Chapter 5 #2
“I am not sure,” Rosalie said. “I like the amusements of London very much, but the quiet of the country is... erm...” She had drifted off again into her thoughts, face flaming with embarrassment.
Out of the corner of her eye, she recorded every movement from the Duke of Hartmere.
Her hands tightened around the sides of her chair.
Lady Winthrop laughed nervously. “How is your cousin, Mr. Sinclair? I understand she is newly married.”
Something in Edmund’s easy manner tightened. “She is very well, thank you, and yes, recently returned from her wedding trip. But Beatrice and I are not... that is, we do not much keep up to date.”
Rosalie’s stomach dropped straight through the little iron chair beneath her.
Beatrice Levant’s cousin. Of course—this kind, sensible man would turn out to be related to the one woman actively working to destroy Emily’s happiness.
She thought of Emily’s face across the table at the ball, and she felt a hot, unreasonable spike of anger toward Mr. Sinclair that she knew was unfair to him.
“I did not realize,” Rosalie managed, “that you were related to Mrs. Levant.”
“As I said, it is not a connection I openly advertise, for we rarely keep in contact,” Edmund said, with a self-deprecating little smile that under other circumstances Rosalie might have found endearing. “Beatrice and I see the world quite differently. But I believe her husband is a decent fellow.”
“An American,” Lady Winthrop added, taking a sip of tea, “who has made a very good life for himself, as far as I have heard... But of course, I am not one to gossip or pry into the business of others.”
At that moment, Mr. Sinclair and Rosalie shared a look of humor and understanding that made her heart skip a beat. Maybe their acquaintance wasn’t completely doomed after all, despite his relation to Beatrice and the other presence in the room.
In time, they finished their meal with pleasant conversation.
If Edmund noticed that Rosalie’s attention had waxed and waned, he was too well-mannered to comment on it.
As they rose to take their leave, with Lady Winthrop already making noises about a dinner party the following week, Rosalie allowed herself one last glance toward the Duke of Hartmere’s table.
He was laughing at something the lady beside him had said, not even stirring as Rosalie loudly pushed her seat back to leave.
His indifference should not have stung. But it did, regardless, and Rosalie spent the whole of their farewells to Mr. Sinclair still thinking about the duke. She reached for her reticule, wanting to take out her diary and leave a note about the dinner party her mother had just mentioned.
“Oh, heavens...” She said as she patted for a bag that was not there. “I must have left my reticule on the table.” Mr. Sinclair was halfway into his hackney cab, and he paused to listen. “I shall only be a moment... But please, do return home, Mr. Sinclair. Thank you for today.”
Not waiting for an answer from her mother, Rosalie went back in through Gunter’s crowded doorway and retrieved the reticule from beneath her chair where it had slid unnoticed.
She kept her eyes on the floor as she turned to the door again, only to find her path blocked by a tall figure in a dark blue coat.
“Miss Winthrop.” The duke’s voice was warm with lazy amusement, so different from the cool, ignoring stranger he had been ten minutes ago. “How fortunate that our paths continue to cross so persistently. One could suspect another of wanting us to continue meeting.”
Rosalie breathed a disbelieving laugh, drawing herself up. “But who would want to put us in such uncomfortable situations?”
“I have a few guesses.” He smiled. It was the best worst expression she had ever seen, lighting a fire in her chest. “I confess I did not see you arrive, and you are not typically an easy woman to overlook. But I saw you come back in.” His eyes moved toward the table she’d just left.
“I did not realize you were acquainted with Mr. Sinclair.”
“Hm...” She refused to give him a straight answer. How had he noticed Sinclair if he had only just spotted her? “Do you take issue with that, Your Grace?”
“None whatsoever. He is well regarded, I am told, though I confess I have never found the regard of others a particularly interesting quality in a man.” His mouth curled into another smile. “Are you following me, Miss Winthrop?”
“Following?” She swallowed, her throat gone dry. “I was merely retrieving my reticule.”
“That’s a little like something out of one of your penny dreadfuls.”
Rosalie licked the back of her teeth, simmering. She flicked her head to the door. “You said you never barred a door for a young woman.”
He looked impressed. “Like you, I suppose I occasionally lie.”
“Well, your Grace—” Rosalie started to say.
“Your Grace.” Another voice, cooler but higher than Gabriel’s, cut smoothly between them.
Rosalie turned to find a fair-haired gentleman with pale green eyes regarding them both with an expression of concern.
“I fear you left your seat vacant and a young friend of Miss Warwick’s came to occupy it.
I was outnumbered. Shall we return to them? ”
“I am coming, Beaumont. In a moment.”
“Now, I think.” The man’s gaze flicked to Rosalie, apologetic. It made her suspect this interruption was not entirely about the politics at their table. “Forgive us, my lady. My friend has appalling manners at the best of times and no sense of when he is wanted elsewhere.”
“I am always wanted elsewhere,” the duke said mildly. “It is the curse of my position, as Miss Winthrop well knows.”
“Good day, Your Grace,” Rosalie said quickly, seizing the opening and leaving before he could say anything further, aware of his eyes on her back the whole length of the walk.
“Tell me you agree,” Lady Winthrop said, once Rosalie had rejoined her outside the milliner’s.
“Tell me that was not lovely. Mr. Sinclair is everything I remembered him to be and hoped he would become. So thoughtful, and so chipper, despite the loss of his wife. And did you see how attentive he was, asking after your opinions and so on? I really do think he was nice.”
“He was... very pleasant,” Rosalie agreed.
“You thought so?” Lady Winthrop gave her a sideways look. “Only pleasant?”
“Yes. What more should there be?”
Her mother laughed and let it go, tucking her arm back through Rosalie’s as they turned toward home.
Rosalie walked the rest of the way in a distracted and unhappy silence.
By the time they reached their own front steps, Rosalie had made up her mind with the grim determination of a woman who had no choices left.
“Now that we are here, and before Father may hear us,” she said before she could change her mind, “if Mr. Sinclair should call again... I would not be opposed to it.”
Lady Winthrop stopped dead on the step, then turned with such unguarded delight that Rosalie felt a fresh stab of guilt for the real reason behind her decision: that a courtship with a Mr. Sinclair seemed the only reliable way to stop thinking about a duke who had no business occupying so much space in her thoughts to begin with—and to stop him from thinking about her by satisfying the conditions of the lie she had told.
“Oh, Rosie,” her mother said, and hugged her right there on the step, in full view of the street, heedless of anyone watching.
“I knew it. I knew it. He is so lovely, is he not? And so tall and well-proportioned. A little old for you maybe—and that was my only concern—but of an age to know what he wants and—Oh! I do hope he should want you.”
“Yes,” Rosalie said, with one last lie. “I do hope so too.”