusted what I had seen with my own eyes.”
“Rosalind.”
“I trusted you.”
There it was.
Not an accusation that he had betrayed her deliberately.
Something worse. She had trusted him, and he had been wrong.
William took another step toward her. “I have never lied to you.”
“I know.”
Again, the answer hurt more than if she had called him a liar.
“But how can I tell you what I discover when you cannot know what your own brother is hiding from you?” She glanced toward Aldermere House. “I cannot risk my father’s life because I want to believe you.”
William had no answer.
Because she was right. He hated that she was right.
Rosalind seemed to see the realization in his face, and her own expression crumpled for the briefest instant before she looked away.
“This has to end.”
His stomach tightened. “What does?”
“Our arrangement.”
William stared at her.
“The courtship is over.”
He had known precisely what their courtship was from the beginning. A convenience. A performance. A means of allowing them to investigate together without inviting scandal.
He had not realized until that moment how little it felt like any of those things anymore.
“Rosalind, don’t. Please.”
Her gaze snapped back to his.
The words had escaped before he could temper them. For one suspended moment, neither of them spoke.
Then Rosalind looked away and reached for the gloves Nelly had placed beside the blanket. “I have to find my father.”
“Then let me help you.”
“You can’t.”
Two words.
Quietly spoken.
They hurt more than they had any right to.
She pulled on her gloves with fingers that trembled slightly. “I have spent weeks searching the places gentlemen search. Clubs. Auctions. Drawing rooms. And every useful thing we have learned has come from someone society barely notices.”
Her gaze moved to Nelly.
“Women hear things. Servants hear more. If the truth is somewhere in this city, we will find it.”
William looked at her helplessly. “And what am I supposed to do?”
Rosalind met his eyes.
For the first time since he had known her, there was a distance in them he did not know how to cross.
“Nothing.”
Then she turned away.
Nelly followed, leaving William beneath the trees as they crossed the lawn toward his mother.
He heard Rosalind apologizing as she reached them.
“I am afraid I must go home, Your Grace. I still feel rather unwell.”
His mother rose at once. “Of course, my dear. You should never have remained in the sun so long.”
“I suspect it was only a little sunstroke.”
William almost laughed at the absurdity of it.
A little sunstroke.
Perfectly reasonable. Entirely harmless. An explanation that had nothing whatsoever to do with Algernon’s carriage, Augusta’s false rumor, or the fact that Rosalind had just ended their courtship.
Their false courtship.
William discovered the distinction offered remarkably little comfort.
His mother fussed over Rosalind while Lady Whitcombe called for someone to bring water for the journey. Even Lady Sophronia offered a sympathetic word, but William scarcely heard any of it.
Only minutes ago, Rosalind had been laughing with him beneath the afternoon sun. Now she was leaving because his brother’s carriage might have been the last place her father was seen, and because William himself could no longer be trusted to know what was happening within his own family.
That was the part he could not escape.
For the second time in less than a day, William found himself wondering how many things could happen beneath his own family’s roof without him knowing anything about them.
His mother glanced toward him as Rosalind and Nelly disappeared into the house. William recognized the concern in her expression a moment before she excused herself from Lady Whitcombe and started across the lawn toward him.
He looked away.
He could not do this.
Not here. Not surrounded by guests while Lady Whitcombe drank lemonade, Lady Sophronia watched from beneath the trees, and his mother attempted to determine why the woman William was supposedly courting had awakened from a faint and immediately decided to flee his company.
William turned toward the house.
“William.”
He kept walking.
“William Sinclair.”
That stopped him.
He turned to find his mother approaching, her expression caught somewhere between concern and maternal authority.
“What happened?”
“Nothing I wish to discuss.”
“Lady Rosalind looked extremely upset.”
“She fainted. I imagine she is still unwell.”
His mother gave him a look that made it clear she had not raised him for twenty-some years only to be insulted by such an obvious evasion.
“She was laughing with you half an hour ago. Now she will scarcely look in your direction, and you appear ready to challenge the nearest tree to a duel.”
