Chapter Fifteen – Rose
ROSE
A Fine Predicament
“ A re you going to get out of the car nicely, or do I have to haul you about like a sack of potatoes again?”
I glared at Oliver from my spot on the passenger seat. This was the first thing he’d said to me since he’d shoved me in here and told me to put on my seatbelt, and I was very displeased by this turn of events.
“Why are we at your McMansion?” I asked.
“It’s a four-hundred-year-old manor house, not a McMansion,” he replied. “And we’re here so I can keep an eye on you and make sure you don’t cause any more chaos than you already have.”
“Cause chaos? I’m going to need to hide in shame after how many people saw you carting me about over your shoulder.”
“While that works for me, I wouldn’t trust you as far as I can throw you.”
“Given that you can apparently pick me up and manhandle me with great ease, I’d imagine you can throw me pretty far.”
He paused, tilting his head to the side. “Would you like to find out?”
“Why don’t I throw you into the path of a lorry instead?” I grumbled.
Oliver smirked and held out his hand. “Come on. It’s not just to keep an eye on you. In fact, my mother called and demanded I be nice to you, so this is me being nice.”
“Lugging me around like a ragdoll and threatening to throw me is you being nice?”
“It depends if you’re into that sort of thing, I expect.” He leant in close to me, capturing my gaze with his. “And I already know that you don’t mind being tossed around a little bit, princess.”
If he called me that one more time today, I was going to shove a tree stake up his backside.
I glared at him. “In my biography, this will go down as the moment I showed incredible self-restraint.”
“You can jump me if you want, Rose. I can’t say I’d mind.”
“If I jump you, Oliver, it’s to punch you.”
He grinned and stepped back, still holding out his stupid hand. “Let’s go.”
I really didn’t have a choice, so I used his hand to hop out of the car and felt the crunch of gravel beneath my feet. “I can’t believe I’m here. I must have done something to piss off the big man upstairs to be punished like this.”
“Don’t be so dramatic. It’s for your own good.” He grabbed my things from the backseat. “Regrettably, I wasn’t able to retrieve your beautiful sign.”
I sighed, taking my bag from him. “What a shame. I spent so much time on that lovely portrait of you.”
“Is that why you tried to hit me with it?”
I shrugged. “One moment I was protesting peacefully, and the next, I was being chased by a madman. I had to use what items I had at my disposal to protect my honour.”
“Thankfully, you couldn’t hit a punching bag,” he muttered as the manor doors opened. “Do you know where Jennie is?”
Bruce blinked. “Welcome back, Your Grace. And… Rose?”
Aha. This was why he wasn’t at the protest.
He was working for the enemy.
I held up a hand. “’Sup, you dirty traitor? Do I need to light a candle near your shed until you see reason?”
Oliver grabbed me and put his hand over my mouth. “Excuse her. She’s a bit hyper. About Jennie?”
Bruce rubbed his forehead. “Ah. I see. She’s waiting in the hallway for you to return, my lord.”
“Perfect. I’ll get this one inside before she really does get arrested today.”
“I rth get rest!” I said into Oliver’s palm as he dragged me inside.
Translation: I won’t get arrested.
“Sorry, I don’t speak insane,” he replied. “Ah, Jennie, please show Rose to the guest room you prepared earlier. Have clothes been laid out for her?”
Jennie, who was dressed in a simple black uniform that reminded me of hotel housekeepers, bowed her head. “Yes, Your Grace. I’ll take the lady there now.”
“She’s no lady,” Bruce grumbled.
“I il en ooh, ol an!” I glared at Bruce.
Translation: I’ll end you, old man.
“Can’t you keep your hand there, Your Grace?” Bruce asked Oliver. “She’s much more palatable like this.”
“Is ose ahoo,” I muttered.
Translation: this is abuse .
Abuse, I tell you.
Abuse .
Oliver sighed. “Jennie, please take good care of her. And don’t let her wander off. God only knows what trouble she’ll get into here if she’s unsupervised.”
I shoved his hand away from my mouth and put some distance between us. “I’m not a child!”
He leant in with a grin and whispered, “Oh, I know.”
This was the worst day of my life.
Jennie cleared her throat. “Miss, if you’d like to follow me, I’ll show you to your room.”
“Thank you, Jennie.” I sniffed. “At least someone here is nice to me.”
She smiled warmly, and I paused to poke my tongue out at Oliver before following her up the ornate sweeping staircase.
