Chapter One
“Help, someone help! My sister has fainted!”
Rosalie heard her eldest sister Iris’ voice from above her, and she couldn’t help but feel a small, smug sense of satisfaction. She kept her eyes closed, however, so that Iris and their middle sister, Violet, would not suspect that she had faked the swoon.
“Rosalie, are you all right?” Violet asked now, her voice low and soothing, calmer than Iris’. Violet had always been the level-headed one of the three sisters, and her hands now came to Rosalie’s brow and smoothed it back. “Can you hear me?”
Rosalie shifted and let her eyelashes flicker. She’d seen other young ladies act similarly when they’d been roused from swooning fits, and she wasn’t ashamed to admit she’d studied them. The romantic in Rosalie had always dreamed of swooning in a man’s arm.
“I think she’s awake,” she heard Iris say anxiously. “Or coming around at least.”
“Iris? Violet?” Rosalie murmured her sisters’ names and fluttered her eyelashes again. “Are you there?”
“We’re here, Rose!” Iris said at once.
“Can you hear us?” Violet asked softly.
Rosalie opened her eyes. She was on the floor of the ballroom in the townhouse that belonged to Violet’s husband James, the Duke of Attorton. Both her sisters were crouched over her, Iris looking pale and fearful, Violet calm and concerned.
The ballroom was hot and crowded, but those closest to them were giving them a wide berth, allowing her air. Though Rosalie could see ladies and gentlemen craning their necks to get a good look at her, curious and nosey as all members of thetonwere.
“I’m all right,” she murmured, making to sit up, but Violet held her back.
“Careful,” she said. “You don’t want to get dizzy again.”
Someone arrived with a glass of port and smelling salts, and Rosalie subjected herself to a strong whiff of the salts as Iris waved them under her nose. She grimaced as the sharp smell hit her then reached for the port. This was decidedly more pleasant to swallow.
“Do you feel better?” Iris asked, putting the stopper back in the smelling salts. “What happened?”
“I’m not sure exactly,” Rosalie said, speaking slowly and quietly so as to add verisimilitude to her ruse. “One moment, Violet was talking about little Henry, and the next…” she waved a hand to indicate her fall.
“You’re not the first person to faint at stories of my rascal son,” Violet said, chuckling.
“Why don’t you get some air?” Iris suggested, her brow still wrinkled with worry. “I can get Phineas to take you…” Phineas was her husband, the Duke of Eavestone, and Rosalie quickly shook her head. She was fond of both her brothers-in-law, but they were sharp, observant men, and she wasn’t sure she could fool them for long.
“I’d rather retire to the library,” she declared, sitting up fully now. The port had given her a pleasant warm feeling throughout her body, and she was anxious now to make good on her faux fainting spell to finally get the solitude she so craved. “I’ll feel like myself once I’m surrounded by books.”
Violet’s eyes narrowed, and the look she gave Rosalie then told her that she suspected this had been her plan all along. Iris, however, didn’t seem to suspect a thing.
“Well let me come with you at least,” she said. “You ought not to be alone right now.”
“I’ll be fine on my own,” Rosalie rushed to say. “I just need a moment to breathe away from the heat of the ball.”
And I need to break from hearing about both your perfect marriages and plans for children, she thought, but she didn’t say this out loud.
“I don’t know…” Iris bit her lip. “As the hostess, Violet has to stay here, but I could come with you.
Rosalie felt her heart sink.Am I never to have a moment of peace?
Fortunately, Violet came to her rescue.
“The library is only next door, Iris,” she said, placing a reassuring hand on her sister’s arm. “And I’ll send the housekeeper to look in on her as well. I’m sure she’ll just be sitting and reading. Isn’t that right, Rosalie?”
“That’s right,” Rosalie assured quickly, bobbing her head.
“Well… I suppose that’s all right then,” Iris mused as she helped Rosalie up onto her feet. A crowd had gathered at a respectful distance, and they were staring with wide eyes at Rosalie, so Violet quickly turned and reassured them all of her sister’s health, shooing them away. When she turned back around, they had all gone.
“Just be careful,” Violet said.
