Chapter 13
Thirteen
Before meeting the Duke of Hartmere, Rosalie assumed she had a decent enough poker face—and a good head on her shoulders—because no one had ever suggested otherwise.
She had never played poker, of course. She had barely played enough Whist or Faro to count it among her experiences.
And when she had played, it had been with her mother and father, where the stakes were always low.
Arriving home, she left her belongings with the butler at the door and went into the art room, where her mother was waiting. When she entered, Lady Winthrop appeared startled, confirming the earlier assumption.
“Dear God...” Lady Winthrop gasped. “What has happened? You look like a cat whose tail was just caught in the door.”
Rosalie started at the threshold, blinking at her mother. “I only meant to come in and sit down,” she said. Her father arrived behind her then and tapped her on the shoulder, consolingly, which only made Rosalie more confused.
“What’s that got to do with your despairing expression?” Lady Winthrop set down her watercolor palette and stepped away from the easel. “Do you know what happened?”
Her father entered. “I only know Lady Chipping wants one hundred pounds for the painting of Neptune’s Fountain.”
Lady Winthrop gasped, wiping her hands on her apron. “No, she does not.”
“Yes, she does.” The baron lowered himself into his reading chair by the windows and began searching for his reading spectacles.
The basket beside his chair was overflowing with last week’s broadsheets.
A dog-eared Bible was on the table beside him.
He reached for the basket. “But she wouldn’t lie to us about its value. ”
“Of course, she wouldn’t. Lady Chipping is an upstanding woman. And she knows her art. If she believes it’s worth one hundred pounds, then—Where are you going, Rosalie? You never answered me.”
Rosalie had only crept back two paces from the door when she was caught retreating. She turned around. “I thought we were done with that conversation.”
“Really?” Lady Winthrop yanked the bell on the wall, and a maid appeared within seconds. “Tea and sandwiches, Mary.”
“And brandy,” the baron cried.
“And brandy for the baron,” Lady Winthrop repeated. “Though Lord knows he doesn’t need it. His overindulgence will be the death of him.”
Sighing, Lady Winthrop marched over and grabbed Rosalie’s hand. Her mother’s fingers were sticky with half-dried paint. She guided Rosalie down into the window seat and sat beside her.
“What did you do while your father was discussing art with Lady Chipping?”
Rosalie bit her lip. At least her father seemed distracted. “His Grace showed me the renovations he was making to his gardens.”
Lady Winthrop raised a brow. “Alone?”
“There were staff everywhere. And then he was called away by a visitor.”
“But it was a nice visit?”
“For the most part,” Rosalie answered mostly truthfully, hiding the rest, eavesdropping and arguing with Gabriel.
In the carriage home, she had regretted speaking her mind about his cousin.
He was right that she did not understand the situation or his motivations.
That much had never been clearer. “We had a difference of opinion.”
Lady Winthrop scowled. “About what?”
“About...”
Before Rosalie could come up with a lie, two maids returned with trays of drinks and supper.
Her mother rose to help serve the baron his brandy, while Rosalie stared out of the window.
The evening light came in strong through the southeastern windows, which was why her mother had turned this room into her art studio.
Most nights they convened here for reading and games instead of sketching.
The air in the room always smelled acidic and earthy.
Rosalie wished they would just use the drawing room like normal families.
Normal families wouldn’t eat ham-and-mustard sandwiches for supper while they wrote or read in silence. Normal families wouldn’t buy art from female artists on the recommendation of another female.
Normal families, she thought in conclusion, wouldn’t encourage a daughter like me to become a spinster so long as she was happy.
“Where were we?” Lady Winthrop asked when she returned, handing Rosalie a thin China plate with two sandwiches and some pickle. “The dashing duke.”
Rosalie grimaced. “Do you usually call him that?”
“Only when you are not around,” her mother joked, sipping from her teacup. “But when I paint you and him together, in the future, that’s what I plan to title my piece: The dashing duke and his darling duchess.”
“Please don’t.” Rosalie fought a rising smile and lost. She stared at the sandwiches but could not stir her appetite. “Do you really think a courtship like ours could be successful?”
Her mother looked horrified. “Why not?”
Because it’s fake, and I’m surprised you can’t tell, since you can tell when I’m upset about something, was what Rosalie wanted to say. Instead, she said, “I don’t think the Duke of Hartmere very much likes me.”
