Rosalie nodded then hurried away, probably too quickly for one who had just fainted, but she didn’t care. She had to escape now while she still had the chance.
The moment she was outside of the hot, crowded ballroom, Rosalie let out a long breath of relief. In the past, she had loved balls and could spend hours flirting and dancing with handsome gentlemen, but her pleasure had come to an end after an unfortunate experience with a potential suitor two years previously, who had pretended to woo her only to spy on her for her father, Jebediah Crampton. Her father had been a notorious convict and the former Viscount of Carfield.
Now, Rosalie preferred to be alone, reading. It was also difficult to listen to her sisters go on and on about children, families, and their husbands. As much as she loved her sisters and wanted to know about her lives, they didn’t make an effort to include her in these conversations, and being left out hurt more than she cared to admit.
They don’t mean to exclude me, she told herself for the hundredth time.They just don’t think about how little I can contribute to a discussion of romantic love and family life.
Rosalie pushed open the door of the library and slipped inside. At once, the sound of the ball became muffled, and she was hit with the strong, familiar, comforting smell of old books. She breathed in deeply then let out a long, happy sigh.
“At last,” she murmured.
“What are you doing in a dark, empty library, all on your own?” a voice asked from the dark, and Rosalie nearly jumped out of her skin. She clapped a hand over her mouth, stifling a scream, and stared fearfully around, looking for whoever had spoken to her.
But in the dimness of the library—since none of the lamps had been lit—she couldn’t see anyone.
Slowly and shakily, she lowered her hand. “W-who’s there?” she asked, her eyes still raking over the tables, chairs, and bookcases in search of her observer.
“Tut tut,” the voice replied, and now, she clearly identified it as that of a man. “Don’t you recognize my voice? I recognized yours at once, Rosalie.”
Rosalie felt her stomach squirm. Her first thought was of her father. But no, he was still in prison, and anyway, she would surely have recognized his voice.
The next thought left her cold. Could it be Mr. Cain, the villainous suitor who had been in league with her father but had narrowly escaped prison?
She scrambled forward to the side table where she knew Violet kept candles and a flint box, and with shaking fingers, she lit a small candle. She shoved it into a small candle holder and held it up.
“How do I know you?” she demanded with more forcefulness than she felt. “Do you mean me any harm? Did you come in here to hurt me?”
“Now, I am truly offended,” the man said, and she heard his footsteps drawing near her. But as she raised the candle high, she saw nothing. The light from the candle didn’t extend far, and the light it did shed only created more shadows, each more menacing than the last. “I came here to this sanctuary to be alone, not to threaten young women. You are the one disturbing my solitude, not the other way around. If anything, I should be worried that you are here to harm me.”
But he let out a small laugh at this, as if no one would ever believe that Rosalie could do him harm. The back of her neck prickled. She knew, somehow, that he was watching her—that he was standing behind her. But when she whirled around, he wasn’t there.
There was another low laugh.
Why don’t I recognize his voice?she wondered.It must be the vastness of the library, distorting it. Or else the way the books muffle sound.
Still, from the way the man spoke, she had a feeling that he wasn’t an enemy. Just someone who was enjoying toying with her.
The thought made her angry, and with the anger, the fear disappeared.
I’m sick of people trying to toy with me and my family.
“Tell me who you are,” she snapped. “No more games.”
“But I thought you liked games,” the man said, and his voice seemed to be coming from all around her. She heard footsteps again, this time retreating, but there was still no one ahead of her. “Or at least, I thought you liked stories: to imagine yourself as the main character in one of the novels you love to read.”
Rosalie flushed, and she was suddenly grateful for the cover of darkness. There was no way that her mysterious tormentor could know that he’d just touched a nerve, and she didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of seeing her turn scarlet with embarrassment.
“Life isn’t like a novel,” she quipped, repeating something her sisters often said to her when they accused her of being too ‘dreamy’ and ‘romantic’.
A throaty laugh came from above her. “I know that. But do you?”
Above me!
Rosalie realized, with a swoop of her stomach, where the man was: he was on the second floor of the library on the wrap-around balcony. That was why she couldn’t see him and why he seemed to be surrounding her at all times.
She turned quickly and spotted the spiral wrought-iron stairs several yards from her.
“Do you know that?” she asked as she dashed to the stairs and began to storm up them. “Because right now you are acting like some kind of villain in a gothic novel.”