She guided me to a room where she opened the door and lowered her head.
“There’s a fully stocked bathroom through that door to the left, and there are some clothes on the bed for you, miss.
If you ring this bell when you’re ready, I’ll take you to the duke’s office. ”
I scratched the side of my jaw. “Is it the same room he was using before?”
“Pardon me?”
“Oliver’s office. I’ve been there before.”
Jennie blinked, then blushed. “Oh— oh .”
Oh, dear.
It seemed that she had the wrong idea.
“Yes, miss! His Grace has used the same office since he arrived in Hanbury.”
“Then thank you, but I won’t need to call for you. The stairs are down the hall and to the left, is that right?”
She nodded. “I will inform the duke. Please take your time. I will fetch your belongings and leave them on the bed for you.”
“Thank you, Jennie.”
She bowed out of the room, closing the door behind her, and I peered around.
It was nice.
Exactly what I imagined a bedroom inside a four-hundred-year-old manor house looked like, to be honest. Not to mention it was clearly a guest room. Despite how beautiful and fairytale-like it was, there was no hint of warmth or personality in here whatsoever.
Nice… but sad.
I shrugged it off and poked my head into the bathroom.
“Holy moly,” I breathed, staring at the giant bathtub in front of the window.
It overlooked the back garden that was full of flowering shrubbery, a place I knew all too well.
The rose bushes there had given me more than one thorny scratch in the past, and I was the one who’d co-ordinated the planting of the peonies along the path with the daughter of one of the late duke’s friends.
What was her name again?
Eleanor?
Ellie?
Gabrielle?
Hm.
No idea. I’d been too preoccupied by the thought that the ornery old bastard had any friends at all to engage my brain enough to remember something like a name.
I waved away those useless thoughts and peered at the shelves. As Jennie had said, they were fully stocked, and they were fully stocked with the expensive stuff, too.
Something told me this was his mother’s doing, not Oliver’s.
Well, whatever it was, I was going to make use of it. There was no telling if I’d ever find myself in such a luxurious bathroom ever again, so there was no way I wasn’t going to lie here for the next forty-five minutes and make myself at home.
I would need something to relieve the stress of having to deal with Oliver again.
This man was unhinged.
He’d lost his ever-loving fucking mind, and God only knew I wanted to beat him with my protest sign until he found it again.
What the fuck was he thinking, giving me his clothes?
Not only were the joggers far too big for me, but it wasn’t as if I had a bra to go under his white bloody shirt. Nor could I walk about this McMansion in his shirt with no bra .
What kind of impression would I make on the poor buggers who had to work for the unreasonable git? That was before I even considered Old Man Bruce. I’d never live it down if he saw me like this.
Alas… I had no choice. My only other option was a terry towelling bathrobe, and I could hardly walk around with absolutely no clothes on beneath that, either.
Nor could I hide forever in this room, as tempting as that sounded right now.
“Ugh,” I grumbled, wrapping the robe around my body and securing the belt at my waist. At least it was long enough that it touched my knees and big enough that it completely hid the shirt beneath it.
It was this or put my trench coat back on.
Somehow, putting a trench coat on over his shirt while not wearing a bra seemed a little too wacky, even for me.
For all the chaos I partook in, playing with fire was not something I was inclined to do, and something told me that putting my coat over Oliver’s shirt was playing with fire.
A wildfire.
In a drought.
I sighed and checked my phone again. Why was I an idiot who hadn’t brought a change of clothes? And why was my best friend an idiot who wasn’t bringing me a change of clothes?
If she was off flirting with someone and leaving me in this predicament, I was going to let Hades shit on her strawberries.
I tossed the phone back on the bed and resigned myself to my fate. I’d already been here for almost two hours—if I waited any longer, not only was I going to look like a coward, but Oliver was probably going to come looking for me.
Letting him find me in a bedroom in my current outfit was not on my bingo card for today.
I took a deep breath and poked my head out of the room, clutching the robe at my chest. Maybe I could convince Oliver to take me home now. Two hours was long enough for me to cool down and swear not to cause any more trouble, wasn’t it? Surely, he’d believe me now.
Ah… it was nice to have dreams.
I scurried along the hallway and down the stairs. I had to get to his office while encountering as few people as possible, and definitely not Bruce. Preferably not that bloody spy of Oliver’s, either.
Although not wanting to encounter that nosy prick had less to do with my attire than it did my general desire to never lay eyes upon his face again.