The room went silent. Rosalie could feel her father go still in his armchair for a beat, before he turned the page of his newspaper and continued reading.
Her mother held her teacup in midair. The steam rose into Lady Winthrop’s face, and eventually she wiped her upper lip before setting the drink down.
“If that were true, he would end your acquaintance,” she suggested.
“Perhaps he does not want to hurt my feelings.”
“Feelings...?” Rosalie heard Lady Winthrop swallow. “See? You hardly know what you’re saying. How could he not want to hurt your feelings in one breath and not like you very much in another?”
“I don’t know,” Rosalie said honestly, rubbing her temples. “This is all so confusing...”
“Sometimes men can be very difficult to read, Rosie. Especially when they are young and handsome like the Duke of Hartmere... I cannot imagine how difficult it is to navigate the world, always being wanted for something, the apple of everyone’s eye.
It sounds like a happy fate for a man, or a woman, but it’s not.
To never be left in peace. To never pursue what one wants. It is such a tragedy. He is tragic.”
Rosalie was stunned. “You seem to have thought about this a great deal.”
“Oh, I have.”
“Most people would likely say the Duke of Hartmere is one of the most privileged men in all of England, not tragic.”
“And he is privileged. Just like we are. I said nothing to the contrary. Don’t think I’ve changed my politics.
But that doesn’t mean his life is always easy, or he knows how to treat other people.
The more people receive in life that is free...
Well, I think it makes it doubly harder for them to appreciate what they have.
Too much of a good thing, and all the rest. Isn’t that sad? ”
“I suppose it is,” Rosalie admitted, only half convinced.
“And he hasn’t had an easy life besides.” Lady Winthrop picked her tea up again. “You’re right that he has many privileges, but there are many things which he does not have. His parents, his poor brother—”
“His brother?” Rosalie’s stomach tightened. She balanced her plate on the cushion beside her. “He has no brother.”
“Precisely. His brother is dead. He must have died...” Lady Winthrop drew in a breath and cast her eyes toward the ceiling. “Oh, almost twenty years ago. It was all very sudden. No one said anything to you?”
Rosalie searched her mind for a memory of the news. In all the time that Gabriel had courted her, he had never mentioned a brother to her, and neither had Lady Chipping while they were abroad. She shook her head.
“He must not like to talk about it,” Lady Winthrop continued.
“His name... I think it was Marcus Ashcroft. He was His Grace’s elder brother by quite a few years, first in line to become the Duke of Hartmere, to that end.
Some sudden illness took him after he visited the continent with his aunt.
He had not even reached his adulthood. And it was not long after that, the late Duke of Hartmere himself passed.
And then he lost his mother, Her Grace. She was very lovely. ”
“I do not...” Rosalie’s throat went dry. “I wish he would have told me.”
“Because you do not wish to be left in the dark? Because you care more about him than you are willing to admit to me?” Her mother gave a sad but challenging smile. “This should not change how you think about him.”
“It won’t.”
“Because if he is treating you cruelly—”
“He is not.”
Lady Winthrop looked unimpressed by the interruption and stared at Rosalie seriously. “If you do not want your courtship with him to continue, dear, for whatever reason, you may end it whenever you please. There are others still vying for your prolonged company.”
But that was the problem, Rosalie thought. Despite everything, the more she learned about him, the more she realized she knew nothing about him. The more they argued... the more desperately she wanted the courtship to continue.
Almack’s was always too loud and bright for Rosalie’s tastes, with too many candles and too many people vying for the attention of others. Rosalie had been standing near the refreshment table for the better part of ten minutes, watching the doors, before Emily finally arrived.
She came in on Thomas’s arm, glowing with obvious pride. Her mother entered with Thomas’s uncle, behind them. Rosalie’s heart clenched at the sight.
Thomas was not handsome by the ton’s standards of male beauty, not like Gabriel, for instance.
He was broad rather than elegant, with a provincial bronze skin and hair cropped short and worn practically.
But he held Emily and looked at Emily like she was the only interesting thing in the room, worth all the open stares toward them as they walked around the dance floor and came toward the refreshment table.
“Miss Winthrop.” Thomas bowed over her hand when they arrived, slightly stiff with the effort of getting the gesture right. “Emily speaks of you... constantly. I am very pleased to reunite with you.”