Despite himself, William glanced toward the nearest tree.
His mother sighed. “What did you say to her?”
“Why do you immediately assume I said something?”
“Experience.”
William might ordinarily have laughed.
Today, the word struck somewhere tender.
Experience.
His mother knew him well enough to recognize a quarrel from halfway across a garden. Yet she had somehow spent his entire childhood concealing half the truth about his own family.
William’s jaw tightened. “I said I do not wish to discuss it.”
“William, I am only trying to understand.”
Something inside William finally gave way.
“For once, Mother, allow me not to explain myself.” He regretted the sharpness almost immediately, but when she drew back, the frustration that had been building since the previous night was already spilling free. “You never demand explanations from Algernon.”
His mother frowned. “That is hardly fair.”
“Isn’t it? He tells us he is leaving London, returns without explanation, and apparently spends the evening wherever he pleases. No one questions him. Everyone simply accepts that Algernon has his reasons.”
“Your brother has been through a great deal.”
“Yes.” William’s bitterness surprised even him. “I learned that yesterday.”
The hurt that crossed his mother’s face made him wish he could take the words back. He seemed to be collecting regrets at an impressive rate, yet beneath the guilt remained the same anger he could no longer quite contain.
Rosalind’s words still echoed through his thoughts.
I believe you.
That was the worst of it. She believed he had never lied to her, but his honesty meant very little when everyone around him appeared capable of concealing the truth.
William drew a breath and forced his voice to soften. “I am sorry. But I cannot do this now. I wish to be left alone.”
He turned before his mother could stop him again and had nearly reached the house when he heard Lady Whitcombe ask something behind him.
His mother’s answer carried across the lawn.
“The lovebirds have had a quarrel, I suspect. This summer heat makes everyone terribly irritable.”
William almost turned around.
A quarrel would have been considerably easier.
Rosalind was not merely irritated with him. She no longer knew whether trusting him was safe, and after everything William had learned about his own family in the past day, he could hardly blame her.
He entered the house and crossed the hall, trying to decide what to do next. Thinking had accomplished very little. Confronting his family while angry seemed even less likely to produce anything useful.
What he needed was someone outside it.
Someone who had no reason to protect Algernon, excuse him, or decide which truths William ought to be permitted to know.
Gabriel.
The answer came with an immediate sense of relief.
Gabriel could be ridiculous where Isabella Hartwell was concerned, but William trusted his judgment when it mattered. More importantly, Gabriel had no reason to defend Algernon or condemn him. He would look at the facts and tell William what he saw.
William changed his coat, sent a servant to have his horse saddled, and returned downstairs scarcely ten minutes later.
He was halfway across the courtyard toward the stables when movement near the side entrance caught his attention.
William slowed.
Augusta stood beneath the narrow overhang beside the stable yard.
She was speaking to one of the footmen.
There was nothing particularly remarkable in that. Augusta had lived at Aldermere long enough to know most of the household servants by name, and William would ordinarily have continued walking without giving the exchange another thought.
Then she glanced around.
William stopped.
The movement was quick, almost casual, but there was something furtive about it that immediately put him on alert.
The footman stood with his back partly toward William, obscuring Augusta from view. William could not hear what she said, but he saw her reach into the folds of her dress and withdraw a small folded paper.
She pressed it into the servant’s hand. The footman closed his fingers around it as Augusta said something else, low and urgent. Then she turned and disappeared through the side entrance.
William remained where he was.
Only yesterday, he would have thought nothing of it.
A note entrusted to a servant. An errand. Some household matter that did not concern him.
Today, he found himself watching.
Augusta disappeared through the side entrance while the footman crossed the stable yard in the opposite direction, the folded paper tucked discreetly into his coat.
William remained where he was for another moment.
He had no reason to believe the note meant anything.
Then again, twenty-four hours ago, he had possessed no reason to question his brother either.
The thought settled unpleasantly in his stomach.
William continued toward the stables.
Gabriel was still waiting.
And William suddenly had considerably more to tell him than he had when he decided to go.